Showing papers in "American Political Science Review in 1984"

Interest Representation: The Dominance of Institutions

Abstract: Interest group theory traditionally assumed that policies advocated by group representatives in some sense grow out of the interests or values of the group's members. Mancur Olson and others compelled important revisions in this assumption, but still left the process of interest advocacy to membership groups. It is contended here that institutions, such as corporations or local governments, occupy a dominant position with respect to interest representation in Washington, and this finding requires substantial revisions in both theoretical and descriptive formulations of the governmental process.

Partisan Orientations over the Long Haul: Results from the Three-Wave Political Socialization Panel Study

Abstract: The present study examines the dynamics of partisanship and voting behavior by utilizing national survey panel data gathered in 1965, 1973, and 1982 from two strategically situated generations—members of the high school senior class of 1965 and their parents. At the aggregate level, generational effects appeared in the persistently weaker partisan attachments of the younger generation. At the individual level, strong effects based on experience and habituation appeared in the remarkable gains occurring in the stability of partisan and other orientations among the young as they aged from their mid-20s to their mid-30s. Dynamic modeling of the relationship between partisanship and voting choice demonstrated that the younger voters had stabilized at an overall weaker level of partisanship, leading to more volatile voting behavior which, in turn, failed to provide the consistent reinforcement needed to intensify preexisting partisan leanings.

Predicting Supreme Court Cases Probabilistically: The Search and Seizure Cases, 1962-1981

Abstract: The overwhelming concensus of Fourth Amendment scholars is that the Supreme Court's sea and seizure cases are a mess. This article proposes that the confusion arises from the manner in which the cases were studied, not from the decisions themselves. A legal model with variables that me the prior justification of the search, the nature of the intrusion, and a few mitigating circumstance used to explain the Court's decisions on the reasonableness of a given search or seizure. The parameters are estimated through probit.The results show that the search and seizure cases are much more ordered than had commonly been believed. Virtually all of the estimates are as expected. Additionally, the Court is shown to act favorably toward the federal government than toward the states. Preliminary analysis suggests the model has predictive as well as explanatory value.

The Constituency Service Basis of the Personal Vote for U.S. Representatives and British Members of Parliament

Abstract: Under the guise of the “incumbency advantage,” American research of the past decade has devoted heavy emphasis to what may be termed the “personal vote” in congressional elections. Is this phenomenon purely American, or is it susceptible to comparative treatment? This article contrasts the personal vote in the 1980 U.S. House elections with that in the 1979 British general election. The analysis utilizes data from surveys conducted by the Center for Political Studies and British Gallup in combination with interviews of congressional administrative assistants (AAs) and British MPs and party agents whose constituencies fall in the sampling frames of the mass surveys. The analysis finds an incumbency advantage or personal vote in Britain which is much weaker than that in the United States but of somewhat greater importance than is commonly believed. As in the United States, constituency service appears to be an important component of the personal vote.

The Heresthetics of Constitution-Making: The Presidency in 1787, with Comments on Determinism and Rational Choice

Abstract: One contemporary method of reconciling the conflict in methodology between determinism and indeterminism is the notion of rational choice, which allows for both regularities in behavior and artistic creation. A detailed explanation of artistry within the rational choice context has not yet been developed, so this essay offers such an explanation in terms of the notion of heresthetics or the dynamic manipulation of the conditions of choice. The running example used throughout is the decision on the Constitutional Convention of 1787 on the method of selecting the president.

The Politics of Presidential Speechmaking, 1949-1980

Abstract: The study provides an empirical analysis of the determinants and consequences of presidential speechmaking, defined as the occurrence of a major, nationally broadcast and televised address. Major speeches delivered by Presidents Truman through Carter are examined during the period 1949-1980. Using a probit analysis, a prediction is made of the likelihood of a major speech occurring within a month, based on the effects of public attitudes, national conditions, and events. The results indicate that changes in public approval ratings and the presence of visible national events increase the likelihood that a president will deliver a speech. Conversely, worsening economic conditions (inflation and unemployment) as well as expanding military situations decrease speechmaking efforts. The findings also demonstrate that a president's popularity increases significantly with the delivery of a major address.

Political Solutions to Market Problems

Abstract: For some, market failures serve as a rationale for public intervention. However, the fact that self-interested market behavior does not always produce felicitous social consequences is not sufficient reason to draw this conclusion. It is necessary to assess public performance under comparable conditions, and hence to analyze self-interested political behavior in the institutional structures of the public sector. Our approach emphasizes this institutional structure—warts and all—and thereby provides specific cautionary warnings about optimistic reliance on political institutions to improve upon market performance.

The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late Eighteenth-Century American Political Thought

Abstract: Drawing upon a comprehensive list of political writings by Americans published between 1760 and 1805, the study uses a citation count drawn from these 916 items as a surrogate measure of the relative influence of European writers upon American political thought during the era. Contrary to the general tendencies in the recent literature, the results here indicate that there was no one European writer, or one tradition of writers, that dominated American political thought. There is evidence for moving beyond the Whig-Enlightenment dichotomy as the basis for textual analysis, and for expanding the set of individual European authors considered to have had an important effect on American thinking. Montesquieu, Blackstone, and Hume are most in need of upgrading in this regard. The patterns of influence apparently varied over the time period from 1760 to 1805, and future research on the relative influence of European thinkers must be more sensitive to this possibility.

Black Representation and Educational Policy: Are They Related?

Abstract: This study examines the impact of black school board members on educational policies that affect black students. Using data from 82 of the largest urban school districts in the United States, several measures of second-generation educational discrimination are analyzed. Black membership on the school board is associated with more equitable educational policies; this relationship remains in some cases even with controls for black political and economic resources. The implications of these findings for the study of representation are then discussed.

Do Cooperators Exit More Readily than Defectors

Abstract: Standard prisoners' dilemma games offer players the binary choice between cooperating and defecting, but in a related game there is the third possibility of leaving the game altogether. We conceptualize exiting as taking the individual beyond the reach of externalities generated in the original group, and on that basis—together with the assumption of self-interested (dollar-maximizing) behavior on the part of all players—we derive the prediction that the exit option will drain the community or group more of cooperators than of defectors.But experimental data do not support this prediction; cooperators do not leave more frequently than defectors and, in fact, there is evidence that defectors are more prone to leave than cooperators. We consider and reject the possibility that this failure of prediction results from the (admitted) greater optimism of cooperators about the incidence of cooperation “here,” and present data supporting the hypothesis that cooperators often stay when their personal interest is with exiting because of the same ethical or group-regarding impulse that (presumably) led them to cooperate in the first place. Cooperation can be produced for a group or community either by inducing people to cooperate or by inducing those who are going to cooperate to stay in the game, and ethical considerations seem to underlie the decision to stay as well as the decision to cooperate while staying.

Nationalization of the American Electorate

Abstract: The conceptual meaning of and the empirical evidence for the nationalization of the American electorate is explored. Two conceptually distinct dimensions of nationalization are identified: nationlization in terms of a convergence in the level of partisan support across geographical subunits of the electorate, and nationalization in terms of a uniformity of response by geographical units to political forces. Empirical estimates for both types of nationalization are derived for the American electorate for the period from 1842 to 1970. Unlike previous scholars, we find no trend toward increasing nationalization of the vote. Possible reasons for this lack of nationalization of the vote are suggested.

Advocacy, Interpretation, and Influence in the U.S. Congress

Abstract: This article examines the relationship between two variables: interpretations by members of Congress of the consequences of legislative proposals and the influence of those who advocate particular actions on the proposals. The article investigates how the legislative decisions of members depend on interpretations, how the arguments of advocates shape interpretations, and how the influence on interpretations translates into influence over patterns of congressional support expressed for a legislative proposal. The major thesis is that member interpretations and hence legislative influence are unstable, a result of basic features of human decision making in the congressional context. As a result, advocates are hypothesized to have considerable influence in maintaining and expanding the size of their congressional coalitions in some legislative situations, but not others. In particular, when faced with weakening amendments or motions, advocates are unable to prevent defections among their supporters. Evidence of the legislative influence of the National Education Association during the Ninety-fourth Congress is found to be consistent with these hypotheses.

The Problem of Strategic Behavior under Approval Voting

Abstract: Approval voting is being promoted as “the election reform of the 20th century” (Brams, 1980, p. 105), and indeed if voters' preferences are dichotomous, approval voting has some remarkable qualities: it is uniquely strategy-proof, a candidate wins if and only if he is a Condorcet winner, and voters have simple strategies that are at once sincere and sophisticated. However, all of these results depend on the existence of dichotomous preferences, a contrived and empirically unlikely assumption. Here I show that these virtues of approval voting are replaced by some rather undesirable features under more plausible assumptions. More fundamentally, rather than promoting “honest” behavior, as is sometimes implied, the existence of multiple sincere strategies almost begs voters to behave strategically. I also examine sophisticated approval voting and show that in the general case it need not pick a Condorcet alternative. Ironically, there is a condition under which Condorcet winners may always be picked, but for this to occur, voters sometimes have to vote for candidates of whom they disapprove.

Differential Paths to Parity: A Study of the Contemporary Arms Race

Abstract: This article presents a model of arms expenditures and arms accumulation for the Soviet Union and United States from 1952 through 1978. It argues that contemporary superpowers do not react solely to the military budgets of one another in assessing the potential threat against which they must allocate military resources, i.e., in deciding upon the military budget. Rather, they respond primary to the relative balance of strategic and conventional military forces. A continuous time model of this process is developed and estimated. If one examines only the budgets of these two nations, it would appear that no race is occurring; rather, the Soviets are simply increasing their arms expenditures irrespective of what the United States does. However, when one examines the relative stocks of military capabilities, it appears that the USSR is racing to catch up to the United States. Finally, the dynamics governing arms competition between the United States and the USSR appear to be undergoing marked change.

The Public Hearing as an Effective Citizen Participation Mechanism: A Case Study of the General Revenue Sharing Program

Abstract: Students of citizen participation in public affairs disagree as to the effectiveness of such citizen involvement. Using the General Revenue Sharing program as a case study and applying techniques of both cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis, this article examines the effectiveness of one form of citizen participation, the public hearing. It is found that in the revenue-sharing program, the public hearing did have an immediate, but only short-term, impact on levels of public interest and citizen involvement. Evidence to support some short-term and some long-term effects on reported expenditure decisions is presented; however, these impacts generally are found to be inconsequential and not statistically significant. It is concluded that, as a form of citizen participation, the public hearing—at least as demonstrated in the General Revenue Sharing program—has not had much of an impact on citizen behavior or policy choices.

The Supreme Court's Certiorari Decisions: Conflict as a Predictive Variable

Abstract: In the period from 1947 to 1976, the United States Supreme Court has denied certiorari in more than half the cases involving conflict with Supreme Court precedent or intercircuit conflict. In both instances, the denial rate has been higher in the Burger Court than in the Vinson and Warren Courts and denial has been greater for intercircuit conflict cases than for cases in which the ruling in the lower court was in conflict with one or more Supreme Court precedents. When conflict was conceptualized as a predictor of decision and examined along with federal government as petitioning party, economic issues, and civil liberty issues, it was found to have 4 to 7 times the predictive power of the other variables combined for the Vinson and Warren Courts. For the Burger Court, the petitioning party variable was found to be a better predictor than conflict, but conflict was a much better predictor than the subject variables. Discriminant function models using the four predictor variables were able to account for up to 36.9% of the variance in the Supreme Court's certiorari decisions, almost all of which was the result of the contributions made by the conflict and party factors.

Changes in the Vote Margins for Congressional Candidates: A Specification of Historical Trends

Abstract: Recent research on House elections has focused on the decline in congressional competition since the mid-1960s. However, this body of research suffers from three major problems: 1) an imprecise specification of the nature of change in the degree of congressional competition, 2) its exclusive reliance on a limited time frame, which calls into question the generalizability and adequacy of its explanations, and 3) its overemphasis on incumbency-oriented explanations. Using a Multiple Interrupted Time Series (MITS) analysis of trends in aggregate electoral data from 1824 to 1980, we find that current low levels of congressional competition are not historically unique, but instead constitute a continuation of a long-term trend established in the mid-1890s. In addition, and in contrast to the general thrust described in the literature, there appears to be a post-1965 trend toward greater competition, although the absolute level of competition is lower after the mid-1960s. Finally, a disaggregation of electoral results by incumbency status suggests a growth in the incumbency advantage since the mid-1890s, but that lower post-1965 levels of congressional competition are the result of a winners' and not an incumbency, advantage. Such findings cast doubt on the adequacy of explanations that focus on post-1965, incumbency-oriented factors.

Power, Alliance, and the Escalation of International Conflict,- 1815-1965

Abstract: A considerable amount of the internationalpolitics literature attempts to explain international conflict on the basis of the distribution of power between and among nations. There are, however, divergent views of this linkage. One view argues that wars are most likely to take place between nations of similar power, while another asserts that wars are most likely when power is unequal. Research seeking to explore this phenomenon has not investigated the capability augmenting effects

Exposure to Information, Belief Integration, and Individual Responsiveness to Agenda Change

Abstract: This article examines individual responsiveness to the media's changing political agenda during the years from 1964 to 1980. In the context of a dynamic model, the data indicate that responsiveness is positively associated with education, political interest, and a social motivation to attend to public affairs. A two-component model, in which heightened involvement increases individuals' exposure to information but also decreases their receptivity to the impact of the messages, is considered in a multivariate analysis. Although the results are only suggestive, the exposure function appears to operate for all three variables, whereas the inhibitions owing to the integration of previous information are evident only for political interest. Some speculations are offered about how these results may elaborate models of democratic public choice.

Bureaucrats and Politicians in Policymaking: The Case of Japan

Abstract: This article extends the recent empirical work on the perceptions and role of bureaucrats and politicians in policymaking. The question of the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats and the role of each in policymaking is especially important in the case of Japan, because the prevalent models of Japanese politics and policymaking are those of the “bureaucracy dominant” or of a closely interwoven “ruling triad” of bureaucracy, big business, and the governing Liberal Democratic Party.Data are from a systematic survey of 251 higher civil servants and 101 members of the government and opposition parties in the House of Representatives, supplemented by data from other surveys and, wherever possible, compared to equivalent data from western democracies.The results indicate that Japanese politicians and bureaucrats resemble Western European elites both in social background and in the fact that although the roles of politician and bureaucrat are converging, there are still differences in their contributions to the policymaking process. However, politicians influence policymaking more than most models of Japanese politics have posited, and even government and opposition politicians share some consensus about the most important policy issues facing Japan. A factor analysis demonstrated that higher civil servants' orientations toward their roles vary significantly with their positions in the administrative hierarchy.The 27-year incumbency of the LDP as ruling party has been particularly important in determining the Japanese variant of the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats. We suggest that the Japanese case shows that the bureaucracy's increasing role in policymaking is universal; however, in late-modernizing political systems like Japan's, where the bureaucracy has always been a dominant actor, the growing power of politicians in postwar politics has been the most significant actor in bringing about more convergence in the two elites. Our data on this trend argue for a more complicated and pluralistic view of Japanese policymaking than that provided by either the bureaucracy-dominant or the ruling-triad model.

In Search of the Center of European Party Systems

Abstract: Duverger's famous dictum that “the center does not exist in politics” is the starting point of an inquiry into the possible meanings of the concept of a center, and of center parties, in European party systems. This article consists of six sections; the first five sections deal with the center as a pivot in voting, the center in traditional left-right distributions, the notion of a center in multidimensional party spaces, the center in terms of mechanics, applying rather different metaphors of scales-in-balance and of centripetal versus centrifugal forces, and the center analyzed in terms of social cleavages. Following this search for conceptual meaning, in which the writings of Duverger and Sartori receive particular attention, the record of European party systems is examined to see whether the presence or absence of center parties in party systems can contribute to a realistic classification of European party systems.

Partisan Instability in Canada: Evidence from a New Panel Study

Abstract: One of the critical questions in the debate about the concept of party identification is its stability over time, particularly its stability relative to that of voting behavior. This article utilizes data from a new three-wave panel study to assess the properties of party identification in Canada, and to compare levels of partisan stability in Canada with those in Great Britain and the United States. In addition to directional stability, other features of the party identification concept and its applicability to Canada are examined, notably the constituency of identification across levels of the federal system. Analyses indicate that party identification in Canada is subject to considerable fluctuation, and that the U.S. pattern of relatively stable party identification coupled with substantial short-term swings in voting behavior reflect the institutional characteristics of the U. S. electoral system. The article concludes by suggesting that patterns of partisanship in Canada, although distinctive in certain respects, probably have important commonalities with those in many other contemporary liberal democracies.

A Method of Estimating the Personal Ideology of Political Representatives

Abstract: We suggest a method for estimating a political representative's personal ideology and its effect on his or her voting decisions. The current practice of using the ratings of a pressure group such as Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) as a proxy for personal ideology is shown to have a number of theoretical and interpretive flaws. Our technique uses the residuals from two regression equations to provide answers to two questions: Is there a systematic ideological component to the voting behavior of political representatives after taking account of other political determinants, and if a systematic ideological component exists, is it possible to determine its role in voting on particular issues? The technique developed and the currently accepted practice are compared using votes on labor issues as an empirical example.

Conflict and Complexity: Goal Diversity and Organizational Search Effectiveness

Abstract: There is a long-standing concern in organization theory with the effect of conflict on search. This article uses a computer model of organizational decision making to demonstrate an effect called “search-enhancing conflict”: organizational decision-making performance when there are conflicting subgoals may be better than it would be if all subunits evaluated alternatives in terms of a single organizational goal.

Explaining Presidential Priorities: The Competing Aspiration Levels Model of Macrobudgetary Decision Making

Abstract: This article develops a new statistical model of trade-offs among defense, nondefense, and fiscal policy concerns as they are reflected in the presidential budgetary process. The Competing Aspiration Levels Model (CALM) builds on Crecine's (1971) “Great Identity” argument. Unlike most previous attempts to model presidential budgeting, CALM explicitly represents the interdependence of decisions about defense, nondefense, and total federal expenditures. CALM models this interdependence as the result of the interaction of minimal aspirations for defense and nondefense expenditures with a maximum acceptable level of expenditures from a fiscal policy standpoint. Statistical analyses of presidential budgets for the fiscal years from 1955 through 1980 provide strong support for the CALM formulation. Substantively, the results indicate that fiscal constraints on total expenditures have progressively weakened, that the maximum acceptable expenditure level has generally exceeded the minimal expenditure aspiration level, and that when a potential “fiscal surplus” has existed, the nondefense sector has been more successful in capturing a share of this surplus than the defense sector. In keeping with traditional incrementalist arguments, the results indicate that previous year expenditure levels provide a relatively secure “budgetary base” for both the defense and nondefense sectors. Both sectors tend to receive their minimal aspiration levels plus a share of whatever fiscal surplus exists. The analysis also indicates that the executive branch has not been as strong a direct force for budgetary growth as Congress.

Reagan and the Russians: Crisis Bargaining Beliefs and the Historical Record

Abstract: Reagan's view of how to deal with the Soviet Union is compared to the U. S. performance record in three Soviet-American crises: Berlin, 1948-1949, Berlin, 1961, andCuba, 1962. Reagan's public statements indicate that he views the Soviets as incorrigibly hostile, so that conflict bargaining with the Soviets is a zero-sum game requiring a coercive U.S. bargaining strategy. This is characterized as a “bullying” strategy and contrasted with a “reciprocating” approach. The two approaches provide competing hypotheses for an examination of Soviet responses to U.S. influence attempts. The study tests the association between types of U.S. influence attempts and initial Soviet reactions and then proceeds to an interrupted time series analysis of the longer effects of U. S. threats of force on the mix of coercion-accommodation in Soviet crisis bargaining. The author finds a positive association between specific U.S. threats of force and initial Soviet responses in kind, and between carrot-and-stick inducements that use less specific threats and more accommodative Soviet responses. With the exception of the Cuban crisis, U.S. threats of force have not been associated with significant extended shifts in the level of Soviet hostility. The article concludes that, on balance, the performance record of the United States is more supportive of the efficacy of a reciprocating strategy than the coercive bargaining strategy implied by Reagan's beliefs.

Individual Participation in Collective Racial Violence: A Rational Choice Synthesis

Abstract: Existing rational choice treatments of collective violence have consistently discounted the role of the public goods component of the individual's decision calculus about whether or not to participate in such acts. By assuming free rider effects with respect to the public goods, these theories are unable to account for the initial inception of violence or for the later nonlooting behaviors that constitute aspects of a riot and, indeed, are preconditions for the inception of looting, the only riot behavior for which these theories can offer any explanation. Five dimensions of discrimination are defined in rational choice terms and their elimination (or reduction) is defined as the creation of a public good. I use existing theories of individual contributions to the provision of public goods to demonstrate that free rider effects need not be assumed and that the inception of a riot and later nonlooting riot behaviors can best be explained as individual contributions to the provision of the public goods represented by the elimination of the several forms of discrimination.