Toward the formation of a partisan alignment in France

This article investigates the extent to which and the ways in which a basic partisan alignment appeared to be forming in France between 1958 and 1988. During that period, the incidence of party identification rose from abnormally low to normal levels, and the composition of the alignment evolved from indeterminacy, through a left-right standoff, to Socialist party predominance. The basic question asked is how a partisan alignment is createdin the first place. The main elements of the answer suggested are by simplifying, clarifying, and stabilizing the terms of electoral choice. This process is traced closely, with special reference to the incidence of PI and the composition of the alignment by age in 1988, and including a comparison between France in 1968 and the U.S. in 1932. Finally, the fragility of the 1988 alignment is underscored. Comparatively new and shaped mainly by the partisan identifications of the younger citizens, the 1988 alignment was vulnerable to any weakening of the conditions that contributed to creating it. The party with the most to lose was the Socialist party, which had gained the most while the party system stabilized and the incidence of party identification rose.This is a revised version of a paper that was originally presented at the 1991 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C.     

Partisanship and the party system

The defining properties of party identification long established for the United States fail with some frequency to be replicated in electoral systems abroad. A number of plausible suggestions have been made to account for this system-level variability: Most of these have some face merit, but none taken alone is adequate to provide a full cross-system explanation. Variation in party system size or fractionalization has recently been discussed as another source of differential dynamics of party loyalties. Unfortunately, the conventional means of assessing party identification properties are subject to rather severe artifacts, typically ignored, when comparisons are made across systems of very different party size. The conceptual stakes underlying key methods options for such comparisons—most notably, between continuous and discrete statistical tools—are examined. The use of continuous statistics for systems of very multiple parties rests on an assumption that voters do in some degree regard these party systems as imbedded in a continuous space. A simple test for this assumption is mounted in four systems and unsurprisingly it shows very clear support. Analysis of residuals beyond this obvious result add several points of less obvious information about the distribution of party affect in such systems.     

International organized crime

He has served as a consultant to the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the National Security Council, and related agencies of the U.S. government. He has written, coauthored, or edited over sixteen books on intelligence and national security.     

Policy Regimes for the International Waste Trade

Among the unforeseen problems of the new industrial age has been the disposal of increasing quantities of wastes—many hazardous and toxic. Industrial chemistry has produced numerous products that, while useful, are alien to nature and resistant to biodegradation or detoxification. Growing public awareness of the possible hazards and risks involved in disposal of the residuals of industrial activities is arousing a popular demand for environmental protection. But this popular awareness depends upon public information and a degree of scientific literacy—conditions which vary widely among nations. Initial consequences are environmental regulations and restrictions respecting waste disposal in scientifically developed countries, and vulnerability among less developed countries to the export of hazardous wastes from the countries of their origin. A secondary consequence is the emergence of international waste trade as a national and international multidimensional policy problem.     

Correspondence

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