Bringing the State into Constitutional Theory: Public Authority and the Constitution

This article brings the state into constitutional theory by presenting a theory of the development of the American state from the late 19th century to the present. The focus of the theory is the ability of the national state to exercise sovereignty or public authority over civil society. The main thesis is that the Constitution did not establish a government with a level of public authority adequate to the requirements of a modem democratic state. The result was a mismatch between the demands of civil society and the competence of state institutions, causing a reorganization of the political institutions of civil society in the early 20th century and a crisis of public authority in the 1960s. The United States continues to experience the consequences of an imbalance between the state institutions established by an 18th-century constitution and 20th-century democratic politics.     

Systematic Procedures for Operational Code Analysis: Measuring and Modeling Jimmy Carter's Operational Code

In this article we introduce a new scoring system for doing operational code analysis and test its reliability and validity by measuring and modeling President Jimmy Carter's operational code. Using speeches from the public record, we construct indices for the elements of the operational code construct. Based upon the valences and scaled intensities of verbs uttered in the speeches, President Jimmy Carter's views of the political universe and approaches to political action in different issue areas are identified and compared. The results of the analysis provide reasonable support for the face, construct, and content validity of the operational code indices. We find that Carter's view of the political universe and approach to political action were consistent across issue areas during the first three years of his term as president. Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan President Carter's support for human rights remained steadfast. Statistically significant shifts occurred in his views of the Soviet Union and others in the political universe and in his approach to political action regarding the conduct of U.S.-Soviet relations and other issues.     

Decline and fall of congressional news

He has written widely about the Washington press corps. This article was originally prepared as a report for the Renewing Congress Project of the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute.     

All the president’s reporters

His most recent book is Live from Capitol Hill! Studies of Congress and the Media.He is presently researching how the American media cover international news.     

Conceptualizing police professionalism

Police professionalism is a term that has seen wide usage in recent years. However, much confusion has been generated by the distinct and often contradictory usages of the concept. This paper attempts to clarify the concept by examining three competing conceptualizations which have been most frequently subscribed to. Criminal justice researchers have followed sociologists, operational zing professionalism through application of the dimensional approach. Fundamental problems with this approach are discussed as well as specific problems with its’ application to the police. Given the conceptual problems which have plagued the concept of police professionalism, recommendations for future research are made.     

How Planned Is “Planned Litigation”?

Civil rights litigation undertaken by lawyers associated with interest groups, particularly the NAACP and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), is of ten described as planned" litigation. This article examines litigation by these organizations from the late 1960s through the early 1980s to explore the extent to which "planned litigation" is planned. The author interviewed both staff attorneys for organizations participating in race relations litigation and "cooperating attorneys" associated with such organizations.
Elements of planned litigation discussed are litigating organizations' choices—of areas of law on which to focus, of cases, of federal or state courts, and of amicus curiae participation—and the dynamics of litigation—including relations between staff and cooperating attorneys, litigators' control of cases, and the effect of Supreme Court decisions on litigation strategy.
The interviews reveal that much interest-group civil rights litigation is not selected deductively on the basis of previously developed criteria but instead develops inductively from cases that come to the organizations and is affected by pressure and circumstance. Counter to the view, stemming from Brown v. Board of Education, that civil rights litigation is undertaken as planned "campaigns" based on "blueprints," it appears that much about "planned" litigation is problematic, with many constraints imposed by the actions of others and by resource problems, with the result that many deviations from litigation strategy occur. Thus much "planned" litigation b responsive and reflexive and beyond litigators' control.