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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Systems approaches to urban planning: Mixed,conditional, adaptive and other alternatives

Systems approaches possess an ability to deal with large numbers of interacting variables and relations. They are here connected tocitizen information systems (distinguished frommanagement information systems) and to mixed, adaptive, conditional models for urban planning. The latter permit flexible and continuing responses to dynamically changing urban conditions, including citizen attitudes and reactions, as well as to changing economics and technologies. These models are mixed in that they allow actions and reactions from a multiplicity of decisionmakers. The resulting decisions are made only conditionally, rather than once-and-for-all, on a comprehensive basis as in the customary master city plan. Proceeding in this conditional manner, the model then permits adaptation to changing values and objectives as, at each stage, it makes the systems consequences apparent.The systems approach is related to a host of important methodological developments in mathematics, statistics, etc., as well as in electronic computers and their use. These distinguish modern systems approaches from predecessors like the holism of Jan Christiaan Smuts and others in pre-war science. The mixed, conditional, adaptive models suggested here are compared with other approaches like advocacy planning, the comprehensive master city plan and ad hoc planning. It is found to be possible at least in principle, to accommodate all of these and even to extend matters further to include day-to-day as well as longer range facilities plans in the indicated systems approach by virtue of the improved methodologies that may now be used or developed for these purposes.This paper was prepared for presentation before the Division 1 (General), American Psychological Association Meetings in Miami Beach, Florida on September 5, 1970.Also, Joint Urban Sciences Information Institute, Research Report No. 5.     

Institutional change and the delivery of urban public services

Problems associated with providing efficient and equitable distribution of public services are attributable in part to the inabilities of government or other public institutions to be responsive to requirements of their clientele. To permit a better understanding of the nature of such institutional failures, and to suggest avenues of effective reform, this paper views institutional systems of service provision in a control systems framework. In this perspective, the elements of feedback are seen as essential to successful system performance over time and changing conditions. The paper identifies the kinds of error signals a system needs to generate, and the types of corrective mechanisms that it may employ, and then discusses three basic modes of institutional reform—performance evaluation, decentralization, and market competition—for improving the dynamic capability of systems of providing urban public services. Two service areas—sanitation and criminal corrections—are used for illustrating possible applications of the reform strategies.The author wishes to thank his colleagues at the Urban Institute, especially Richard P. Burton, for suggestions and comments on the substance and style of the paper. This paper is based on ideas first presented by the author at the First Annual Convention of the World Future Society, May, 1971. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of The Urban Institute or its sponsors.     

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.     

Management strategy for economic and social development: Part I

The new and rapidly changing environment of development administrators includes (1) the emergence of a world society of interdependent nations, (2) a rapid and confusing technological and scientific revolution, (3) the expansion of service societies in industrialized countries, (4) new major alternatives for war, neocolonialism, despotism and materialism, and (5) development problems of ascending complexity and difficulty.Post-industrial beginnings in modern management arise from a background of management thought and technique in agriculturla epochs and the more recent industrial revolution. They encompass computer technology; operations research; systems approaches, including systems engineering, management information systems, and general systems research; cost-effectiveness analysis and PPBS; social indicators; and futurecasting. Their development has contributed to a growing gulf between technique and capability, to a triumph of technique over strategy and a retreat from human values.Attention is directed to specific strategies and tactics of introducing modern management techniques in developing nations. The efforts to do this during the 1960 Development Decade are reviewed. The prospects for the 1970's are previewed, and suggestions offered for problem area task forces and the expansion of U.N. activities in advancing, not merely diffusing, the current state of the art.Since the most significant modern management advances have been tactical, a dozen principles of strategic decisionmaking are suggested: (1) responsible decisionmaking, (2) the conflict essence of problems, (3) selectivity, (4) total system appreciation, (5) relative proportions, (6) sequential model-using, (7) problem interrelationships, (8) jointed incrementalism, (9) organized and unorganized interests, (10) the emotional basis of rational action, (11) investment in future capabilities, and (12) power mobilization and use.The paper ends by raising vital questions on the improvement of managerial values. This is done by specific proposals for a code of managerial ethics and the formulation of more humanistic management goals.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Political information processing: Question order and context effects

Data from two independent field experiments indicate that changes in question order and context may well account for an apparently precipitous decline of interest in politics at the time of the CPS 1978 American National Election Study. Evidence from a question order experiment with the SRC/CPS feeling thermometers also suggests that such contextual artifacts may not be atypical. Indeed, because of the many changes in the content and organization of the election studies over the years, context effects represent plausible rival hypotheses for a number of inexplicable shifts and trends in the time-series. In testing these hypotheses the authors derive and validate an information-processing model of how respondents infer their political states of mind from observations of their own question-answering behavior in the survey interview. In addition, the authors illustrate the wide applicability of the model tosubstantive problems in the discipline and its implications for the survey-based paradigm in political behavior research.     

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.     

Ethics and the unintended consequences of social research: A perspective from the sociology of science

It is argued that successful social science requires the development of a social ethic or sense of research responsibility. An examination of impediments to ethical reflection in sociology suggests that an individualistic orientation is ineffective in coping with the unintended consequences of social research. Such consequences can be particularly harmful in the sociology of science where policy research and governmental support for its production often entails an indiscriminate advocacy of knowledge. Such advocacy raises anew questions of the power of scientific knowledge, the definition of client-professional relationships, and the collection of data which may not only violate the intent of individuals and groups supplying information, but may undermine the credibility of sociology itself.An early version of this paper was presented at the Sixth Annual Alpha Kappa Delta Sociological Research Symposium, Richmond, Virginia, February 19–21, 1976.     

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.     

The war on poverty: between economics and politics

A wealth of solutions to poverty have been proposed, with little understanding of the forces required to turn a sound idea into an implementable program. A system approach is suggested to overcome this deficiency. This implies analyzing the effects of antipoverty measures on other elements of a society and a polity and the feedback effects of changes in these other elements on the new programs which are being introduced. Such an approach is seen overcoming the limitations of fragmented views of the issue—such as the purely economic one—as well as the lack of systematic analysis of a progam's costs, benefits, sources of funds, and nonfinancial resources. Consequently, a challenge is also offered to those who formulate programs without taking into account dominant values (e.g., questions of consensus) and other political considerations (e.g., which groups would benefit or suffer from the program). This is seen as leading to undemocratic action or, most frequently, to inaction due to resistance. The article concludes with a brief review of the recent Nixon-Moynihan proposal in terms of the societal-system approach here advocated, and adds a cautionary note on the limits of planning.In revising this article, I benefited from comments by Daniel Bell, Carolyn O. Atkinson, and Sarajane Heidt.     

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.     

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.