Showing papers in "American Political Science Review in 1988"

The truly disadvantaged : the inner city, the underclass, and public policy

Abstract: ""The Truly Disadvantaged" should spur critical thinking in many quarters about the causes and possible remedies for inner city poverty. As policy makers grapple with the problems of an enlarged underclass they--as well as community leaders and all concerned Americans of all races--would be advised to examine Mr. Wilson's incisive analysis."--Robert Greenstein, "New York Times Book Review" "'Must reading' for civil-rights leaders, leaders of advocacy organizations for the poor, and for elected officials in our major urban centers."--Bernard C. Watson, "Journal of Negro Education" "Required reading for anyone, presidential candidate or private citizen, who really wants to address the growing plight of the black urban underclass."--David J. Garrow, "Washington Post Book World" Selected by the editors of the "New York Times Book Review" as one of the sixteen best books of 1987. Winner of the 1988 C. Wright Mills Award of the Society for the Study of Social Problems.

The mobility of labor and capital : a study in international investment and labor flow

Abstract: List of tables Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Foreign investment: a neglected variable 2. The use of foreign workers 3. The new immigration 4. The globalization of production: implications for labor migration 5. The rise of global cities and the new labor demand 6. The reconcentration of capital in the United States: a new investment zone? Conclusion Notes References Index.

Contrasting rational and psychological analyses of political choice

Abstract: We contrast the rational theory of choice in the form of expected utility theory with descriptive psychological analysis in the form of prospect theory, using problems involving the choice between political candidates and public referendum issues The results showed that the assumptions underlying the classical theory of risky choice are systematically violated in the manner predicted by prospect theory In particular, our respondents exhibited risk aversion in the domain of gains, risk seeking in the domain of losses, and a greater sensitivity to losses than to gains This is consistent with the advantage of the incumbent under normal conditions and the potential advantage of the challenger in bad times The results further show how a shift in the reference point could lead to reversals of preferences in the evaluation of political and economic options, contrary to the assumption of invariance Finally, we contrast the normative and descriptive analyses of uncertainty in choice and address the rationality of voting

Elections, Coalitions, and Legislative Outcomes

Abstract: Predictions of electoral behavior in a multiparty setting should be a function of the voters' beliefs about how parties will perform following an election. Similarly, party behavior in a legislature should be a function of electoral promises and rewards. We develop a multistage game-theoretic model of three-party competition under proportional representation. The final policy outcome of the game is generated by a noncooperative bargaining game between the parties in the elected legislature. This game is essentially defined by the vote shares each party receives in the general election, and the parties' electoral policy positions. At the electoral stage parties and voters are strategic in that they take account of the legislative implications of any electoral outcome. We solve for equilibrium electoral positions by the parties and final policy outcomes.

Condorcet's theory of voting

Abstract: Condcrcet's criterion states that an alternative that defeats every other by a simple majority is the socially optimal choice. Condorcet argued that if the object of voting is to determine the “best” decision for society but voters sometimes make mistakes in their judgments, then the majority alternative (if it exists) is statistically most likely to be the best choice. Strictly speaking, this claim is not true; in some situations Bordas rule gives a sharper estimate of the best alternative. Nevertheless, Condorcet did propose a novel and statistically correct rule for finding the most likely ranking of the alternatives. This procedure, which is sometimes known as “Kemeny's rule,” is the unique social welfare function that satisfies a variant of independence of irrelevant alternatives together with several other standard properties.

The Renaissance of Political Culture

Abstract: The publics of different societies are characterized by durable cultural orientations that have major political and economic consequences. Throughout the period from 1973 to 1987, given nationalities consistently showed relative high or low levels of a “civic culture”—a coherent syndrome of personal life satisfaction, political satisfaction, interpersonal trust and support for the existing social order. Those societies that rank high on this syndrome are much likelier to be stable democracies than those that rank low. Economic development and cultural change are linked in a complex pattern of reciprocal influence. Originally, Protestantism may have facilitated the rise of capitalism, leading to economic development, which in turn favored the emergence of the civic culture. But in those countries that attained high levels of prosperity, there eventually emerged postmaterialist values that tended to neutralize the emphasis on economic accumulation that earlier characterized Protestant societies.

Structural Dependence of the State on Capital

Abstract: A central claim of both Marxist and neoclassical political theory is that under capitalism all governments must respect and protect the essential claims of those who own the productive wealth of society. This is the theory of “structural dependence of the state on capital.” Using a formal model, the internal logic and the robustness of the theory is examined. We conclude that in a static sense the theory is false: virtually any distribution of consumption between wage earners and owners of capital is compatible with continual private investment once an appropriate set of taxes and transfers is in place. Yet the state may be structurally dependent in a dynamic sense. Policies that, once in place, redistribute income without reducing investment do reduce investment during the period in which they are anticipated but not yet implemented.

Private interest government : beyond market and state

Abstract: Market liberalism and state interventionism are both challenged as modes of democratic government by this book. It suggests that the development of private interest governments might be a more viable policy alternative for the future. It also questions whether the state could devolve certain public policy responsibilities to interest associations in specific economic sectors. The book focuses specifically on interest associations in a disaggregated, rather than global, approach to economics and politics. Ten Western industrialized countries are covered, subjects ranging from advertising with self-regulation, private accountancy regulation and the British voluntary sector to four comparative papers on the corporatist arrangements in the governance of the dairy industry.

Churches-as political communities

Abstract: Most studies of contextual influences on political attitudes and behavior have treated geographical areas as the operative social environment. As early research on social influence processes noted, the conditions that promote consensus among inhabitants of a common environment are likely to be present in formal organizations that encourage face-to-face interaction. Churches possess many of the characteristics that should maximize behavioral contagion and are thus fertile ground for the dissemination of common political outlooks. This expectation is tested by assessing the link between theological and political conservatism in 21 Protestant congregations. The theological climate in the churches is found to contribute strongly to the members' political conservatism over and above the personal commitment of respondents to traditional Christian values and a variety of social and attitudinal variables. As churches constitute the single most widespread form of voluntary organizational affiliation in the United States, their potential political impact appears to be considerable.

Organized Interests and Agenda Setting in the U.S. Supreme Court

Abstract: Participation as amicus curiae has long been an important tactic of organized interests in litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court. We analyze amicus curiae briefs filed before the decision on certiorari and assess their impact on the Court's selection of a plenary docket. We hypothesize that one or more briefs advocating or opposing certiorari increase the likelihood of its being granted. We test this hypothesis using data from the United States Reports and Briefs and Records of the United States Supreme Court for the 1982 term. The statistical analysis demonstrates that the presence of amicus curiae briefs filed prior to the decision on certiorari significantly and positively increases the chances of the justices' binding of a case over for full treatment—even after we take into account the full array of variables other scholars have hypothesized or shown to be substantial influences on the decision to grant or deny.

Explaining Senate Election Outcomes

Abstract: Aggregate-level data are used in this analysis to explain the outcomes of Senate elections between 1974 and 1986. Using the individual Senate contest as the unit of analysis permits estimating the relative influence of a wide variety of factors on Senate election results including political characteristics of states, characteristics of the candidates, and national political conditions. Of these factors candidate characteristics had the strongest impact on the outcomes of Senate elections. The importance of candidate characteristics has had two major consequences for Senate elections. First, two-party competition has spread to every region of the country: in Senate elections, no state can be considered safe for either party. Second, money is probably now more important than ever, especially for challengers and candidates for open seats.

A Culturalist Theory of Political Change

Abstract: Eckstein introduces the political cultural approach as one of two viable options for theory in political science, the other being rational-choice theory. He then explains why the “cumulative socialization” process that he associates with culture leads to what he calls “expectations of continuity.” In short, since earlier learning builds on later learning, people acquire considerable inertia to their orientations toward the world and cannot easily accommodate rapid, extensive change. But, Eckstein acknowledges, if the cultural approach fails to incorporate change, it offers little help in explaining a world in which change is ubiquitous. Instead political culture theory predicts that certain changes are likely while others are not. For instance, people routinely alter their actions in efforts to maintain their preferred social patterns in moderately new situations. Particularly among the members of modern societies, for whom such new situations are common, Eckstein thinks that social patterns capable of accommodating considerable flexibility gradually develop. But new situations that confront people with large-scale contextual changes likely will overwhelm culture-bound creatures. Faced with such circumstances, people are apt to lapse into various forms of incoherent and fragmented reactions rather than deftly revising their actions in ways that maintain their social patterns. Thus revolutionary transformations through which societies attempt to realize unprecedented objectives are not likely to achieve their intended outcomes.

Principals, bureaucrats, and responsiveness in clean air enforcements.

Abstract: A principal-agent perspective has been employed in recent studies to rediscover the importance of democratic hierarchies in shaping public bureaucratic outputs. I test the robustness of the hierarchy model for explaining outputs from an agency that has often been cast in the image of bureaucratic independence, the Environmental Protection Agency. Examining the effect of the Reagan presidency on EPA outputs for clean air, Box-Tiao models are constructed to explain shifts in the vigor of air pollution enforcements between 1977 and 1985. The analysis shows that the influence of elected institutions is limited when an agency has substantial bureaucratic resources and a zeal for their use. Moreover, under these conditions, bureaucracy can even move outputs in directions completely opposite from what a model of hierarchy would predict. The implication is that for some agencies it is necessary to give greater consideration to the agent in explaining implementation outcomes through time.

Rousseau's general will: a condorcetian perspective

Abstract: general will: (1) there is a common good; (2) citizens are not always accurate in their judgments about what is in the common good; and (3) when citizens strive to identify the common good and vote in accordance with their perceptions of it, the vote of the Assembly of the People can be taken to be the most reliable means for ascertaining the common good. We then show that Condorcet's (1785) model of collective judgment shares these assumptions with Rousseau and that understanding the implications of Condorcet's (1785) "jury theorem" enables us to clarify many of the most obscure aspects of Rousseau's treatment of the general will, including his discussion of the debilitating effects of factions and his confidence in the ability of the Assembly of the People to discern the general will by means of voting.

When Parties Fail: Emerging Alternative Organizations

Abstract: Throughout history parties have faltered and new groups have emerged, but rarely has this process been so accelerated, so widespread, and so conducive to dramatic political change as in our present era. When Parties Fail explores alternative organizations in depth and comparatively. Among the organizations discussed are environmentalist groups, such as the West German and Swedish Greens, the Italian Radicals, and local protest groups in Japan, Switzerland, and the United States. Also considered are new groups seeking attention in unresponsive party systems, such as the Danish Gilstrup party, the British SDP, and American PACs; community parties and movements in Israel, India, Britain, and the American South; and antiauthoritarian movements in Poland (Solidarity), Taiwan, and Ghana. The case of France provides an example of major party survival. Three broadly comparative chapters consider the reasons for major party persistence in some nations and the causes and impact of their decline in others. The contributors to the book are David Apter, Myron J. Aronoff, Liang-shing Fan, Frank B. Feigert, Zvi Gitelman, Ronald J. Herring, Jon Kraus, Kay Lawson, Tom Mackie, Peter H. Merkl, Raffaela Y. Nanetti, Angelo Panebianco, Mogens N. Pedersen, Geoffrey Pridham, Peter Pulzer, Richard Rose, Donald Schoonmaker, Frank Sorauf, Robert C. A. Sorensen, Evert Vedung, Hanes Walton, Jr., and Frank L. Wilson. Originally published in 1988. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Institutions, the Economy, and the Dynamics of State Elections

Abstract: As the U.S. states develop their political institutions and take greater responsibility for their economic well-being, two concerns that have long driven research on national elections—electoral insulation and economic accountability—should become central in research on state elections. I investigate institutionalization's effects on the vulnerability of state elections to major periodic forces—coattails, turnout, and economic conditions—and how political responsibility for economic growth is apportioned between presidents and governors in state elections. The investigation relies upon dynamic models of state legislative and gubernatorial outcomes estimated with a pooled data set comprised of most states and elections in the years 1940–82. The results, which have important implications for state government more broadly, indicate that institutionalization has substantially insulated legislative elections against major threats and that state legislators and governors have less to fear from their state economies than is often thought, but also that state elections are becoming more susceptible to swings in the national economy.

The Structure of Emotional Response: 1984 Presidential Candidates

Abstract: Over the past two decades psychological models of affect have changed from valence (one-dimensional) models to multiple-dimensional models. The most recent models, circumplex models, are two-dimensional. Feeling thermometer measures, which derive their theoretical logic from earlier (valence) models of emotional appraisal, are shown to be confounded. Underlying the variation obtained using feeling thermometer measures are two dimensions of emotional response, mastery (positive emotionality) and threat (negative emotionality). Analysis of the 1984 NES survey suggests that positive emotional response is twice as influential as negative emotional response in predicting presidential candidate vote disposition to the presidential candidates. Reliance on emotional response is shown to be uniformly influential across various strata of the electorate.Policy considerations have little direct influence on vote disposition, though policy considerations are indirectly related to vote disposition through the influence of issues on the degree of feelings of threat evoked by the candidates.

Rulers and the Ruled: Patterned Inequality and the Onset of Mass Political Violence

Abstract: The theory of patterned inequality between rulers and ruled provides a valuable analytic approach to the relationship between inequality and political violence. Under conditions of a bifurcated pattern of inequality, the probability of political violence is likely to be greater than under a more generalized inequality typically measured by the Gini index. A strong systematic relationship between patterned inequality in Latin American landholdings and deaths from political violence was discovered using the exponential distribution as a model for the lower portion of the land distribution and the log-exponential for the upper. This degree of association was far stronger than that found between the Gini index of land inequality in Latin America and deaths from political violence. Evidence supporting the theory was also found in an analysis of Middle Eastern landholdings.

Political Jurisprudence, the “New Institutionalism,” and the Future of Public Law

Abstract: For the last quarter century public-law studies have been dominated by “political jurisprudence,” which tries to understand law as a product of political forces. Critics claim this outlook, as now articulated, has generated fragmented empirical work disconnected from larger normative issues. This essay uses recent “institutionalist” or “structuralist” perspectives, based on critiques of pluralist political science and both Marxist and functionalist sociology, to propose a political approach to public law studies that can avoid such criticisms. If both empirical and normative public-law scholars took as their central concern the “dialectic of meaningful actions and structural determinants” and recast their research in several specified ways, they might be better able to describe the role of normative ideas in law and to achieve a broader empirical agenda that could ground and inform normative debates.

The Return to the State

Abstract: Three important questions are raised by the “return to the state” movement of recent years. First, are the pluralist, structural functionalist, and Marxist literatures of political science societally reductionist, as this movement contends? Second, does the neostatist paradigm remedy these defects and provide a superior analytical model? Third, regardless of the substantive merits of these arguments, are there heuristic benefits flowing from this critique of the literature? Examination of the evidence leads to a rejection of the first two criticisms. The answer to the third question is more complex. There is merit to the argument that administrative and institutional history has been neglected in the political science of the last decades. This is hardly a “paradigmatic shift”; and it has been purchased at the exorbitant price of encouraging a generation of graduate students to reject their professional history and to engage in vague conceptualization.

Explaining Government Growth in the U.S. States

Abstract: Despite the explosive increase in the research program on government growth in recent years, little work has been done on government growth disaggregated to the subnational level. I examine the empirical validity of five competing models of government growth for the fifty U.S. states from 1945 to 1984: Wagner's Law, fiscal illusion, party control, bureau voting, and intergovernmental grant. Government size is defined in terms of state government spending as a proportion of total state economic output, with separate implicit price deflators being employed for the public and private sectors. Based on a longitudinal test of these competing models, the analysis uncovers strong empirical support for the bureau voting and intergovernmental grant models, moderately weak support for the Wagner's Law model, and virtually no support for the fiscal illusion and party control explanations. These findings have important implications for the study of government growth in general and, more specifically, in the states.

Working-class formation : nineteenth-century patterns in Western Europe and the United States

Abstract: Applying an original theoretical framework, an international group of historians and social scientists here explores how class, rather than other social bonds, became central to the ideologies, dispositions, and actions of working people, and how this process was translated into diverse institutional legacies and political outcomes. Focusing principally on France. Germany, and the United States, the contributors examine the historically contingent connections between class, as objectively structured and experienced, and collective perceptions and responses as they develop in work, community, and politics. Following Ira Katznelson's introduction of the analytical concepts, William H. Sewell, Jr., Michelle Perrot, and Alain Cottereau discuss France; Amy Bridges and Martin Shefter, the United States; and Jargen Kocka and Mary Nolan, Germany. The conclusion by Aristide R. Zolberg comments on working-class formation up to World War I, including developments in Great Britain, and challenges conventional wisdom about class and politics in the industrializing West.

Political Culture and Political Preferences

Abstract: Aaron Wildavsky has argued that it is theoretically more useful to think of political preferences as rooted in political culture than to entertain alternative bases such as schemas or ideologies. In the APSA presidential address in which he made his case, Wildavsky also advocated a program of research on political cultures, and welcomed “challenges and improvements.” David Laitin accepts the invitation; he variously takes issue with Wildavsky's concept of political culture.

Reputation and Hegemonic Stability: A Game-Theoretic Analysis

Abstract: We develop and explicate a game-theoretic model in which repeated play, incomplete information, and reputation are major elements. A significant advance of this model is the way it represents cooperation under incomplete information among rational actors of different sizes. The model is used to formalize certain aspects of the “theory of hegemonic stability.” It shows that the “dilemma” or “limits” of hegemonic stability look like natural attributes of games where reputation is involved, unifying both “benevolent” and “coercive” strands of hegemony theory. An example, drawn from recent developments in the Organization of Petroleum-exporting Countries, shows how our model of reputation guides the study of hegemonic regime construction. We conclude by comparing the nature of cooperative behavior under conditions of complete and incomplete information.

Extended deterrence and the outbreak of war

Abstract: Successful deterrence, it is argued, requires a combination of military capabilities and bargaining behavior that enhances a defender's credibility without provoking a potential attacker. Hypotheses on the political and military conditions under which extended-immediate deterrence is likely to succeed or fail are formulated and tested by probit analysis on fifty-eight historical cases. The empirical results indicate that (1) the military capability of the defender to deny the potential attacker a quick and decisive victory on the battlefield enhances deterrence; (2) a policy of reciprocity in diplomacy and military actions by the defender contributes strongly to deterrence success; and (3) a past record of backing down under pressure or intransigence in confrontations with the potential attacker increases the likelihood of deterrence failure.

The Political Economy of State Medicaid Policy

Abstract: We develop and test a market-based model to explain variations in states' welfare medicine policy decisions. The empirical results support the model of state policy outputs, indicating that states' spending efforts for welfare medicine are most sensitive to the supply of services within their borders. We learn in addition that spending effort declines with demand for services, indicating that the states spending the highest proportions of total personal income for the program are those who need it most and can afford it least. Measures of political system development affect spending effort positively and significantly, suggesting that ideology, diversity of interests, and administrative professionalism increase states' welfare efforts.

Political Intolerance and Political Repression During the McCarthy Red Scare

Abstract: I test several hypotheses concerning the origins of political repression in the states of the United States. The hypotheses are drawn from the elitist theory of democracy, which asserts that repression of unpopular political minorities stems from the intolerance of the mass public, the generally more tolerant elites not supporting such repression. Focusing on the repressive legislation adopted by the states during the McCarthy era, I examine the relationships between elite and mass opinion and repressive public policy. Generally it seems that elites, not masses, were responsible for the repression of the era. These findings suggest that the elitist theory of democracy is in need of substantial theoretical reconsideration, as well as further empirical investigation.

Why Americans don't vote : turnout decline in the United States, 1960-1984

Abstract: Tables Preface Introduction: The Empty Polling Booth Framing the Investigation: Analytical Strategy and Statistical Methods Is Demography Destiny?: Social Structure and Turnout Decline Beyond Demography: The Politics of Turnout Decline The American Nonvoter, 1960-1980: A Closer Look The Changing American Nonvoter, 1960-1980 The American Nonvoter Revisited: The 1984 Election Appendix: Data Set and Coding of Variables References Index