ELECTORAL POLITICS, INTEREST GROUPS, AND THE SIZE OF GOVERNMENT

This paper considers how government size responds to a change in the influence of interest groups. First, an election model is developed that has an equilibrium and in which interest groups have unequal influence. The authors then show that an increase in a group's influence per se does not cause government size to increase but does cause its size to increase when the government (1) cannot change tax shares or (2) provides a good benefiting one (untaxed) group, whose sole interest is in maximizing its consumption of the good. The paper concludes with a discussion of some of the normative implications.     

POLITICS IN MULTIPARTY CONTEXT: MULTIPLICATIVE SPECIFICATIONS, SOCIAL INFLUENCE, AND ELECTORAL CHOICE

Explanations of electoral choice most frequently focus on theisolated characteristics of voters and examine those characteristicsusing linear, additive formulations. We explore two alternatives.We first argue that in a multiparty electoral context, the structuringinfluence of ideology on the vote often will be best representedwith a multiplicative specification. Second, we contend thatthe impact of individual-level traits such as ideology willbe moderated by the political climate of the voter's socialcontext. We test these alternative formulations using data concerningthe 1989 elections in Honduras, where two major parties andtwo minor parties vied for support. Multinomial logistic regressionresults demonstrate that a multiplicative and contextual specificationsubstantially outperforms a more conventional modeling strategy.     

ELECTORAL CONTRIBUTIONS AND THE COST OF UNPOPULARITY

When considering electoral campaigns, candidates receiving contributions from relatively unpopular industries should be regarded less favorably by voters that have information on the sources of funding. To offset this unpopularity effect, politicians may either demand more money for campaign advertising from these industries in order to persuade less informed voters, or shy away from unpopular contributors to avoid losing the support of the informed electorate. Our model predicts that the first effect dominates, and electoral contributions are increasing in industry unpopularity. By using U.S. House elections data and different identification strategies, we provide robust evidence in favor of our predictions. (JEL D72, P16)     

ELECTORAL CYCLES AND THE EARNINGS OF FEDERAL BUREAUCRATS

This paper analyzes the relationship between the timing of federal elections and the pay raises received by civilian employees of the federal government. The theoretical framework discusses how electoral wage cycles are generated as a result of optimizing behavior on the part of voters, bureaucrats, and the government. The empirical analysis uses a time series of wage rates for the twenty-eight largest federal agencies over the period 1961–1978. The study indicates that pay hikes during the Presidential election year are significantly greater (about 2 to 3 percent higher) than bureaucratic pay raises in other years.     

MASS AND ELITE ATTITUDES ABOUT WIRETAPPING IN CANADA: IMPLICATIONS FOR DEMOCRATIC THEORY AND POLITICS

Evidence from a recent study of Canadian attitudes toward civilliberties indicates that the issue of wiretapping presents animportant exception to the familiar theory of democratic elitism.Ironically, the very sophistication and knowledge that leadselites to support individual rights and freedoms also makesthem more likely to support wiretapping than the Canadian populationas a whole.     

THE AGENCY OF POLITICS AND SCIENCE

We study a principal‐agent relationship between a politician and a researcher that captures stylized facts regarding the involvement of politics into scientific research. The politician has some ideal policy that he would like to implement, but needs to contract with a researcher to choose a policy that is supported by scientific advice. We study the implemented contracts under symmetric and under asymmetric information about the researcher's ability and concern for reputation, and discuss with which types of researchers the politician will contract. We identify several conflicts between the interests of voters and those of the politician. (JEL D72, D82, D83)     

OCCUPATION AND ELECTORAL SUCCESS IN CANADA: THE 1974 FEDERAL ELECTION*

Des données professionnelles sont examinées pour les candidats au Parlement en 1974. Pour tous les parties politiques, les professions de rang élevéétaient sur-représentées, par comparaison aux données du marché du travail, et principalement dans les parties Libérale et Conservateur. Uniquement dans le cas du Crédit Social, a-t-on rencontré une majorité numérique de candidats venants de professions de rang inférieur. En examinant le succes électoral, on a trouvé que indépendamment de l'attache politique, un candidat d'une profession de rang élevé a presque une probabilité deux fois plus grande d'être élu qu'un candidat d'une profession d'un rang inférieur. Les données montrent un phénomène double, dans le sens que premièrement l'ensemble de tous les candidats constitute une plus grande proportion de personnes de rang élevé que la population adulte du Canada et deuxièmement les membres finalement élus constituent encore une plus grande proportion de personnes de rang élevé. Occupational data were examined for all candidates for Parliament in 1974. For all parties, high status occupations were over-represented, relative to labour force statistics, expecially in the Liberal and the Progressive Conservative parties. Only in the Social Credit party did we find a numerical majority of lower status candidates. In examining electoral success, it was found that regardless of political affiliation, a high status candidate had almost twice as high a probability of election as a low status candidate. The data illustrate a two-step phenomenon, wherein the pool of all candidates contains a larger proportion of higher status persons than the total adult Canadian population, while the elected members contain yet a larger proportion of high status persons.     

PRESSURE POLITICS AND CONSUMER INTERESTS: THE SUGAR ISSUE

The perpetual "Battle of the Sugar Bowl", as it enters a newphase in its relation to national defense policies, continuesto affect consumer interests. The April 1938 issue of the QUARTERLYpresented an analysis of "Sugar and Public Opinion" by JohnE. Dalton. Currently, Mr. Baldwin presents his analysis of thecontending groups and the issues at stake. He first became interestedin this problem during the fight over the sugar schedule ofthe Hawley-Smoot Tariff. He has worked in the interest of, amongothers, the American Bottlers of Carbonated Beverages and theHershey Corporation, an American company producing and refiningcane sugar in Cuba, and is a member of the Cuban Committee ofthe National Foreign Trade Council.     

PSYCHODYNAMICS AND EXECUTIVE DYSFUNCTION: A NEUROBIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

The purpose of this article is to illustrate how neurobiological deficits and subcortical structures contribute to psychodynamic processes. Specifically, this paper seeks to enhance our clinical understanding of the consequence of such contributions by clarifying how a person might select and maintain dysfunctional behaviors or responses. Viewing the brain from an evolutionary perspective, with physical and mental survival as the goal of evolved brain function, specific dysfunctional behaviors are shown to be context and time dependent regulatory or modulatory procedures, which compensate for missing neural connections. This paper describes two courses of treatment with the same patient, first for procrastination and later for perversion. In each treatment deficits are identified and compensatory skills are discussed.     

INFO-WAR AND THE POLITICS OF FEMINIST CURIOSITY

The attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September 2001 and the subsequent declaration of the ‘war on terror’ by US and European powers, placed a particular burden upon feminists in those countries to call attention to the centrality of gender discourse in the current geo-political era. This essay recognises the urgency of exploring the ‘war on global terror’ from a feminist perspective, and applying pedagogical expertise to encourage wide-ranging, informed debate within the academic classroom. Identifying the feminist questions at the heart of contemporary discourse on freedom and civilization can become a valuable way to develop a critique of imperialism from many different locations. Two themes are pursued: the language of difference, and the implications of speaking about women and gender in different situations; and the challenges of postmodern warfare, which demand a close critique of information sources. The international enterprise to reconstruct civil society in Afghanistan offers urgent opportunities to test the feasibility of transnational feminist work, in theory and practice. Finally, the essay considers the importance of bringing different kinds of contemporary texts into the classroom. The best-selling The Bookseller of Kabul is examined as a useful subject of critique. Bringing a feminist perspective on whiteness can also be helpful in analysing representations of orientalist, racist texts. Finally, feminist analyses of militarism provide a valuable way to connect patterns of power ‘at home’ with the way that war is represented to the public.     

PARTY POLITICS AND THE PRICE OF PAYOLA

The literature contains two competing views of the role of political parties: parties are treated either as associations of interest groups supported to the degree that they offer electoral support in the lawmaker's district, or as expressions of the personal ideologies of the lawmakers. In this paper parties are treated as bargaining agents for groups of lawmakers in their dealings with interest groups. Interest groups are depicted buying votes on proposals where those votes are cheapest. Parties are combinations of consistently low-price vote suppliers. The theory has empirical power that discriminates between it and the two competing models.     

ANA MENDIETA AND THE POLITICS OF THE VENUS NEGRA

The theorizations by some early feminists of the affiliation between Earth and woman, the ‘archetype of the Great Goddess’, and the ‘universal female’, are today regarded with embarrassment as essentializing, ultimately disempowering gestures. This article examines a 1981 project by Cuban-born artist Ana Mendieta for the feminist art journal Heresies. In this project she combines a photograph of one of her own earthworks with her translation of the nineteenth-century Cuban legend The Venus Negra. By investigating this legend in the context of nineteenth-century Cuban nationalism, and this earthwork in terms of twentieth-century US/Latino politics, this article argues that the Earth is not necessarily the essential category it appears to be. It claims that the discursive deployment of the Earth - the nation's primitive Other - subverts ideologies of the nation and contributes to its performative renegotiation. Further, it suggests that, in using this legend to disrupt the hegemonic construction of nation, both the legend's authors and its contemporary translator play with the performativity of both gender and race.     

THE POLITICS OF PROTECTION:

This article examines the factors influencing the enactment of protective legislation for women, specifically maximum hours and minimum wage laws, by state lawmakers in the United States between 1870 and 1930. Traditional class theories of the state argue that employers are generally able to shape state policies to suit their interests. Yet, although employers staunchly opposed protective laws, most states enacted such laws. This article seeks to understand the conditions under which social groups, such as the women's reform groups who supported protective laws, are able to win legislative reforms in the face of employer resistance. Four conditions are found that allowed a gendered movement to counter the economic interests of employers: the women's groups' ability to form organizations and coalitions with powerful political actors, their use of a legitimating ideology, historically specific circumstances that reduced employer opposition, and the nature of the particular form of legislation being demanded.     

ADJUSTMENT TO PRODUCTION UNCERTAINTY AND THE THEORY OF THE FIRM: A COMMENT

This paper reconsiders the model presented by Flacco and Kroetch [1986]. It shows that with additive technological uncertainty the firm will produce and contract to sell the same output as under certainty. When the Flacco/Kroetch model is generalized to allow the firm to select contract commitments and planned output ex ante, no simple comparisons with certainty are possible. These results are broadly consistent with those obtained by Mills [1959; 1962] for demand uncertainty.     

FINDING POLITICS IN THE SILLY AND THE SACRED: ANTI-RAPE ACTIVISM ON CAMPUS

Volunteers often describe what they do as nonpolitical. That is, they tend to construct their efforts as simultaneously above and below politics but rarely as explicitly within the realm of politics. Using data from field research at a campus antirape organization, I analyze these aspects of participants' efforts and consider how they are linked to politics. I argue that even actions which appear at first glace to be nonpolitical have political consequences for movements and movement participants. Constructing volunteers' efforts as apolitical, either above or below politics, has the consequence of limiting the transformative potential of volunteer and activist work. I conclude by discussing this and other consequences of avoiding politics.     

DRAMATURGY, POLITICS AND THE AXIAL MEDIA EVENT

Current theorizing on the role of media in politics and interpersonal relations in contemporary American society not only echoes questions about connections between modernity and viable democratic politics (Ortega y Gasset 1932; Jay 1973; Kornhauser 1959), but also tends to see the media as an insidious and even erosive cultural force (Debord 1983; 1990; Edelman 1967; 1988; Poster 1990; McKibben 1992). Politics is shaped by the mass media and by the dramatic engaging visual spectacles it presents. In this way, a dramaturgical social theory both reflects society and is a means to analyze it. Clearly, drama suffuses modern life figuratively and literally, in part because media genres compete with personal experience as ways of ordering problematic situations. Drama, in various forms, along with war and sport, is the dominant metaphor of our time. A dramaturgical framework emphasizing audience, performance, and theatrical aspects of everyday life, is therefore appropriate for examining changes in the relationships among media, politics, and interpersonal relations.     

STATUS POLITICS AND THE POLITICAL AGENDA OF THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT

Status politics has been used by scholars to explain social protest movements, particularly those that have been right-wing in orientation. In recent years, some scholars have placed the Christian Right within the context of status politics, while others have suggested it is erroneous to do so. This article examines the applicability of status politics to the Chrisitan Right from the perspective of the political agenda the movement has pushed in the Congress. The argument is that status politics fails to explain adequately the moral, nonsymbolic, and "offensive" dimensions of the Christian Right.