Do EPA Defendants Prefer Republicans? Evidence from the 2000 Election

The election of George W. Bush as U.S. president in 2000, as measured by the Iowa Electronic Market (IEM), was associated with an increase of 3% in the share price of firms that were being sued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This is equal to approximately $100 billion of shareholder value. This finding is robust to a number of different specifications, controlling for other litigation, case law, and industry, and is not found in an otherwise similar sample of companies without litigation outstanding. It is suggested that the enforcement of environmental law is dependent on political pressure. (JEL G18, K32, G14 )     

Economic Satisfaction vs. Moral Conservatism in the 1988 Presidential Election

Abstract

Residents from “Middletown” who were going to vote in the 1988 presidential election were interviewed concerning their various economic and moral positions. The results showed that satisfaction with the economic situation in the fall of 1988 was much more important than moral conservatism in Bush's election win. An extended analysis on how economic satisfaction could influence vote was presented.     

Myth and Reality: The ERA and the Gender Gap in the 1980 Election

Attitudes toward the Equal Rights Amendment were not an importantfactor in the emergence of the "gender gap" in the 1980 presidentialelection. Conclusions to the contrary by news analysts, feministpolitical activists, and political scientists are based on acombination of the power of expectation, faulty analysis, andrandom bias in the most frequently used survey in politicalscience. The data analyzed herein were collected by the New York Timesand CBS News and processed by the New York Times and CBS Newsunder a grant from the Russell Sage Foundation; by Warren E.Miller and the National Election Studies of the Center for PoliticalStudies at the University of Michigan; and by the National OpinionResearch Center of the University of Chicago. The data wereprovided through the Interuniversity Consortium for Politicaland Social Research of the University of Michigan. The New YorkTimes, CBS News, the CPS, NORC, and the ICPSR bear no responsibilityfor the analysis and interpretations presented here.     

House Effects and the Reproducibility of Survey Measurements: A Comparison of the 1980 GSS and the 1980 American National Election Study

This paper examines a collaborative experiment between the GeneralSocial Survey, National Opinion Research Center, and the AmericanNational Election Study, Center for Political Studies. Identicalitems were asked by both surveys, thereby permitting a testof reproducibility and house effects. Significant differenceswere found between the houses, with the largest and most systematicdifferences involving item nonresponse. Various explanationsfor the differences are examined and a general assessment ofthe importance of the differences is presented.     

American Conservatism and Government Funding of the Social Sciences and the Arts*

The efforts of the Reagan Administration to cut government funding for the arts and the social sciences reflects not only a general desire to curtail government spending but also a specific conservative effort to “defund the Left” by eliminating especially those programs regarded by conservatives as the basic source of liberal and radical social change in the United States. This paper examines the conservative animus against government support for the arts and the social sciences. The discussion has four parts: The first traces the history of contemporary American conservatism and identifies its central ideological themes. The second argues that the belief that government and intellectuals are the two main sources of liberal social change has led conservatives to target government programs allegedly guilty of social activism and to develop their own relatively autonomous counterintellectual network. The third examines how this political agenda and institutional structure have influenced conservative opposition to government funding of the social sciences and the arts. The final part suggests some implications our analysis has for defending the social sciences and the arts.     

中国城市的社会阶层与基层人大选举

与强调用民主价值观、政治效能感解释中国基民人大选举中人们投票行为的思路不同,作者将阶层政治论的基本逻辑用于解释投票行为。该理论的理性选择解释把阶层利益作为核心阐明变量,而阶层政治的社会心理解释则强调阶层认同的不可或缺性。运用逻辑斯蒂回归及检验模型间系数差异的自助法对CGSS2006数据的分析结果,支持了基于这两种解释的研究假设。公职新中产、市场新中产、小业主与自雇者均比工人更有可能参加投票;而这又由其收入更高、更认同中产阶层来阐明;收入越高越认同中产阶层;收入越高、越认同中产阶层就越有可能参加投票。归纳这些研究发现,并进一步整合理性选择与社会心理解释,作者认为阶层利益不但是联系阶层地位与投票行为的机制,还通过阶层认同阐明阶层地位与投票行为间的因果关联;阶层政治论是分析当前中国民众政治参与的一种有效理论工具。     

Comparative-Historical Social Systems and Conservatism: An Attempt at Conceptualization and Classification

By using forms of conservatism as criteria, this paper advances a novel conceptualization and typology of comparative-historical social systems. The paper attempts to do justice to the crucial complexities involved in the relations between a free-market economy, a democratic polity and a free society overall on the one hand and varieties of conservatism on the other. Such attempts are all the more indispensable in light of various simplifications and conflations committed by the conventional wisdom, especially in the USA, in this realm. One of these simplifications is the spurious (American) equation of economic conservatism or the laissez-faire economy with a free society. Another is the broader but also dubious equivalence of the admixture of economic conservatism and formal political democracy, with a free social system. It is the purpose of this article to redress these popular misconceptions. Special emphasis is placed on a peculiar social system denoted authoritarian conservatism or conservative authoritarianism in light of its increasing salience in the USA since the 1980–1990s sequel of its permanent ‘Conservative Revolution’. Given that few endeavors exist to establish a coherent taxonomy of comparative-historical social systems on the basis of these criteria, this paper contributes to filling in a gap in the literature.     

Obama,Palin, and Weber: Charisma and Social Change in the 2008 U.S. Election

Barack Obama et Sarah Palin sont tous les deux souvent étiquetés en tant que charismatique par le public. Pour évaluer si oui ou non, Obama et Palin démontrent une forme de charisme tel que définit par Weber, leurs rhétoriques et leurs actions sont examinées dans le contexte d'élections passées et dans celui où règne une stagnation politique mise en scène par la guerre des cultures. Là où la connexion entre Palin et le public émerge de son rôle de défenderesse dans la guerre des cultures, Obama a articulée une vision d'une communauté partagée, et se faisant, a réorganisé l'électorat en incorporant dans sa coalition la jeunesse désenchantée qui n'avait pas voté durant les dix dernières années. Both Barack Obama and Sarah Palin are commonly labeled “charismatic” by the public. To assess whether or not Obama and Palin exhibit charisma in the Weberian sense, their rhetoric and actions are examined in the context of past elections and the political stagnation brought about by the politics of the culture wars. Where Palin's connection with the public flows from her role as a fighter in the culture wars, Obama articulated a vision of shared community and, in doing so, reorganized the electorate by incorporating disenchanted youth who had not voted over the past decade into his coalition. Thus, in Weberian terms, only Obama manifests charisma.     

Social capital and household income distributions in the United States: 1980, 1990

This paper asked if changes in social capital influence the level and disparity of household income in the United States. Social capital is defined in this paper as one's sympathy (antipathy) for others and one's idealized self. Changes in social capital are expected to produce the following economic consequences. First, increases in social capital are expected to alter the terms of trade and to increase the likelihood of trades between friends and family. Second, increases in social capital are expected to increase an economic agent's concerns for the external consequences of his or her choices, internalizing what otherwise would be considered externalities. Third, increases in social capital between firms are expected to increase the likelihood that they will act in their collective interest. Fourth, increases in social capital are expected to increase the opportunities for specialization and the likelihood of trade. Finally, increases in social capital are expected to raise the average level of income and reduce the disparity of income.This paper empirically tested the relationship between changes in social capital indicator variables and changes in the average and coefficient of variation (CVs) of household income. State CVs and averages of household income were calculated for all 50 states and for different races/ethnic groups using the U.S. Census data for 1980 and 1990. Social capital indicator variables selected to measure changes in social capital included measures of family integrity including the percentages of households headed by a single female with children; educational achievement variables including high school graduation rates; crime rate variables including litigation rates; and labor force participation rates. The social capital indicator variables appeared to be significantly correlated with each other. However, in 1980, the percentages of households headed by a single female with children was not significantly related to the birth rates of single teens. By 1990, however, a strong correlation was found between the percentages of households headed by a single female with children and the birth rate of single teens.Income inequality among U.S. households measured using CVs increased between 1980 and 1990 in all 50 states. The largest increase in CVs was among white households. The smallest increase in CVs was among Asian households. The states with the largest increase in the ratio of 1990 and 1980 CVs were Arizona, Wyoming, Maine, Vermont, and Texas. Half of the states reported decreases in real household income between 1980 and 1990. Those states with the largest percentage decrease in real income were Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Louisiana, and West Virginia. The largest percentage increase in real income was reported by Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.State CVs and averages of household income were regressed on four factors or subsets of social capital indicator variables. The four factors used to predict CVs and averages of household income were generally statistically significant. The findings of this report support the conclusion that changes in social capital have a significant effect on the disparity and level of household income.     

How Local Social Movement Groups Handle a Presidential Election

How do local social movement groups respond to national electoral politics? Previous studies, often based on aggregated data on public protests, focus on the effects of elections on established social movement organizations (SMOs). Some find that SMOs flourish during election years, taking advantage of the political opportunities that elections pose. Others conclude that elections hurt SMOs, siphoning members and resources. Using ethnographic, in-depth interview, and document data on new and emerging social movement groups (SMGs) in Pittsburgh for 20 months before and after the 2004 U.S. presidential election, we examine how members think about elections and whether and how groups decide to respond to national electoral campaigns. We find that SMGs vary considerably in the strategies of action or inaction they adopt, depending on their changing sense of whether the election poses an opportunity or a threat to the group and that these strategies of action are patterned in path-dependent sequences. We conclude with a discussion of the possibilities for integrating concepts of path-dependency and timing into social movement research.     

Conservatism, institutionalism, and the social control of intergroup conflict

This research investigates the state social control of intergroup conflict by assessing the sociopolitical determinants of hate crime prosecutions. Consistent with insights from the political sociology of punishment, group-threat accounts of intergroup relations and the state, and neoinstitutional theory, the findings suggest that hate crime prosecutions are fewer where political conservatism, Christian fundamentalism, and black population size are higher, although this last effect is nonlinear. Linkages between district attorneys' offices and communities, on the other hand, increase hate crime prosecutions and the likelihood of offices' creating hate crime policies. Yet these policies are sometimes decoupled from actual enforcement, and such decoupling is more likely in politically conservative districts. The results indicate that common correlates of criminal punishment have very different effects on types of state social control that are protective of minority groups, and also suggest conditions under which policy and practice become decoupled in organizational settings.     

New Frontiers: Territory,Social Spaces,and the State

Sociological Forum -     

Occupation, Biography and New Social Movements

Membership of 'new social movements' is generally associated with employment in the educated service class, particularly in the state sector. The nature of the employment experience is often said to be generative, in some way, of radical activism, even if only, in much modified versions of such theorising, through the reinforcement provided from the presence of networks of like-minded colleagues. On the basis of intensive biographical study of both environmentalist and feminist activists in a large industrial city, it is argued that though they are indeed located in the occupations referred to in the literature, their membership of NSMs cannot in general be attributed either to their experience of employment or of higher education. The propensity to radical activism is clearly established at an earlier date. It emerges from the intersection of socialisation within the family and personal life experience.     

Perceived Parental Sexual Conservatism,Religiosity, and Premarital Sexual Behavior

Abstract

The assumption that parental influence in the sexual socialization process is likely to affect premarital sexual behavior is challenged in this article. The hypothesis that individuals brought up in sexually conservative homes will have less premarital heterosexual involvement than those from liberal home environments is tested in a secondary analysis of cross-sectional survey interview data from a national probability sample of 1177 American college students. Correlational and contingency table analysis using indices to measure perceived Parental Sexual Conservatism and Premarital Socio-sexual Involvement suggests that parents may be less influential in the sexual socialization process than has been generally assumed. Previous findings demonstrating the relationship between religiosity and premarital sexual permissiveness are examined in light of the study's results.     

Losing Ground: Social Policy and Disabled People in Great Britain, 1980-90

This paper reviews some of the major themes of social policy in Britain over the past decade and examines in detail the impact on disabled people in three major areas: employment; income and social security provision; and the organisation and delivery of health and social welfare services. It will be argued that, despite some superficial similarities between the demands of disabled people and the rhetoric of the New Right for reductions in dependency and control by the state, the dominant policy themes of free market forces, privatisation and reductions in the scope of welfare state services have not served disabled people's interests well. Moreover, attempts to “protect” disabled people within a much reduced welfare state have not been effective and have in any case had the unwelcome consequence of increasing the scrutiny and control exercised by professionals and others. This stands in contrast to the alternative policy agenda articulated by disabled people themselves, which stresses autonomy, integration, an end to discrimination, and rights—to equal chances in employment, to an adequate level of income, and to services which enhance personal choice and facilitate independent living.     

Environmentalism,New Social Movements,and the New Class: A Cross‐National Investigation*

Abstract The environmental movement is one of the most successful social movements in recent decades, garnering substantial public support throughout western Europe and the United States. Environmentalism is also considered a key “new social movement” (NSM), assumed to share fundamental characteristics with other NSMs such as the women's, antinuclear, and peace movements. Using the results of a 1990 cross‐national survey of western Europe and the United States, we examine three broad suppositions regarding public support for the environmental movement and other NSMs. We first examine the idea that the general public distinguishes between two branches of contemporary environmentalism—the more traditional one of nature conservation and the newer, broader one of general environmental protection—and find that the general publics in 18 nations make little distinction between them. We next examine the degree to which public support for environmental protection is related to support for other NSMs, and find a strong relationship between the two‐thereby validating a widely assumed but seldom‐tested tenet found in the NSM literature.Finally, we examine the presumed bases of support for environmental protection and other NSMs, particularly the notion that NSM supporters are drawn heavily from the “new class.” We find that demographic variables, including membership in the new class, are poor predictors of support for the goals of NSMs in general and of support for environmentalism in particular.