THE FLOATING VOTE

MR. BLANCHARD ON THE KREMLIN AND THE VATICAN
W. H. MORRIS-JONES
London School of Economics and Political Science
THE TEACHING OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
K. C. WHEARE
All Souls College, Oxford
THE LIMITATIONS OF POLITICAL THEORY'
A Comment on Professor Rees's Article
PETER G. LUCAS
University of Manchester
THE TEACHING OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
C. A. W. MANNING
London School of Economics and Political Science
THE POLITICAL STUDIES ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM
NOTES AND NEWS     

RIP RIPA? Snowden,Surveillance, and the Inadequacies of our Existing Legal Framework

This collection of pieces addresses questions raised by the Snowden revelations and their aftermath. All the authors were participants at a round‐table discussion at King's College London on Thursday 20 March 2014. The round table was chaired jointly by Sir Lawrence Freedman and Lord [Peter] Hennessy. Those participating were: Baroness [Onora] O'Neill, Lord [Ken] Macdonald, Nigel Inkster, Professor Thomas Rid (King's College), Ewen MacAskill (The Guardian), Gordon Corera (BBC), Jemima Stratford QC, Peter Horrocks (BBC), Charlie Edwards (RUSI), Professor Jean Seaton (Westminster University), Bill Peace (King's, ex‐SOCA), Air Vice‐Marshal Andrew Vallance (DA‐Notice), Carl Miller (DEMOS/King's), Lord (Alex) Carlile and Richard Sambrook (Cardiff University). The round table was organised by Martin Moore, director of the Media Standards Trust, and Benedict Wilson, lecturer in Defence Studies at King's and Research Associate at KPI. It was a joint Media Standards Trust–King's Policy Institute Event. For more information please contact martin.moore@mediastandardstrust.org or benedict.wilson@kcl.ac.uk .     

From fragmentation to configuration

The rapid emergence of the policy science conception is a consequence of profound changes in the modern world, and in turn is affecting public and private decision. In broad outline European civilization has passed from a high level of homogeneity to increasing fragmentation, and more recently toward a new and comprehensive configurative outlook.(1) The differentiation of the modern world fostered the fragmentation of intellectual life. It reduced the relative number of men of knowledge who gave attention to the map of knowledge as a whole, or to the social consequences and policy implications of science and scholarship.(2) At a later stage of differentiation specialists attain a high level of involvement in the policy processes of society. Increasingly they utilize a configurative approach to the advancement and application of knowledge.(3) At first, special and exclusive interests are multiplied by differentiation and fragmentation. As the aggregate impact of men of knowledge expands, particular demands are made more universal. This is a by-product of coalition formation.(4) Configurative ways of thinking do not necessarily result in effective control by champions of democratic and peaceful policy aims unless genuine freedom of access to knowledge—to data banks—is maintained, realistic common interests are unlikely to be defined either by policy scientists or decisionmakers.Distinguished Professor of Policy Sciences, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York; Ford Foundation Professor Emeritus of the Social Sciences and Law, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.     

Curriculum Reform in Budgeting and Financial Management: Preliminary Thoughts on the Dimension of the Field

Editors' note: In January 1984, Dick Hickman, chairperson-elect of the Section on Budgeting and Financial Management, American Society for Public Administration, appointed a task force of about 30 ASPA members on Budgeting and Financial Management Curriculum Reform. The task force is charged to report at the Indianapolis meeting of ASPA in 1985. Professor James R. Alexander was appointed chairman of the task force, and in this capacity convened a double-session roundtable on curriculum reform at the Denver meeting of ASPA in April. This article is Professor Alexander's presentation at that session. The task force welcomes any comments, suggestions, or critiques on this important subject. Such communications may be addressed to Professor James R. Alexander, Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, Johnstown, Pennsylvania 15904.     

The future in comparative politics

This article is based upon a key speech that Professor Robert Bates gave at the 13^th Annual Conference of the Association of Chinese Political Studies (ACPS) held in Bethesda, Maryland between October 17–18, 1998. Professor Bates observes that there is a sense of crisis among comparative political scientists and central to their concerns is an apparent loss of diversity. Professor Bates believes that homogenization presents an opportunity for comparatists to redirect their comparative social inquiries. He argues that comparative politics is a field that is based upon method; that the presumed homogenization of politics, globally, and the existence of large-scale collections of data, highlight the utility of returning to large-N, cross-national research; and that the subfields of political economy and development are best positioned to secure rapid advances from their redirection. He also emphasizes that we need to blend cross-national statistical research with in-depth case studies, arguing that the two are not substitutes but rather complements, and should be pursued in tandem. Professor Bates further argues that there is an “over supply” of theory in comparative politics and debates over theory should be based on assessments of the theory’s capacity to account for outcomes. In this sense, questions of theory cannot and should not be separated from questions of method. A good theory, in practice, provides a powerful engine of empirical discovery.     

Ann Diamond on an Unlimited Constitutional Convention

Ann Diamond has argued that, unless it is called by all thestates, a convention held under Article V of the Constitutionof the United States would be limited to proposing piecemealchanges. Diamond's arguments are flawed. The power of the statesto call a convention to propose amendments is coequal with thepower of Congress to propose amendments and is subject to onlyone explicit limitation. The Convention of 1787 was not attendedby all the states, and it did not delimit two types of futureconventions. Diamond's analysis reflects extreme notions ofindividual state sovereignty that lack historical support andwould, in any event, unduly hobble the states as a whole.     

Putting Conflict Where It Belongs: A Response to “Creating Shared Responsibility through Respect for Military Culture: The Russian and American Cases”

Professor Dale R. Herspring argues that civil‐military relations should move beyond a preoccupation with civilian control; instead, he says, the focus should be on the degree and nature of conflict within civil‐military interactions. This alternative theoretical view adds much to the extant literature and allows future work to concentrate both on a more nuanced account of the effects of civil‐military relations and, as Professor Herspring does, on the determinants of a “healthy” degree of civil‐military conflict. This piece responds to Professor Herspring’s alternative view, arguing that future work building on his framework could incorporate much from within public administration.     

Crafting village democracy in China: The roles, networking, and strategies of provincial elites

There is no obvious and direct correlation between the provincial level of economic development and democratic level of village elections. There is a great disparity in the level of rural democratization and the implementation of village self-governance among and within provinces. The modernization model alone cannot explain why village elections work well in some provinces but not in others. This paper looks at the political elite’s ongoing efforts at provincial level to conduct village elections and implement village self-governance in rural China. These efforts include the strategies for crafting village democracy employed by provincial elites: elite cooperation, local legislature, political responsibility, political programming, and the art of balancing party leadership and village elections. He has published extensively on China’s village elections and local governance. He is author and coauthor of several books. His current research interests include the development of non-state, local governance, and political participation. The author gratefully acknowledges the anonymous reviewers, Professor He Baogang of Deakin University and Professor Zhong Yang of University of Tennessee for their suggestions on an earlier draft. My special thanks to Professor Joseph Fewsmith of Boston University, Professor Tan Qingshan of Cleveland State University, and three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments, as well as to East Asian Institute of National University of Singapore for providing support for this research.     

A Higher Form of Intelligence: Hugh Trevor-Roper and Wartime British Secret Service

Throughout his distinguished career, the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper was known in many incarnations and guises: the ‘sleuth of Oxford’; Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford; the Spectator's Mercurius Oxoniensis; Baron Dacre of Glanton; and Master of Peterhouse College. In addition, he was to gain wider notoriety in the early 1980s as the man who helped authenticate the forged Hitler Diaries. Nevertheless, his wartime embodiment as a British intelligence officer is one facet of his personal history that has never before been addressed by scholars in any great depth. Using previously unpublished material from Trevor-Roper's memoirs and personal papers, as well as excerpts from the Guy Liddell Diaries, this article aims to highlight the fact that, contrary to the impression engendered by F.H. Hinsley's dry and depersonalized multi-volume official history, British Intelligence in the Second World War, Major H.R. Trevor-Roper, and many other intelligence officers like him, not only had a ‘good war’, but a rich and colourful one. If historians are to escape the late Sir Maurice Oldfield's indictment of that official history, namely, that it was written ‘by a committee, about committees, for a committee’, they might do worse than begin to reappraise the role of the individual in the context of Britain's intelligence effort during 1939–45. The late Lord Dacre, so this article argues, is one such individual requiring further study.     

The curious commentary on the citation practices of Avner Greif

Rowley’s (Public Choice 140:275–285, 2009) claim that I have “expropriated” (p. 276) intellectual property rights from Professor Landa by insufficiently citing her works is vacuous. It failed, among other faults, to recognize the substantive distinction between the lines of research pursued by Professor Landa and myself. Her analysis of trust is preferences-based while my analysis is beliefs-based. We talk about similar issues but what we say is very different.     

Public affairs,issues management,and political strategy: opportunities,opportunities, and more opportunities

This paper begins where Professor Windsor left off and enumerates some other areas in which academic research could be profitably pursued for both intellectual and practical gain. The tone of Professor Windsor's paper is pessimistic, and lays out in detail some of the obstacles to research; but these are not insurmountable. Some key areas that can be explored to the benefit of researchers and practitioners are in self‐regulation, the initiative process, term limits (a relatively recent phenomenon and not particularly well known outside of the USA), and in alliance building, constituency statutes, and links to stakeholder theory and action. Each of these additional areas is addressed in this presentation. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications     

Using state polls to forecast U.S. Presidential election outcomes

This paper uses pre-election polls to forecast U.S. Presidential election outcomes in the states and the Electoral College. The approach is notable in three ways. First, we employ state-level polls to predict voting outcomes in the states; second, we associate probabilities with alternative election outcomes, and third, we identify states most likely to be pivotal in the Electoral College. Using information available on the day before the election, we estimated that the probability of a Republican victory in the Electoral College in the 2004 election was 47.27%.     

US Presidential Elections: Two Centuries of Constitutional Continuity and Political Change—With an Analysis of the Political Geography of Barack Obama's Re‐election Campaign

The system for electing the President of the United States remains essentially as it was prescribed in the Federal Constitution drafted in 1787. The individual 50 states (plus the District of Columbia) are accorded a number of votes in the (so‐called) Electoral College; each state's Electoral College vote is then attributed to the candidate gaining a plurality (most) of the popular vote in that state; and the candidate with a majority (50% + 1) of these aggregated Electoral College votes is declared the incoming president. What has changed have been the methods of nominating the candidates, chief of which are the political parties from the nineteenth century with their stage‐managed quadrennial conventions and the primary/caucus campaigns from the twentieth century which precede and now determine the formal nomination. President Obama's 2012 re‐election campaign showed both the crucial importance of the much‐maligned Electoral College in winning the presidency and the demographic divisions hidden in the larger American political landscape.     

从非英语专业学生书面输出看大学英语词汇教学

词汇是语言的基础。词汇教学在大学英语教学中占用重要地位。非英语专业学生英语书面输出中常见的词汇错误有拼写错误、词性混用、搭配失误等。而词汇输出质量不高的问题尤其值得关注。大学英语教师和非英语专业学生都要重视词汇教学，而利用词块进行词汇教学是一个好的选择。     

Rationality to ritual: The multiple roles of evaluation in governmental processes

The disillusion with social science evaluation can be partly attributed to an overly narrow view of the function of evaluation. In the accepted model, evaluation functions to provide information needed by rational decision-makers for discrete decisions. But evaluations often cannot perform this function. However, evaluation often does serve other functions. In one such function, it acts as a means for managing conflict and promoting social change. It often also stimulates program staff to critically examine their assumptions and behavior. Consideration of these additional functions leads to suggestions for changes in recruitment of evaluators and in the definition of the evaluators' role. Finally, one can view evaluation as a societal ritual whose function is to calm the citizenry and to perpetuate an image of government rationality.The Stanford Evaluation Consortium is supported by a grant from the Russell Sage Foundation. Robert E. Floden is Assistant Professor of Education at Michigan State University. Stephen S. Weiner is Assistant Professor of Education at Stanford University.     

Remembering Vincent Ostrom: unhorsing a dominant paradigm

This essay is a memorial piece about Vincent Ostrom (September 25, 1919–June 29, 2012). I start by reviewing his academic history and then turn to Professor Ostrom’s major intellectual legacy—his effort to overturn the dominant paradigm in public administration and political science on metropolitan government reform. The three most important contributions of his work are discussed, including the introduction of public goods theory into the study of public administration and his work on quasimarkets and the Tiebout model. Three controversies or conundrums raised by his work are then discussed. Finally, the essay considers whether Professor Ostrom was ultimately successful in his effort to overthrow the traditional approach to the production and delivery of public goods at the city government level.     

Reflections on the Olivetti Papers

Editor's Note: Professor Salvemini, professor of economics at the University of Bari and advisor to the Italian Minister of the Treasury, attended the Olivetti Conference on Budgetary problems in the fall of 1981. Papers from the conference were published in the Autumn 1982 issue of this journal. After reviewing both the conference proceedings and the papers published in Public Budgeting & Finance , Professor Salvemini has provided some further reflections and thoughts on the ideas presented at that conference.     

Neoconservatism: Myth and reality

Seymour Martin Lipset is the Caroline S. G. Munro Professor of Political Science, professor of sociology, and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, all at Stanford University. He taught previously as the George D. Markham Professor at Harvard University. Among his books are Consensus and Conflict, Political Man, The First New Nation, Party Coalitions in the 1980s,and Revolution and Counterrevolution.This text was originally delivered as the First Ernst Fraenkel Lecture, given at the John F. Kennedy Institute at the Free University of Berlin.     

Book reviews

Professor Jay W. Forrester's book, Urban Dynamics, is an important, but controversial, contribution in the area of computer simulation of urban problems. This article presents a critical examination of this book.