Functional Hypotheses of Party Decline: The Case of the Scandinavian Social Democratic Parties*

Functional hypotheses of party decline define parties as fulfilling specific functions in the political system and relate party decay to the inability or diminished capacity of parties to perform these functions. This article examines two major hypotheses of this sort by assessing their relevance in the case of the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish Social Democratic parties. First, it deals with the thesis of the declining functionality of the mass membership party. Second, it discusses the rival structure hypothesis which argues that rival forms of political organization pose a threat to parties by encroaching upon their functions. These arguments are confronted with available empirical data. In several instances, the empirical evidence points to inadequacies in the hypotheses, or directly confutes them. These weaknesses of the hypotheses are discussed, and alternative interpretations are offered.     

Forecasts and Preferences in the 1992 General Election

Little attention has been paid to the influence of expectations for victory on the formation of general election preferences in U.S. presidential races. There is good reason to believe, however, that under certain conditions citizens' forecasts of who will win the fall election may influence their preference and their vote. We model preferences during the course of the fall 1992 campaign as a function of two kinds of expectations. First we attempt to identify a component of expectations that is independent of political projection. We discover that expectations based only on information about the race play a prominent role in preference formation early in the fall but decline later as the cost of information drops. Similar results obtain when we include projection in the model of expectations. We conclude that general elections may have some of the same dynamic properties that are observable in primaries. Since early momentum in the fall campaign may influence subsequent preference formation, we contend that leads in early polls are valuable.     

Obstacles to desegregating public housing: Lessons learned from implementing eight consent decrees

Between 1992 and 1996 the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) settled a number of legal cases involving housing authorities and agreed to take remedial action as part of court‐enforced consent decrees entered into with plaintiffs. These housing authorities faced significant obstacles that impaired their ability to comply swiftly and fully with all of the elements in the desegregation consent decrees. The obstacles fell into two broad categories: contextual obstacles (racial composition of waiting lists and resident populations, lack of affordable rental housing, and inadequate public transportation), and capacity and coordination obstacles (conflict among implementing agencies and ineffective monitoring by HUD). Findings presented here highlight the sizable potential delay between the time a legal remedy is imposed and when plaintiffs in public housing segregation disputes realize any benefits. They also reinforce the argument that implementation problems will be legion when policies impose a significant scope of required changes on a large number of actors who must collaborate, yet are not uniformly capable or sympathetic to the goals being promoted. © 2003 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Extension services and intermediaries: Brokering federal technologies to smaller firms

Extension services and other organizations that assist small and medium-size firms can play an important role in brokering technology from federal laboratories and other R&D sources. They can help the firms identify and define their technology needs and can help interpret and apply federal-laboratory technologies to meet those needs. These are some of the conclusions of a recent Federal Laboratory Consortium project, designed and managed by INNOVATION ASSOCIATES and overseen by the National Association of Management and Technical Assistance Centers. Major recommendations resulting from the project include: a re-examination by Congress of the federal technology-transfer structure to eliminate redundancies and fill gaps; funding extension services to facilitate hiring of dedicated technology-transfer staff; and providing additional incentives and creating informal mechanisms that encourage federal laboratories to work with small firms. The author also recommends that extension services view relationships with federal laboratories as long-term development rather than short-term “fix-its,” provide proactive and continuous follow-up of small firms working with federal laboratories, and act as an advocate on behalf of small firms. The following article discusses the project and its findings. Observations, issues, and recommendations are found at the end of the article.     

Nostalgia for America's village past: Staged symbolic communities

Conclusion Staged Symbolic Communities have become important cultural forms in contemporary America. Assimulacrums of community, they offer a vision of the organic community with which few contemporary communities can compete. They offer an outlet from the work organization of mass bureaucratic society enabling the tourist visitor to feel both relaxed and in control.Visitors to SSCs take away more than souvenirs and decorating ideas. They also carry lessons regarding identity, history, and community. The Williamsburg effect involves more than paint colors and the attractive presentation of historic villages. It is now the leading architectural model for new communities, the colonial town replacing suburban sprawl (Mohney and Easterling 1989). We have yet to see whether this model will indeed prove the radicalism of tradition (Calhoun 1983), resulting in the restoration of community structure and affective ties, or whether the step backward suggested by SSCs is simply and only that.This paper was first presented at the 1990 SSSI Stone Symposium, St. Petersburg, FL. I should like to thank David Bouchier for helpful comments on an earlier version.