The narrative structure of policy analysis

This paper holds that the prior development of clear external criteria or principles is not always a useful avenue to the resolution of policy dilemmas, and that external criteria are sometimes as likely to emerge from proposed resolutions to policy issues as they are to govern those resolutions. In the absence of external criteria, stories meeting certain characteristics (truth, richness, consistency, congruency, and unity) can integrate necessary considerations, explain the development of current dilemmas, and point the way to resolutions. Not all policy analyses need to be in the narrative form-some analyses appropriately make tenseless arguments for particular principles. However, these principles invariably allow for many possible actions, and only a narrative can explain which particular course of action is desirable and why.     

Antecedents of deviant responses: Predicting from a general theory of deviant behavior

A statement of a general theory of deviant behavior asserts that four factors or processes intervene between the development of self-rejecting attitudes and adoption of deviant patterns. An earlier report demonstrated a relationship between antecedent negative self-attitudes and subsequent increases in seven variables that reflected these four factors. The present paper tests hypotheses that these seven variables are in turn related to the subsequent adoption of each of 22 deviant responses. Subjects were seventh-grade students (N=4694) who responded to questionnaires at T₁ and T₂ (a year later). The seven independent variables were measured by scale scores based on subject responses at T₁. Adoption of deviant responses was defined in terms of subject's selfreports of performing each of 22 deviant acts between T₁ and T₂ after having denied performance of the deviant act during a specified period prior to T₁. The results were interpreted as supporting the hypotheses, although relatively few exceptions were noted. These findings together with those of the earlier analysis were thus congruent with the theoretical position that the relationship between antecedent self-rejection and subsequent deviant responses is mediated by the subjective association of membership group experiences with feelings of self-rejection, the genesis of contranormative attitudes, the inability to satisfy the self-esteem motive through normative response patterns, and awareness of deviant alternatives to these normative patterns that in the past have failed to permit development of self-accepting attitudes.Received his Ph.D. in sociology from New York University in 1958. Current research interests are social psychiatry and, more specifically, the reciprocal relationship between self-attitudes and the adoption of deviant response patterns.     

On-line processing in candidate evaluation: The effects of issue order,issue importance,and sophistication

This article reports the results of a study that replicates and extends the impression-driven model of candidate evaluation reported in Lodge, McGraw, and Stroh (1989). This model holds that evaluations are formed and updated on-line as information is encountered, and that as a result, citizens need not rely on specific information available from memory to form their candidate evaluations. In the present work we explore whether the order in which information is encountered, as well as whether information that is personally important, influences the weight accorded to evidence in on-line processing. In addition, differences in information-processing strategies due to political sophistication are examined. The results indicate that important information receives more weight than unimportant information. In addition, the evidence suggests that political sophisticates are more efficient on-line processors than are less sophisticated individuals. The implications of these results for models of candidate evaluation are discussed.     

Sexual psychopathy, public policy, and the liberal state

This article addresses several interrelated issues. It strives to situate a class of offenders within the liberal state. The disposition of this class allows an analysis of the tensions in liberal theory. It highlights the ways liberalism attributes individual responsibility for criminal behavior and captures the limits of those attributions. It also reveals liberalism's shift away from models of responsibility toward the social control of deviancy. The disposition of this class points toward the therapeutic mask involved in the social control model. Further, the disposition of this class may well serve as a model for isolating and demonizing other disfavored classes, including political dissenters.     

Attitude and the normativity of law

Though legal positivism remains popular, HLA Hart’s version has fallen somewhat by the wayside. This is because, according to many, the central task of a theory of law is to explain the so-called ‘normativity of law’. Hart’s theory, it is thought, is not up to the task. Some have suggested modifying the theory accordingly. This paper argues that both Hart’s theory and the normativity of law have been misunderstood. First, a popular modification of Hart’s theory is considered and rejected. It stems from a misunderstanding of Hart and his project. Second, a new understanding of the mysterious but often-mentioned ‘normativity of law’ is presented. Once we have dispelled some misunderstandings of Hart’s view and clarified the sense in which law is supposed to be normative, we see that Hart’s view, unmodified, is well suited to the task of explaining law’s normativity.