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.     

Beyond the Running Tally: Partisan Bias in Political Perceptions

I examine the impact of long-term partisan loyalties on perceptions of specific political figures and events. In contrast to the notion of partisanship as a simple running tally of political assessments, I show that party identification is a pervasive dynamic force shaping citizens' perceptions of, and reactions to, the political world. My analysis employs panel data to isolate the impact of partisan bias in the context of a Bayesian model of opinion change; I also present more straightforward evidence of contrasts in Democrats' and Republicans' perceptions of objective politically relevant events. I conclude that partisan bias in political perceptions plays a crucial role in perpetuating and reinforcing sharp differences in opinion between Democrats and Republicans. This conclusion handsomely validates the emphasis placed by the authors of The American Voter on the role of enduring partisan commitments in shaping attitudes toward political objects.     

Interpreting model results — examples from an energy model

With the increasing use of complex computer models for high-level policy decisionmaking, the problem of correctly interpreting and communicating model results becomes a more general concern. This paper traces misconceptions about the use of models to the existence of different conceptions of the term model. Policy models are quite often less theory-based than models in the traditional disciplines, especially in cases where the policy models deal with the long-term developments of sociotechnical systems. The authors examine the use of an example of one such model. Generalising from the authors' experiences in other fields of application, e.g., global modeling, the problems of interpreting model results are discussed. The proper use of future-oriented policy models is clarified by the introduction of typologies implying distinctions, e.g., between forecasting, what-if, and learning models, and between different levels of results, viz. model outcomes, model inferences and policy-issue oriented interpretations.     

The debate on World Dynamics: A response to Nordhaus

In a recent paper published in the Economic Journal, Professor William D. Nordhaus of Yale University reviewed World Dynamics by Jay W. Forrester. In his criticism, Nordhaus signals three serious problems and several additional questionable assumptions of sufficient importance to undermine the usefulness of Forrester's book. However, a careful examination of his analysis shows that each point made by Nordhaus rests on a misunderstanding of World Dynamics, a misuse of empirical data, or an inability to analyze properly the dynamic behavior of the model by static equilibrium methods.The three serious problems raised by Nordhaus concern the assumptions that connect industrialization to net birth rates in World Dynamics, the representation of technology and production within the world model, and the impact of prices on global resource use. The analysis presented here refutes the Nordhaus arguments and shows that World Dynamics is consistent with his references to real-world data on population, production, and capital accumulation.This paper is a response to William D. Nordhaus, World Dynamics: Measurement Without Data, published in the Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, December 1973. An earlier, unpublished, version of the Nordhaus paper, bearing the same title, was widely circulated hand-tohand within the United States, Canada, and Europe. A response to the original Nordhaus paper (System Dynamics Group Memorandum D-1736-4) was written in February 1973 and is available from Jay W. Forrester, Alfred P. Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass. 02139. The present paper, a revised version of the earlier response, deals with several new or modified arguments contained in the Economic Journal article by Nordhaus.     

Turnout in recent American presidential elections

The well-noted decline in the participation of Americans in presidential elections since the early sixties reversed in the 1984 election, although only slightly. An improved national mood appears to have contributed little to increasing turnout. However, the gap in participation between the wealthier and poorer widened, while that between men and women narrowed and reversed direction, and belonging to a group associated with an identity affected participation more powerfully. Taken together, these findings indicate shifts in patterns of turnout corresponding to shifts in the lines of politicized interests. Analysis of the participation of blacks finds little evidence for electoral mobilization by the Rainbow Coalition in 1984.     

A Competing Risks Model of Supreme Court Vacancies, 1789–1992

We hypothesize that Supreme Court justices will consider the likely ideological disposition of their successor in their decision to retire or remain on the Court. Furthermore, because a justice's decision to remain on the Court places him or her at risk of dying in office, it is necessary to consider a model of both voluntary and involuntary vacancies. Our study examines three broad classes of factors influential to Supreme Court vacancies: personal considerations, institutional context, and political influences. We assess the factors that affect the probability of a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court due to mortality and retirement at the individual level from 1789 to 1992, using a competing risk duration model and incorporating time-varying covariates. We find significant differences in the hazards of vacancy due to these two causes, and a number of factors are shown to influence the probability of a vacancy, including a general propensity to retire near the beginning of presidents' second terms. However, we find little evidence of the influence of political factors in either retirement-or death-related vacancies, suggesting that justices who retire do not generally do so for expressly political reasons and those who die in office rarely do so as a result of holding out for a like-minded replacement.     

Candidates and issues in the 1980 campaign: The ideological connection

The notion that ideological perceptions in the mass public are shaped to some extent by elites and political candidates is widespread in the public opinion literature. However, there has been a lack of empirical research directly demonstrating the links between elites and the masses whose thinking they supposedly cue and structure. This paper attempts to show, through magnitude scale data collected over time in the 1980 campaign, the significant impact of political candidates in altering ideological perceptions of political stimuli. The chief carrier of ideology in 1980 is shown to be Ronald Reagan, whose strong issue stands and ideological label influenced perceptions of specific issues' ideological content. The findings are discussed in terms of both measurement problems in the ideology literature and more general theories of elite and environmental influences on mass political thought.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

The design and use of questionnaires for participation practices in town planning—Lessons from the United States and Britain

One means by which planning agencies may hear the constructive views of the public is the questionnaire technique. A questionnaire is not just a list of questions...;. It is essentially a scientific instrument for measurement and for correlation of particular kinds of data ...; it has to be specially designed. (Oppenheim). This paper considers the problems of questionnaire design, a number of examples of the use of the questionnaire in the United States and Britain, and attempts to draw lessons and profit from experience for those people committed to the use of the technique in exercises of public participation in the planning process.     

Food safety regulation: is the Delaney clause the problem or symptom?

The Delaney anticancer amendment to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 is a prominent example of zero risk legislation. The relevant clauses prohibit a finding of safety for any relevant substance found to induce cancer in humans or animals. It is argued that the Delaney approach to safety regulation is not only misguided, but that relaxation of the law - for example, to permit substances that pose insignificant cancer risks - would produce only marginal improvement in regulation. A major shift in regulation that permits some form of cost-benefit analysis is the only way to move toward rational policy choices.Professor of Economics, Rutgers University. I am grateful to William Ascher, Richard A. Merrill, and two referees for helpful comments on earlier drafts.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Participation and political protest: A causal model with Australian evidence

This paper examines a model of political participation and political protest that includes the several well-established modes of orthodox participation as well as a number of dimensions of political protest, and also takes account of the causal order between conventional participation and protest. The analysis indicates that previous findings demonstrating a substantial positive association between unidimensional measures of conventional and unconventional political behavior are incomplete and indeed somewhat misleading. The connection between orthodox participation and protest weakens as the style of protest becomes more unorthodox, to such an extent that none of the separate modes of conventional participation are directly related to radical protest. Using sheaf coefficients, the paper also tests the relative explanatory power of three sets of determinants of participation and protest: social background characteristics, general orientations toward politics, and attitudes toward issues. Issues are repeatedly weaker than the other two groups of variables in predicting conventional participation but have relatively strong effects on political protest, particularly compared with political orientations, while social structure is consistently influential.     

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.