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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Policy analysis: some observations on the West German scene

The article provides an overview on the development and the state of policy analysis as applied public policy research in West Germany. The developmental sketch shows that, similar to the upsurge of policy research in the United States since the mid-1960s, policy research in the Federal Republic of Germany is an offspring of the reformist period of the late 1960s and early 1970s, carried by a virtual reformers' coalition among politicians, bureaucrats, and researchers. Due to extradisciplinary demands and also intradisciplinary shifts in research foci, public policy research became almost a growth industry in the course of the 1970s.The article goes on to explore which repercussions the economic crisis, the new conservative moods and majorities and the end to reforms has had on the state and the orientation of policy analysis. The argument is presented that, no matter which majorities have the day, policy research remains socially and politically indispensible to detect and test corridors and niches for public action under ever narrower financial restraints and to identify the costs and benefits of such policies in a changing world.     

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.     

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.     

Spin (and Pitch) Doctors: Campaign Strategies in Televised Political Debates

Political campaigns frequently set low expectations (using a low pitch) in televised political debates to make the later claim that their candidates have done better than expected. The limited credibility of campaign aides, coupled with the fact that perception often confirms expectations, makes this strategy psychologically problematic. In Study 1, when no post-debate information was provided, lowering expectations for a candidate led to lower ratings of performance. In Study 2, when positive feedback (a post-debate spin) was provided after a low pitch, participants did rate performance positively, but only when the spin was supplied by a credible media source. The same strategy when used by campaign strategists adversely impacted candidates, leading to lower ratings of debate performance and network coverage.     

Selective adaptation

This paper is critical of some loose speculations about cybernetics, computers and systems, especially as to their role in organization and planning. There is a widespread tendency to believe that human and organizational vagaries can be eliminated by some combination of the former techniques. This tendency is encouraged by a bias towards mechanistic and abstract solutions for social problems. Further, there is a failure to properly take into account natural laws, in the sense of limitations on human and organizational ability, when developing normative models for policy and planning problems. Viable holistic models, supposedly, should replace human and organizational haphazardness; attention has been devoted tosubstituting the machine-techniques for the man, rather than concentrating on man-machine interactions, based on selective adaptations to natural laws.     

Consulting critics: A new role for academic policy analysts

It is by now widely accepted that social science research has only an indirect and general impact on public policymaking. Academic social science research, it is often argued, is antithetical to policy research: the former is animated by traditional scientific canons while the latter is specific and problem-oriented. Moreover, modern bureaucracies are now understood as political environments within which pure research will be routinely ignored if it does not serve someone's interests. For these and other reasons, social scientists are being encouraged either to eschew policy research or not to expect much influence. This article provides an alternative model of social scientists in the policy process, as consulting critics reviewing, analyzing and commenting upon substantive policy research. This model holds benefits for both scholars and clients, turns the canons of scientific inquiry into assets instead of liabilities, and responds to some of the concerns recently raised in the literature concerning the role of social science in the policy process.     

The dynamics of interpersonal attitudinal influence: Some additional evidence

The process by which one individual or group of individuals influences the attitudes of another is an important area of concern for students of political behavior. A few years ago a major political science journal published an article pointing to the salience of perceptual accuracy and issue salience in this regard. Interpersonal affective relationships were also considered but dismissed as lacking independent causal significance.Through parallel analysis of a separate data base, along with additional insights from a social conditioning approach, this report attempts to show that affectis an important variable mediating interpersonal attitudinal influence. It does so in multiplicative interaction with measures of parental cue-giving, such as issue salience. Hence, adding affect to the statistical modelafter removing the effects of cue-giving masks the joint effects.     

Comparing technological risks in large scale national projects

In policy debates concerning large scale R&D efforts, the achievements of the Manhattan and Apollo projects are frequently cited as evidence of Yankee ingenuity and the ability to overcome technical obstacles. In this article, the factors which contributed to the success and failure of large scale crash development projects are analyzed systematically. Successes are distinguished from failures according to two criteria. First, while the successes are marked by parallel development of technological components which began only after the basic scientific and technical obstacles had been overcome and the basic feasibility had been demonstrated, in the failures, parallel development began much earlier. In addition, the successful crash projects, such as the atomic bomb effort and the moon program, were designed to meet static technical goals and did not depend on overcoming countermeasures. The unsuccessful projects, such as the Safeguard ballistic missile defense (BMD) system, failed in the face of changes in Soviet military technology.Using these criteria to analyze the Reagan administration's space-based ballistic missile defense program (SPBMD), the author concludes that despite the claims made by supporters, this R&D effort is not similar to the Manhattan or Apollo projects. Rather, like the Nuclear Airplane and Skybolt missile, parallel developments have begun prior to proof of feasibility, and like the Safeguard BMD, the SPBMD must adapt to countermeasures.     

The dynamics of policy change: Policy succession

This paper suggests that the policy model assumed by most writers on policy analysis neglects the implications of the fact that most new policies in contemporary Western political systems are in fact replacing old policies, and that this is increasingly likely to be the case. Similarly, the recent interest in policy termination is partly misplaced since it fails to follow through adequately the implications of the fact that most policy terminations lead to policy succession. Accordingly, there is a need to study and analyse the processes involved in policy succession. This paper places policy succession in the context of policy change, sketches a model which describes the distinctive features of the policy succession process, outlines the various kinds of policy succession which occur, and draws out some implications for policy makers resulting from the increasing importance of policy succession.This article is a revised version of a paper entitled The policy succession process: Implications of policy change, presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, 28–31 August 1980.     

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.