Stability and change in political attitudes: Observed,recalled, and “explained”

Using data from a panel survey of members of two generations, this study explores observed change in policy opinions across a 9-year span and respondents' recollections and explanations of their self-perceived attitude shifts. In general, remembrances corresponded poorly to opinions as originally expressed, with respondents perceiving that they were more attitudinally stable than was actually observed. When attempting to reconstruct their past political attitudes, individuals appeared to rely on simple rules of thumb such as one might employ to account for another's behavior. Finally, respondents readily supplied explanations for their self-perceived attitude history, even when those perceptions directly contradicted observed opinion change. It is argued that these results are not artifacts of survey measurement problems. Instead, they indicate that policy attitudes generally do not have strong cognitive representations, are eminently changeable, and once they are changed, an individual's cognitive autobiography is revised so as to render the changes invisible.     

Reviews

Seweryn Bialer ed. Politics. Society and Nationality inside Gorbachev's Russia. Boulder, London: Westview Press, 1989. xv + 255 pp., £22.50 h/b., £11.00 p/b.

Jan Winiecki, The Distorted World of Soviet‐Type Economies. London and New York: Routledge, 1988, xi + 130 pp., £33.00.

Jan Adam, Economic Reforms in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe since the 1960s. London: Macmillan, 1989, xvi + 242 pp. £29.50.

Alexander George, Philip J. Farley and Alexander Dallin, eds. U.S.‐Soviet Security Cooperation. Achievements, Failures, Lessons. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988, xi + 746 pp., £30.00.

Thomas M. Cynkin, Soviet and American Signalling in the Polish Crisis. London: MacMillan Press, 1988, ix + 263 pp., £35.00.

Stephen Lewarne, Soviet Oil: The Move Offshore. Boulder and London: Westfield Press, 1988, xiv + 190 pp. Price not indicated.

Margaret Chadwick, David Long and Machiko Nissanke, Soviet Oil Exports: Trade Adjustments, Refining Constraints and Market Behaviour. Oxford: OUP 1987. xviii + 263 pp. £29.50.

James H. Bater, The Soviet Scene: A Geographical Perspective. London: Edward Arnold, 1989, xv + 304 pp., £30.00 h/b., £11.95 p/b.

Raymond Hutchings, Soviet Secrecy and Non‐Secrecy. London: Macmillan, 1987, vii + 292 pp., £29.50.

Bryan Ranft and Geoffrey Till, The Sea in Soviet Strategy. 2nd Edition, London: Macmillan, 1989, xviii + 284 pp., £35.00.

Robert Desjardins, The Soviet Union through French Eyes, 1945–85. Foreward by Archie Brown, St Antony's/Macmillan series, Macmillan Press, London, 1988, xiii + 199 pp., £33.00.

Linda R. Killen, The Soviet Union and the United States: A New Look at the Cold War. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1989, xv + 195 pp., $24.95 h/b., $12.95 p/b.

Anne D. Rassweiler, The Generation of Power. The History of Dneprostroi. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988, viii + 247 pp., £24.00.

Stephen White, The Bolshevik Poster. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988, viii + 152 pp., £19.95, $39.95.

János Timár, Idö és munkaidö (Time and Work Time), Közgazdasági és Jogi Könyvkiadó, Budapest, 1988, 297 pp.

Tamara Dragadze, Rural Families in Soviet Georgia. A case study in Ratcha Province. International Library of Anthropology, Routledge, London and New York, 1988, xii + 226 pp.

Thomas A. Oleszczuk, Political Justice in the USSR: Dissent and Repression in Lithuania, 1969–1987. Boulder, Colorado: East European Monographs, 1988, viii + 221 pp., $34.50.

Nora Levin, The Jews in the Soviet Union since 1917: Paradox of Survival. New York: New York University Press, 1988, 2 vols. xxxiv + 1013 pp., $55 each vol., $100 the set; foreign prices $69 and $125.

Benjamin Pinkus, The Jews of the Soviet Union: The History of a National Minority. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, xvii + 397 pp., £30.00, $34.50.

Marko Milivojevi?, John B. Allcock and Pierre Maurer, eds. Yugoslavia's Security Dilemmas: Armed Forces, National Defence and Foreign Policy. Oxford: Berg Publishers Limited, 1988, viii + 324 pp., £35.00.

German Institute for Economic Research, ed. GDR and Eastern Europe. A Handbook. Avebury, Gower Publishing Company Limited, 1989, xxi + 383 pp., £32.50.

Daniel N. Nelson, Romanian Politics in the Ceausescu Era. London: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, 1988, xvii + 244 pp., $69.00.

The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the Russian Revolution, Edited by Harold Shukman, Basil Blackwell, 1988, xv + 418 pp.     

Succession problems arising from artificial insemination, surrogate motherhood and test tube babies: a proposed solution

Recent advances in medical technology have created possible conflicts with estate succession. Three specific medical advances that confuse succession statutes are artificial insemination, surrogate motherhood, and “test tube babies.” These medical break-throughs have raised a burning question in the area of intestate succession: From whom will the child inherit, the natural parent,¹ the artificial parent (donor),² or both? This article will: 1) define the medical advances causing confusion in interpreting succession statutes; 2) discuss the current law of succession as it applies to each medical advance; and 3) propose a model statute to avoid the succession problems which currently exist.     

Linking action training to bureaucratic reorientation and institutional reform

This article explores the use of action-training methods in a highly centralized and control-oriented public sector. It focuses on the Technical Assistance and Training Programme for Departmental Development Corporations (PATC-CORDES), an innovative programme in Peru initially supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Successive sections review a particularly influential alternative to conventional classroom training proposed by Honadle and Hannah (1982); provide relevant background; describe PATC-CORDES organization and objectives; examine its training activities; assess the resulting institutional impacts; and posit important insights from the case study. The PATC-CORDES experience demonstrates that action-training methods can produce positive results in agencies that are part of a rigid public sector and, more importantly, that such methods can be linked to bureaucratic reorientation and institutional reform. Perhaps the most interesting and controversial conclusion is that recruitment of central administrators to lead training exercises can be a useful tactic for bureaucratic reorientation. The article is based on review of documents, reports, and evaluations prepared by persons working for USAID/Peru, PATC-CORDES, and departmental development corporations (CORDES); extensive interviews with political leaders, managers, and professionals in these same organizations; analysis of Peruvian legislation; and other references cited in the text.     

U.S. Governance: Not The Gold Standard

China has recently consolidated the theories and practices associated with its whole-process people's democracy, which was first named formally in 2019, and more clearly expressed this year. As a recent white paper on the subject clarifies, it reflects the longstanding effort to build and advance a socialist people's democracy in China, one century in the making.     

MISREADINGS AND MISATTRIBUTIONS

The Sixth Plenary Session of the 19th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee has concluded with a much anticipated resolution on the Party's history, the third such resolution since the Party's founding, amid expectation that a new assessment would appear this year. The session came at a time when China signaled it had entered a "new era" and celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Party's founding in tandem with achieving a xiaokang (moderately prosperous) society and after eliminating extreme poverty, while transitioning to a new development model, advancing the green revolution, recovering from the pandemic, and further bolstering sovereignty and national defense. Chinese media reports for the most part have focused on the 10 principles or lessons the report provides to help China tackle major challenges in coming decades.     

The appointment of federal regulatory commissioners: A case study of the CRTC

Abstract. Members of federal administrative tribunals are selected and appointed in ways which are little known by most people within or close to government and which are even more obscure to the general public. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), one of the most influential of these government agencies, is taken in this essay as a model through which to examine this selection and appointment process. An attempt is made to shed light on the criteria applied to candidates in the process of staffing this commission, as well as on the path such candidacies must follow. With appropriate adaptations to other regulated sectors of the economy, the procedures outlined here may be said to be mirrored in the process of choosing commissioners for other important federal administrative tribunals. From the time when a name is entered on the list of candidates kept by the appropriate minister until the day the cabinet approves the appointment of the minister's nominee, several departments of the government and various bodies involved in the political process have their say in the outcome of the candidacy. This essay shows that the procedure is to a great extent discretionary, but that the exercise of such discretion is sufficiently enshrined in custom to prevent arbitrary abuse. Sommaire. Les membres des tribunaux administratifs fédéraux sont choisis et nommés selon un processus peu connu de l'ensemble du secteur public et parapublic et pratiquement ignoré du grand public. Dans cet article, le Conseil de la Radiodiffusion et des Télécommunications canadiennes (CRTC), l'un des plus importants organismes gouvernementaux, a été choisi afin de permettre l'examen de ce processus de sélection et de nomination. L'auteur tente de mettre en lumière les critères auxquels doivent satisfaire les candidats à un poste dans ce conseil ainsi que l'acheminement bureaucratique que doivent ouivre ces candidatures. Moyennant des adaptations nécessaires aux autres secteurs réglementés de l'économie, les procédés exposés dans cet article reflétent la manière dont sont choisis les commissaires des autres importants tribunaux administratifs fédéraux. Du jour où un nom est inscrit sur la liste des candidats que maintient un certain ministre jusqu'au jour où le Conseil des ministres approuve la nomination de la personne qui a été recommandée par le ministre en question, plusieurs ministères ainsi qu'un nombre de corps politiques ont fait connaître leur Commission. opinion au sujet de la candidature. Cet article démontre que le procédé décrit est en grande partie discrétionnaire mais que l'exercice dune telle discrétion est suffisamment ancré dans l'usage pour que soit évité tout abus arbitraire.     

Paternalism,National Citizenship,and Religiosity in Chinese State Legitimation Discourse

Journal of Chinese Political Science - Recent discussions on the nature and problems of Chinese state legitimacy have drawn attention to the multidimensionality of contributing factors and threats...     

Subsidies for New Technologies and Knowledge Spillovers from Learning by Doing

This study empirically examines a prominent justification for public subsidies of emerging technologies: that stimulating demand for them provides opportunities for learning by doing. Even if firms learn from their experience, subsidies are still second best to pricing negative externalities if firms can appropriate the benefits of learning. I construct a panel of electricity output from wind power projects, for a case involving $1 billion in public funds, to assess whether firms’ performance benefited from the experience of other firms. I find evidence of learning by doing and knowledge spillovers. However, knowledge gained from experience shows both diminishing returns and depreciating effectiveness.