Agent credibility and receptivity influences on children's political learning

This study investigates the child's perception of primary agents (parent, teacher, and friend) as political references. It differs in emphasis from earlier socialization studies by adopting the perspective of the child and asking how and why the child regards these agents as authorities. Using two studies (an original and a replication performed a year later with a separate sample), we demonstrate that fifth- and sixth-grade children exhibit two evaluative dimensions, credibility and receptivity. They discriminate among the agents using these two dimensions, and this discrimination is specific to the type of issue. These dimensions affect successful attitude transmission from agent to child: increasing agent credibility and receptivity factors increase opinion congruence.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1983 meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois.     

Rational decremental budgeting: Elements of an expenditure policy for the 1980s

The dominant pattern of decision-making on public expenditures has been characterized as incremental budgeting. Wide-spread dissatisfaction with this approach has led to the emergence and testing of various techniques purporting to deal with expenditure decisions in a more rational, analytic and comprehensive fashion. Yet our experience with this brand of synoptic rationalism is at best mixed; few innovations in the field of budgeting have lived up to the expectations surrounding their introduction. A synthesis of the two models outlined in this paper is called rational decrementalism: an expenditure policy for an era of retarded growth or economic stagnation.This is a revised version of a paper presented at the Conference of the Scandinavian Association for Public Administration in Vedbaek, Denmark, May 13, 1980.