The moment you decide,you divide: How politicians assess procedural fairness

Are politicians more rational decision makers than citizens? This article contributes to the ongoing debate by examining how politicians and citizens assess the fairness of the process leading to a controversial policy decision. It contains theories as to why it is tempting to match the favourability of policy decision with a fairness assessment of the preceding process, and how politicians and citizens differ in their approach to the task. Having derived three hypotheses, parallel scenario experiments are run in large samples of Swedish politicians and citizens, in which the outcome and fairness of a policy decision process are manipulated. As predicted, it is found that both politicians and citizens match the favourability of the decision with the assessment of the process, that these self-serving biases are stronger among politicians, and that policy engagement accounts for the group-level difference.     

The increasingly organizational state

His research interests are political sociology, organizational analysis, and social theory. His books include Chicago Lawyers,coauthored with John P. Heinz.     

The retention of state governors

In this paper, we have provided some support for several hypotheses about the determinants of which governors get reelected. The benefit from being a member of a particular party varies from state to state and from year to year. Personal characteristics such as age are also important. The logits give some support to the importance of coalition formation; reelection is easier in states with low voter turnout and in farm states. The paper is most concerned with the connection between the economic performance and the electoral success of incumbent candidates for governor, and we find support for a model of electoral acountability, in which governors are powerful in state governments and state governments have the ability to differentially tax fixed factors relative to neighboring states.This paper raises some important issues regarding the measurement of variables in political economy, which have wide applicability to other studies in the economics of politics. Peltzman (1988) finds that the difference between the growth rate in state personal income and the national growth rate over a one to four year period prior to the election does not affect gubernatorial electoral outcomes. Concurrently, we find that the current year's growth rate in state personal income and its difference from the national growth rate are not significantly related to electoral success but that the average deviation from predicted state personal income during the governor's tenure in office is significantly related to the odds of getting reelected. That is, the data reject simplistic views of voter behavior and support a sophisticated model of voter behavior. Similarly, Peltzman (1988) has greater success using more sophisticated, cumulative measures of national economic performance.     

If you can't please everyone,must you only please yourself?

Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 8221, U.S.A. Shirking models, especially those of Kalt and Zupan, have demonstrated that Senators often vote contrary to their constituents' ideology. These models establish two components of Senators' ideology through a regression of constituency demographics on interest group ratings. The predicted scores are constituency attitudes while the residuals are Senators' personal ideologies. Senators' personal ideology is presumed to be independent of constituency factors. The use of demographics is problematic, because it is unclear that they are good surrogates for attitudes. Using statewide estimates of ideology from public opinion surveys, I show that demographics provide reasonable estimates of public attitudes. However, estimates of shirking from public opinion depend upon constituency characteristics, a finding that is inconsistent with shirking models based upon residualization. The existing shirking models depend heavily upon a legislator's party as a key component of constituency opinion. But party is an attribute of the Senator and not of the electorate. A better interpretation is that Senators respond to their fellow partisans in the electorate.     

The Priority of Receptivity to Creativity (Or: I trusted you with the idea of me and you lost it)

Abstract

In this paper I address what Arendt called the “problem of the new”, or, as Castoriadis put it, the problem of how to make the new “the object of our praxis”. I argue that the problem of the new requires thinking about receptivity in a new way, making it normatively and epistemically prior to creativity. I illuminate my new approach to receptivity through detailed engagement with Russell Hoban’s brilliant novel, The Medusa Frequency     

The capitalist state and political practice

Text reviewed:

N. Poulantzas (1978) State, Power, Socialism London, New Left Books, pp. 269, £7.50.