The relative electoral impact of central party co-ordination and size of party membership at constituency level

Over the past decade, clear evidence has been produced showing that effective constituency campaigning in British general elections can lead to better electoral performance. This evidence has challenged the received wisdom that only national campaigning is significant and that efforts at local level are meaningless rituals. Denver et al. have focused on the role of the national parties in strengthening local campaigns in target seats; Seyd and Whiteley, by contrast, have stressed the importance of local party membership. This article attempts to assess the relative electoral impact of national party co-ordination and constituency party membership and suggests that the impact of these two factors varies by party.     

Discrimination Distress During Adolescence

Amidst changing patterns of accommodation and conflict among American ethnic groups, there remains a paucity of research on the nature and impact of racial and ethnic discrimination on development in multiethnic samples of youth. The Adolescent Discrimination Distress Index along with measures of caregiver racial bias preparation and self-esteem was administered to 177 adolescents drawn from 9th–12th graders self-identified as African American, Hispanic, East Asian, South Asian, and non-Hispanic white. Youth from all ethnic backgrounds reported distress associated with instances of perceived racial prejudice encountered in educational contexts. Instances of institutional discrimination in stores and by police were higher for older youth and particularly for African American and Hispanic teenagers. Encounters with peer discrimination were reported most frequently by Asian youth. Reports of racial bias preparation were associated with distress in response to institutional and educational discrimination and self-esteem scores were negatively correlated with distress caused by educational and peer discrimination. The importance of research on discrimination distress to understanding adolescent development in multiethnic ecologies is discussed here.     

Fact-finding in Inter-state Adjudication

All analogies are imperfect in this respect, and yet the whole of our reasoning from experience … is reasoning from extremely imperfect analogies between past and present occurrences. The question is not, are the conditions of the two problems the same? — for that may always be answered in the negative — but do they resemble each other closely enough for the old solution to be so modified as to apply to the new problem, or to suggest an analogous solution which may be applied to it?¹     

Intimacy status: Relationship to interpersonal perception

Five modes of reacting to the intimacy-isolation crisis of young adulthood were described, measured, and validated. Criteria for inclusion in one of the five intimacy statuses were (1) presence or absence of peer friendships, (2) presence or absence of an enduring-committed-heterosexual relationship, and (3) depth vs. superficiality of peer relationships. Statuses were compared on a partner-perception task assessing subject's intimate knowledge of his partner (a close male or female friend who accompanied the subject to the experiment). In all, 66 male college students participated in the study, 50 with male partners and 16 with female partners. The results support the hypothesis that subjects high in intimacy status share a greater degree of mutual knowledge and understanding with their partners then medium-or low-level intimacy status subjects.The research was supported by SUNY/Buffalo Institutional Funds Grant No. 050-A081A.This article is based in part on a doctoral dissertation submitted to the State University of New York at Buffalo (Orlofsky, 1974).Received Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1974. Primary research interest is in personality development during late adolescence and young adulthood, particularly identity formation and the development of an intimate mode of interpersonal relationships. Also involved in research on sex roles and psychological androgyny.     

Party expenditure and electoral prospects: a national level analysis of Britain

The effectiveness of campaign spending is a hotly contested issue. Much of that debate concentrates upon predetermined or assumed campaign periods. Yet, in a party and electoral system such as Britain, parties are continually campaigning. Party expenditure may therefore have a constant and cumulative effect. This article examines whether increased party spending at the national level is electorally significant. It analyses annual data from 1959 to 1994 and concludes that there is insufficient consistent evidence wholly to support this proposition.