Do legislators' votes reflect constituency preference? A simple way to evaluate the Senate

U.S. senators frequently vote against the preference of their constituency, assuming that such a preference exists. Both of a state's senators represent the same constituency. Whenever they split their votes, one or the other is necessarily going against the constituency preference. For the sample of defense-related votes analyzed above, misrepresentation — either observable vote splitting or unobservable vote matches that go against the constituency preference — occurred at least 37 percent of the time, at least 46 percent on one vote. Although party differences accounted for more than two-thirds of the vote splitting, a substantial number of splits remained. Besides, a party difference for a state's senatorial pair is itself problematical.The method employed here can be applied easily to any data whatever on senatorial voting. Its application will show that, quite often, many senators depart from constituency preference. This finding refutes the hypothesis, popular in certain circles, that ours is a more or less perfect political market with little or no scope for ideologically driven voting by legislators.     

A precise method for evaluating election schemes

A previously published paper evaluated election schemes under a wide variety of election circumstances. This paper improves upon the previous work by refining the measures used to rate the election schemes and increasing the statistical significance of those ratings. With these modifications, we can now draw some new conclusions:

1. In general circumstances, the Borda System outperforms the Copeland System which outperforms Approval which outperforms Majority Rule.
2. The Maximin Rule — strongly supported by Rawls's — turns out to be a reasonable election rule if the number of election alternatives is large relative to the number of voters.
3. With two exceptions, all our election systems performed quite well given a society with highly correlated utilities.
4. Given a polarized society, a serial dictatorship was better than every other election system except Borda.

Perhaps even more importantly, we now have the possibility of conducting some cost/benefit analyses of different proposals for electoral changes.     

Book reviews

Transborder Data Flows (Proceedings of an OECD Conference) Edited by Hans‐Peter Gassmann North Holland (Elsevier Science Publishers) 1985, US$74.00

Plastic and Electronic Money: New Payment Systems and Their Implications Patrick Frazer Woodhead Faulkner Limited 1985 £35

A User's Guide To Computer Contracting: Forms, Techniques and Strategies Davis, Allen, Bowman and Armstrong Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1985, $75

Legal Protection of Computer Programs and Data C. Millard Sweet & Maxwell/Stevens 1985, £24

Piracy of Phonograms Gillian Davies ESC Publishing Ltd. 1986. 2nd edition. £17.95.

Biotechnology and Patent Protection—An International Review F. K. Beier, R. S. Crespi and J. Straus O.E.C.D. 1985, £5

Protecting Privacy in Two‐Way Electronic Services David H. Flaherty Mansell Publishing Company 1985, £23.50

High‐Tech Espionage Jay Tuck Sidgwick and Jackson Ltd 1980, £10.95     

Reviews

Terry Cox and Gary Littlejohn, eds., Kritsman and the Agrarian Marxists. (Library of Peasant Studies, No. 7), London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1984, 149 pp., £18.50.

S. G. Wheatcroft and R. W. Davies eds., Materials for a balance of the Soviet national economy 1928–1930 (with foreword by Richard Stone). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, xxiv + 467 pp., £35.00, $59.50.

I. Birman, Ekonomika nedostach. New York: Chalidze Publications, 1983, 470 pp.

Richard F. Staar, USSR Foreign Policies After Detente. Stanford, Ca: Hoover Institution Press, 1985, xxvii + 300 pp., h/b $26.95, p/b $10.95.

John J. Maresca, To Helsinki: The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe 1973–1975. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1985, xiii + 292 pp., £47.50.

Mark V. Kauppi and R. Craig Nation eds., The Soviet Union and the Middle East in the 1980s. Lexington, Mass, and Toronto: Lexington Books, D.C. Heath and Company, 1983, ix + 293 pp., £25.00.

Jonathan Haslam, The Soviet Union and the Struggle for Collective Security in Europe, 1933–1939. New York: St. Martin's, 1984, xii + 310 pp., $29.95.

Alfred L. Monks, Soviet Military Doctrine: 1960 to the Present. New York: Irvington Publishers, 1985, xii + 351 pp., $34.50.

Jeffrey D. Boutwell, Paul Doty, and Gregory F. Treverton eds., The Nuclear Confrontation in Europe. London: Croom Helm, 1985, 247 pp., £22.50.

Condoleezza Rice, The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army, 1948–1983: Uncertain Allegiance. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984, xiv + 303 pp. Tables. £40.40.

Vitaly Rapoport and Yuri Alexeev, High Treason: Essays on the History of the Red Army, 1918–1938. Translated by Bruce Adams. Durham: Duke University Press, 1985, xvii + 436 pp., £35.00.

Robert Conquest, Inside Stalin's Secret Police. NKVD Politics 1936–1939. Stanford, California: Hoover Institution Press, 1985, ix + 222 pp., $22.95.

Jeffrey T. Richelson, Sword and Shield. The Soviet Intelligence and Security Apparatus. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Ballinger Publishing Company, 1986, xix + 279 pp., $39.95 h/b, $16.95 p/b.

P. Marer, Dollar GNPs of the USSR and Eastern Europe. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London: For the World Bank. 1985, xiii + 241 pp., £20.00.

Moshe Lewin, The Making of the Soviet System: Essays in the Social History of Interwar Russia. London: Methuen, 1985, viii + 354 pp., £19.00 h/b, £8.95 p/b.

Eric P. Hoffmann and Robbin F. Laird, Technocratic Socialism: the Soviet Union in the Advanced Industrial Era. Durham: Duke University Press, 1985, viii + 228 pp. h/b £37.50, p/b £12.50.

Robert Cassen ed., Soviet Interests in the Third World. London: Sage Publications, 1985, xi + 329 pp., h/b £27.50, p/b £10.50.

Václav Havel et al., The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central‐Eastern Europe, Ed. John Keane, Introduction by Steven Lukes. London, Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland, Johannesburg: Hutchinson, 1985, 228 pp., £16.95.

Michael M. Boll, Cold War in the Balkans: American Foreign Policy and the Emergence of Communist Bulgaria, 1943–1947. Lexington, Ky.: The University Press of Kentucky, 1984, ix + 250 pp., £27.50.

Edward R. Girardet, Afghanistan: The Soviet War. London: Croom Helm, 1985, 259 pp., £17.95.

Henry S. Bradsher, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. Durham: Duke University Press, 1985, viii + 384 pp., £12.95.

David W. Lovell, Trotsky's Analysis of Soviet Bureaucratization. London: Croom Helm, 1985, ix + 82 pp., £7.95.

Katerina Clark and Michael Holquist, Mikhail Bakhtin. Cambridge, Mass, and London: Harvard University Press, 1984, xi + 398 pp., £19.95.

Hans‐Georg Heinrich, Hungary. Politics, Economics and Society. London: Frances Pinter, 1986, xviii + 198 pp., £17.50.

Henry Rollet, La Pologne au XX^e Siècle. Paris: éditions A. Pedone, 1985, 603 pp., 240F.

Mieczyslaw F. Rakowski, Ein schwieriger Dialog. Aufzeichnungen zu Ereignissen in Polen 1981–1984. Mit einem Vorwort von Peter Bender. Econ Verlag. Düsseldorf‐Wien 1985. 269 pp. Index. DM. 38,00.

John Ambler, Denis J. B. Shaw and Leslie Symons eds., Soviet and East European Transport Problems. London and Sydney: Croom Helm, 1985, xix + 260 pp., £19.95.

Joan de Bardeleben, The Environment and Marxism‐Leninism: The Soviet and East German Experience. Boulder and London: Westview Press, 1985, xi + 338 pp., no price quoted.

John R. Lampe, The Bulgarian Economy in the Twentieth Century. London: Croom Helm, 1986 x + 245 pp., £25.00.

Pedro Ramet, Nationalism and Federalism in Yugoslavia, 1963–1983. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984, xviii + 299 pp., $27.50.

Boris Meissner, Partei, Staat und Nation in der Sowjetunion. Ausgewdhlte Beitrage. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1985, 544 pp., DM148.00.

Jiri Hochman, The Soviet Union and the Failure of Collective Security, 1934–1938. Cornell Studies in Security Affairs. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1984. 253 pp. $32.95.     

Book reviews

Handbook of Legal Information Retrieval Edited by J Bing, Norwegian Research Centre for Computers and Law, Oslo, in co‐operation with T Fjeldvig, T Harvold and R Svoboda North‐Holland 1984, US $96.25

Information Technology: The Challenge to Copyright. James Lahore, Gerald Dworkin and Yvonne Smyth Sweet & Maxwell and The Centre for Commercial Law Studies 1984, £12.00

Data Processing and the Law Edited by Colin Campbell Sweet and Maxwell 1984, £20.00

Le droit des Contrats Informatiques — Principes — Applications Centre de Recherches informatique et droit des Facultes Universitaires de Namur Maison Ferdinand Larder (Brussels), 1983, 45 FB

Computer Insecurity Adrian R.D. Norman Chapman and Hall 1983, £14.95

The Data Protection Act Richard Sizer and Philip Newman Gower Publishing, 1984, £16.95

The Data Protection Act 1984 Professor Bryan Niblett Oyez Longman Publishing, 1984, £18.00

The Data Protection Act 1984 — A Guide to the New Legislation J. A. L. Sterling CCH Editions, 1984, £15.00

Privacy and Data Protection — An International Bibliography Professor David H. Flaherty Mansell Publishing, 1984, £23.50

Computer Contracts R Morgan & G Stedman Oyez Longman Publishing 1984, 2nd Edition, £27.50

Computer Contracts Handbook Michele Rennie Sweet & Maxwell 1984, £15.00

Computer Contracts — An International Guide to Agreements and Software Protection Hilary Pearson Financial training 1984, £14.95     

Interest in political campaigns: The influence of question order and electoral context

A split-ballot experiment shows that, when people are asked how interested they are in following political campaigns, their response depends not only on the order in which the question is asked, but also on the broader electoral context in which it is posed. When asked how interested they were in following the political campaigns immediatelyafter a question about whether or not they voted in the (1982) election, people were more likely to think they were interested in the campaign, especially if they claimed to have voted, than if they were asked about it immediatelybefore the question on whether or not they voted. This order effect, however, appears to depend onwhen the questions are asked. If asked within a few weeks after the election, there is little or no order effect. But later, as the memory of the campaign fades, the order of the questions makes a sizable difference in the results. This order effect also seems to be more pronounced among better-educated respondents, suggesting that they are more likely to feel pressured by a social norm to vote and to express an interest in political affairs, not only in real life, but in the survey interview as well. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the implications for the design of the interview schedule used in the American National Election Studies.The research reported in this paper was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (SES81-11404).     

Assessing Civil-Military Relations and the January 6th Capitol Insurrection

The events of January 6, 2021, when violent rioters attacked the Capitol building in Washington in order to disrupt validation of the 2020 presidential election, forced an unprecedented reckoning with the state of American politics. Members of Congress struggled to account for the rhetoric that gave rise to the event; law enforcement grappled with the challenge of holding accountable those who perpetrated the violence; and journalistic outlets wrestled with reporting a complex web of conspiracy theories and disinformation that gave rise to the insurrection. But for senior military leaders, the question was how to explain the troubling presence of active duty servicemembers and veterans in the first attack on the American seat of government in two centuries. The result is a profound and urgent discussion in U.S. civil-military relations.