References to racial issues

This paper explores the readiness with which the issue of race comes to the minds of ordinary Americans—the accessibility of racial issues—by assessing the frequency with which ordinary Americans refer to racial issues when talking about politics. Explicitly racial issues have declined dramatically in accessibility among the general public over the past thirty years. Coinciding with the decrease in the accessibility of issues explicitly involving race there has been some increase in the accessibility of other issues—crime, poverty, and welfare—that some regard as code words with which whites communicate, in socially acceptable language, continued anxiety about race. There is little evidence, however, that many white Americans use references to such issues to express hostility toward black Americans. Contrary to some interpretations of recent presidential elections, moreover, the increased accessibility of such issues has not produced a windfall of votes for the Republicans.Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 1992 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, September 3–6, and at the 1993 conference of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, St. Charles, Illinois, May 20–23.     

Environmental belief systems among Japanese and American elites and publics

This paper compares the environmental belief systems of elites and publics in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, and Spokane County, Washington State. The central question posed is whether the shared forces of postindustrialism generate similar belief structures among elites in nations with quite distinct cultural, political, and historical backgrounds. As a prototypical postindustrial policy area, natural resource/environmental politics is used as the specific issue domain of study. The results emerging from this comparative inquiry reveal substantial differences between the Japanese and American local area elites in the structuring of environmental beliefs, especially in the role of postindustrial orientations. The results also suggest much larger differences in belief system content and structure between elite and general public samples in the Spokane area than in Shizuoka Prefecture.     

The salience of racial identity among African-American and white students

This study examines the salience of racial identity among white and black students at four American universities. Utilizing the Twenty Statements Test [Kuhn, M. H., & McPartland, T. S. (1954). An empirical investigation of self-attitudes. American Sociological Review, 19, 68–76], we measure racial identity salience among students at three predominantly white northeastern universities and one historically black southern university. As predicted, we found that racial identity salience for white students at the predominantly white universities (PWUs) was significantly lower than racial identity salience among black students in these university settings. Contrary to our expectations, racial identity salience among white students at the historically black university (HBCU) was lower than racial identity salience exhibited among black students at this university, and white students at the HBCU were not more likely to exhibit racial identity saliency than white students at the PWUs. These findings indicate that the “transparency phenomenon,” transcends context in that whites are generally far less likely to think of themselves in racial terms than are people of color. Thus, racial transparency among whites appears to supercede context. Racial salience is much higher among African-American students at the PWUs than at the HBCU; this finding suggests the importance of context for African-Americans. However, fully one-third of African-American students at the HBCU listed race on the TST, suggesting the transcendent power of a racialized identity in a dominantly white society.     

An African American Welfare State

Histories of the American welfare state have been white histories, in part because scholars have presumed that welfare state institutions are benevolent and exist to assist those in need. But if we take seriously work that instead focuses upon the degree to which welfare state regimes affect citizens' freedom to survive apart from dependence on the labor market or upon a male breadwinner, along with scholarship that highlights the malign functions of relief, then explicitly repressive institutions become legitimately within the purview of welfare state analysis. This article makes the formative case that slavery, Jim Crow, and the prison might be considered welfare state institutions, given their impact upon the material well-being of so many Americans. Because these institutions have most affected blacks, we might have reason to distinguish between a white welfare state and an African American welfare state, and reject the notion that we can coherently speak of the welfare state.     

White Voters and African American Candidates for Congress

The vast majority of African American officeholders are elected from jurisdictions with sizable numbers of African Americans. The most common explanation for this phenomenon locates the cause among white voters who are reluctant to vote for black candidates, which thereby limits the electoral prospects of black candidates in white constituencies. This study analyzes exit poll data from the 1996 and 1998 House elections in order to test the notion that white voters are averse to black candidates. Despite theoretical expectations that predict the existence of white voter discrimination against African American candidates, remarkably little is apparent. Thus, other explanations for patterns of African American officeholding in the United States need to be pursued.     

New deal issues and the American electorate, 1952–1988

As each presidential election passes into the history books, debate renews over the status of the New Deal Party System. This article addresses part of that debate by examining changes in the electorate's assessment of New Deal issues. Despite the vast literature on realignment, there have been few efforts to see whether issues associated with the New Deal still shape the political attitudes of the American electorate. Using the NES's openended like/dislike questions on parties and candidates from 1952 to 1988, I show that New Deal issues remain central to the partisan attitudes of the public. These findings show that the agenda of the New Deal remains an integral part of how the American public thinks about their candidates and parties. There, of course, has been much change over the last four decades, but these results suggest, in general, that at least parts of the New Deal Party System remain intact.     

Belgium adopts law against racial discrimination and incitement to racial hatred

German neo‐Nazis revive an old World War I myth to whitewash Hitler.     

Trust in elites and protest orientation: An integrative approach

The consensus based hypothesis that trust in political authorities is a major determinant of system stability has received less empirical support in the protest literature than its theoretical appeal once promised. We propose a major revision of the leadership-trust approach—one which integrates the conflict and consensus approaches by considering both public trust in established elites and public trust in challenging elites. Recognizing the importance of opposition leadership, we reason that thedifference between these two types of trust, which we conceptualize astrust differential, should explain protest orientation better than other trust-variable alternatives. The new trust differential variable suggests a distinctive typology of trust orientations which predict the degree of protest endorsement somewhat differently than the traditional authority-trust model. Using survey data collected in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1973, we test the integrative differential approach against and controlling for its classic competitors and find it to be a more powerful, independent predictor of protest orientation.This paper draws on findings and insights from papers that we presented at the American Sociological Association meeting, San Francisco, September 1978, and at the annual Western Social Science Association meeting, Denver, April 1978.     

‘Successful African local government’: Some methodological and conceptual issues

Attempts to identify and explain successful African local governments are made in a special issue of Public Administration and Development (Vol. 12, No. 1, 1992). These attempts are critically assessed, specifically the choice of indicators, the analysis of structures and actors, aggregation, and the role of political factors. It is argued that methodological and conceptual improvements in these areas are needed to advance the comparative study of African local government performance. Future studies should also pay more attention to equity, to resource mobilization from poor and declining economic bases, and to the impact of political pluralism.     

Public sector reform in the Latin American and Caribbean region—issues and contrasts

Public sector reform in both Latin American and Caribbean countries has become a high priority for governments in their search for a new role for the state. Common principles have included the objective to privatize, or contract out services or responsibilities where the private sector has a comparative advantage while at the same time improving government efficiency in areas that are considered core government functions at different levels of government. These include integrated government financial management, social security and social safety nets, tax administration, provision of basic services (education and health), legal/regulatory reform, and judicial enforcement. Guiding principles in all countries have been predictability, transparency and accountability. While the degree of reform has varied amongst countries, there are a number of distinguishing features of the Commonwealth Caribbean that set its public sector reform experience apart from that of Latin America. These include the legacy of a professional civil service, long-standing democratic institutions and an active civil society, the relatively small size of the countries, and the emphasis on rule of law that can help explain some of the differences in the reform paths taken. Nevertheless, government ownership and commitment to public sector reform has been shown to be the most important element in determining results within the Latin American and Caribbean region.     

Social elites,popular discontent,and the limits of cooptation

Public Choice - Rulers face challenges in governing distant or hostile populations. In response, they may coopt elites from those groups into relationships of indirect rule, thereby boosting their...     

Methodological and practical problems of comparative party elites research: the EPPMLE project

Abstract. Cross-national empirical research is confronted with several theoretical, methodological and practical problems. Concentrating on theoretical conceptualization, operationalization, design and fieldwork, the research note deals with some of these difficulties on the basis of concrete experiences gathered in the European-wide organized 'European Political Parties' Middle Level Elites Project'.     

Coupling citizens and elites in deliberative systems: The role of institutional design

A significant shortcoming in contemporary deliberative systems is that citizens are disconnected from various elite sites of public deliberation. This article explores the concept of ‘coupling’ as a means to better link citizens and elites in deliberative systems. The notion of ‘designed coupling’ is developed to describe institutional mechanisms for linking otherwise disconnected deliberative sites. To consider whether it is possible and indeed desirable to use institutional design to couple different sites in a deliberative system, the article draws on insights from a case study in which a mini‐public was formally integrated into a legislative committee. The empirical study finds that it is not only feasible to couple mini‐publics to legislative committees, but when combined, the democratic and deliberative capacity of both institutions can be strengthened. To be effective, ‘designed coupling’ requires more than establishing institutional connections; it also requires that actors to step outside their comfort zone to build new relationships and engage in new communicative spaces with different sets of ideas, actors and rules. This can be facilitated by institutional design, but it also requires leaders and champions who are well‐placed to encourage actors to think differently.