Attitudes and behaviour of party activists

Abstract. During the last four years a research project has studied the 'Middle-Level Elites' of sixty European political parties. Like most previous studies in this area the main objective of the project was strictly party activists' attitudes; no attention was paid to their actual behaviour in the party organisation. Other studies of recent date indicate however that party activists, despite their often more radical or extreme stands on many issues, often submit to the authority and dominance of the party leadership in the intraparty policy-making process. Thus, attitudinal data seem to tell us very little about the actual behaviour of the party activists. The article first presents the results of some recent studies on the attitudes of party activists. Secondly, these findings are related to studies on the actual behaviour of the activists. When synthesising these different types of observations, we can develop a typology of intraparty conflicts, as well as one of party activist behaviour. Together, these two typologies represent different models of intraorganisational behaviour. Finally, by using empirical illustrations drawn from recent studies on party activist attitudes or behaviour, some hypotheses deduced from the theories of May, Hirschman and Michels are introduced to suggest paths for future research and to point to some of the most salient problems in this area.     

Coca Eradication in the Andes: Lessons from Bolivia

Al Gedicks: The New Resources Wars: Native and Environmental Struggles Against Multinational Corporations. Boston: South End Press, 1993.

Richard Hofrichter, ed.: Toxics Struggles: The Theory and Practice of Environmental Justice . Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1993.

Raymond Bonner: At the Hand of Man: Peril and Hope for Africa's Wildlife. New York: Knopf, 1993.

Theodore Steinberg: Nature Incorporated: Industrialization and the Waters of New England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.     

The Effect of Survey Mode and Sampling on Inferences about Political Attitudes and Behavior: Comparing the 2000 and 2004 ANES to Internet Surveys with Nonprobability Samples

Jon A. Krosnick Departments of Communication, Political Science, and Psychology, Stanford University, 434 McClatchy Hall, 450 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305 e-mail: krosnick{at}stanford.edu e-mail: neilm{at}stanford.edu (corresponding author) Since the inception of the American National Election Study(ANES) in the 1940s, data have been collected via face-to-faceinterviewing in the homes of members of area probability samplesof American adults, the same gold-standard approach used bythe U.S. Census Bureau, other federal agencies, and some nongovernmentresearchers for many of the most high-profile surveys conductedtoday. This paper explores whether comparable findings aboutvoters and elections would be obtained by a different, considerablyless expensive method: Internet data collection from nonprobabilitysamples of volunteer respondents. Comparisons of the 2000 and2004 ANES data (collected via face-to-face interviewing withnational probability samples) with simultaneous Internet surveysof volunteer samples yielded many differences in the distributionsof variables and in the associations between variables (evencontrolling for differences between the samples in reportedinterest in politics). Accuracy was higher for the face-to-face/probabilitysample data than for the Internet/volunteer sample data in 88%of the possible comparisons. This suggests that researchersinterested in assuring the accuracy of their findings in describingpopulations should rely on face-to-face surveys of probabilitysamples rather than Internet samples of volunteer respondents. Authors' note: We thank Randy Thomas of Harris Interactive andMorris Fiorina for very helpful suggestions. Jon Krosnick isUniversity Fellow at Resources for the Future.     

The relationship between regulation and contracts in infrastructure industries: Regulation as ordered renegotiation

This paper discusses the relationship between regulation and contracts in infrastructure industries and the role of regulation, particularly the role of regulatory agencies in the review, revision, and renegotiation of contracts. The paper starts with a short survey of relevant economic and legal issues. Examples are presented of how and why infrastructure contracts, including concession contracts, have been combined with monitoring and enforcement by external regulatory agencies. The examples discussed include historical UK experience, recent French experience, and developing country experience. The paper concludes with a discussion of the role that regulatory entities can play to reinforce trust and sustain contracts by enabling simpler contracts, resolving contract misunderstandings, and providing processes for ordered renegotiations.     

市场与论坛:政治理论的三种形态

文章论述了政治理论的三种主要观点:社会选择理论认为政治过程是工具性的,其目标是私人利益的最佳妥协;理性共识理论则表明,政治的目标应该是理性的一致而不是妥协,而且决定性的政治行为是参与公共辩论以达成共识;参与民主理论认为,政治的目标就是转化和教育参与者,政治本身就是目的。