The meaning of party labels

To determine the meaning(s) of the concepts Republican, Democrat, and Independent, the most frequently cited attributes of each party label were scaled in terms of their semantic centrality. An analysis of the magnitude scale values demonstrates that the labels Republican and Democrat have unique cognitive properties which easily discriminate one label from another. The most characteristic and discriminating properties refer to (1) voting, (2) electioneering, and (3) other forms of electoral behavior. Although these two labels have many strong properties over which there is considerable agreement, such consensus is lacking for the fewer and weaker properties which characterize and discriminate the label Independent. Whereas Republican and Democrat are sharply delineated, semantic inversions of one another, the concept Independent is ambiguously defined and only weakly distinguishable from other concepts.     

Public opinion and presidential responsibility for the economy: Understanding personalization

The general mechanisms which underlie the psychological phenomenon ofpersonalizing (cognitive simplification and defensive attribution) would seem to have great utility in explaining attributions of presidential control over the economy. Yet previous research has generated inconsistent and inconclusive empirical results. This study identifies several sources of inconsistency and then attempts to clarify the approach by focusing separately on the object and the subject of personalizing. Our findings suggest that the determinants of personalizing to the president are different from the factors that explain personalizing to the incumbent. In addition, we find that the impact of the two psychological mechanisms differs substantially within economic subject areas.Paper prepared for delivery at the 1984 Annual Meeting of the Southwestern Political Science Association, Fort Worth, Texas.     

Subformal warning systems in the species Homo politicus

A political activist needs to pick up early warning signals that something is happening which might require his attention. The something could be an emergent danger or opportunity. An ideal-typical warning system is postulated to account for what is believed to be the extraordinary infrequency of activists being caught off guard under most routine conditions. Such a system would ideally meet four criteria: rapidity, comprehensiveness, validity, and selectivity. The postulated system rests on what Anthony Downs has called subformal communications channels among individuals and groups interrelated by principles of specialization and the division of labor.I am very grateful to Janice Holve for her valuable assistance in gathering data and in helping to sharpen my ideas. In the early stages of this project, Gene Bretton helped conduct a review of the literature. Aaron Wildavsky, David Kirp, Marcel Teitler, and Jack Citrin read and commented on various drafts. Financial support from the National Institute of Mental Health is also gratefully acknowledged.     

Political arenas,life styles,and the impact of technologies on policymaking

Public policies are often founded upon or employ specific technologies. Two basic types of technology are distinguished—behavioral and physical technologies—and their contributions to policy and policymaking are discussed. The attractiveness of a technology to policymakers depends on how politically significant groups view the technology's impact on life styles and its implications for the allocation of values. Following Theodore Lowi's groundwork, behavioral technologies generally are perceived to redistribute values (power, respect, wealth, status) and regulate styles of living, while physical technologies generally appear to distribute values, opportunities, and freedom to pursue desired life styles. The policy sciences are given separate treatment as a behavioral technology with both distributive and redistributive aspects. The creative use of physical technology, development of multidisciplinary policy studies, and efforts towards more distributive behavioral technologies are discussed as more relevant and productive for policymaking.     

Policymaking and technology transfer: The need for national thinking laboratories

The objectives of this paper are to understand what is meant by better policymaking and more efficient technology transfer, to explore what is needed for their achievement, and to suggest an operational mechanism for improving the two processes.The author introduces a few new terms: (1) Inter-context information is defined, and its importance in decisionmaking, policymaking, technology transfer and education is pointed out; (2) a distinction is drawn between incidental technology transfer—initiated by the donor—and organized technology transfer—initiated by the recipient.The author suggests that National Thinking Laboratories should be established to promote organized technology transfer and to act as catalysts to organized policymaking. Their charter should be to match needs in one context to capabilities in another context. This charter is outlined in operational terms by five general objectives listed by the author. The National Thinking Laboratories are most urgently needed, particularly in the developing countries.     

Dilemmas in a general theory of planning

The search for scientific bases for confronting problems of social policy is bound to fail, becuase of the nature of these problems. They are wicked problems, whereas science has developed to deal with tame problems. Policy problems cannot be definitively described. Moreover, in a pluralistic society there is nothing like the undisputable public good; there is no objective definition of equity; policies that respond to social problems cannot be meaningfully correct or false; and it makes no sense to talk about optimal solutions to social problems unless severe qualifications are imposed first. Even worse, there are no solutions in the sense of definitive and objective answers.This is a modification of a paper presented to the Panel on Policy Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Boston, December 1969.     

Policy termination as a political process

The problem of how to terminate ineffective or outdated public policies, programs, or organizations is increasingly important. This paper argues that it is helpful to conceive of termination as a special case of the policy adoption process: there is a struggle to adopt a policy A, the substance of which is to eliminate or curtail policy B. The main distinguishing feature of this class of policy contests is the activity of vested interests who are able to advance a peculiarly powerful moral claim concerning the inequity or unfairness of change.     

Characteristics of migrants within the framework of current migration direction in the United States: Some evidence from micro-data analysis

In recent years, there has been growing interest in the phenomenon of an apparent population distribution reversal in the United States. This paper examines the characteristics of migrants participating in such moves between 1969 and 1977, based on data from a longitudinal nationwide household sample survey conducted by the University of Michigan. The data show that the amount of ruralward migration outweighs that of urbanward migration. While the ruralward migration was particularly prevalent in the Northeast, the direction of migration in the South was predominantly urbanward. Ruralward migrants appeared to be young single people and young married people without children, as well as stable families. The most ruralward migrants tended to be from the most highly urban environments. This new pattern of migration is independent of both white suburban flight and the sun-belt phenomenon. The findings suggest an important societal reorganization towards a newer post-industrial and less urban population distribution.     

Single-issue voting: Elite-mass linkages

In this paper we consider the abortion and E.R.A. issues as examples of single-issue politics, as well as the nature of single-issue politics in general. We argue that many single issues are what others have called easy issues but that hard-issue voting as well as easy-issue voting may be occurring on both issues. We test this hypothesis using both mass and elite data sets. Our findings suggest that political activists may be cuing the masses into a pattern of single-issue voting, and hence keeping the battle over abortion and the E.R.A. intense.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1981 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, New York, September 3–6, 1981.     

Psychodynamics,symbolism, and socialization: “object relations” perspectives on personality,ideology, and political perception

Psychodynamic aspects of the perceptual process by which individuals relate to the distal symbolism of the political environment are explored through a conjunction of object relations theory and intensive analysis methodology. Drawing upon the joint theoretical perspective that object relations theory and the transference postulate bring to bear on personality and perception, a psychodynamic account of the attributional interface that exists between political symbols aspublic objects, on the one hand, andprivate symbolic meanings, on the other, is advanced and the dynamics at play demonstrated through detailed consideration of selected specimen cases. The individual dynamics demonstrated in each of the cases were found to obtain as well in the cases of others holding similar political views; moreover, certain of these group-wide personality patterns were discovered to have predictive significance in distinguishing radical ideologues from individuals subscribing to more moderate political views. Finally, the implications for a psychodynamic theory of political perception and socialization are considered.A revised and abbreviated version of a paper presented before the panel on Intensive Analysis in Political Psychology at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, April 20–22, 1978, under the title, Personality, Perception, and Political Ideology: Psychodynamic Aspects of Political Socialization and Symbolism.     

A second best mechanism for marketing emissions reductions

The purpose of this paper is to present a strategy for pollution control, representing a hybrid of conventional emission fees and standards approaches, which is designed to meet the dual needs of many localities for sustained industrial growth and compliance with air quality standards. We evaluate several second best policy mechanisms and extend our focus from questions of relative efficiency loss to concerns for feasibility, compliance incentives, and local objectives. For each non-attainment area, we suggest that a Clean Air Management Unit (CAMU) be established to formalize and oversee markets in emissions reductions.This work was supported by the Office of Environmental Affairs, City of New Orleans. The City Administration assumes no liability for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of this information.     

Ideology and the construction of nationality: The Canadian elections of 1993

Canada is one nation, but it is in many ways two communities, one Francophone and the other Anglophone. We employ a formal model of ideology and analyze how nationality is constructed in people's minds. The magnitude of the changes in expressed preferences in terms of ideology depends on the salience of the new issue, the extent to which it confirms with the existing ideological cleavage, and the difference between the perceived status quo on the new dimension and the voter's most preferred alternative. Using data from the 1993 Canadian National Election Study, we consider the relative importance of different policy dimensions in explaining voting decisions among educated Canadians. The issue of Quebec sovereignty, alone, is shown to have significant power for predicting vote choice. A plausible explanation, confirmed here by regression analysis, is that Quebec sovereignty stands for other issues in voters' conception of Canadian politics.     

Information,intelligence, enlightened public policy: Functions and organization of societal feedback

Normative properties which make social statistics useful as social indicators are illuminated by considering the functions systematic social knowledge has at various levels of social organization and the involvements of actors at these various levels in roles which result in such knowledge. Modes and degrees of generalization which make knowledge useful for action at the lowest levels of social organization (information) or for administration at intermediate bureaucratic levels (intelligence) are not necessarily applicable to the formation of broad social policy (policy knowledge) or for affecting the general conceptions of the social world held by broad public (enlightenment). The latter two functions are not always well served by data which have been collected and ordered by systems primarily responsive to the former two functions.Portions of this paper were presented at the 65th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, New York City, 6 September 1969 and at a Colloquium on Urban Intelligence Systems at the Center for Urban Studies, Wayne State University, 17 April, 1969.     

American welfare strategies: Three programs under the social security act

In the United States, a single piece of legislation, the Social Security Act, is the major vehicle through which the cash assistance to citizens is provided. This act contains many subprograms, programs so different in concept, administration and programmatic implication that many people do not know that the same piece of legislation makes them all possible. In this paper three programs—social security, unemployment compensation, and public assistance—are examined in a sociohistorical, sociocultural context. The roots of these programs are analyzed, their current operations outlined, and the policy problems currently confronting them are detailed. The ways in which the programs relate to the political mythology of the society is seen as important. Because of the continual conflicts arising out of the administration of public assistance, three special cases involving that program are mentioned.Special thanks is due to Mrs. Shirley Roles, who made many useful conceptual and editorial suggestions.     

Crime,punishment and human nature

In Thinking About Crime James Q. Wilson brings a new dimension to crime policy research by explicating the failure of criminologists to adequately consider the philosophical perspectives on man and society which underlie alternate policy options. As a result, they rarely appreciate the inherent limits on government efforts to deal with crime. Wilson's consideration of these limitations, together with a critique of causal analysis in criminological thinking, lead him to propose an alternate conceptual framework, policy analysis. Our inspection of Wilson's own thinking reveals, however, that policy analysis is no less problematic and shortsighted than causal analysis, a result we attribute to serious flaws in his critique of criminological thinking and to the incorporation of his own biases about human nature into his conceptual framework. We seek in the concluding section to remove this bias and to demonstrate how policy analysis may be expanded into a more flexible, multi-dimensional framework, one which accounts for different assumptions about human nature and different policy goals.     

Policy: Constructing a definition

If policies are to serve as guides to real world actions and be subject to criticism and improvement out of human experience, they must have certain attributes and capacities - those requirements serve to define the meaning of the term. This article seeks (a) to demonstrate the substance of those requirements through a systematic analysis of the structures and processes involved in reasoned, corrigible actions, (b) to sketch the basic assumptions of a theory of knowledge able to show how those requirements can be fulfilled within the limits of human capacity, and (c) to examine the implications of that conception of policy, and its companion concept theory, for those involved in collective policymaking and policy studies.     

Evolution,consciousness, and political thinking

Evolutionary theory is utilized to sketch the outline of a performance-based perspective of political thinking. It is argued that human consciousness evolved as an emergent and interactive mechanism for enabling the individual to cope strategically with environmental exigencies. Within the context of this evolutionary perspective, consciousness at the individual level is shown to develop in patterned yet flexible and individually variable ways as a result of the interaction of biological and environmental variables including, among the latter, those elements of the social environment like ideas, values, and intentions, as well as institutional patterns of conflict, affiliation, and authority, which are themselves products of coping strategies. Political thinking, it is suggested, is a strategic coping enterprise involving equilibration between the individual's own strivings and social demands for conformity in collective affairs.     

Impersonal influence: Effects of representations of public opinion on political attitudes

Many phenomena of interest to political scientists involve what may be termed impersonal influence; that is, influence that derives from individuals' perceptions of others' attitudes, beliefs, or experiences. Others in this case refers not to the close friends and acquaintances that concerned the authors of classics such asThe People's Choice andPersonal Influence, but rather to the anonymous others outside an individual's realm of personal contacts. Modern mass media facilitate the influence of anonymous others by devoting considerable time and attention to portraying trends in mass opinion. This study explores the rationale for theories of impersonal influence, synthesizing existing research findings falling under this general theoretical framework, and investigating its psychological underpinnings using experiments embedded in representative surveys.     

Defining “images” of presidential candidates from televised political spot advertisements

The proliferation in the use of televised political spot advertisements by presidential candidates justifies the increasing attention given to assess their value for the political system. Some controversy surrounding the value of their content concerns their reliance on image material. Yet the concept of candidate images has been ambiguous since images can refer to either graphic display of candidates or to candidates' character attributes. This study assesses candidates' character attributes in televised political commercials for 1980's American presidential primaries and finds that political spots offer useful and accurate profiles of candidates in campaigns and are helpful sources for the electorate to use in weighing the various strengths and weaknesses of presidential hopefuls.     

The prevention of nuclear war in a world of uncertainty

The simple treatment of complex issues in the nuclear world has created dangerously self-deceptive and sterile views of such conflict. Calculations of missile duels and other possible strategic interactions have led to analytic self-deception where the more simplified the calculation, the greater the distance between the atrocious abstraction and the incomprehensible reality for which it serves as a disguise. Fictionalizing about deterrence and its variants has led to intellectual and moral self-deception where the focus of the fiction has diverted attention and action from other likely ways in which a nuclear conflict could be initiated, such as accidents, conventional wars, or terrorism. Besides reexamining old and diversionary patterns of thought and action—cultural strait jackets—we need more fundamental investigations into ways in which the weapons of modern war might be made less dangerous, procedures to make crises reversible, and improved and creative mechanisms for reducing and limiting the spread of nuclear weapons.