The topic set for this panel is “value consensus” in democracy. I put the expression in inverted commas, not because I am here concerned with the validity of the fact-value distinction but because, even granting the distinction, I find it difficult to see why, in this context, “value” should be added to “consensus.” Democracy is the name we give to a certain form of political community, and every community, by definition, is constituted by the fact that its members hold certain things in common. A political community, I take it, is always constituted by the fact that its members hold certain political things in common. And a democratic political community would, by equal reason, be constituted by the fact that the political things its members hold in common are democratic. The problem of discovering what constitutes a democratic consensus, as it seems to me, is the problem of what things fellow-citizens in a democracy must hold in common, what they may hold in common, and what they may not hold in common, if they are to constitute a democratic political community. I think it would be confusing, at the outset, to speak of “values,” because, even assuming that we know what values are, we cannot assume that values are the principal things to be shared, or that non-values are not equally or more important than values.

At least from the time of Socrates, in whose ideal state philosophers would be kings, the appeal to the right man has played a major role in systematic reflections on the control of power. For if the right man does rule, Socrates argued, neither institutional nor other controls—e.g., law—need to be employed. Because he is the right man, he will do the right things: he will rule wisely; he will establish or, where already established, he will perpetuate, that order in human affairs that best approximates or achieves justice and secures liberty.

The problem, then, for those who hold this view in democratic states, is not whether the right man should rule, but how he is to be discovered and how he can be assured the reins of political power. Or, to formulate the problem in negative terms, how can we identify and exclude from power those who are the “wrong” men, those who are likely to rule badly and unjustly, those who—because they are, for example, “authoritarians” at heart—may if they achieve positions of power violate the very principles of the democratic state and thereby endanger its existence?

Unless federation and political representation are developed in metropolitan areas, compartmentalization of local government and fragmentation of public administration will continue. The unmistakable characteristics of American metropolitan areas make them easy to spot: dense populations, urban in nature; industrial and commercial resources; one or more central cities producing the mononucleated or polynucleated pattern; economic and social interconnections maintained by a daily inflow and outflow of traffic. The web of economic and social structure is, however, by no means equalled by political interconnections. The governmental services required by the people living in the area are either unresolved in their metropolitan aspects or are administered by authorities which are often autonomous and remote from coordinated control. Area-wide government to establish policy for the metropolitan population in its unanimity of need and interest is lacking. No political power is in existence to administer the metropolitan aspects of functions. Metropolitan government as such does not exist; it is a concept and possibly a tentative approach. So far, it is no more than that. Still less in esse is metropolitan self-government.

Past voting turnout studies almost always have been static analyses. Usually they have described the relationship between participation rates and the demographic attributes, attitudes, and social experiences of members of the electorate. Since each such study ordinarily is based on a single cross-sectional survey or on statistics referring to the Election Day period alone, both turnout and its determinants are derived at the same point of time, only simultaneous correlations are possible, and the analyst cannot show how turnout is affected by temporally prior conditions.

The development of multi-wave panel interviews in modern social research permits the study of attitude change, decision-making, and action over time. By re-interviewing the same respondents at intervals, political sociologists already have discovered much about how voters decide their candidate choices during the course of an election campaign. A panel design permits such process analysis not only of candidate preference but also of turnout and non-voting.

The coattail effect in presidential and congressional races was long supposed to show that the winning presidential candidate led his party to victory by adding votes to the ticket all along the line. The fact that the same party almost always won control of both houses of congress and usually also a majority of the governorships at stake at the time of a presidential victory made this a plausible theory.

More recently, the sweeping nature of such an explanation has been challenged. The first criticism of the simple theory noted that even when a presidential candidate wins, congressional candidates in some districts lead the president. In these cases, presumably, the congressional candidates' coattails are more effective.

A second criticism pointed to the paradox in the assumption that if a presidential candidate leads his party by a wide margin, he is an effective candidate for the party ticket. The greater the margin, presumably, the stronger are the presidential coattails. But large margins, on the contrary, must indicate that the presidential candidate has not been able to transfer all of his votes to the congressional ticket; and so it would seem that the attraction of his coattails is minimal if this margin is great. Thus the most significant symptom of the coattail process is straight ticket voting.

The affairs of the Teamsters Union have suddenly loomed with an importance seldom recognized in any private association of this highly associated country. No doubt a major source of the recent interest in the internal politics of this and other unions is the fascination exerted by intimations of colorful criminality. Senator McClellan's committee, indeed, has gone far to indulge the widespread taste for this variety of sensation. Some segments of public opinion have obviously been gratified to be given ammunition useful in a campaign to weaken the economic and political power of organized labor. Meanwhile, the prospect for a few elementary reforms has suddenly improved. The American labor movement has acted to cleanse itself of some of the stain which has drawn so much attention. Legislative proposals designed to insure integrity of union elections and financial management are actively agitated.

Nevertheless, publicity and agitation have so far done little to illuminate the basic problem. The public hue and cry about gangsters quite possibly may have hindered rather than helped understanding of what is involved.

The Hawaiian Islands, in Mark Twain's words “the loveliest fleet of Islands that lies anchored in any ocean,” offer more than a vista of sub-tropical splendor to the student of government. Hawaii presents also an extreme of centralized administration probably unequaled in any state on the mainland. The century prior to annexation by the United States saw the major islands of the Hawaiian archipelago come under the jurisdiction of a single government which rapidly underwent a metamorphosis from stone-age, native absolutism, through restricted constitutional monarchy, to the status of independent republic. “Adjustment rather than reorganization defines the change in government necessary when Hawaii entered the Union as a Territory.” Allowed by Congress almost all the powers of a state, and wide discretion in erecting its own local structure, the Territory chose to continue the concentrated administration which had characterized government throughout the century of independent rule. Only within the last few years has this centralization been shaken by the introduction of challenging centrifugal forces. Today, Hawaii affords the prospect of an ocean-girt test tube in which can be observed the interplay of these new formative forces with the old causative factors of centripetal tendency; the end product may be a decentralized administration more on the model of the mainland.

The French political scientist Jean-Jacques Chevallier tells of a young writer who was explaining his ideas to Maurice Barrès. “I understand your ideas well enough,” declared Barrès, “but your thirst?” That is, what is the fundamental idea, the guiding passion which has led you to express yourself in this way, and which will explain the inner meaning and coherence of your ideas? The fundamental desire of Machiavelli in writing the Prince was the unification of Italy. A passion for popular government was the guiding idea behind the Social Contract of Rousseau. The “thirst” of the Mouvement Républicain Populaire during the first three years of its existence consisted of two incompatible aims, namely, a desire to spread the ideals of Christian Democracy and a desire for immediate electoral success.

The clash between these two aims first occurred in 1944 when a group of leaders of the Resistance to Vichy and the German occupation seized an opportunity to organize a Christian Democratic party, the M.R.P. The conflict continued throughout 1945 and 1946 when the Provisional Government of General Charles de Gaulle and the two constituent assemblies successively governed France. During this period, the M.R.P. achieved its greatest electoral triumphs.

The British Labour Party defies the classifications which students of the structure of political parties have developed. By its historical origin and its formal organization it would seem to be a mass party in the sense that Duverger and others have used that term. But it has also exhibited, notably since 1945, the characteristics of a traditional parliamentary party, denying its mass membership power and influence and allowing its parliamentary leaders the exercise of full authority. Yet in the nineteen-thirties there was evidence that the Labour Party was developing all the characteristics of a mass party, doctrinaire in its program, unreconciled to parliamentary institutions, and anxious to subordinate its parliamentary leadership to the extra-parliamentary organization. It is the defeat of this tendency and the assertion of parliamentarism in the period since World War II which makes this a decisive epoch in the development of the Labour Party, the study of which offers an explanation of the paradox of the party's structure.

Whatever the strengths and weaknesses in the study of urban government today, one fact seems clear: a process of transformation is underway. How fundamental a restructuring of research and teaching is involved is not yet certain, for the tide of debate still runs strong. At the very least however, the new model will be longer, wider and indelibly stamped with the forward look.

The boundaries of urban study are no longer limited to the formal structure and administrative processes of local government; they now embrace the variety of public activities within metropolitan regions, whether local, state, or federal in origin. The ranks of political scientists are augmented by sociologists, economists, demographers, and planners demonstrating renewed interest in the field. And almost every analysis is dynamic in scope and method, designed to anticipate the policy problems yet to come.

This last characteristic deserves emphasis. Few areas in political science seem to have accepted more completely Harold Lasswell's injunction in the Presidential Address of 1956 to scan “the horizon of the unfolding future.”

When the forces of the French Union and those of the Viet Minh accepted a cease-fire at Geneva in July, 1954, the 17th Parallel was visioned only as a temporary military demarcation line. Nation-wide elections were to be held within two years to settle the political future of the country; and it was generally taken for granted that the entire area, from the Gate of Nam-Quan on the China border to the Point of Ca-Mau at the tip of the Indo-China peninsula, an area roughly equivalent in size to that of the States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia combined, with a population approximating 23 millions, would fall to Ho Chi Minh and his Communists. The device of a delayed election was accepted merely as a face-saving measure to enable the French to withdraw gracefully from the scene by handing over control of the South—and hence responsibility for its future—to a native government.

That the 17th Parallel has become, instead, a political boundary separating the Republic of Viet Nam, embracing roughly the southern 40 per cent of the area and nearly half of the population, from the Communist “Democratic Republic of Viet Nam,” has been largely the work of a single man, Ngo Dinh Diem, and his closely knit group of assistants.

Rural overrepresentation and metropolitan underrepresentation in state legislatures have long been standard targets for the criticisms of students of state and local government. As Murray Stedman, for example, puts it, “Rural minorities control many state legislatures and thereby penalize urban majorities. The virtual serfdom of the urbanite to the rurally controlled state legislatures in many areas is a recurrent plaint in the writings of political scientists.” Commenting on the tendency of state legislators to form blocs reflecting individual localities and their local and regional interests, Alfred DeGrazia concludes that “every American state with any considerable urban population has undergone protracted conflict between rural and urban blocs, often regardless of party lines.” Textbooks on municipal government, and state and local government, universally condemn urban underrepresentation in state legislatures and say, or imply, that the result is consistent defeat or frustration of urban interests in the legislative arena. My purpose here is to introduce a note of factual skepticism into a portion of the discussion.

The significance of inter-party competition for variations in electoral behavior has recently been recognized in a number of political studies. The objects of this article are, first, to refine the concepts of safe and competitive electoral districts, and second, to replicate some propositions relating inter-party competition to the number of contestants in primary elections in Indiana.

Most preceding studies of inter-party competition have examined behavior in large electoral jurisdictions, rarely one smaller than a congressional district and often an entire state. Generally they have examined behavior relating to a single office, usually the governor's or a congressman's, and have assigned every electoral-situation to either a “safe” or an “unsafe” category. They have varied in the tests applied to differentiate the latter. Most tests have determined safeness on the basis of one election; they have differed in the selection of that election and in the size of the majority thought to indicate safety.

The Second Republic of Austria is now well into its thirteenth year of national existence. The First Republic, thirteen years after its creation, showed all the signs of political disillusionment and impending dissolution. The Second Republic, in happy contrast, presents to the foreign observer a picture of political stability, economic prosperity, and sound foreign relations almost unequalled in this part of Europe. Much of the credit for this unusual state of affairs must be attributed to the two major political parties, the Oesterreichische Volkspartei (OeVP) and the Sozialistische Partei Oesterreichs (SPOe) which, uninterruptedly since 1945, have collaborated in the political resuscitation of the state that was once characterized as having “a strong tendency toward nonexistence.”

Cumulative voting is a rough method of proportional representation perhaps more familiar to more Americans as a device for choosing corporate boards of directors, such as Montgomery Ward's, than as a means of choosing legislative representatives. Among American state electoral systems it is unique to Illinois, where it has been in operation since 1870. Like the one-house legislature in Nebraska, it has been admired there but not copied elsewhere. As used in Illinois it retains the district system of representation, but each district is the unit for choosing three representatives, and each voter is allowed three votes. Thus, in contrast with a single-member district system, it aims to secure representation for a substantial minority without jeopardizing the principle of majority rule; and it has done so. If this were all, the Illinois example might remain as a museum piece to be observed by students of comparative electoral methods, or by constitution drafters considering a change in systems.

As it happens, however, Illinois superimposed on this cumulative voting scheme for the lower house a conventional single-member district system for the choice of state senators, and providentially for students of voting behavior, from 1870 through the election of 1954 it used the same district boundaries for both purposes.

A great many people seem to believe that “they” run things: the old families, the bankers, the City Hall machine, or the party boss behind the scene. This kind of view evidently has a powerful and many-sided appeal. It is simple, compelling, dramatic, “realistic.” It gives one standing as an inside-dopester. For individuals with a strong strain of frustrated idealism, it has just the right touch of hard-boiled cynicism. Finally, the hypothesis has one very great advantage over many alternative explanations: It can be cast in a form that makes it virtually impossible to disprove.

Consider the last point for a moment. There is a type of quasi-metaphysical theory made up of what might be called an infinite regress of explanations. The ruling elite model can be interpreted in this way. If the overt leaders of a community do not appear to constitute a ruling elite, then the theory can be saved by arguing that behind the overt leaders there is a set of covert leaders who do. If subsequent evidence shows that this covert group does not make a ruling elite, then the theory can be saved by arguing that behind the first covert group there is another, and so on.

This study aims to analyze some features of voting behavior in a particular state party system and to illustrate new methods of analysis of election data. In this paper we use the gross election statistics for Michigan counties and cities to relate recent voting trends to the ecological characteristics of counties and to investigate the effect of certain variables on voting in cities.

A closer scrutiny of Michigan election results is warranted at this time because major interest groups in this state no longer place a high premium on “keeping out of politics.” Traditionally, interest groups in American state and national politics are supposed to avoid any open and continuing commitments to particular party organizations or factions. Labor and business groups in Michigan, however, skirting the Taft-Hartley and corrupt practices acts (which purport to limit union and corporate political activities), have either modified or abandoned their past policies in this respect. The Michigan CIO fully accepts a partisan role and since 1948 a liberal-CIO coalition has controlled the Democratic party organization.

To understand the political philosophy of Francis Bacon, or what he tried to do in political philosophy, one must make the clear-cut distinction he saw, I believe, between a provisional and a definitive political teaching. The latter, which he put chiefly in the New Atlantis and the De Sapientia Veterum, could be but imperfectly explored, because man could only build a final political teaching out of an as yet unconstructed natural philosophy. The former, on the other hand, could be known and conveyed with some precision. It was to serve the purpose of furnishing a temporary station for mankind, one that would be liveable and even comfortable as a dwelling place, and one that would at the same time, permit philosophy or science its own discovery of something better. Of the provisional political order, as Bacon saw it, there were three pillars: crown, church, and empire. The imperial pillar is certainly the most important to him of the three, and its construction required a greater boldness than the construction of either of the others.

This study was undertaken to test the relations between two basic observations which have appeared in the literature of political behavior. First, party identification has been found to be a major factor not only in determining votes but also in shaping ideology. Party appears to serve a “standard-setting” function for its adherents, especially on questions that are most clearly “party-related,” and resultant ideological differences between Democrats and Republicans have been found independently of such demographic factors as socioeconomic status. The second observation stems from studies in the field of stratification that have yielded an explanatory proposition in political analysis: a shift in party affiliation tends to follow a shift in class identification, as indicated by the tendency of suburban America to vote Republican.

West Germany today is ruled by a constitutional regime in which a strongly led democratic majority party has carried the predominant, indeed, increasingly almost the sole, responsibility of running the national government. Yet the “basic law” of the country embodies a federal system of institutions and checks and balances which were in great measure designed specifically to hamper the exercise of power by just such a politically powerful national government. The inclusion in the Constitution, under German federalist and Allied pressure, of a number of institutional devices, especially that of the “Bundesrat” rather than the “Senate” form of upper House, was rather openly intended to introduce restraints on the power of national party leaderships by allowing the leaders of the Laender governments a direct voice and, on many matters, a potential veto in the formulation of national policies. The creation of a second chamber with members drawn from, and exclusively responsible to, the Land cabinets was pretty clearly an attempt to institutionalize political diversity. It was expected that as the party makeup of the several Laender governments would often differ from the coalition pattern of the Federal government, and that as each Land government would have to cast its indivisible Bundesrat votes with regard both to its regional interests and to its particular party composition, the resultant configuration of power in the upper chamber would differ considerably from that in the Bundestag.