Participation is one of the crises of political modernization. Along with the political awakening of masses of people has come the necessity of absorbing them meaningfully into the political system. The almost universally low levels of formal education and political competence contribute to the difficulties of mobilization. The most advanced polities are still seeking ways of making democratic participation effective; modernizing polities find the task even more formidable. This article examines the relationships among participation, education, and political competence in a sample of members of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI).

Although Italy is an advanced polity, in average education and industrialization it lags behind the world leaders in Europe and North America; and in some respects patterns of participation likewise reflect a transitional stage. The PSI is probably the only democratic Socialist party of the classic Marxian type left in Western Europe. It is devoted to the democratic mobilization of the industrial and agricultural masses. But it also contains a substantial middle-class element, and thus provides an opportunity to study the relationship between participation and political competence for persons of different levels of formal education.

There can be little doubt that differences in formal education have political consequences. The evidence is compelling that persons of high education participate more, are more knowledgeable, feel more efficacious, and exhibit greater sensitivity to the ideological dimensions of politics. Evidence from a sample of members of the PSI reinforces and refines these findings.

“Simulation” and “case studies” are supplementary teaching aids available for university courses in political science and international relations. The newer technique, simulation, has been used at several universities to augment instruction in international relations, foreign policy making, national security policy, urban politics, and political parties and elections. In fields other than political science, similar techniques abound. The number of business games or simulations exceeds 100, and less numerous games exist for educational administration, legislatures, career choices, and diplomacy, to name a few. Case studies also supplement a wide range of politics courses, including introduction to American government, public administration, party organization, legislative processes, and public law. The case method is the hallmark of schools of law and schools of business, and it is now emulated in teaching the history of science and in training in research methodology in sociology.

Different types of simulations and cases and their uses have been described and discussed elsewhere. Evaluation of games and cases as supplementary instructional aids has almost invariably been impressionistic. The consumers of these teaching methods have reported their personal experiences with them and have advanced claims for and criticisms of them, but they have undertaken little empirical research to determine whether the claims for particular simulations or cases are valid or to compare the actual effects of alternative methods. Moreover, the Ford Foundation expended thousands of dollars to induce business schools to try business games, but their investment in evaluating the success or failure of this innovation extended to convening a conference to discuss the subject, not to carrying out research on it.

It is noteworthy that the recent spate of writings in the field of “political development” has shown a pronounced tendency to omit consideration of Latin America. Thus the “communications” and “bureaucracy” volumes in the SSRC political development series are totally innocent of Latin American data, as is an excellent recent treatment of—of all things!—the political behavior of the military in developing areas.

The Latin Americanists, for their part, have largely stressed those key features of the area's politics which have long remained constant—executive predominance, military intervention, and the influence of the peculiarities of Hispanic culture. At the same time, it is clear that the social changes usually collectively termed “modernization”—urbanization, technological borrowing, and the development of mass communications grids—together with their political correlate, the expansion of the political community to include hitherto excluded social elements, are proceeding in Latin America too. Accordingly, it becomes desirable to reexamine the “statics” of Latin American politics in the light of the “dynamics” of the processes of political development and social mobilization.

The present article attempts this reexamination with respect to the most characteristic feature of Latin American politics, the coup d'état and the establishment of a de facto military government.

A priori, mutually contradictory theses about the relations of the military coup to social development can be constructed—and indeed the literature on the subject abounds in such contradictory theses, evidence to support each of which is always available.

If an important part of the political scientist's mission is to anticipate and explain “the critical problems that generate turbulence” in that part of the world which attracts his attention, then, in the study of administration, bureaucratic “imperialism” must be of compelling interest. If systematic data directly assembled for the purpose are lacking, and if there are some signal problems of theory which have been little investigated, there is still enough evidence from studies of other political problems that it seems worthwhile to set out some trial-run ideas in the hope that they will elicit further discussion.

Bureaucractic imperialism seems pre-eminently a matter of inter-agency conflict in which two or more agencies try to assert permanent control over the same jurisdiction, or in which one agency actually seeks to take over another agency as well as the jurisdiction of that agency. We are thus primarily concerned with the politics of allocation and shall, except incidentally, bypass some other interesting aspects of inter-agency politics such as cooperation between agencies sharing missions, competition for favorable “one-time-only” decisions which do not involve jurisdictional reallocation, or the critical problems of the “holding company” administrative organization and its internal politics. For the moment, our concern with the politics of allocation leads to a focus on what would appear to be the likely behaviors of those decisionmakers who have both inclination and opportunity to look after the institutional well-being of agencies.

This is a study of the relationship between local political organization, candidate recruitment, and representation in the United States House of Representatives. It seeks to ascertain the effects which different systems of recruitment have upon the kinds of men who enter public life and the public policies they espouse. A case study of metropolitan Chicago is used to demonstrate the utility of this kind of analysis. The objective is to distinguish distinct systems of recruitment in the Chicago area, describe the factors associated with each, and note the consequences of each for representation in Congress.

The literature on interest groups is, by and large, either heavily abstract and theoretical or highly concrete and descriptive. There are, on the one hand, several attempts to provide a theoretical framework for the study of interest groups, the major foci being either “the group basis of politics” or “mass society.” On the other hand are numerous case-studies which describe in some detail, either for a particular policy or for a particular interest group, relevant political activities which lead to inferred conclusions about the impact that such groups have on the issue or issues. What we lack, and what is needed to raise the study of interest groups to the level of empiricallybased generalization, are studies which collect data and generalize about interest groups using multiple units of analysis.

This observation is not meant to depreciate or undervalue the important theoretical and descriptive contributions which have been made in the examination of the role of interest groups in governmental systems. It is simply to state a fact about the literature and to plead for more systematic data collection and empirically-based generalization from which verified propositions about interest groups may emerge.

I think there are two major reasons why the literature on interest groups lacks a comparative base. First, many of the concepts which are employed in theories about interest groups are difficult to operationalize for data collection. Such concepts as “cohesion,” “access,” “resources,” etc., represent complex phenomena and would involve a good deal of effort to apply rigorously and empirically.

Warren E. Miller and Donald E. Stokes' publication in 1963 of a preliminary report on the Survey Research Center's representation study is an important landmark in the development of empirical political theory. That report addressed itself to the crucial theoretical question of the linkage between mass political opinions and governmental policy-making. More specifically, the report found considerable policy agreement between Congressional roll call votes and the attitudes of the individual Congressman's constituency. This policy agreement was then interpreted through several causal paths and the Congressman's perception of his constituency's attitudes was found to be the main path by which the local district ultimately influenced Congressional outputs.

The main body of the report dealt with the broad civil rights issue dimension, and, by specifying the perceptual path by which constituency influence is brought to bear, documented the effect of political issues despite the generally low level of political information held at the mass level. Thus, the Congressmen, through their broad cognitive evaluations, were aware of how far they could proceed in determining their civil rights roll call votes on the basis of their own attitudes before risking the displeasure of their constituents.

Beyond such major substantive contributions the representation study introduced to political science a variance-apportioning technique similar to that developed by Sewall Wright, in 1921. Through this variance-apportioning technique, the importance of the perceptual link was isolated and evaluated. This study, then, symbolizes the growing recognition in political science of the importance of more sophisticated methodological tools in the process of theory building.

At the heart of our research was a single basic question: What arms control and disarmament measures might be acceptable to Europeans in 1966, in 1971, and in 1976? And differently put: What would be Europe's attitude in those years either to arms competition or to arms control, and what particular policies would be most popular or least popular in Europe in this respect?

This basic question implied four more detailed questions. The first, What is Europe now, in 1966, and where is it going for the 1971 to 1976 period? Is it going to be a Europe of nation-states with only marginal common functional arrangements on matters not central in importance to the concerns of its citizens? Or will it be to some extent substantially integrated, with some major policy decisions made by common institutions? Or will it be a common body politic, speaking with a single voice and developing common institutions for a wide range of decisions?

Second, do Europeans in general approve or disapprove of arms control? Do they welcome the relaxation of tensions between America and Russia and between the East and West, or do they fear such relaxation?

Third, what specific arms control measures are likely to be most acceptable to Europeans, and which arms control measures are likely to be least acceptable?

And fourth, what are the strength, location, and time aspects of political support for specific policies, such as the policies of France and its President de Gaulle vis-à-vis the NATO Alliance and the United States?

What is the relationship between certain major structural aspects of state governments and the content of policies adopted in the states? Do the socio-economic environments of the states relate significantly to political structures or the type of policies enacted?

The thesis advanced here is that differences in policy, at least in certain substantive areas, are more readily explained in terms of differences in the socio-economic environments of the states than by an examination of structural variables. It will also be maintained that, as policy is independent of structure, so structure is also largely independent of some major aspects of the environment. The specific structural variables to be examined are apportionment, party competitiveness, and divided party control between governors and their legislatures.

Six specific propositions will be examined:

Proposition 1. The more imbalance in a state's apportionment, the less likely the legislature is to pass “liberal” or welfare-oriented policies beneficial to urban groups.

Proposition 2. The more imbalance in a state's apportionment, the less financial aid large cities will receive directly from the state.

Proposition 3. The more imbalance in a state's apportionment, the less competitive will be its major parties.

3a. the less competitive a state's two major parties, the less welfare-oriented will be the policies adopted by its legislature.

Proposition 4. The more imbalance in a state's apportionment, the more likely it is that control of the executive and legislative branches will be divided between parties.

4a. The more frequently control of the legislature and executive are divided, the less likely a state will be to adopt welfare-oriented policies.

Proposition 5. The more industrialized a state, the more imbalance there will be in its apportionment system.

Proposition 6. The more industrialized a state, the higher will be its welfare-orientation.

Of the many excellent studies of Congress completed by political scientists in recent years, few, if any, suggest a departure from Woodrow Wilson's apt phrase, “Congressional government is Committee government.” Despite numerous efforts to analyze legislative action in terms of roll call votes, constituency characteristics, state delegations, and/or specialized interest blocs, the committee system remains the central focal point of congressional behavior and organization. Thus, if Wilson's nineteenth century insight is still valid, then it would seem that more intensive studies of the congressional committee system—in the manner employed by Huitt and Fenno, for example—would yield many new relevant facts concerning the complexities of the legislative process.

As a case in point, the manner in which individual members of Congress are assigned to various committees has been well covered by Matthews, Clapp, and Masters. The situation in the Senate is such that each member carries at least two, and in many instances three standing committee assignments. In the House, the maximum standing committee work-load is two assignments, although most Representatives have only a single committee responsibility. However, in connection with this latter point, if one examines the standing committee assignments of all House members for the first session of every Congress from the 80th through the 89th, an interesting pattern emerges in which a gradual but steady increase in the number of double committee assignments is clearly evidenced during the past twenty years.

Politicians and political scientists alike have long recognized the impact of the local political environment on the attitudes and behavior of community residents. V.O. Key demonstrated in a variety of contexts the striking persistence of distinctive community political traditions. The extensive discussion of the “suburban conversion” hypothesis has turned in part on the question of the influence of the local community on partisan attitudes. A number of studies of voting behavior have shown that majority views in a community have a disproportionate advantage in gaining and holding adherents. There is, in short, good reason to suspect that the local community has a significant influence on social attitudes and political behavior. Why is this so? How does the Republican “atmosphere” in Elmira affect the votes of individual Elmirans? How are community political traditions maintained through decades of changing community composition? Why does the minority party in a community fail to mobilize many of the voters who are predisposed toward it? What explanation of these sorts of community influence seems most adequate?—this is the question to be examined in this paper.

The study of French politics has traditionally focused on the central issues of consensus and cleavage. Titles of representative works on French politics are revealing: In Search of France, France Against Herself, Crisis and Compromise, and France Torn. A foremost scholarly concern has been to explain the high degree of political conflict in France. Numerous explanations have been suggested, ranging from France's history to her values, regional diversity, and electoral system. However, in attempting to learn about French political behavior, an important source of information has been ignored. French local political patterns contrast sharply with national political patterns: the contrast is relevant to understanding the issues of consensus and cleavage in France.

There are nearly 38,000 communes in France. Each elects a municipal council, and each municipal council (except the one for Paris) elects a mayor; there are manifold opportunities to examine French local consensus. Scholars have studied certain issues in French local government, but not the question of local consensus. French electoral sociologists have examined temporal changes of local voting patterns in national elections. Beginning with André Siegfried's Tableau politique de la France d'ouest sous la troisième république, these studies have provided detailed information on cantonal and even communal voting behavior. However, studies in electoral sociology are concerned with the result of the voting decision rather than with its causes. They do not question how local cleavages in national elections develop or are maintained. Still less do they examine local politics; their focus is primarily on municipalities' national voting behavior.

Political scientists usually assume that physical environment helps determine political behavior. They would not, for example, expect a homogeneous political culture in a country sharply divided by mountains. Also, extreme variations in physical environment, such as droughts and floods, have been traditionally considered bad omens for governments. However, very little empirical research has been done on the relationship between natural disasters and attitudes toward government for three reasons. First, political activity seems more determined by social environment than physical. Also, since the individual is influenced by a greater number of social factors than physical factors, the former are more accessible for study and comparison. Finally, it is especially difficult to examine the effect of natural disasters, for they are rather uncommon and unpredictable. This research gap is unfortunate, since such catastrophes place great stress upon the social framework and thus test the adaptive capabilities of the political system.

Voting behavior of public decision-makers has been of central concern for political scientists. For example, studies of legislatures (notably of Congress) have investigated such research problems as: (1) the extent to which voting on one issue is related to voting on other issues; (2) the potency of party affiliation as an organizer of attitudes and a predictor of voting behavior; and (3) the relationship of demographic characteristics to voting behavior. These and related concerns have more recently occupied the attention of students of the judiciary whose focus has primarily been on the United States Supreme Court. State courts of last resort have also provided a testing ground primarily for problems (2) and (3). However, the United States courts of appeals, second only to the Supreme Court in judicial importance, have been largely neglected. This paper considers the above research problems with reference to the voting behavior on all eleven courts of appeals from July 1, 1961 through June 30, 1964.

In a recent article Leon D. Epstein sets out to analyze Canadian parliamentary parties, particularly the reasons for their cohesiveness, so as to better understand American parties. In some respects, this is an extension of his earlier study of British parliamentary parties. An analysis of Canadian parties is particularly appropriate, he feels, because the Canadian party system has so often been described as an Anglo-American hybrid. As he succinctly points out:

Professor Epstein argues that cohesion is maintained by Canadian Members of Parliament because: (1) they perceive it is to their personal advantage to act cohesively; (2) it is mutually advantageous to their parties and themselves; and (3) although not specifically stated, he strongly implies that the maintenance of their parties as viable, organized and effective groups requires such behavior on their part.

He also states that the transcending of intraparty policy differences may be facilitated by the party legislative caucus.

The process by which it transcends may well include caucus compromise rather than crude leadership or majority imposition of a policy on dissenting M.P.'s.

In America, interest groups operate within the democratic frame of reference. Like all political organizations, they are accorded more legitimacy when they can show that they are representative of the attitudes and values of a particular segment of the population. Consequently, the leaders of interest groups frequently spend a great deal of time explaining just how democratic their organizations are. If one examines the testimony of interest group leaders at state and national legislative hearings, he is likely to find that much of it is begun with an introductory statement explaining that the leadership of the testifying group is merely the voice of the membership. The personal values of the interest group leader are played down, and his function as representative (as distinguished from delegate) is exaggerated.

On the other hand, relatively few political interest groups have systematic and formalized means of ascertaining the desires of members. We know that most of the devices used to solicit member opinion are not very effective. Truman has shown that the affairs of most interest groups are run on a day-to-day basis by a fraction of the total membership. The mass of the membership takes a relatively passive role with regard to the formation of public policies by the organization.

Communication between leaders and followers is spasmodic and cannot provide efficient guidelines for the actions of leaders. Whether or not leadership of an organization seeks to become a manifestation of Michel's iron law of oligarchy, the realities of communication within an organization suggest that most of the communication undertaken by leaders will be with other members of the leadership clique rather than with the larger body of followers in the group.

An ongoing political system requires a continuing process of recruitment in order to maintain the small but active cadre of citizens who assume the primary responsibility for the operation of the system. These political activists are involved in recruiting the official leadership, campaigning for their election, and sometimes serve as governors of the system themselves. In American politics, the recruitment of political activists is effected through processes which political scientists have only recently begun to investigate in depth. Most of the studies of recruitment to positions of political activism have investigated the social backgrounds and the patterns of recruitment of public officials. Not as much attention has been directed toward the personnel who operate the local political party organizations, and the processes of their recruitment. Our data add to the literature about political party activists at the lower echelons of the party organizations by reporting the findings of research conducted among local party officials in selected locales in North Carolina and Massachusetts. These local party officials constitute the lowest level of party officialdom in their respective party organizations. We have investigated the process of their recruitment to their party positions, and have used the data to test a model of political recruitment. Several questions guiding our research included: What are the social correlates of recruitment to local party positions? What are the patterns and channels of recruitment? What triggers political party activism—is there an identifiable “threshold” or “political opportunity structure” which serves as an indicator of political party activism? Are recruitment patterns and channels related to role definitions? We have also examined the relationship between the recruitment pattern of the party worker and his orientation to his job as party worker.

This paper presents estimates of the probability that the occurrence of the Paradox of Voting, commonly known as Arrow's Paradox, will prevent the selection of a majority issue when odd-sized committees of m judges vote upon n issues. The estimates, obtained through computer simulation of the voting process, indicate that the probability of such an intransitive social ordering is lower than the ratio of intransitive outcomes to all outcomes.

Many of the arguments in political theory and welfare economics dealing with the paradox (e.g., Downs, 1957; Black, 1958; Schubert, 1960) seem to have implicitly assumed that since the paradox exists, its likelihood of occurrence is very close to 1. The results in this paper may call for a re-examination of these positions.

Politics is both game and warfare: game when it seeks to keep uncertain the outcome of a competition and to keep the opponent not only alive but eager to play; warfare when it seeks to destroy or permanently weaken the enemy. Depending upon the issues over which it is fought, politics will be more or less game, more or less warfare. A given society may keep its politics in a state of game unless certain issues, social status or religious freedom for example, be at stake. Conversely, a society may be unable to remove its politics from a state of warfare unless some game-like issues, such as the election of a leader, be introduced.

In order to measure the power of specific political issues to modify the game-warfare content of a political system, we should first be able to determine the tendency of that system when it operates in a political near-vacuum. In the absence of publicly known issues over which to divide themselves, we should ask, would members of a given group or society tend to fight or to play, assuming that they had only this choice?

A state of total political vacuum is, of course, no more than an ideal which cannot and need not be obtained empirically. We cannot prevent subjects from smuggling into a laboratory experiment their personal political concerns, for example the perception of a hierarchy of status and authority within which they will react. But if we cannot control for private political issues, we can, at least, ensure that they do not become public, that they not be shared.