Cross Pressure Scores: An Individual-Level Measure of Cumulative Partisan Pressures Arising from Social Group Memberships

Early studies of voting behavior hypothesized that the degree to which an individual was “cross-pressured” might affect how she participates in politics. However, attention to this topic waned before returning in recent years, mainly within the narrower confines of social networks analysis. In an effort to encourage broader consideration of the role of cross-pressures in political behavior, we present a new approach to estimating cross-pressures that (1) is individual-specific, (2) reflects the cumulative cross-pressures faced by an individual from her many intersecting social strata and group memberships, irrespective of the mechanism by which those pressures are experienced, and (3) can be estimated using widely-available data in party systems of any size, thus making it easier to study the effect of cross-pressures cross-nationally and over time. We demonstrate that these estimates are robust to many estimation choices, correspond well to existing measures of cross-pressures, and are correlated with patterns of political engagement and participation predicted by extant theories.     

CHANGING PRACTICES AND CONCEPTIONS OF THE EXECUTIVE FUNCTION IN URBAN GOVERNMENT: THE GREATER BRISBANE EXPERIENCE

Abstract: Since the commencement of the Greater Brisbane scheme in 1925, a number of different ways of organising the executive function have been provided for in the legislation. These have included a mayor elected at large as chief executive officer; an appointed city manager model, which was never activated; a quasi-cabinet model, with the mayor being elected by the council rather than at large; a "weak" collective executive committee, akin to the early 20th century "board of control" arrangements in Canada, the mayor being elected at large and standing committees of council possessing substantial policy formulation powers; a stronger collective executive in theory, alongside which something akin to the American "strong mayor with chief administrative officer" model operated in practice; a strong collective executive, with the mayor once again elected indirectly, and weak standing committees of aldermen retained; a return to something like the original mayor-as-CEO arrangement; and finally, a strengthened version of the initial "mayor-as-CEO with chief administrative officer" model. These changes are traced chronologically and a general assessment is offered in conclusion.     

Practical Issues in Implementing and Understanding Bayesian Ideal Point Estimation

Andrew Gelman Department of Statistics and Department of Political Science, Columbia University, New York, NY e-mail: gelman{at}stat.columbia.edu, www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/ David K. Park Department of Political Science, Washington University, St. Louis, MO e-mail: dpark{at}artsci.wustl.edu Noah Kaplan Department of Political Science, University of Houston, Houston, TX e-mail: nkaplan{at}uh.edu Logistic regression models have been used in political sciencefor estimating ideal points of legislators and Supreme Courtjustices. These models present estimation and identifiabilitychallenges, such as improper variance estimates, scale and translationinvariance, reflection invariance, and issues with outliers.We address these issues using Bayesian hierarchical modeling,linear transformations, informative regression predictors, andexplicit modeling for outliers. In addition, we explore newways to usefully display inferences and check model fit.     

An Easy and Accurate Regression Model for Multiparty Electoral Data

Katz and King have previously proposed a statistical model formultiparty election data. They argue that ordinary least-squares(OLS) regression is inappropriate when the dependent variablemeasures the share of the vote going to each party, and theyrecommend a superior technique. Regrettably, the Katz–Kingmodel requires a high level of statistical expertise and iscomputationally demanding for more than three political parties.We offer a sophisticated yet convenient alternative that involvesseemingly unrelated regression (SUR). SUR is nearly as easyto use as OLS yet performs as well as the Katz–King modelin predicting the distribution of votes and the compositionof parliament. Moreover, it scales easily to an arbitrarilylarge number of parties. The model has been incorporated intoClarify, a statistical suite that is available free on the Internet.     

Television,teenagers, and health

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which multiple health and lifestyle variables differ among 406 adolescent males classified according to average duration of daily television viewing. Cattell's 16PF Questionnaire, Form C, and Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale were employed to assess psychological health, and the Physical Performance Test for California was used to measure six dimensions of physical fitness. Participants also completed a questionnaire requesting general demographic data, and information regarding lifestyle and average amount of time spent watching television per day. Results indicated that the well-being of the boys was related significantly to the extent of television viewing. Light television viewers were more physically fit, emotionally stable, sensitive, imaginative, outgoing, physically active, self-controlled, intelligent, moralistic, college bound, church oriented, and self-confident than their counterparts, especially heavy television viewers. Furthermore, light television viewers were less troubled, frustrated, and shrewd, and used drugs less frequently, particularly alcohol, than moderate and heavy television watchers, especially the latter.Larry Tucker, Associate Professor, received his Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale in Health Education. His research interests include adolescent health behavior, particularly self-destructive behaviors and achieving high-level wellness.