Research in Context: Measuring Value Change

Abramson and Inglehart find a significant trend toward postmaterialist values in Western Europe, which they argue is largely driven by the gradual processes of generational replacement. Clarke, Dutt, and Rapkin argue that this trend is a methodological artifact of the wording of Inglehart's four-item measure of materialist/ postmaterialist values. They claim that because this battery does not include a question about unemployment, in periods of high unemployment respondents tend to choose postmaterialist goals. The long-term trend toward postmaterialism in Western Europe, they argue, results from rising levels of unemployment during the past two decades. Abramson and Inglehart point out that increases in inflation have a short-term impact on decreasing postmaterialism, but maintain that the positive relationship between unemployment and postmaterialism is spurious. As this analysis shows, Clarke, Dutt, and Rapkin find a positive relationship between unemployment and postmaterialism by building a model that has little theoretical justification and that is not robust to changes in specification. As this analysis demonstrates, unemployment is actually linked with support for materialist goals, and the trend toward post-materialism is robust in the face of alternative time frames, models, and specifications. The weight of the evidence demonstrates that the long-term trend toward postmaterialism in Western Europe is driven by generational replacement.     

Fission and Federalism: The Disaggregation of Canadian Party Activists

This article focuses on the Progressive Conservative (PC) partyof Canada and contrasts the orientations of four different setsof PC party workers: those who are active in the provincialarena in Nova Scotia and in Alberta, as well as those who areactive in the national arena from the same two provinces. Thedata reveal that federalism has had a disaggregative effecton Canadian political party ideology. Not only is the cleavagebetween activists in different orders of government consistentlylarge; it also generally exceeds that which exists between activistsin different provinces.     

Disordered Eating Precursors in Pre- and Early Adolescent Girls and Boys

First- and second-year findings from a study of the development of disordered eating in pre- and early adolescents are presented. Fifth- and sixth-grade girls (n = 80) and boys (n = 85) were assessed on depression, body image, self-esteem, and eating behaviors and attitudes in Year 1 and again one year later. Weight, height, and pubertal development were also evaluated in Year 1 and Year 2. Gender differences existed on all measures in Year 2 and indicated consistently poorer scores for girls compared to boys. For girls, Year 1 Body Mass Index and pubertal development predicted Year 2 disordered eating. For boys, poor body image in Year 1 predicted Year 2 disordered eating. The importance of identifying early risk factors for eating disorders is discussed.     

Dealignment, spatial polarisation and economic voting

Abstract. Estimates of voting by occupational class are provided for each of 22 regions in the UK for every general election since 1964. These are analysed, using a log-linear modelling strategy, to identify the changing degree of class dealignment and spatial polarisation within the British electorate over the period. The growing regional variability is consistent with expectations regarding the increasing volume of economic voting and the pattern of uneven development in the country: the north-south and urban-rural divides have both widened.     

State and standards

In this paper a new economic approach to standardization has been presented. Standardization has been regarded as a problem ofgradual choice. An individual chooses to apply more or less standards within a hierarchy of standards. With this decomposition of standards, the problem of strategic market power becomes less important than in the traditional models of standardization. It becomes possible to analyze the problems of network externalities within a framework of non-strategic behavior and to apply the tools of the traditional theory of externalities and public goods. While decentralized action may lead to too little standardization, committees may overcome this deficiency to some extent, but bureaucracies are likely to lead to overstandardization. In the empirical section of the paper it has been shown that our approach can be applied to the standard-setting process in languages, railroads, and telecommunications. In all three cases the tendency of bureaucracies to generate more standardization than committees has been corroborated.The authors are indebted for helpful comments to the participants of the Berlin Seminar on Political Economy and of the colloquium Algemene Economie, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, and to A. Roemer, Saarbrücken.     

Shirking and political support in the U.S. Senate, 1964–1984

Several empirical studies have suggested that legislators engage in a surprisingly large degree of on-the-job consumption, or ideological behavior. These findings cast doubt on the hypothesis that legislators can be modelled as though they seek to maximize political support. This paper attempts to determine whether commonly used proxies for ideology in fact represent behavior to which voters are averse. The results show that legislators who engage in more of this behavior lose general-election support without generally receiving compensating increases in partyprimary support. A corollary to this result is that voters punish shirking legislators significantly.     

The (non) equivalence theorem when there are matching grants as well as lump sum grants

In developing their influential equivalence theorem Bradford and Oates (1971) implicitly assume that there is a lump sum grant only. This paper explores whether the equivalence result continues to hold when the lump sum grant is part of a program of grants-in-aid which includes a matching grant. It is shown that the equivalence results as stated by Bradford and Oates does not hold in these more general circumstances; however, a much weaker equivalence result does hold. This finding is important because there has been a tendency in the empirical literature to assume that the equivalence result holds under quite general circumstances. It is also shown here that the combined use of lump sum and matching grants can produce a reverse flypaper effect.