Showing papers on "Legitimacy published in 1980"

The Meek Shall Not Inherit the Earth: Self-Evaluation and the Legitimacy of Stratification

Abstract: Stratified social orders are maintained through a wide variety of mechanisms, one being broad-based legitimation of the notion of unequal distribution of primary resources. My attempt to develop a set of propositions provides at least a partial explanation of how such legitimation is generated and maintained. I argue that both conflict and functional theory point, at least implicitly, to the importance of the effect of unequal distribution of resources on the development of the self-constructing my argument through application of Mead' s theory of the self to the case of stratification. This application is shown, in turn, to be compatible with several lines of theorizing in social psychology, including equity and status attribution theory. Once basic propositions are developed, I discuss ways in which major social institutions maintain legitimacy through their effect on the self and explore some possible sources of delegitimation.

Subjective Political Efficacy as a Measure of Diffuse Support

Abstract: SINCE the publication of David Easton's A Systems Analysis of Political Life, "diffuse support" has become a widely researched political attitude. Diffuse support encompasses affect for the entire political system, affect which is not contingent upon specific rewards or deprivations (Easton, 1965:272-74). Underlying diffuse support are sentiments of legitimacy. In the case of the political regime and political authorities, these consist of perceptions that political institutions, norms, and procedures and the behavior of incumbent officials conform to "moral principles" and "what is right and proper" (Easton, 1965:278-79). Operationalizing diffuse support has proved to be no easy task. In essence, the difficulty lies in constructing a measure of diffuse support that is not contaminated by short-term partisan considerations such as the popularity of incumbent officials and current government policies. The crux of the measurement problem is this: can indicators of system affect be empirically differentiated from indicators of incumbent affect (Muller and Jukam, 1977; Citrin, 1974; Miller, 1974). In Easton's terms, can indicators of diffuse support be separated from indicators of specific support (Easton, 1965:267-72; for discussion of this issue see Loewenberg, 1971). Political trust and the sense of political efficacy are among the most frequently used measures of diffuse support. Both attitudes appear to tap sentiments of legitimacy. As operationalized by the SRC, trust

Locational Conflict and the Politics of Consumption

Abstract: This paper examines locational conflicts which occurred in Vancouver, British Columbia, between 1973 and 1975. Conflicts are analyzed in terms of the neighborhoods in which they took place, the characteristics of participating groups, their grounds for involvement in a conflict, and the outcome of conflicts. The structure of conflict is interpreted in the context of a politicized group of consumers who selectively aimed to redirect the course of urban policy and especially the style of land use planning and development. Conflict then centered upon their attempt to impose their vision of the "livable city" onto urban development in the face of resistance by other interest groups. In this manner consumer preferences for land use policies may be exercised not only in the marketplace, as traditional theory has proposed, but may also be mediated through political (and legal) processes. Consumption standards have an inherently political character as they may imply either confirmation or withdrawal of legitimacy from political authority and its chosen policies for urban development. These conclusions suggest that the politics of consumption should be a significant component in an expanded theory of locational conflict and land use decision making.

Religious Ideology and Social Change: The Islamic Revival in Malaysia

Abstract: HE WORLD CANNOT BUT BE IMPRESSED by the resurgence of a newly confident and powerful Islam, whose political and economic impact has affected the course of many events during the late 1970s. The Islamic revival can be seen both as an international movement and one which has specific implications for individual Muslim countries with different meanings in local situations. What follows is a preliminary review of how the Islamic revival has impressed itself on the Muslim population of Malaysia and become an integral part of the political, economic, ethnic, linguistic and cultural scene. Over the past ten years in particular, Islam has been both an agent and symbol of the many rapid social changes now occurring on the peninsula. Not only has religion become a source of identity for various elements in Malaysian society, distinguishing Malays and non-Malays, but it also lies at the centre of a crisis of legitimacy now emerging among the various elites of Malay society.

Urban Police and Crime in Nineteenth-Century America

Abstract: Interest in the history of police and crime has been strong over the past half generation. From the traditional historians' point of view, the resulting scholarship has grown not only in amount but in "sophistication," as sociologists and political scientists have contributed not only their work but often their methods and approaches. This development, however, seems to present problems as well as advantages. The history of police, as first outlined in rather traditional case studies of nineteenth-century Boston and New York, has clearly benefited from the myriad of subsequent approaches. The original accounts have been not so much challenged, with few exceptions, as enriched by later ones which stress points that had been at least relatively slighted: cross-national comparisons with London, the search for legitimacy, class conflict, social control, battles over social values. Most disagreements appear to be matters of emphasis, the result of differing angles of approach, or perhaps of the differing times...

The U.S. Supreme Court Myth, Diffuse Support, Specific Support, and Legitimacy

Abstract: Legitimacy exists when citizens comply with governmental edicts despite substantive disapproval. Attribution of legitimacy may proceed from at least three antecedents: subscription to a "judicial m...

Crime and Justice in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century England

Abstract: Recent historical studies concerned with the period of the English industrial revolution illuminate many relationships between crime and the criminal law, and social and economic change. The creation and abolition of the capital code and the invention of the penitentiary and the police suggest the importance of threats to political authority in deciding policy. Other studies emphasize the place of crime in popular culture, while quantitative work shows the importance of economic fluctuations, moral panics, war and the new police in explaining the level of prosecutions. Most suggestive for further work is the upper class assault on popular mores, poor men's property, and old economic orthodoxies. New legislation and new levels of enforcement, as well as less premeditated changes in English capitalism, created crimes where none had existed, and probably caused a crisis of legitimacy for the English criminal law. What emerged may have been not only a modern system of criminal law and enforcement, but a moder...

The Legitimacy Crisis in the United States: A Conceptual Analysis

Abstract: A “legitimacy crisis” is widely perceived to exist on the basis of polls of public attitudes reflecting a precipitous decline in confidence in societal leadership, increasing manifestations of illegal, antisocial and repressive behavior or policies, and the demonstrable structural failures of the state to respond to fundamental human needs. Some attention is given to the fact that there are different types of legitimacy crises, that delegitimation may focus upon various dimensions of the legal order, and that a legitimacy crisis is ultimately a relative state of affairs. Insofar as broad causes of a legitimacy crisis may be identified, it has been associated with the attributes of a modern mass society, the specifically capitalist nature of some contemporary societies, and the impact of special events and circumstances such as the Vietnam War and Watergate. A conceptualization of a legitimacy crisis, with perceptual, behavioral and structural dimensions, has been provided and may serve as a point of departure for further research, analysis and political speculation.

Administration and the Crisis in Legitimacy: A Review of Habermasian Thought

Abstract: The methods and values of public administration have been increasingly questioned; as they become more rational and objective, administration has divorced itself from the practical problems of institutional governance. William P. Foster examines how the Marxist scholar, Jiirgen Habermas, has analyzed the problems of modern capitalist society and relates some of Habermas's arguments to the development and structure of administrative theory in the United States.

Machine Politics in Transition: Party and Community in Chicago

Abstract: Since 1932 elections and decision making in Chicago have been dominated by the Regular Democratic Organization of Cook County, led for a quarter of a century by the late Mayor Richard J. Daley. The extraordinary longevity of this Democratic machine provides the basis for this penetrating investigation into the nature of machine politics and grassroots party organization. For three years, Thomas M. Guterbock participated in the daily activities of the Regular Democratic Organization in one North Side Chicago ward in order to discover how political machines win the support of the urban electorate. Guterbock's participant observation data, supplemented by a sample survey of ward residents' attitudes toward, and contacts with the machine, provide convincing evidence that the most widely accepted notions of how political machines work are no longer correct. Contrary to conventional wisdom about the machine, Guterbock finds that the party does not secure votes by doing "favors" for people, nor do services rendered determine actual voting behavior. Instead, party loyalty is governed by such factors as social status, educational achievement, and bureaucratic competence. Guterbock finds that Democratic loyalists are drawn disproportionately from the ward's lowest strata. Ironically, the characteristics of these loyal Democrats contrast sharpely with the characteristics of those most likely to use party services. What keeps the machine going, then? To answer this question, Guterbock takes us behind the scenes for a unique look inside the ward club. He shows how members develop loyalty and motivation beyond concern for their own pocketbooks. And he analyzes the public involvement of machine politicians in neighborhood affairs, describing the skillful sometimes devious ways in which they appeal to their constituents' sense of community. By focusing on the interplay of party loyalty and community attachments, Guterbock is able to explain the continued hegemony of Chicago's political machine and its enduring image of legitimacy."

Representation and Legitimacy in Neighborhood Organizations: a Case Study

Abstract: Voluntary associations are among the most intensively studied features of American social structure, and most of the literature is concerned with the many functions performed by these organizations in urban society. The voluntary association, we have been told, mediates between groups, initiates social change, provides training grounds for leaders, affirms existing values, and acts as a mechanism of

The atom besieged : extraparliamentary dissent in France and Germany

Abstract: "Pennsylvania is everywhere!"This was the rallying cry throughout Europe in the aftermath of the Three Mile Island accident. Certainly the fears of anti-nuclear activists for their safety and for the well-being of future generations provided emotional fuel for the demonstrations, whether fears were based on expertise and factual documentation or on instinctive reactions to the unknown. But "The Atom Besieged" argues that persistent opposition to nuclear power goes well beyond the fear of risk: it is a social movement that embodies fundamental questions about the social and political properties of nuclear technology and its effect on political life."The Atom Besieged" shows how opposition to the proliferation of nuclear power plants goes from basic social concerns about "the effect of technological change on traditional values, the gradual industrialization of rural areas, the concentration of economic activities, the centralization of decision-making power, and the pervasive intrusion of government bureaucracies. For many critics of nuclear power the development of this technology is an important example of such problems; they talk less of nuclear energy than of a 'nuclear society.'"The authors chose France and Germany for their study of the extraparliamentary conflict over nuclear policy because these countries are comparable in terms of their economic and social development, and they are the leading producers of nuclear power in Western Europe. The governments of both countries greatly escalated their nuclear commitments after the 1973 oil crisis, with little or no political debate within the parties or parliaments. Their nuclear politics provoked a comparable mobilization of antinuclear activists. But while this social movement had virtually no policy effect in France, it imposed a moratorium on nuclear power development in Germany. The book's comparative analysis shows how the distinct political systems and cultural traditions of each nation shaped the protest movements and determined their policy effects.The book traces in detail the administrative mechanisms through which "nucleocrats" operate, suggesting how the limited role of representative institutions opened the way to extraparliamentary dissent. It describes the sources of opposition and the organizational, ideological, and tactical evolution of the movement. Finally, it traces how the two governments and their legal systems responded to a protest that has posed basic questions about legitimacy and political control.

Defending illusions: the institution's struggle for survival.

Abstract: Based on participant observation and other qualitative data collected at 15 institutions for the mentally retarded, this study is directed to determining how institutional officials deal with outside criticism of their facilities. Over the past decade and a half, the legitimacy of institutions for the retarded has been challenged by professionals, courts, parent groups, and the media. Officials have reacted to outside criticism by developing new legitimating myths, increasingly sophisticated impression-management techniques, and detailed rationales for the all-too-visible discrepancy between goals and practices. Thus, this paper is concerned with the symbolic nature of the institution's struggle for survival.

A Conceptual Approach to Authority, Power and Policy in the Soviet Union

Abstract: Force is an element in any political system and its crucial role both in establishing and maintaining the Soviet regime scarcely needs demonstrating. However, in most systems the compliance of the population with the demands of their rulers depends not only on the threat or actuality of coercion, but also on a measure, at least, of belief in the ‘legitimacy’ of such demands, and I would claim that the Soviet Union is no exception to this. In other words we are dealing here with a system of authority, and not just of power.

Reason and Authority in Habermas: A Critique of the Critics

Abstract: Some critics of JUrgen Habermas have charged that his ideas have an affinity with authoritarianism. This criticism rests on a fundamental misinterpretation of Habermas' project for a communicative ethics. Political authoritarianism is deeply incompatible with his conceptions of practical rationality and normative legitimacy. After demonstrating this incompatibility, I propose an explanation for the persistence of misunderstanding on this question. In conclusion, some suggestions are offered as to the sort of political orientation one can justifiably derive from Habermas' philosophical foundations.

Opinion Representation versus Social Representation; or, Why Women Can't Run as Women and Win

Abstract: This article, by employing voting simulations in a survey of party activists, examines responses to a woman's claim to party office on the basis of her sex. The degree of acceptance of this claim or the willingness to grant what is called social representation, is contrasted with the respondents' inclinations to select candidates favorable to women's rights, or the willingness to grant what is called opinion representation. Variations in responses to the two simulations are analyzed in terms of attitudes toward gender roles, government intervention and the legitimacy of groups in the political process. Voting in the simulation involving opinion representation can best be understood in terms of the respondent's attitude toward government intervention, while the simulation involving social representation activates the attitude toward groups. Discussion of the findings focuses on the dilemma of group claims for minority representation in a liberal democratic context and the need for better understanding of attitudes toward groups among political elites.

Uganda after amin: the continuing search for leadership and control

Abstract: SCHOLARLY ATTENTION to the role of the military in African politics has turned in recent years from the cause of intervention to the character of the military regime itself, and the possibilities of an end to military rule.' Scepticism at the potential for the restoration of civilian rule has tended to focus on the behavour of the military rather than the character of the civilian authorities that may replace them, and to emphasize the inability of the soldiers to overcome the conditions that had earlier led to their intervention. Yet the military legacy, critical though it is, is unlikely to remain the sole determinant of the fortunes of civilian successors. The successful return to civilian supremacy must depend also on the ability of the civilians to govern and to re-establish their legitimacy. The central task of the restored civil leaders must therefore be the creation of that consensus and attachment to political institutions the absence of which was a prime cause of their earlier overthrow. This article is concerned with the restoration of civilian rule in Uganda. Uganda's experience in the aftermath of the country's liberation from Amin's military rule in 1979 presented in an extreme form the difficulties of reconstituting a civilian-dominated political order. Her situation differed in two respects from that of the other African states where civilian rule has been restored. On the one hand the military did not withdraw, but were overthrown by neighbouring Tanzanian armed forces who put Amin and his army to flight. On the other hand, military rule had been an overwhelmingly destructive force which left in its wake an institutional and political vaccum.2 The impact of Amin's eight years of arbitrary personal rule has resulted in serious institutional decline and in this respect it is significant that the alliance of military and bureaucracy, generally characteristic of army rule, in Uganda broke down. Uganda in April 1979 was in a real sense a 'broken-backed state' and her experience highlights the fundamental consequences for development of the breakdown of institutional order.3

Sainteté, pouvoir et société : Tamgrout aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles

Abstract: Holiness, power and society : Tamgrout in the 1 7th and 18th centuries A. Hammoudi This study deals with the zaouia of Tamgrout in the 1 7th and 18th centuries. On the basis of written sources, oral traditions and ethnographic data, the author tries to achieve an understanding of the conditions for the appearance and success of a religious brotherhood. The nâsriya zaouia emerged in the context of a crisis in which the question of religious and policial legitimacy was posed in a very clearcut manner. But the existence of this crisis cannot, by itself, explain the success of Tamgrout. The biography of its founder reveals a paradigm and a strategy. The paradigm emphasizes certain features such as 'ilm and initiation, and it differs from other paradigms such as, for example, mahdism and statism. The strategy exhibits a close connection with the sedentary peasantry, matrimonial alliances, and some relationships with the central government and with nomadic groups who determined the control of commercial routes. The dissemination of this religious order and the establishment of its affiliates over a period of three generations following the founder's death clearly demonstrate the importance both of competition and negotiation with the central government. One can, following Laroui, attribute the success of the zaouia exclusively to its complicity with the central authorities or, following Gellner, to its role in moderating segmentary conflicts. On the other hand, behind the pseudo-unity of maraboutism (which Geertz takes as his principal point of reference), one can track contradictory ideologies and strategies which correspond to the struggles between antagonistic organized groups.

Polling on Watergate: The Battle for Public Opinion

Abstract: How do polls become part of the political process through which decisions are made and issues resolved? Case studies of the development and outcome of political controversies, like Watergate, can go a long way toward clarification of the direct and indirect impacts of the polls. Gladys Engel Lang is Professor of Sociology and Communications at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Kurt Lang is Professor of Sociology at the same university. This paper is based on research by the authors as Fellows at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C. This support is gratefully acknowledged, as well as a small grant from the John and Mary R. Markle Foundation. Public Opinion Quarterly Vol. 44:530-547 ? 1980 by The Trustees of Columbia University Published by Elsevier North-Holland, Inc. 0033-362X/80/0044-530/$1.75 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.129 on Thu, 28 Jul 2016 04:19:37 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms POLLING ON WATERGATE 531 come; even this minority, while a bit disillusioned, nevertheless accepted the necessity of Nixon's leaving. Few were bitter or vengeful. Seldom, indeed, had there been a greater display of national unity, except in a national emergency, than when Nixon finally stepped down. Whatever political division there had been, the public, for the most part, agreed that Nixon was guilty of obstruction of justice, of abuse of power, of deceiving and lying to the nation, and of abusing their trust.2 Nor did Ford's succession to the presidency stir the controversy it might have. Not that people were as unanimous or enthusiastic about his accession to power as the media were reporting. Ford's approval rating in the polls just after he took office-71 percent, according to Gallup-was below that of Johnson (79 percent) and Truman (87 percent) when similarly elevated from the vice presidency. The legitimacy of this changeover was open to question on several grounds. Ford was not only the first "unelected" chief executive but also Nixon's hand-picked successor (albeit confirmed by Congress) and one of his staunchest defenders during Watergate almost to the bitter end. The Nixon presidency nevertheless ended "not with a bang but a whimper," without any serious political clashes or much visible dissent, without much joyful demonstration or dancing in the streets. The public response was strangely muted. Long months of apparent polarization had suddenly ended with minimal mass display of affect. The transition would not have taken place so quietly had it not been preceded by a dramatic reversal of public opinion. Who would have dared suggest at the beginning of the second Nixon administration that a president reelected with a lopsided majority and at the peak of his popularity could be forced out of office 18 months later? Or that the highest secular office in the world would be turned over, with the nation's blessing, to a man with only limited national recognition? Richard Nixon himself believed that public opinion was the critical factor in what he called the "overriding of [his] landslide mandate" (Nixon, 1978:905f). His struggle to stay in office, especially after the firing of Archibald Cox in October 1973, when impeachment became a real possibility, was for him a "race for public support," what he called his "last campaign," only this time it was not for political office but for his "political life" (Nixon, 1978:972). 2 Our survey on Long Island showed roughly three-fourths of those interviewed judged the president guilty of obstruction of justice and abuse of power, charges on which he would have been tried by the Senate. About two-thirds judged him guilty of income tax fraud and misuse of the taxpayers' money for private purposes, charges on which the House Judiciary Committee had failed to vote articles of impeachment. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.129 on Thu, 28 Jul 2016 04:19:37 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Asymmetrical Reciprocity: A Contribution to the Theory of Political Legitimacy [and Comments and Reply]

Abstract: This is an essay on political legitimacy and the ideas, here called "political ideology," that sustain legitimacy. Following Weber and Durkheim, I discuss the viability and effectiveness of ideology and related matters. Such considerations suggest a useful definition of political legitimacy. Our concern here is with two related forms of ideology, both variants on "asymmetrical reciprocity," both institutionalized deviations from a panhuman predisposition, the norm of reciprocity. The deviation may be centrifugal, wherein the leader is his followers' "creditor" because he is believed to give more "gifts" than he receives, or it may be centripetal, wherein he is "debtor" because elevated to high office and the demand-right lies with his constituents, who require him to distribute favors. The two ideologies are not polar dichotomies of the sort usual in social science-folk vs. urban, tradition vs. modernity, etc.-because, for example, they subsume ideology alone, not whole social types, because they do not n...

"After College, What?": New Graduates and the Family Claim

Abstract: century confronted a dilemma made famous by Jane Addams in her autobiography, Twenty Years at Hull House, and her essay, "Filial Relations": when graduates returned home from college eager to apply their knowledge and skills to the larger social realm, parents, refusing to sanction the legitimacy of this "social claim," reasserted familial authority. The daughter, still regarded as a "family possession" despite her years at college, submitted, though she felt wronged. The result, said Addams, was an "unhappy woman," restless and miserable, "consumed by vain regrets and desires." ' In this essay, I shall examine the formative place of familial relationships in the after-college lives of educated women of this era, and shall suggest a modification of the "social" vs. "family" claim which Addams described.2 Although as Addams suggested, familial attachments often prevented individuals from using their higher education in a manner commensurate with the promise of the college years, the role of the family

Citizenship Education for Conflict: An Empirical Assessment of the Relationship between Principled Thinking and Tolerance for Conflict and Diversity.

Abstract: This study brings the perspective of cognitive moral development to the frequent finding that citizens endorse democratic procedural norms in the abstract, but are unable to apply these norms to unpopular groups or actions. If the ability to apply these norms entails a capacity for principled reasoning then we would expect to find that principled thinkers surpass non-principled thinkers in applying such democratic principles as majority rule and minority rights in concrete controversial situations; in endorsing the legitimacy of political conflict; in defining the citizen role as active rather than passive; and by showing greater interest in politics. Results of the study support all but the final assertion. If educators wish to facilitate the development of civic tolerance, attention must be paid to creating conditions conducive to cognitive moral development.

Chicano Community Control, Political Cynicism and the Validity of Political Trust Measures:

Abstract: T HE NOTION of political cynicism has held a special fascination for political scientists and political sociologists. Conceptual ties to longstanding philosophical preoccupations with legitimacy, stability, and social change endow the study of political mistrust with an almost archetypal quality. As a result, the literature in this field is quite extensive and is characterized by lively controversies concerning the utility of the concept as a measurement of popular discontent.1 Given its compelling conceptual centrality, the study of political cynicism quickly attained great significance within the relatively new field of Chicano politics. Early studies tended to corroborate the hypothesis that Chicanos display higher levels of political mistrust than Anglos but lower levels than blacks.2 Subsequent studies have dealt with the process of attitude acquisition. Here, preliminary findings indicate that high political cynicism is not transmitted within the Chicano family: very young Chicanos tend to be most trusting, but acquire a cynical posture (presumably through unpleasant experiences in an "Anglo world") during adolescence.3 The current study represents an attempt to build upon these earlier findings by investigating varying levels of political cynicism within the diverse Chicano population. Specifically, this effort entails an examination of differences in affective and behavioral political orientations displayed by Chicano high school students, young adults on the brink of full civic participation, living in communities possessing clearly divergent patterns of Chicano political influence. Other observers of Chicano politics have already commented on the great regional diversity Chicanos display across the United States.4 Chicanos are

In the Service of the Revolution: Two Decades of Cuban Historiography, 1959–1979

Abstract: HEtriumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 presented the revolutionary government with the immediate task of legitimizing the new order. Over a period of twenty years, this enterprise demanded vast quantities of energy, resources, and ingenuity and ultimately required the participation of the full polity-fromn revolutionary elites to mass organizations.' To be sure, the early phase of this process did not differentiate the Cuban experience from the difficulties typically attending all transfers of political power, particularly insofar as such transfers occur outside the context of sanctioned institutional change. The requirements of legitimacy in these instances are ordinarily fulfilled by recourse to a variety of pragmatic short-term devices. Indeed, the act of legitimizing a new political order often is solely the function of legal fiat underwritten by force. The process through which an initial transfer of political power evolves into the radical transformation of society, however, considerably raises the requirements of legitimacy. Redefining the future requires reconsidering the past. The pursuit of an unknown futurewhatever its utopian promise-obtains support in the present only to the extent that it is possessed of recognizable symbols of the past. Karl Marx early discerned that the past was endowed with a peculiar sanction and inviolability. Societies approached revolutionary change reluctantly, Marx noted, often under great pressure, and always in need of reassurances that the enterprise of revolution was somehow consistent with traditions of the past. The pursuit of revolutionary change and, ultimately, the very radical break with the past, evolve

The Status of Research on Representative Institutions in Eastern Europe

Abstract: A substantial increase in attention in recent years to socialist representative institutions in Eastern Europe reflects their changing and cautiously expanding political roles, resulting partly from their use by the communist party as a means of social control over what is seen as an increasingly unruly state bureaucracy. Representative institutions are involved in what has become a more complex process of governance, and in what some Western writers see as increasingly strident interinstitutional struggles for claims to political legitimacy. The future keys to the roles of socialist representative institutions include the extent to which: (1) the party maintains close control over personnel selection for representative bodies; (2) institutional identity and interests may develop among members of representative institutions; (3) group interests coalesce and seek institutional expression; (4) the state apparatus continues to demonstrate tendencies toward contrived insulation from the party apparatus; and (5) failures of economic ministries necessitate legislative oversight. This essay also briefly characterizes the methodology of recent studies, and suggests how future research on socialist representative institutions might profitably be reoriented.