Abstract: Voters penalize federal and state spending growth. This is the central result of my analysis of voting behavior in Presidential, Senatorial, and gubernatorial elections from 1950–1988. The composition of federal spending growth seems irrelevant. The vote loss to the President's party from an extra dollar of defense or nondefense spending is the same. However, in gubernatorial elections, expansion of state welfare spending exacts a disproportionate political price. Deficit financing of federal or state spending does not appear to matter politically. I conclude by discussing the obvious question of why government budgets have grown in the face of this voter hostility.

Abstract: List of tables and figures Acknowledgments Introduction 1. The problem of political support 2. Economy, society, self 3. Democracy, political system, self 4. Political support and its correlates 5. Regional disaffection: Quebec and the West 6. Elections and political support 7. Causes and consequences of political support 8. Political support in representative democracies Appendix References Index.

Abstract: The theoretical public-choice literature suggests that vote trading is an important determinant of congressional voting behavior. Yet empirical voting models do not allow for vote trading. These models recognize that observed ideology may influence legislative behavior but do not correct for unobserved ideology. This study devises new tests for logrolling and ideology. The empirical model controls for logroll agreements and unobserved ideological interest via the correlation of unobserved variables. The results reflect the presence of vote-trading coalitions on some votes but not on others. The results cast doubt on the importance of personal ideological interests of legislators. Copyright 1992 by American Economic Association.

Abstract: The increasing public attention paid to Supreme Court nominations has elevated the salience of Senate confirmation battles, raising interesting questions about the impact of constituency preferences on senators' voting behavior. In this article, we explore this relationship using a logistical regression model to examine the impacts of African-American constituency size and the proximity of reelection on the roll call behavior of senators on the Clarence Thomas confirmation vote. Our analyses indicate that these factors were both statistically and substantively significant in the Thomas case. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of such findings.

Abstract: Every new appointment to the Board of Governors in recent years has triggered speculation as to how the new Governor will vote in FOMC meetings. While several studies have hinted at partisan voting behavior by Governors, no study has yet attempted to identify reliable and unreliable partisan voting behavior and to pinpoint the background characteristics of Governors that distinguish between the two. This paper indicates that Board members with a background in economics consistently voted in line with the economic ideology of the appointing President. Noneconomists on the Board, however, displayed no such partisan voting behavior and were seen to be influenced by pressures emanating from the Administration and by the monetary environment prior to their appointment. Over the 1951 to 1987 period, most Presidents have appointed reliable Governors earlier in their Presidential terms (when the returns from being able to influence subsequent monetary policy are great) and have chosen unreliable Governors later in their terms (when election support from the interest groups that these unreliables represent is important). The results of the present paper suggest skepticism toward the recent spate of rational expectations — game-theoretic models which feature a dictatorial policy maker gaming atomistic market participants whose only political activity, voting, generates monetary surprises followed by convergence to an equilibrium. Because of their obsession with the ceremonial formalism of their genre, these models ignore a vast complementary literature and, as a consequence, display conspicuously flimsy institutional and historical premises. Instead, the present paper argues for the greater relevance of models of uncoordinated interaction between multiple political and private principals and Federal Reserve agents.

Abstract: A number of aggregate-level studies find that challenger quality is an important variable in explaining congressional election outcomes. Using the National Election Studies' 1988 Senate Election Study, I provide individual-level evidence supporting this claim. I develop and test measures of two aspects of challenger quality, one based on political experience and the other on campaign skills. Senate challengers who hold higher profile offices and those who are good campaigners are better known and better liked by voters and are much more likely to get votes, even with partisanship and campaign spending controlled. The findings reaffirm that candidates and campaigns matter in explaining election outcomes.

Abstract: The comparative study of domestic political conflict has experienced a paradigm shift with the replacement of theories emphasizing deprivation and system imbalance with theories of the political and structural sources of protest and rebellion. This review summarizes criticisms of the earlier theories, arguing that these have been subsumed by newer theories that focus on the relationships between political processes, the state, the capitalist world economy, the inter-state system and the origins and dynamics of social protest and political rebellion. We outline two useful approaches: a political process theory that emphasizes the impact of internal political institutions and processes, such as political exclusion, indigenous organization, and political opportunity structures; and theories of global structures that focus on the external or international processes of incorporation into the capitalist world economy, the social effects of foreign capital penetration, and political dependence on core states. Fi...

Abstract: A conceptual model of the relationships between enduring, situational, and response involvement is proposed and tested in the context of decision-making associated with a political election. Specifically, the model concerns relationships between involvement, knowledge, confidence, and the stability of preference for a specific candidate over time. Empirical support for the proposed model is found, and implications for involvement researchers and political marketers are offered.

Abstract: Present-day Israel is a one-issue country. In regard to the Israeli-Arab conflict, its population is divided between hard-liners on the right those who will not yield occupied territories in exchange for peace and those more inclined to compromise. Members of the young generation are politically more hawkish than their parents.' This move to the right can be seen in voting behavior, but even more significantly it is evident in the rise of hatred of Arabs and the recent emergence of population "transfer" as an acceptable solution. In a study analyzing this trend from the perspective of political socialization that takes place within families, we find that whereas all parents have a better than random chance to reproduce their political outlook in their adolescent children, hawks are more successful than doves.2

Abstract: The absence of studies investigating the influence of political participation on individuals’ perceptions of political efficacy constitutes a significant gap in our knowledge of political behaviour. While many researchers have investigated the influence of efficacy on political participation, and there has been some endeavour to examine the reciprocity of the relationship between the variables, none has estimated a comprehensive model of the impact of individuals’ participation is different kinds of political activity on different aspects of their perceptions of political efficacy. We redress these particular deficiencies in our knowledge of political behaviour, investigating the influence of participation in three different modes of activity—partisan activism, community activism and political extremism—on individuals’ perceptions of internal and external efficacy; that is, their perceptions of political self‐competence and system responsiveness. Our findings confirm that the relationships between differe...

Abstract: This paper examines the level of protest activity by the unemployed in the United States between 1890 and 1940 as a test of the value of a political process model for explaining social movement activity. Data on protest events and elite attitudes towards the unemployed were collected from newspaper articles. Voting behavior was used as an indicator of contested elections and unemployment levels were reflected by available indicators. Consistent with previous research on lower- and working-class mobilization, a change in the political environment was key to the extensive protest by the unemployed in the 1930s. Toward the end of the 1920s, and especially in the early 1930s, elites were no longer simply making public statements about the problem of unemployment, but were also discussing the need for aid programs. In the context of this new political environment, elections were once again contested in the 1930s, and extensive protest began in 1930, even before unemployment hit its high point in 1933. Thus, it was not simply deprivation, but the changed political environment which legitimized the issue of unemployment and created prospects for reform, which in turn helped produce the massive protest of the 1930s.

Abstract: Recent research by Rabinowitz and Macdonald (1989) claims that voting behavior is better accounted for by a directional model than by a traditional proximity or Euclidean model. This paper compares directional and Euclidean models using congressional roll-call voting data. For these relatively well-informed voters, we can unambiguously reject the directional model in favor of the traditional Euclidean spatial model. We conclude that congressional voting can indeed be very accurately represented by the Euclidean model.

Abstract: Value Systems and Political Cognition. The Dissolution of the Right in the Wake of Theory. Predicting Political Party Identification in New Voters. Political Party Identification in New Voters. Political Intolerance and Youth Centrism in Adolescence. Soviet Youth in Perestroika, Political Attitudes and Participation. Fairy Tales and Other Literature as Instruments in Young Children's Economic Socialization. S.E.G. Lea, Assessing the Psychology of Economic Behaviour and Cognition Index.

Abstract: The authors examine the impact of internal migration in Great Britain on voting behavior. "Analysis of the British Election Studies suggests that migration between the north and south of Britain does have political effects southerly migration leading voters away from Labour and northerly migration towards Labour. This pattern persists even after controls for prior social and political characteristics experience of social mobility and changes in local political environment....The results support the hypothesis that the north-south divide constitutes a distinct new political cleavage distinct from social class and the other more familiar social bases of voting behaviour." (EXCERPT)

Abstract: 1989: Table 746; see also Oliver and Shapiro 1989) and a median family income $14,000 more than blacks (Statistical Abstract, 1990: Table 720). The relatively low income and asset level in the black community might encourage attention to economic perceptions, especially egocentric and group-based ones. Some supporting evidence for this general idea was found by Alford (1982) who showed that the more prosperous the aggregate economic conditions, the less voters will be influenced by individual egocentric financial perceptions. The logic here is that when the economy slumps, it is easy to blame personal economic troubles on the government; when the economy booms, it is much more difficult to blame personal troubles entirely on the government. Blacks, many of whom are part of a more marginal economy than most whites, might be inclined to use economic

Abstract: At the core of the so-called "generational equity" construct is the notion that older persons exercise self-interested political power. This article examines what we know about one element of the politics of aging--the voting behavior of older persons in recent presidential elections--and suggests areas of research on the 1992 election that may tell us something about how far, and how soon, proponents of generational equity will be able to move toward dismantling policies that benefit older people.

Abstract: This paper reviews the literature on political advertising. It proposes that research in this field has progressed through three stages of development. Initial research indicated political advertising and other forms of mass communication had little effect on voting intentions. Interest in political advertising was renewed with the spread of television and the use of political spot ads. Findings indicated that these commercials could influence awareness, knowledge, agenda salience and even the outcomes of elections. The third stage of research has examined the impact of specific types of advertising messages such as image versus issue content and negative appeals, as well as voter and situational variables that can influence the affect of political ads. Suggestions are made for the future development of political advertising research centered around larger models of the way political advertising and political elections may operate.

Abstract: Voting behavior in a flood control referendum in Roanoke, Virginia, provides evidence that people living and working outside the flood prone area are willing to pay for flood control project construction. This voting behavior supports the argument that flood control benefits exist at the community level. In providing the cost sharing required under recent federal legislation, local government financing which distributes project costs over the whole population of a local jurisdiction, and not just those persons living or working in protected areas, may increase both economic efficiency and expand communities' financial capacity to pay for such projects.

Abstract: The research project that constitutes the basis of this essay proceeds from the assumption that because of distinct handicaps in Germany's political development there was “neither a homogeneous nor a dominant political culture” in the Weimar Republic but rather - and this is particularly true for the period after 1928 - an extraordinarily “fateful fragmentation [of the political system] into a multiplicity of political subcultures” The inability of these subcultures either to interact with each other or to establish social and political hegemony, in turn, contributed in no small measure to the rise of National Socialism This essay uses the methodologies of historical electoral research to investigate the electoral strength of the most important of these political subcultures and to determine the changes that took place in their composition between 1919 and 1933 It is first necessary to clarify certain assumptions regarding use of the term “political subculture” In terms of the project as a whole, this concept has been used rather loosely Together with the conceptually related, though not necessarily coterminous, notions of “political milieu” and “political camp,” the concept of “political subculture” is replete with variations and nuances

Abstract: There have been numerous studies of the debt crisis from global, Latin American and even Mexican perspectives. However, very few studies have so far addressed the political dimension of the crisis and examined the effects of the crisis on political stability and democratic practice in Mexico. This research focuses on the political dimension of the crisis, in order to make good this important omission in the existing literature. This thesis explores in particular two closely related questions about the practice of politics in Mexico. First, it explores the role which political debates and political pressures have played in shaping the response of the Mexican state to one of the gravest crises faced by the country. Second, it illuminates the common political practice of the Mexican state. This work analyses the political forces involved in the domestic debate surrounding the negotiations between the Mexican state and the IMF during this crisis. It interprets the various economic and political pressures that different Mexican social groups exercised upon the Mexican state. The social actors taken into account in this study are people involved in the political arena such as politicians, bureaucrats and senior members of the state; institutions with socio-economic interests inside civil society such as workers' unions, chambers of private organizations, banks, peasants' organizations, the church, the press and civil associations. The thesis demonstrates how public opinion generated a new political debate through the media. This political debate inside Mexican society was substantially extended and intensified, stimulating the formation of new political alternatives. The awakening of a political consciousness contributed to the generation of an important debate which shaped the contest of the presidential political campaign in 1988. A new political coalition, the FDN, emerged, presenting a serious alternative presidential candidate. In the end, the governing PRI won the presidential elections; nevertheless, many Mexicans gave their support to both the left-wing FDN and the right-wing PAN, instead of to the PRI. Thus, the economic debt crisis culminated in a political electoral crisis during the 1988 presidential elections. To sum up, the thesis proves that the debt crisis as an issue opened up the political debate and led to a political crisis. The earlier process of political reform initiated in Mexico in 1977 opened the space for alternative political parties and views. The debt crisis was taken up as an issue by these alternative groups which encouraged the debate. The debt crisis itself thus reinforced the process of political transformation.

Abstract: wenty-five years ago, Daniel J. Elazar published the first edition of American Federalism: A View from the States, in which he outlined a cultural theory of state politics. His work has inspired many political scientists to investigate cultural differences in voting behavior, interparty competition, legislative professionalization, and a wide range of policy choices in the fifty states.' Most of these studies are patterned after Ira Sharkansky's (1969) widely cited research note on the utility of political culture; that is, political culture is treated as an independent variable in statistical analyses of variation in relevant dependent variables. While the results of these analyses are not absolutely conclusive, Elazar's theory is supported by a very substantial number of studies. Cultural differences apparently affect important aspects of state politics in the United States. At this stage of development it seems opportune to ask how political culture works (when it does). Until now, virtually all tests of Elazar's theory merely ask if culture matters. Even those which answer the question affirmatively seldom go on to explore the way in which cultural manifestations are actually produced.2 But surely no cultural theory of politics is adequate unless it lays bare the processes by which

Abstract: We examined voting behavior among 370 low-income older African-American citizens who reside in New Orleans by assessing the impact of various predictors on electoral participation in a series of seven elections. Elders who were active in their community, with a strong sense of citizen duty, who identified themselves as strong Democrats, and with higher levels of education were more likely to vote.

Abstract: This paper inquires into the nature of political stability as a basic challenge to Philippine political authorities. Its main thesis is the centrality of political leadership in addressing this concern. The political leadership succeeds in initiating and sustaining political stability to the extent that it is able to engage other groups in coalition work, to strengthen the state and its political institutions, and to effect basic political reforms which increase the overall capacity of government for governance. The main analytical frame employed in this study calls for understanding the presence of a weak state in a society where strong, well-organized social forces operate to penetrate the state and expropriate its governmental and other political institutions for vested-interest use. The political leadership, operationalized as being mainly the President and his administration, must contain the aggressiveness of these largely oligarchic groups, and harness all available resources towards the m...

Abstract: The egalitarian wage policies of labor unions in the United States have been attributed to low-skilled majorities pursuing their self-interest in a majority rule environment. For this hypothesis to be more than a formalization of stylized facts requires evidence that unions are not egalitarian when the work place is not characterized.by a low-skilled majority. The author considers the impact of high-skilled majorities on (1) voting behavior in certification elections and (2) rent distribution policies in existing unions. Neither analysis supports the belief that union rent distribution policies are driven by skill-group coalitions pursuing their self-interests. Copyright 1992 by MIT Press.

Abstract: This study explores the relationships between religiosity and attitudes toward public issues in a random national sample of 419 members of the Seventh-day Adventist church. Church members favored liberal social-political causes as long as the church itself does not become involved. On the other hand, a sizable minority (44%) considered itself to be Republican, and few designated themselves political liberals. In 1984, Adventists voted disproportionately for Reagan, and this voting behavior was accompanied by self-identification with a conservative ideology. A variety of religiosity factors, such as orthodoxy, religious practice, openness to change, and extrinsicness were found to be related to such public issue factors as peace and justice, political involvement of individual Christians and corporate churches, law and order, and government intervention in social causes. However, not all findings supported the theoretical framework. Political consistency theory was employed to attempt to explain the diverse findings.