The Dangers of Relying on a Legal List: A Case Study of the West Virginia Consolidated Investment Fund

Since the mid 1970s, many local governments have begun using state-run local government investment pools for their cash management needs. Some pools operate under statutory limitations on investment instruments known as "legal lists," other pools operate either under a "Prudent Person Rule" standard, while others use a combination of the two. This article examines the potential dangers of an investment pool relying too heavily upon a legal list fiduciary standard, by examining the West Virginia Consolidated Investment Fund, which lost nearly 25 percent of its principal in a financial scandal during the 1980s.     

Political Control versus Bureaucratic Values: Reframing the Debate

The literature on political control of bureaucracy reveals that bureaucracies are highly responsive to political forces. This paper argues that the political control literature misses evidence from other academic literature that bears directly on this phenomenon. Specifically, researchers need to consider the values of the bureaucracy in any effort to assess the degree of political control. An empirical test is presented using a data set from public education. Results show bureaucratic values to be far more influential in explaining bureaucratic outputs and outcomes than political factors. These findings suggest that a reinterpretation of previous empirical research is urgently in order.     

Constructing Self-Enforcing Federalism in the Early United States and Modern Russia

All federal systems face the two fundamental dilemmas of federalism:too strong a center risks overawing the subnational units; andtoo weak a center risks free-riding that makes the system fallapart. Resolving the two dilemmas is problematic because mitigatingone dilemma exacerbates the other. We develop a model of federalinstitutions that shows the circumstances under which both dilemmascan be solved so that federal institutions are self-enforcing.We apply our approach to modern Russia where we suggest thatwhen the center is too strong, its ability to extract rentsincreases and the benefits for maintaining participation inthe federal bargain disappears. We also suggest strong parallelsbetween Russia and those of the early United States under theArticles of Confederation.     

Genro Rule in China and Japan: A Comparative Perspective

For a time in both Japan (roughly 1890–1915) and much more briefly in China (about 1987–1992), major political decisions were made by cohesive groups of retired elders of the founding generation. Necessary if not sufficient conditions for rule by elders include a closed system, with the elite not held responsible to a wider public; and a constitutional or practical vagueness about the locus of final political authority. The more general pattern in such systems is personal dictatorship, with rule by elders as an alternative when cultural or political conditions stand in the way of one-man rule. This essay explores the pattern, conditions, and characteristics of rule by elders in China and Japan as genro rule serves as an alternative to one-man rule in generational transitions in political regimes with a relatively cohesive ruling group and a weak institutional structure. Peter R. Moody, Jr. is professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame and he specializes in the study of Chinese politics. His more recent books include Tradition and Modernization in China and Japan, Political Change in Taiwan, and Political Opposition in Post-Confucian Society. He is editor of China Documents Annual and book review editor for the Review of Politics. He has written on Chinese politics, Asian international affairs, Chinese political thought, international relations theory, and theory of political parties.     

Strategic implications of the new world order: An American perspective

Written from a US perspective, this article analyses the strategic challenges facing US decision makers in the post‐Soviet world in four areas: defining the task, addressing it at the policy level, covering the costs, and relating choices to overall national purpose. Together the four dimensions provide a model within which the direction of US foreign policy in the 1990s can be constructively debated.     

Policy representation of constituency interests

This paper examines two aspects of congressional representation: the responsiveness of House candidates to constituency opinion and the effect of candidate positions on House election outcomes. For both Democratic- and Republican-held seats, constituency liberalism (as measured by the constituency's vote for McGovern in 1972) is strongly related to the liberalism of incumbent candidates but less so to the liberalism of challengers. House election outcomes are visibly influenced by the positions of incumbent candidates but not those of nonincumbent candidates. The paper argues that elections contribute significantly to achieving congressional representation. Candidate positions are measured from a 1974 CBS survey of all major House candidates.     

Loneliness at adolescence: Correlates,attributions, and coping

The present study provides much needed empirical data on the adolescent loneliness experience. One hundred adolescents were given measures of loneliness, loneliness attributions, coping styles, and personal characteristics. Loneliness was positively related to state and trait anxiety, an external locus of control, depression, self-consciousness, and social anxiety and negatively related to self-reported attractiveness, likability, happiness, and life satisfaction. Lonely adolescents were also less willing to take social risks. Adolescents most often attributed loneliness to boredom and most often coped with loneliness by watching TV or listening to music. The implications of these findings for adolescent social development are discussed.