Editor's note

This study applies Elisabeth Noelle‐Neumann's spiral of silence theory to the controversial issue of whether children with AIDS should be allowed to attend public school. The study tests the theory's hypotheses in light of two content analyses of the media's treatment of the issue. The findings offer tentative and qualified support for Noelle‐Neumann's theoretical propositions about the relationship between individuals' perceptions of the issue and the media's tenor of the issue; particularly that of television. The findings suggest the need to address the role of other agents of influence, including reference groups, and to use time‐based data to unravel the causal order of the relationships.     

The 1984 election as Anthony downs and Stanley Kelley might interpret it

This paper is an analysis of two rational choice theories of elections. Anthony Downs and Stanley Kelley's theories yield complementary interpretations of the 1984 U. S. election. Reagan's victory was based on both prospective and retrospective judgments as well as on candidate and policy considerations. Reagan won that element of an incumbent's reelection that is a referendum on his performance as president. However, people also voted on the basis of domestic and foreign policy preferences for the second term. On these issues voters preferred Mondale as much as Reagan. Reagan's victory owed remarkably little to his conservative agenda and to a warm regard for his personal qualities as a leader. His landslide was deceptive. The two Reagan victories were among the weakest of the six landslides of the postwar period by Kelley's test of decisiveness. The Reagan elections have not set the United States on the course of a long-term conservative agenda in either domestic or foreign affairs.     

Dillon's Rule Under the Burger Court: The Municipal Liability Cases

Under the Burger Court, the constitutional relationship betweenstates and their municipalities has been examined primarilyin cases involving private suits initiated against municipalitiesunder federal antitrust and civil rights statutes. Since theCourt's 1943 Parker v. Brown decision, it had been presumedthat municipalities as political subdivisions of states wereas immune as their states from tort liability under the ShermanAntitrust Act. The Burger Court, however, ruled that municipalitiesare not automatically immunized from tort liability simply becauseof their status as political subdivisions unless they can demonstratethat their actions were undertaken pursuant to an expressedstate policy. After 1980, the Court continued to uphold thevulnerability of municipalities to private suits authorizedby federal statutes, but moved to narrow the types of remedyappropriate under common law. The Burger Court did not, therefore,address the more fundamental question of whether municipalitiesas public actors should be liable to private damages in thecourse of their public functions.