Showing papers on "Voting behavior published in 1978"

Political Control of the Economy

Abstract: Speculations about the effects of politics on economic life have a long and vital tradition, but few efforts have been made to determine the precise relationship between them. Edward Tufte, a political scientist who covered the 1976 Presidential election for "Newsweek," seeks to do just that. His sharp analyses and astute observations lead to an eye-opening view of the impact of political life on the national economy of America and other capitalist democracies.The analysis demonstrates how politicians, political parties, and voters decide who gets what, when, and how in the economic arena. A nation's politics, it is argued, shape the most important aspects of economic life--inflation, unemployment, income redistribution, the growth of government, and the extent of central economic control. Both statistical data and case studies (based on interviews and Presidential documents) are brought to bear on four topics. They are: 1) the political manipulation of the economy in election years, 2) the new international electoral-economic cycle, 3) the decisive role of political leaders and parties in shaping macroeconomic outcomes, and 4) the response of the electorate to changing economic conditions. Finally, the book clarifies a central question in political economy: How can national economic policy be conducted in both a "democratic" and a "competent" fashion?

The effect of economic events on votes for president

Abstract: N important question in political economy A.’ ts how, if at all, economic events affect voting behavior. Although there is by now a fairly large literature devoted to this question,’ there is no widely agreed upon answer. Kramer (1971), for example, concluded from his analysis of U.S. voting behavior that economic fluctuations have an important influence on congressional elections, whereas Stigler (1973) concluded that they do not. This debate‘has been continued by Arcelus and Meltzer (1975a, b), Bloom and Price (1975), and Goodman and Kramer (1975)? Many of the disagreements in this area are over statistical procedures and the interpretation of empirical results, but it is also clear that there is no single theory of voting behavior to which everyone subscribes. Unfortunately, the distinction between theoretical and empirical disagreements in this literature is often not very sharp, and there has been no systematic testing of one theory against another. This paper has two main purposes. The first is to present a model of voting behavior that is general enough to incorporate what appear to be most of the theories of voting behavior in the recent literature and that allows one to test

Newspapers, Television and Political Reasoning

Abstract: Adults' use of newspapers is found to correlate positively with having reasons for preferring one U.S. senatorial candidate over another. Television exposure is negatively related to political "reasoning" to a nearly significant degree. Data were provided by a 1974 nationwide, postelection survey. Analysis was conducted at the aggregate level, examining media behavior and political knowledge in 67 news markets. News markets with competition among daily newspapers show greater levels of information than monopoly areas, controlling for education and interest in politics. Results suggest that a decline in newspaper penetration, lessened competition, or shift toward use of television for news would weaken peoples' understanding about partisan candidates. Peter Clarke is Professor and Chairman, Department of Journalism, University of Michigan. Eric Fredin is a student in the Interdepartmental Doctoral Program in Mass Communication, University of Michigan. Data for this report were collected by the Center for Political Studies of the Institute for Social Research. Support was provided by grants from the National Science Foundation, the John and Mary R. Markle Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation. Survey documentation and data are available from the Inter-University Consortium for Political Research, University of Michigan. Neither the original collectors of the data nor the Consortium bear any responsibility for the analyses or interpretations presented here. Public Opinion Quarterly ? 1978 by The Trustees of Columbia University Published by Elsevier North-Holland, Inc. 0033-362X/78/0042-0143/$1.75 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.100 on Thu, 25 Aug 2016 04:28:50 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 144 CLARKE AND FREDIN Researchers should take pains, therefore, to plot the educational role of journalism. The nature of this role, and how different media share in it, may yield hints about the future for rationality and order in American political life.3 Studies have recently confirmed that this educational role exists, despite solemn, sociological pronouncements a few years back about "minimal effects." Agenda setting by media is widely recognized now.4 Learning about public affairs from media has been documented, holding competing explanations constant.5 This article presents two amplifications to recent documentation. The first details the relative contributions of newspapers and television to the public informing process. These contributions may interest prophets of the American political future who note the steady slippage in per capita circulation of newspapers and the persistent rise in minutes spent viewing television news.6 Although this shift may produce changes in levels of political understanding, it is also possible that informing functions traditionally served by newspapers are being assumed by electronic journalism.7 The first findings reported below shed light on these alternative possibilities. A second goal is to discern whether characteristics of media offered to citizens play a part in how informed people are. For reasons that will be made clear, amount of newspaper competition in markets is a key to understanding public information about political affairs. Since competition among newspapers is thought to be declining, any relationship between competition and levels of information would have implications for the future course of American political behavior. Knowing about Public Affairs What is the proper definition of being "informed"? The present analysis argues that possessing information about public affairs means 3 Comparisons between print and broadcast media in political effects have been reported recently. See McClure and Patterson (1974 and 1976). 4 Pertinent findings are reviewed in McCombs and Shaw (1976). See also Palmgreen and Clarke (1977). 5 For a study comparing national and local public affairs issues, see Palmgreen (1975). 6 Current criticism of both newspapers and local television news leads to the discouraging prediction that the public's grasp of "hard news" would be on the decline, whatever media they use. For pessimistic analyses, see Powers (1977), and Bordewich (1977). Trends in audience research are amply portrayed in minutes of meetings by the American Newspaper Publishers Association and in the pages of Broadcasting

Change in the Structure of American Political Attitudes: The Nagging Question of Question Wording

Abstract: One of the current controversies raging in the voting behavior literature concerns the "rational" character of the American electorate. The early Michigan studies depicted the typical American voter as nonrational and inconsistent in his political attitudes, while recent research has cast him in a more favorable light. Using data from the 1956 and 1964 SRC Election Studies, this article demonstrates that much of the change which has been uncovered during this period can be traced to methodological artifacts, specifically changes in question wording and format introduced by the SRC in 1964. The effects of these artifacts have some major implications for many current theories of electoral behavior.

Understanding Public Reaction to Energy Proposals: An Application of the Fishbein Model1

Abstract: The Fishbein attitude model was applied to voter decision-making on an energy ballot proposal. Questionnaires were sent to a random sample of potential voters in Oregon's 1976 general election and dealt with the Nuclear Safeguards Initiative, a measure that would place restrictions on future nuclear power plants. Questionnaire items probed the attitude toward the act of voting “Yes” on the measure (Aact), perceived likelihood of various consequences of voting “Yes” (Bi), evaluations of these consequences (ei), the subjective norm (SN), normative beliefs (NBi), motivation to comply with several referents (Mci), and voting intention (VI). A follow-up interview determined the actual voting behavior (VB) of persons responding to the questionnaire. The following model predictions were tested and strongly supported by the data: (a) VB=VI; and (e) external variables have a nonsignificant relation to VB once VI is partialled out. It was concluded that the Fishbein model should be extremely useful in understanding public reaction to future energy proposals.

Cycles in senatorial voting behavior: implications for the optimal frequency of elections

Abstract: The effect that the length of electoral periods has on the behavior of elected officials is examined. The hypothesis is that the longer the period between elections the less responsible or the more independent representatives will behave relative to the desires of their polity. The hypothesis is tested by examining the behavior of U.S. Senators. It is found that their independence follows a cyclical behavior which conforms to the electoral period. As a result it is by no means clear that decreasing the frequency of elections reduces the cost of elections. The effect of this independence cost on the optimal frequency of elections is discussed.

Congressional Behavior and Electoral Marginality

Abstract: The "marginality" hypothesis maintains that members of Congress from marginal districts will display more moderation in their voting behavior than will those from safe districts. We give two alternative interpretations to the hypothesis: Candidates from more marginal districts will: (1) tend to converge to the positions of their constituents; and (2) tend to converge to the positions of their opponents. Employing policy opinion data on both party candidates for 299 districts for which valid competition figures could be obtained, and simulated constituency opinions for the same districts, we find a general tendency for candidates to diverge from each other in marginal districts. However, we find that in the more marginal districts, candidates closest to the constituency opinion are considerably more likely to win than their opponent-although quite the contrary is the case for the noncompetitive districts. Incumbents are found to have greater probability of winning reelection than their challengers even when the latter are closer to constituency opinion.

Critical Elections, Congressional Parties and Clusters of Policy Changes

Abstract: Profound changes in American public policy have occurred only rarely and have been associated with ‘critical’ or ‘realigning’ elections in which ‘more or less profound readjustments occur in the relations of power within the community’. Since the appearance of V. O. Key's seminal articles on critical elections, an increasing number of political scientists have attributed great importance to such elections. Schatt-schneider views the structure of politics brought into being by critical elections as systems of action. Thus, during realignments, not only voting behavior but institutional roles and policy outputs undergo substantial change. Burnham, perhaps the most important analyst of realignment patterns, alleges the existence of an intimate relationship between realigning elections and ‘transformations in large clusters of policy’.

Ideological Identification and the American Voter

Abstract: This article explores the utility of respondent self-evaluation of ideological position on a liberal-conservative scale as a predictor of vote relative to two other types of predictors: party identification and issue positions. The general conclusion is that ideological self-evaluation identifies an effect that is independent of the other two predictors in the electorate as a whole but that the extent of this effect can vary substantially, depending on the context of the campaign and the social grouping being considered. As expected, its effect was more pronounced in 1972 than 1968, or 1964. John D. Holm is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Cleveland State University. John P. Robinson is Director of the Communication Research Center and Professor of Communication at Cleveland State University. The authors are listed alphabetically to indicate equal co-authorship. Public Opinion Quarterly ? 1978 by The Trustees of Columbia University Published by Elsevier North-Holland, Inc. 0033-362X/78/0042-0235/$1.75 This content downloaded from 207.46.13.103 on Thu, 20 Oct 2016 03:58:37 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 236 HOLM AND ROBINSON qualitative coding of voters' open-ended responses to questions regarding their attitudes toward the parties and presidential candidates in order to determine the extent to which these responses are ideological in nature (Campbell et al., 1960; Field and Anderson, 1969). This approach assumes that the voter is aware of and can articulate the ideological element in his thinking, a consideration questioned by many (see especially Mannheim, 1936). The second approach to policy orientation uses issue positions as indicators of ideological position or thinking. The most elaborate and compelling version of this approach is provided by Nie and his associates (1976), who constructed an ideological index from a number of issues and then correlated the index with the person's actual voting decision. The more consistent or intensive the respondent was in taking a liberal or conservative position on the various issues constituting the scale, the higher or lower he placed on the liberal-conservative continuum. The Nie et al. approach in essence measures the extent to which the voter's particular policy positions are constrained by an underlying liberal or conservative orientation. The issues chosen in this approach have generally been those generating the most conflict prior to and during the election campaign. Since politicians often emphasize interest-group aspects of issues, e.g., class, race, or occupation, they may obscure the extent to which issue positions can be used to identify ideological orientation. Both approaches do provide unique insights into the voter's policy orientation. The open-ended approach indicates the extent to which voters consciously think of their voting behavior and perceptions in ideological terms. As such it gives a conservative estimate of the role of ideology. The issue-consistency approach, on the other hand, allows the analyst to identify a connective attitude structure or belief system which is preverbal or difficult to verbalize. Also since it focuses on policy questions of current debate, the closed-ended approach ought to identify those aspects of voter ideology most germane to the decisions which elected officials are likely to make. Neither approach directly probes a voter's overall ideological identification or the extent to which such basic beliefs influence his voting decision. This article explores the viability of a measure of ideological identification using explicit voter self-evaluations of ideological position as an alternative approach to existing implicit measures. Explicit ideological identification is useful in several ways. First, it concentrates on how the voter sees himself or herself and not on whether his or her thinking matches up with a socially defined model. Second, the question can be general enough to include various forms of ideological thinking, ranging from those who think through policy questions only in ideological terms to those who simply use liberal and This content downloaded from 207.46.13.103 on Thu, 20 Oct 2016 03:58:37 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms IDEOLOGY AND THE AMERICAN VOTER 237 conservative as labels to attach to candidates in lieu of time-consuming evaluations of candidate positions (Popkin et al., 1976). Third, this indicator is more suitable for comparison with party identification than the other policy orientation indicators. Like party, ideological identification allows voters to align themselves straightforwardly with respect to a dimension of perception potentially affecting their vote.2 The weaknesses of this explicit approach vis-a-vis the other two approaches are readily apparent. Respondents can align themselves on an ideological scale with no indication of how able or willing they are to use ideology in determining their behavior. Different respondents can place themselves at the same point on the scale using vastly different definitions of liberal and conservative. Finally, the scale excludes voters who de facto have an ideological orientation in thinking about political issues but are not conscious of the fact. This paper examines the performance of self-perceived ideological identification as a predictor of vote in the 1972 election. Our major hypothesis is that among groups in the population more likely to be sensitive towards ideology, i.e., independents, the educated, the informed, and youth, ideological identification should be a better predictor than among partisans, the less educated, the ideologically uninformed, and senior citizens. We further hypothesize that among the former groups, it will be a better predictor of vote than party identification.3 After exploring the extent to which this hypothesis holds, we seek to elaborate the relation of ideological identification to two significant contextual questions, namely, whether ideology has any separate significance from issues and partisanship in a campaign and whether ideology varies depending on the character of the campaign conducted. 2 The levels of conceptualization approach used in The American Voter revealed that 13 percent of open-ended responses relating to party and presidential choice had some significant ideological orientation compared to only 4 percent reflecting a party orientation. However, the operationalization used by the Michigan researchers to capture impact of party identification was the respondents' own direct indication of party orientation and not simply whether party was mentioned in the context of an open-ended question. 3 These hypotheses are suggested by various discussions of the decline of party identification as a predictive variable and of the rise of policy-oriented voting. For instance, with regard to education and information, Miller et al. (1976; 770) comment: "As the focus of analysis moves across education levels from grade school to college, the bulk of the explanatory power shifts from candidate image to issues and ideology. Voters with a college education are better informed politically, generally more cognizant of policy differences between candidates and, therefore, more likely to make a vote decision on the basis of policy preferences." Miller et al. further state with regard to Independents that an "additional explanation for the decreased predictive power of party identification is that partisan attachment itself had declined significantly in the population by 1972" and thus "issues can be expected to play an increasingly significant role" (1976: 771). The age hypothesis was suggested most particularly by Paul R. Abramson's (1976) study which shows the decline in party identification to be in part a generation effect. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.103 on Thu, 20 Oct 2016 03:58:37 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 238 HOLM AND ROBINSON

Policy Voting in Britain: The Colored Immigration Issue in the 1964, 1966, and 1970 General Elections*

Abstract: Several studies in recent years have examined the question of mass issue voting in the United States and have found that people vote more frequently on the basis of policy questions than has heretofore been thought. It would seem to be useful for the study of comparative politics to explore mass policy voting in other democratic countries. The colored immigration issue in Britain is a particularly appropriate one to examine because of the controversy surrounding its impact on voting behavior, especially in the 1970 election. Are the policy preferences of the electorate related to their voting behavior? This question is examined longitudinally through a secondary analysis of the Butler-Stokes election surveys of 1964,1966, and 1970 for England.After utilizing controls for a large number of variables, one finds that theimmigration issue had no significant impact on electoral behavior in 1964 and 1966. In the 1970 election, however, the Conservatives gained an estimated increment of 6.7 percent in votes because many people perceived them to be the party more likely to keep immigrants out and voted in accordance with that perception. This impact can be attributed to Enoch Powell's associating the Conservative party with restrictive immigration control in the public mind.

The Decline of Class Voting in Britain: Problems of Analysis and Interpretation

Abstract: Social class has long been recognized as being the preeminent influence upon electoral choice in Britain, but recent studies provide support for the argument that it has become a weakened force. These studies differ only in the interpretation that they place on its decline. Through the simultaneous estimation of the effects on voting choice of class measured by occupation, and other variables, this article shows how one of the recent studies implied an overestimate of the declining importance of occupational class. Further it shows that when the indirect effects of class on party choice are taken into account, by means of causal modeling techniques, its preeminent position in determining voting choice in Britain can still be seen. The article seeks to clarify the nature of class-based voting behavior during a period of dramatic decline in this phenomenon, terminating at the last point at which traditional measures can reasonably be used.

Class and Party in the Secession Crisis: Voting Behavior in the Deep South, 1856-1861

Abstract: break of civil war. Historians of American voting behavior have examined many aspects of the election and the six years of realignment which preceded it, but the bulk of this research focuses on the Northern states, where the realignment process generated an entirely new party, the Republicans. The major concern of scholars such as Formisano, Holt, and Kleppner is the role of religion and ethnicity in shaping individual voter choice. The assumption that the electoral configuration of I860 remained in effect in most Northern states until the i89os may have heightened its interest for political scientists and historians investigating long-term trends in the American party system.1 For the study of crisis politics, on the other hand, voting behavior below the Mason-Dixon line is of far greater significance. In the lower South, the November balloting for president and the elections for delegates to secession conventions during the next two months provide a unique case study of citizens voting-in what might loosely be termed free elections-for the alternative of political rebellion. In his influential essay, "The Emergence of the

Psychological Origins of Adolescent Political Attitudes Self-Esteem, Political Salience, and Political Involvement

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence that psychological predisposi tions have on political attitudes. In particular, the study focuses on the linkage between self-esteem and the political attitudes of adolescents. It is hypothesized that adolescents' self-esteem should influence their awareness and comprehension of political stimuli, their level of political cynicism and political efficacy, and their mode of participation in the political process. It is also hypothesized that these relationships will be substantially stronger among those adolescents for whom politics is salient than among those who have little interest in political affairs. The empirical findings are generally congruent with these theoretical expectations. It is concluded that self-esteem has a significant, independent influence on the political attitudes of those adolescents who perceive politics to be a salient aspect of their life-space.

The africanization of political change: some aspects of the dynamics of political cultures in ghana and nigeria

Abstract: IThe inability of most African states to find a political norm compatible with the exigencies of independence is by now a truism. The inherent lack of political order on the continent and the common recourse to political violence have been the subject of much debate among scholars and observers of African political events.1 Within the general framework of instability, it is apparent that there are many differences in political occurrences in seemingly colonial-inherited and weak frameworks, and a proliferation of internal variations within each state which derive from the differential impact of values and norms nurtured on the sub-national or the traditional level. These phenomena have pointed forcefully to the need to approach the study of African political processes in African terms. Indeed, the Africanization of the study of politics on the continent may perhaps be a vital precondition for the understanding of the contemporary African political scene. The quest for African explanations for political events has, unlike parallel efforts in other disciplines, been far from smooth. Justifiably, attention was first focused on the examination of continuities and discontinuities in the political history of given areas. Such essentially micro-research efforts, while exciting in that they have uncovered new empirical data and provided important insights into the complexity of traditional African political life, are nevertheless problematic because the patterns of political thought and organization that they trace are not easily transferred to the macro level. The purpose of this paper is to isolate basic political culture constructs prevalent in the pre-colonial period in an attempt to conceptualize, in African terms, some contemporary political occurrences on the macro as well as the micro level. Two basic assumptions lie at the core of this undertaking: first, that traditional political culture models (herein defined as those general political orientations and specific political values that dictate patterns of political behavior and institutional growth) provide paradigms for political organization and action in Africa today; and second, that by examining the interaction of the concrete articulators of the various political culture models, it is possible to determine some of the main factors underlying the dynamics of political behavior in independent Africa.

Generational Differences in the Role of Party Identification in German Political Behavior

Abstract: This article examines the continuing controversy about party identification in West Germany from a generational perspective. A causal analysis in which party identification is seen as the intervening variable between social background and voting behavior is conducted for six age cohorts with data from a 1972 election study. This reveals that the model fits better among young Germans than it does among older ones. The possibility that these results represent generational differences is then tested through cohort analysis with data from a 1953 survey. The article concludes with several hypotheses about the nature of the partisan acquisition process in West Germany.

Uncertainty and the Formal Theory of Political Campaigns

Abstract: Many empirical investigations indicate that information is scarce and therefore costly to holders and seekers of public office. Indeed, some studies suggest that imperfect information may account for important aspects of the behavior of politicians. Nevertheless, there is as yet no theoretical investigation of political decision making that illustrates the impact of costly information or behavior. In this paper the authors develop a model of electoral competition in which the candidates are only imperfectly aware of public preferences over issues and in which they may have the opportunity to increase the amount of information they hold at some cost. It turns out that the absence of perfect information profoundly affects the strategic structure of candidate competition. If information is costless, two-party electoral contests are naturally modeled as symmetric two-person zero-sum games. However, if candidates have distinct beliefs about voter behavior, the natural game-theoretic representation becomes a non-zero-sum game. This article is concerned mostly with analyzing the consequences of this transformation.

The personal and the political: Social work and political action

Abstract: Are human misery, poverty and despair a result of personal inadequacy or social injustice? Therefore is the solution to these problems psychotherapy or political action? In one of the most important books on social work for a decade, Paul Halmos tries to resolve a dilemma which many social workers experience acutely – the conflict between a desire to help those in need and a fear that, by doing so, they merely support a political system which should, itself, be changed. Such a dilemma was highlighted during the sixties when 'casework' and personal counselling became discredited by the 'rediscovery' of widespread poverty and inequality in western society. To many the only solution seemed to be urgent and radical political action. For Professor Halmos the realities are more complex – an exclusive preoccupation with either personal or political solutions is unlikely to prove fruitful – what is needed is a dual sensitivity and balance. Yet for the author it is the political solution which carries within it the greater risk and he warns of the dangers inherent in the total politicization of social concerns. He argues that social action can become political action and ultimately political control.

Homogeneity of Political Party Preferences between Spouses

Abstract: RESEARCH ON THE POLITICAL socialization process has well documented the significant impact of parents on the formation of political party preferences in offspring. A causal model of the political socialization process by David Knoke demonstrated that the best single predictor of an individual's party preference is the preference of his parents.' In addition, a good deal of the research on the party identifications of spouses has shown that husbands and wives frequently have the same party preference. Langton and Jennings2 found that 72 percent of all spouses had similar preferences, while Macoby, et. al.3 discovered a 77 percent rate of agreement. Together, these results seem to imply that spouses have similar party

A case study of the 1976 referendum in Utah on fluoridation.

Abstract: FLUORIDATION OF PUBLIC WATER SUPPLIES by the State board of health is prohibited in Utah. A majority of the voters in a State election held on November 2, 1976, supported initiative proposal A on the ballot, which grants the prerogative to decide about fluoridation to the voting majority in local water districts and prohibits fluoridation by the State board of health. The election outcome was contrary to the results of referendums on the same day in two other Western States and conflicted with scientific research findings. The fluoridation issue, however, is far from being closed in Utah, and the State's experience has several direct and indirect implications for fluoridationists and for the health field in general. In Utah, the issue will be brought up again and resolved in a future election. As to the general implications of the Utah experience in 1976, success with fluoridation-as with similar public health programs (immunizations, environmental protection, family planning, and the like)-is contingent upon public acceptance. The Utah experience thus presents a case study of efforts to gain and keep public acceptance that should be of interest to health educators, dentists, public policy planners and executives, and social scientists. For each of these groups a thorough understanding of the factors influencing voter behavior is essential. After examining the 1976 voting results in Utah and the processes leading to election day, I will discuss campaign strategies, the role of influential groups in the community in the campaign, Utah's past record on fluoridation, the results of public opinion polls on fluoridation, and media coverage of the fluoridation issue. The purpose of this review is to attempt to determine why the voting majority decided to vote to prohibit fluoridation by the State board of health and what can be done to prevent a recurrence of that decision in a future election. Little space will be devoted to the scientific evidence for and against fluoridation. Instead, my presentation will focus on the arguments as perceived and advanced by the Utah electorate.

Political Hopelessness: A New Dimension of Systemic Disaffection

Abstract: Summary A six-item scale has been constructed to measure feelings of hopelessness about the future of the political system. The scale manifests internal consistency and concurrent validity, and is not significantly affected by the categoric-demographic attributes of the respondents surveyed (N = 264 male and female college students). Moreover, sociological, psychological, and political indicators are found to correlate with feelings of political hopelessness. Finally, a model of political hopelessness antecedents is supported, in which life dissatisfaction, low self-competence, and critical perceptions of the sociopolitical system's functioning are shown to foster feelings of political hopelessness. These findings are then considered within the context of individual- and system-blame perspectives on political behavior, in relationship to the broader concept of political alienation, and with regard to political violence justification.

An economic analysis of the voting on Michigan's tax and expenditure limitation amendment

Abstract: This paper investigates electorate behavior on Proposal C, a proposed amendment to the Michigan constitution, whose passage would have limited taxes and expenditures in the State of Michigan. Voting behavior was analyzed within the framework of the basic hypotheses: that the electorate tended to vote on Proposal C in its economic interests, narrowly conceived. The results were contradictory, with some groups voting against their economic interests and others voting as the hypothesis would predict. Further, a relatively low percentage of the total voting variance was explained, indicating that perhaps other variables than economic ones influenced voting behavior.

Dynamic and Static Components of Political Support in Britain

Abstract: Many studies in British politics in particular and comparative politics more generally have shown a strong relation between personal attributes and voting behavior. Such studies have tended to assume an excessively static picture of party support. "Issue-voting" models, on the other hand, have not adequately accounted for sources of electoral stability. This paper attempts to link structural and political factors in a single model of political preference, and to show the implications of this for the study of broader questions such as why political systems remain stable or change over time. Two routes by which the social structure affects political preferences are posited, estimated, and compared. The strength of the endogenous political component raises the question of the source of stability in the British political system. The proposed model thus estimates the importance of lagged judgments and socialization biases in maintaining a core of "partisan" support for the parties.

Political Involvement and Partisan Change in Presidential Elections

Abstract: Using evidence from the S.R.C. surveys about voting behavior in the presidential elections 1952-1972, this article reexamines the question whether there are in fact groups in the electorate, defined in terms of their level of political involvement, which play a particularly important role in facilitating electoral change. The findings presented here indicate that the pattern of opinion shifts among apathetic and concerned voters is not uniform across elections but varies significantly according to the special features of the individual campaign. The tendency for apathetic voters to contribute disproportionately to electoral change must be seen not as a generally valid model but as one of a number of possible patterns, each associated with particular .combinations of campaign stimuli. Moreover, contrary to the argument that flexibility in the electoral system depends upon the voters with low levels of political involvement, the evidence analyzed here indicates that when the apathetics do contribute especially to electoral change, they serve in effect as agents of systemic stability.

Voting behavior of HSA interest groups: a case study.

Abstract: A study of the voting behavior of both consumers and providers involved on a Health Systems Agency (HSA) review committee was undertaken to determine the amount of voting cohesion (solidarity) demonstrated by these two basic interest groups as well as the directions in review decisions desired by both of these groups. The case study involved the application of the Rice Index of voting cohesion behavior to 23 decisions in one of the largest HSAs in the country. The conclusions reached are that: 1) consumers and providers do have differences in their intra-group voting cohesion, but that more importantly 2) they do not appear to be different with respect to the decisions (approve or deny) both groups desire for project reviews.

Effect of Party Affiliation of Student Voters on the Image of Presidential Candidates

Abstract: The hypothesis that a political candidate's image is not constant and differs predictably among different subgroups of the electorate was tested. Three different samples of undergraduate subjects were used in a 2 × 2 factorial design in which equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats rated the images of Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter by means of the semantic differential just prior to the 1976 Presidential election. As hypothesized, in all three samples, Republicans rated Ford higher than Carter, while Democrats did just the reverse. Though Democrats rated Carter higher than Ford, more of them indicated an intent to vote for Ford than for Carter. This finding contradicts previous information that image ratings predict voting behavior but may represent a special case in that college students' weak party affiliation, their lack of knowledge about politics, and their responsiveness to their agemates may make them extremely susceptible to peer pressure in elections.

A New Approach to Pre-election Polling

Abstract: PRE-ELECTION POLLS currently utilize either a simulation approach or an attitude approach. Polls based on the simulation approach seek to determine the distribution of potential votes among candidates or parties at various points in time prior to election day. This type of poll is used mostly by professional pollsters (Mendelsohn and Crespi, 1970). On the other hand, polls based on the attitude approach try to ascertain the degree of support among voters for various candidates and parties. They are employed mainly by political scientists to study the voter dynamics and to attempt to predict voter behavior (Campbell et al., 1960; Kelley and Mirer, 1974; Dobson and St. Angelo, 1975). Polls based on the simulation and attitude approaches can make use of two dis-tinct types of measurement: voters' intentions and voters' attitudes. Clearly, the simulation approach relies heavily on voters' intentions, with attitude measurement, if it appears at all, providing complementary information (Teer and Spence, 1973: 210). The opposite is true for polls based on the attitude approach (Kelley and Mirer, 1974:576). Unfortunately, it is not possible to obtain a perfect correlation for the two types of measurement, since they are derived independently and utilize different types of scales. At best the transfer function from one scale to another is probabilistic on a post-facto bais (Kelley and Mirer, 1974:582). No single measure, however, yields both types of results simultaneously.

Political Parties and Presidential Ambition

Abstract: ACCORDING TO POLITICAL SCIENTISTS of the last generation, part competition was an essential feature of any form of popular government. How dismayed they would be, therefore, to learn from contemporary students of American politics that our parties are "decomposing" and that our national electoral process is increasingly taking on the characteristics of nonpartisan competition.' While the labels of the two traditional parties continue to exist, the institutions bearing these labels have lost many of their previous functions. Parties no longer structure the voting behavior of large numbers of citizens. They have ceased to play a major role in constraining presidential decision-making, and presidents now place little reliance on them in their efforts to generate public support for policy initiatives. Perhaps most important of all, party organizations have lost their influence in determining the outcome of presidential nominations. Under the "open" nominating process