Voter turnout in presidential primaries: A cross-sectional examination

Decades of individual and aggregate level research suggest that three sets of factors influence voter turnout: the socioeconomic makeup of the potential voter; legal restrictions on voting; and the political context of each election. In this brief study, we use state-level data to test whether these factors combine to account for variations in turnout rates in the electoral arena of presidential primaries. As expected, high turnout is associated with states which have high median levels of education, lenient legal restrictions on voting, and a history of competitive two-party elections. Also congruent with our expectations, but at odds with research of other electoral arenas, high turnout in presidential primaries is unrelated to high campaign spending or close elections. We contend that spending in presidential primaries may be simply too low to stimulate turnout and that close primaries do not enhance turnout because voters are often unaware that the pending election will be close.The names of the authors appear in alphabetical order and imply that this study is in every way a collaborative enterprise.     

Civic Culture and Government Performance in the American States

In a recent study, Robert D. Putnam reported a strong relationshipbetween civic culture and government performance among the newlyempowered regions of Italy. This article extends Putnam's methodologythe American states. Using similar techniques, we constructindices of civic culture and government performance for thestates. When correlated, the results reveal a clear link betweencivicness and performance. States that are more civic lend tohave governments that enact more liberal and innovative policies.This relationship between civicness and performance remainsstrong even after controlling for political culture, ideology,education, and other factors.     

The periphery–dominated center

Nomination: The periphery–dominated centre by Peter Mair, p.63
Reflections: The periphery–dominated centre by Tom Garvin, p.66     

Reducing Variability in Civil Jury Awards

The purpose of the present study was to test several procedures that could be adopted for reducing unwanted variability in civil damage awards. Four methods for providing guidance to jurors (and judges) about the distribution of awards in comparable cases were compared to each other, to a no-guidance control, and to the capping of awards at a specified maximum, which has been the most commonly legislated solution. The findings of this study suggest several alternative solutions that are better able than caps to solve the problem of unwanted variability in awards.     

Incomplete vertical integration in the health care industry: pseudomarkets and pseudopolicies

Most economic relationships are either arm's-length exchange transactions, each party seeking his or her own interest, or command structures, such as a firm or public agency, integrating joint efforts toward a common goal. The health care industry, however, displays a pattern of incomplete vertical integration--relationships which are neither truly arm's-length nor completely hierarchical. The doctor-patient relationship is archetypical. Physicians appear to sell services in private markets; yet they reach through the exchange process to direct the consumer-patient's utilization decisions, implicity undertaking to act in the patient's interest, and thus integrate forward. But they also integrate backward to control the public regulatory process--self-government--and some forms of insurance. The health care systems of different countries--Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States--can be interpreted as different patterns of incomplete integration among five basic classes of transactors: consumer-patients, first-line providers, second-line providers, insurers, and governments. Each system of linkage has characteristic strengths and weaknesses. Nowhere, however, do we find a predominance of arm's-length market relationships. Where they exist, markets in health care are usually pseudomarkets dominated by one side of the transaction. The rhetoric of market relationships serves principally to obscure political struggles over shifting patterns of integration.