bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Public Opinion and Direct Democracy
Authors: Cronin Thomas E. 
Published: May 2006

Americans generally support the idea of direct democracy yet they also, if not as much as most political scientists, appreciate the undesirable consequences of by-passing our representative processes. The populist impulse is alive and well, both at the state level and for the national government. Voters tell pollsters they are not afraid of direct democracy because they are not afraid of the people who elect our public officials.Most Americans view direct democracy processes not as radical measures intended to subvert or alter the basic character of American government, but rather as modifying measures aimed at complementing representative institutions, and also as a means of guaranteeing that representative bodies actually remain representative and accountable. But the extensive use of direct democracy at the state and local levels in recent years has raised concerns about the integrity of the initiative, referendum and recall.If Americans want more of a voice in state and national policymaking, many citizens also worry about the abuses of too direct an involvement. After a brief look at the historical context of this long-standing debate, I will report on several public opinion surveys that highlight Americans' ambivalence toward populist democracy devices.
Top of the Line: SPSS, SAS, and SYSTAT
Authors: Permaloff Anne , Grafton Carl 
Published: May 2006

In our last PS article we discussed the vicissitudes of statistics package purchasing. Our focus was on low and mid priced products. We found a much wider variation in performance and quality than is seen in more popular programs sold to the business market for word processing, data base management, or spreadsheet work. This variation and the associated possibility of buying a package that does not meet one's needs makes statistical software selection especially difficult. Statistics packages are not commonly found in retail outlets so that in-store trials cannot be made. Reviews and articles can narrow the field, but the user is still obliged to carefully study manufacturers' specifications and to discuss particular needs with company technicians by telephone.We determined that for a large majority of users the moderately priced SYSTAT was the best choice unless menus or high quality presentation graphics were required. A new graphics module corrects the latter problem. If one's data base is within 64 K, STATGRAPHICS with its wealth of statistical techniques, menu driven ease of use, and its superb graphics was also recommended as was the inexpensive NCSS.
Sex and the Singular Constitution: What Remains of Roe v. Wade?
Authors: Mendelson Wallace 
Published: May 2006

We are not free to vote abortion up or down because Roe v. Wade in 1973 made “freedom of choice” a basic constitutional right. Last June in the Casey case only two members of the Supreme Court upheld Roe unequivocally. Three others sustained it, but only on grounds of precedent. This suggests that, had they been writing on a clean slate, at least one of them might have joined the four dissenters to form a new majority. Even this anemic victory for Roe is compromised; seven of the nine justices upheld all but one of five challenged state restrictions on abortion (all of which had been held invalid by the District Court).These anomalies spring from past perversions of the written Constitution, not from anything in the document itself. Here too “a page of history is worth a volume of logic.” Roe v. Wade purports to rest on the Fourteenth Amendment provision that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” This precept derives from the great settlemen at Runnymede in the year 1215. The crux of the matter was that the king (read government) could no longer punish his people at will, but only after guilt had been established via traditional trial procedures. No wonder this procedural right to a fair hearing found its way into the federal Bill of Rights (1791) and into every state constitution.
American Campaign Consulting: Trends and Concerns
Authors: De Vries Walter 
Published: May 2006

I want to begin by reading you a quotation which was point eight of a fourteen point memo on campaign strategy:“More and more-over seek out and discover men in every district, make acquaintance with them, solicit them, make them promises, take care that they canvass for you in their neighborhood and become as it were candidates for themselves for your city.”Lee Atwater to George Bush? No, it's Quintos Cicero advising his brother, M. P. Cicero. So, campaign consulting did not start forty years ago in California.A major reason—if not the only reason—for having campaign consultants is that political parties basically failed to do their job in a changing technological and social environment.The first trend is the tremendous growth of campaign consulting during the past 20 years. In 1967, the American Association of Political Consultants was formed in New York City by Cliff White, Joe Napolitan, and myself. It has been in operation for 21 years. Enormous changes in political campaigns have occurred within those 21 years. At that time, the American Association of Political Consultants had 30 or 40 members. Over the years, however, there has been a geometric growth in the organization's membership. Today, the AAPC has 800 members and represents about 400 firms. But that statistic is really insignificant because hundreds of persons who are not members of the AAPC are doing business as campaign consultants today. An estimated 12,000 people in America earn part or most of their living on political campaign consulting. That trend will likely continue.
Feminist Activities at the 1988 Republican Convention
Authors: Freeman Jo 
Published: May 2006

A feminist presence re-emerged at the 1988 Republican Convention after an eight year hibernation. It was primarily focused on abortion, which still divides the party despite the fact that the far right continues to write the platform on all issues directly affecting women. However, since delegate polls indicated that those going to New Orleans last August distributed themselves on the political spectrum pretty much the way they did in 1984, there was no consensus on what this means for the future of a party headed by George Bush.Feminists made their first appearance at the hearings before the platform Subcommittee on Family and Community. Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans spend the week before their convention hearing testimony and writing their platform. In 1988 representatives from both NOW and NARAL presented their proposals. This was a “first” for both organizations even though neither Kim Gandy (NOW) nor Kate Michelman (NARAL) expected changes in the platform to result. The National Women's Political Caucus (NWPC), which has co-ordinated past convention activities though its Republican Women's Task Force, did not send any one to New Orleans this year, although New York Congressman Bill Green had spoken for the NWPC at a May 31 Platform Committee hearing in Kansas City. NWPC President Irene Natividad said the NWPC's views were given by New York member Tanya Melich, who officially testified for the New York State Republican Family Committee of which she is the Executive Director.
An Update on the Senate Democratic Policy Committee
Authors: Baumer Donald C. 
Published: May 2006

The United States Congress has long been known for its lack of partisan cohesiveness and the inability of its majority parties to formulate and enact programs of policy. In the modern era (since the 1930s), policy leadership in the national government has come largely from the executive branch during the few periods of reasonably unified party rule (Roosevelt's New Deal, Johnson's Great Society). Over the past 35 years, the prevalence of divided government of a particular sort (Republican presidents with Democratic congressional majorities) has highlighted the internal divisions and lack of centralized power among congressional Democrats. There is, therefore, a natural interest in instruments of party leadership that are designed to offset the tendencies toward fragmentation and parochialism in Congress. The focus of this paper is on the Senate Democratic Policy Committee.The Senate's version of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 included provisions for the establishment of party policy committees. This legislation stemmed largely from the work of the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress, known as the LaFollette-Monroney Committee. The Joint Committee's report called for the establishment of policy committees “to formulate overall legislative policy of the two parties” (Bone 1956, 342). The Committee's work was informed by, and part of, an active reform effort at that time (which included many political scientists) aimed at bringing about stronger parties that could be held accountable for certain policy outcomes (see for example Committee on Congress, American Political Science Association 1945; Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress 1946; Galloway 1946; Committee on Political Parties, American Political Science Association 1950).
Schizophrenia: The Media and the Incumbent Reelection Issue (And a Political Scientist's View from the Inside of the Minnesota-Senate Election)
Authors: Alger Dean E. 
Published: May 2006

The results of the 1990 elections looked rather like late night TV reruns—it felt like we had seen this show before. In a sense, we had. Once again, over 90% of House incumbents running for reelection were successful. In the Senate, only one incumbent was defeated for reelection (which unique race in Minnesota the author had the good fortune—and, he would like to think, the excellent foresight—to be involved with in a central way). And once again, the monetary advantage held by incumbents was overwhelming and was apparently a major factor in the results.This continued pattern was widely noted—and lamented—in the news media, as it had been after the 1988 election. A Los Angeles Times article was typical. The Times concluded, “With a few notable exceptions, the results … reinforced the basic tenet of American politics that well-financed incumbents are almost impossible to beat” (Fritz, Morris, 1990, p. A25). And, as the Times and many other news organs noted, that sky-high reelection rate came in a year supposedly awash in anti-incumbent sentiment after the fiasco of the budget process and other developments. The L.A. Times appropriately quoted Ellen Miller of the Center for Responsive Politics to the effect that the “big story of this election was that incumbents were insulated by money, in spite of the incredible frustration that many voters felt” (Fritz, Morris, 1990, p. A25).
The Politics of Censorship
Authors: Adler Marsha Nye 
Published: May 2006

Rarely in American politics is there a confluence of events that creates a dramatic clash of issues. The Texas textbook controversy and two recent federal court cases pitted opposing interest groups against each other—with illuminating results.The Religious Right and CensorshipProtestant evangelicals and other fundamentalist Christians share a common belief in the inerrancy of the Bible and a constellation of attitudes based on localism, conventional moral standards, traditionalist family values, and vocal “Americanism” (Guth, 1983, p. 64). Traditionally, evangelical and fundamentalist church members and their leaders have been among the least politically active groups in America. These sects are dominated by adherents who are more rural and less wealthy than other nonfundamentalists, and are led by conservative, nonpolitical pastors. The many fundamentalist denominations are congregationally based, and historically have remained quite separate as a result of infighting and rivalry over interpretation of scripture.By the mid-1970s, however, government policies on affirmative action, Supreme Court decisions on abortion, civil rights and school prayer, and social movements among women, gays and anti-war protestors threatened fundamentalists' traditional beliefs and values. Fundamentalist leaders began to speak out, reflecting their followers' fears. Groups began to appear that translated fundamentalist values into rhetoric and then into political action. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Jim Bakker, Oral Roberts, James Robison, Rex Humbard and others took their message to vast audiences as their church services and religious talk shows began appearing on hundreds of television stations. As the evangelists' audiences grew, the content of the shows grew more political, as the preachers urged their viewers to act on their beliefs.
The Assault on Global Education
Authors: Caporaso James A. , Mittelman James H. 
Published: May 2006

Who has the right and responsibility to determine the content of education about foreign affairs? Should the Department of Education (DOE) seek to influence what the schools and universities teach? These questions are the subject of a smoldering debate sparked by the regional office of the DOE in Denver, Colorado. Answers to them would tell us a great deal about the environment for making foreign policy.There can be no doubt that in the United States, knowledge of foreign policy problems is extremely low. Surveys regularly show that in comparison to students overseas, American students lag in their awareness of other cultures. In a study of 30,000 10- and 14-year-olds in nine countries, undertaken by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Americans ranked next to last in their comprehension of foreign cultures. According to a recent New York Times poll, 44 percent of Americans questioned did not know that the Soviet Union and the United States were allies during World War II. Only 14 percent of American respondents in the same poll were aware that the United States had joined Britain, France and Japan in the invasion of Russia to fight the Bolshevik forces in the civil war of 1917 (“Flawed,” 1986). While there is also ignorance in the Soviet Union and other countries about the United States, the place to tackle the problem of provincialism is at home.
The Politics of Homelessness
Authors: Moore Charles H. , Sink David W. , Hoban-Moore Patricia 
Published: May 2006

Homelessness is an issue which has emerged as an important one, locally and nationally, over the last six years in a classic “agenda setting” fashion. Public awareness has increased, and public policies developed (at every level of the political system), as the number of homeless persons has increased, and changed character to include more young people, women and children, and intact families. This awareness has been stimulated by events as different as the Community for Creative Non-violence in Washington, D.C. inviting members of Congress to join them in sleeping overnight on outside vents and steam grates to “experience” homelessness to now-annual surveys by the U.S. Conference of Mayors of member cities to gauge the seriousness of the problem and to undergird the requests of increasingly desperate mayors for assistance. The U.S. Congress finally passed the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act in July, 1987, to make $355 million available to states and cities under 15 different program elements, after six years of cutting federal outlays for assisted housing by a cumulative 60 percent from what it would have been based on an FY 1981 baseline budget.Local government reactions to homelessness have been quite varied. Los Angeles passed an ordinance in December, 1987, at the request of its Venice Beach residents, prohibiting overnight sleeping on beaches. New York City initiated a policy of street “sweeps” intended to forcibly remove and treat 500 of the most severely mentally ill people on the city streets in the next year.
Democracy: Electoral and Athenian
Authors: Wolin Sheldon S. 
Published: May 2006

The third-century Christian convert, Tertullian, once asked, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” A twentieth-century American political scientist might ask, What has Athens to do with Washington? In both cases the answer is not as obvious as the rhetorical question would imply. Historically, revelation's identity depended on its contrast with reason even as it sought reason's discredit. American democracy has always been dogged by a so-called Founding whose Fathers never intended a democracy and were scathing in their opinion of “the turbulent democracies of ancient Greece” (Madison 1961, No. 14, 84).Tocqueville claimed to have discovered in America a democracy “more perfect than antiquity had dared dream of” (Tocqueville 1961, vol. 1(1), 34). His comparison was between Periclean Athens of the fifth century (BCE) and the New England township of the Jacksonian era. His intention was to show that American democracy was superior to any of the ancient democracies because it was stabler, more law-abiding, and respectful of property rights. Here Tocqueville was simultaneously reaffirming the virtually unanimous judgment, from Plato to the authors ofThe Federalist, about the innate tendency of democracy toward anarchy and expropriation of the rich, and attempting to present America as the great exception.
Public Speech and the Power of the People in Democratic Athens
Authors: Ober Josiah 
Published: May 2006

I will defend three premises. (1) If we take democracy to mean what ancient Greeks took it to mean—“political power wielded actively and collectively by thedemos” (i.e., all residents of the state who are culturally defined as potential citizens, regardless of their class or status)—then Athens was a democracy. (2) Even granted that Athens excluded from regular political participation persons Greeks did not regard as potential citizens (slaves, women, most foreigners, children), the historical example of the Athenian experience with democracy should be taken seriously by democratic theorists interested in expanding “the bounds of the possible” (as well as “of the thinkable”). (3) The Atheniandemosexercised its collective power in order to prevent elite political domination, and thus the “power of the people” was not a cover for elite rule.These premises do not mean that the people's power was in some ontological sense “pure,” or “undistorted”—indeed it was arguably through the tightly coiled and convoluted “distortions” of social and political power that the Athenian democratic order counterbalanced elite social power. Nor can Athens, with its acceptance of slavery, exclusion of women and foreigners from political participation, and jingoistic “blood and soil” doctrine, be considered a readymade model for a just, modern political society. It can be argued (incorrectly I believe: Ober 1989a, 20-35), that democracy in Athens was fundamentally dependent upon slavery, or empire, or the exclusion of women and foreigners.
A Tale of Two Incumbencies
Authors: Elfin Margery , Kawecki Carolyn 
Published: May 2006

Seven-term representative, Beverly Byron (D) of the Sixth District in Maryland, was the first incumbent to be defeated in the 1992 primaries. Her loss was perceived as a harbinger of major change in Congress, and marked an exception to Fenno's notion that Americans hate Congress yet love their own member of Congress.Her opponent, Thomas Hattery, fit the pundits' expectations as an agent of change. A young, progressive state legislator, Hattery won by aggressively campaigning against Byron as an out-of-touch incumbent whose lifestyle and views no longer matched those of her district. Yet, his “outsider” persona masked a highly professionalized and well-funded campaign.Only eight months later, the man who had capitalized on citizen dissatisfaction with Congress went down to defeat by Roscoe Bartlett (R). Bartlett, a successful businessman and educator with no elective experience and highly conservative positions, captured 54% of the vote, including majorities in counties that had given Hattery strong primary support. The tables had turned: Hattery had become the insider whom the historically conservative Sixth District voters repudiated. Paradoxically, although the Sixth District race exemplified change, Bartlett differed little from the previous incumbent.
Choosing the Vice President
Authors: Nelson Michael 
Published: May 2006

How—and how well—does the modern process of vice presidential selection work? What can be learned by considering the nominations of Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen by the Democrats and Sen. Dan Quayle of Indiana by the Republicans in 1988?Most students and practitioners of American politics agree as a matter of principle that vice presidents should be chosen with their constitutional role as presidential successor uppermost in mind. Nine vice presidents, more than a fifth of those who have held the office, have succeeded to the presidency. (They served as president for forty-two years, twenty-nine of them in this century). During one recent period from 1945 to 1977, vice presidents who became president by succession occupied the Oval Office fully half the time. Illnesses, impeachment proceedings, and assassination attempts have made succession an active possibility during twenty of the nation's forty presidencies (Goldstein 1982, 207-08). Every postwar vice president except Walter F. Mondale has become the subject of unusual public concern because of some event or condition that raised the possibility that he would succeed to the presidency.To the extent that the concern for presidential succession is taken seriously, it implies two governance criteria for evaluating the vice presidential selection process. The most important governance criterion is the competence of nominees for vice president to be president. Historically, six of the nine successions have occurred during the vice president's first year in office, suggesting that even the best on-the-job training is no substitute for a wise initial choice.
National Voter Registration Reform: How It Might Be Won
Authors: Piven Frances Fox , Cloward Richard A. 
Published: May 2006

Congress is once again considering the possibility of enacting national voter registration reform. The Universal Voter Registration Act—introduced by Alan Cranston (D-CA) in the Senate and by John Conyers (D-MI) in the House—would require the states to establish both day-of-election registration and mail-in registration, and it would also require “all Federal agencies and all State, county, and municipal agencies receiving grant-in-aid monies” to offer voter registration to the public. Jesse Jackson has since taken up support of the bill, and Governor Dukakis, no champion of registration reform in his own state, acceded to Jackson's demand that it be endorsed by the Democratic party platform. And then there is a second bill being shaped by Representative Al Swift (D-WA) which would require states to make voter registration an automatic part of processing people for drivers' licenses and identification cards in motor vehicle offices. This bill may also be expanded to include other federally-assisted state agencies, such as unemployment and welfare.Certainly something should be done. Just a shade more than half of Americans will go to the polls in November 1988, compared with turnout levels between 75% and 95% in other western democracies. High turnout is made easy elsewhere because citizens are placed on registration lists automatically when they come of age, or they are registered periodically by government-sponsored door-to-door canvasses. In the United States, by contrast, only 63% of those eligible are registered; more than 65 million are not, and two out of three of them are below the median income.