A Tale of Two Towns: Assessing the Role of Political Resources in a Community Electronic Network

In this study we examine responses to the recent expansion of information technology in two rural Minnesota towns. One of these towns took a cooperative approach to technology access, developing a community electronic network, while the other town relied on a more individualistic, entrepreneurial model. The present study examines citizens' attitudes concerning social, political, and technological issues in these two communities, with the goal of uncovering what kinds of attitudes and resources citizens need to have in order to help support and sustain a community electronic network. Structural equation modeling is used to specify the relationships among individuals' economic, political, and social resources, technology ownership and use, and awareness of and support for the community network. Drawing on a theory of social capital, we consider the relative importance of privately- oriented social engagement versus publicly- oriented political engagement in relation to collective outcomes. Our analysis shows that in the town with the broadly- based community electronic network, individuals' political as well as economic resources are linked to knowledge and use of computer resources, whereas in the comparison community, economic stratification alone drives computer access. The implications of these findings for issues of equity, access to technology, and the development of strong community ties are discussed.     

What to Do When Stakeholders Matter: The Case of Problem Formulation for the African American Men Project of Hennepin County, Minnesota

We propose a series of stakeholder analyses designed to help organizations—especially governments—think and act strategically during the process of problem formulation in order to advance the common good. Specifically, we argue that at least five sets of analyses are necessary, including the creation of (1) a power versus interest grid; (2) a stakeholder influence diagram; (3) bases of power–directions of interest diagrams; (4) a map for finding the common good and structuring a winning argument; and (5) diagrams indicating how to tap individual stakeholder interests to pursue the common good. What the analyses do is help to transform a seemingly "wicked problem"—for example, how to produce better outcomes for African American men aged 18–30—into something more tractable, and therefore amenable to collective action. In other words, stakeholder analysis can be used to link political rationality with technical rationality so that support can be mobilized for substantive progress.     

Issues of Federalism in Response to Terrorism

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, provoked, among other reactions, considerable commentary about the future of American federalism, particularly predictions of administrative centralization. To assess the potential impact of terrorism on U.S. intergovernmental relations and the ways the federal system should respond, members of the American Political Science Association's Section on Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations were surveyed in late 2001. Generally, these federalism scholars believe the September 11 terrorism will have little effect on intergovernmental relations or on the U.S. Supreme Court's state–friendly jurisprudence, and the surge in public trust and confidence in the federal government will be short–lived. The scholars tend to support a highly federalized response to terrorism, but with intergovernmental cooperation. Partisan differences among the scholars on policy options, however, mirror the party differences in Congress and the resurgence of "politics as usual" less than a year after September 11, 2001.     

Agency, Structure and Causality in Political Science: A Comment on Sibeon

Researchers in political science are devoting increasing attention to the ontological commitments of their theories – that is, to what those theories presuppose about the nature of the political world. This article focuses on a recent contribution to this 'ontological turn' in political science ( Sibeon, 1999 ). Tensions are identified in Sibeon's account of the causal interplay between agency and social structure. It is argued that these tensions can be resolved by reflecting explicitly on ontological issues, in particular the causal efficacy of social structure, using a particular approach to the philosophy of the social sciences known as critical realism. The value of such reflection for the explanatory power of political analysis is highlighted.     

Congressional Responses to the Rehnquist Court's Federalism Decisions

Scholars who have sought to assess the consequences of the RehnquistCourt's federalism decisions have identified various means bywhich Congress can overcome the effects of these rulings, butthere have been few efforts to investigate the degree to whichCongress has employed these means. This study finds that Congresshas enjoyed limited success in responding to the Court's rulings.Significantly, though, the failure to overcome the effects ofthese decisions is rarely attributable to the fact that theCourt's constitutional doctrines have erected insurmountablebarriers to congressional action. Rather, the Court's decisionshave forced congressional supporters of the invalidated statutoryprovisions to build and hold political coalitions in supportof the repassage of these laws, and this has frequently provedto be difficult to accomplish, whether due to a lack of enthusiasmfor such efforts, conflicts with other policy goals, or oppositionfrom other groups.     

The State of American Federalism, 2001-2002: Resilience in Response to Crisis

The past year has been one of repeated shocks to governmentand the larger society. Terrorist attacks in New York City andWashington, D. C., the burst of the dot.com bubble in the stockmarket, a wave of corporate scandals, and a slowdown in theeconomy posed severe problems for officials of all governmentsin the federal system. The combined effects of the war on terrorismand the economic turmoil forced federal policymakers to createnew agencies and to enact new policies. State and local governmentsalso responded to the multiple shocks with a variety of initiatives,often independent of Washington. Instead of a move toward centralizationthat might have been predicted as a consequence of the seriousshocks, all elements of the American federal system demonstrateda capacity and energy to marshal resources in a time of urgency.     

Public Opinion on Federalism in the United States and Canada in 2002: The Aftermath of Terrorism

This research reports on a public-opinion survey on intergovernmentaland border issues in Canada and the United States conductedin mid-April 2002. In the United States, there was an upsurgein public support for the federal government in 2002 over 2001,and a slight decline in public evaluations of state and localgovernments. Increased support for the federal government wasespecially notable among whites, Republicans, and respondentswith post-undergraduate education-groups that previously registeredlow support for the federal government. Canadians reported lesssatisfaction with all governments in their federal system, lowersupport for their federal government, and much more regionaland partisan division over intergovernmental issues. On internationalborder issues, Americans and Canadians generally agreed thata common border-security policy would be a good idea, thoughCanadians were slightly more likely than Americans to preferease of cross-border trade over improved border security.     

Who Wants to Work for the Government?

In an era when everyone wants to be a millionaire, governments struggle to attract and retain highly qualified employees, making it more important than ever to understand what attracts people to the public service. Using contingency table analysis and logistic regression on the 1989 and 1998 General Social Surveys, we explore how individuals' demographic characteristics and the importance they place on various job qualities influence their preference for and employment in the public sector. Job security may still be the strongest attraction of government jobs, but high income and the opportunity to be useful to society also attract some Americans to the public service. Minorities, veterans, Democrats, and older Americans preferred public-sector jobs more than whites, nonveterans, Republicans, and younger Americans, who were otherwise similar. Women and college graduates were more likely than comparable men and less-educated respondents to have government jobs, but no more likely to prefer them. Overall, desire for government jobs declined markedly between 1989 and 1998.