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Who is Listening? Political Science Research in Public Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2022

Robert G. Dixon Jr.*
Affiliation:
George Washington University, National Law Center

Extract

Since this paper in substantially its present form was delivered at the APSA annual meeting in Los Angeles in September, 1970 it has been seen and commented on by several of my friends who are intimate enough to be frank. Views ranged all the way from “don't spoil it by changing it,” to “bury it.” Clearly this is not the stuff of which neutral principles are made. In deciding to go forward, therefore, a plea of confession and avoidance is in order. This is an evocative paper, not a scholarly article. It suggests but does not prove a hypothesis, the real question being how much of it is true and what if anything should political science do about it. Because of the panel format there is intentional hyperbole in my characterization of certain aspects of the behavioral movement, and suggestion that for some researchers it may be almost a “cop-out” on current political and social problems. I trust that those I venture to chide a bit will receive it in the spirit of Marilyn Monroe, who used to say, better to be photographed nude than not at all.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1971

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References

1 30 Journal of Politics 480 (1968).

2 Illustrative individual course titles include Public Economic Policy and the Law, Public Policy and Mass Media, Community Organizations, Federal Programs tor Urba Poverty, The Police and Community, Intergovernmental Aspects of Technological Change, Executive Function, Formulation of Natural Resources Policy, Current Problems in Civil Rights.

3 Supra note 1 at 482.

4 Omitted from this article is the Appendix prepared by a research assistant (David Taxin) which was attached to the panel paper and which classified public law articles in the last decade in tour major political science journals.

5 An important caveat is in order at this point. My concern is with the type, and the small amount, of political science public law which appears in political science journals. I am not criticizing political science practitioners of public law as a whole. As Douglas Hobbs pointed out at the panel, such practitioners do publish substantive pieces in the Law Reviews, perhaps being attracted as he suggested by the larger number and quicker acceptance, more appropriate audience, better editorial assistance and quicker publication. Nor can I criticize editors of political science journals without more knowledge of articles submitted to them.

6 In the February, 1970 issue there are articles on the decision to prosecute, judicial role as state constitutional convention delegates, jury research in America, the lawyer in the executive branch of government.

7 Kalven, H. Jr., and Zeisel, H., The American Jury (Boston: Little Brown, 1966).Google Scholar

8 Mason, , Harlan Fisk Stone: Pillar ot the Law (New York: Viking Press, 1956)Google Scholar and Brandeis: A Free Man's Lite (New York: Viking Press, 1946); Murphy, , Elements of Judicial Strategy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964).Google Scholar

9 Muir, William K. Jr., Prayer in the Public Schools: Law and Attitude Change (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967)Google Scholar; Johnson, Richard M., The Dynamics ot Compliance: Supreme Court Decision-Making from a New Perspective (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1967).Google Scholar

10 Dixon, Robert G. Jr., Democratic Representation: Reapportionment in Law and Politics (Oxford University Press, 1968)Google Scholar; on standards and implementation see 378–384, 439–451, 458–499, 503–527; on policy impact see 574–581.

11 Pulsipher, Allan G. and Weatherby, James L. Jr., “Malapportionment, Party Competition, and the Functional Distribution of Governmental Expenditures,” 62 American Political Science Review 1207 (1968).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 For citations and discussion see Dixon, , Democratic Representation, supra note 10 at 577–79.Google Scholar

13 Beaney, William M. and Beiser, Edward N., “Prayer and Politics: The Impact of Engel and Schempp on the Political Process,” 13 Journal of Public Law 475 (1964).Google Scholar

14 See the “Dirksen Amendment” Campaign, in Dixon, , Democratic Representation, supra note 10 at 385415.Google Scholar

15 Flyer received from Ira Katznolson, editor, Columbia University Department of Political Science.

16 For a perceptive review, and critique, see Fuller, Leon L., “An Afterword: Science and the Judicial Process,” in Symposium on Social Science Approaches to the Judicial Process, 79 Harvard Law Review 1551, 1604 (1966).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Letter to Editor, 61 American Political Science Review 149 (1967), in which Schuman slyly hypothesized that perhaps the selection was Intentional, that the Editor intended to “present a reductio ad absurdum of the new faddists of ‘behavioralism’ and ‘empiricism.’”

18 Schubert, Glendon, ed., Judicial Behavior: A Reader in Theory and Research (Chicago: Rand McNally and Co., 1964).Google Scholar

19 Schubert, Glendon, ed., Reapportionment (New York: Scribner Research Anthology, 1965)Google Scholar, which is essentially a 1963 collection despite the publishing date.

20 Spencer Hill, A., “The Reapportionment Decisions: A Return to Dogma,” 31 Journal of Politics 186 (1969).CrossRefGoogle Scholar The De Grazia dissent was part of a “One Man-One Vote” leaflet issued by the Twentieth Century Fund in 1962 as an unqualified endorsemen tof the efficacy of the equal population principle by a conference composed primarily of political scientists. Dixon, , Democratic Representation, supra note 10 at 577–79.Google Scholar The Derge study found far less rural-urban bloc voting than commonly assumed, and also found that metropolitan legislators “are usually on the prevailing side when they do vote together with high cohesion.” Derge, David R., “Metropolitan and Outstate Alignments in Illinois and Missouri Legislative Delegations,” 52 American Political Science Review 1065 (1958).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Dixon, Robert G. Jr., “The Warren Court Crusade for the Holy Grail of ‘One Man-One Vote,’1969 Supreme Court Review 219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also the forthcoming volume on Reapportionment for the Seventies, Institute of Government of the University of California, Berkeley.

22 Schubert, Glendon and Press, Charles, “Measuring Malapportionment,” 58 American Political Science Review 302 (1964).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 The article cited is Weaver, James B. and Hess, Sidney W., “A Procedure for Nonpartisan Districting: Development of Computer Techniques,” 73 Yale Law Journal 288 (1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with which compare Nagel, Stuart S., “Simplified Bipartisan Computer Redistricting,” 17 Stanford Law Review 863 (1965).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 Sindler, Allan P., Book Review, 57 American Political Science Review 959 (1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, in which he commented that political scientists had contributed to the reapportionment problem “mostly as propagandists, not as scientists.”

25 Herman Pritchett, C., “Equal Protection and the Urban Majority,” 58 American Political Science Review 869 (1964).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 To this dour generalization there are two happy exceptions: the Pulsipher-Weatherby article cited supra note 11, and Hofferbert, Richard I., “The Relation Between Public Policy and Some Structural and Environmental Variables in the American States,” 60 American Political Science Review 73 (1966).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 See Jewell, commentary on Dixon chapter in Reapportionment lor the Seventies, supra note 21, in press. Jewell remarks: “It is noteworthy that, in exploring the effects of various districting methods, the courts are raising questions which ought to be answered by social scientists…. If the courts are going to make judgments about how well voters are represented in single-and multi-member districts, political scientists should be devoting more attention to this question so that judicial decisions can be based on fact as well as theory.”

28 Dixon, Robert G. Jr., “Apportionment Standards and Judicial Power,” 38 Notre Dame Lawyer 367 at 387–388 (1963)Google Scholar, where the following lines also appear following a list of empirical political representation questions: “In the studies which have been made, the focus has tended to be on the more obvious factors of party identification, party votes, and party shift. Although supported by the interview method and mathematical techniques, much of it may be characterized as objectified armchair research into the more gross and easily identified aspects of political behavior.”

29 Kirkpatrick v. Preisler and Wells v. Rockefeller, 394 U.S. 526, 542 (1969). See also Hadley v. Junior College District, 397 U.S. 50 (1970) which contains some indistinct caveats.

30 Wells v. Rockefeller, 311 F.Supp. 48 (S.D.N.Y. 1970), aff'd 398 U.S. 901 (1970). Updating Note: Typical of the surprises in this field is the outcome of the November, 1970 election in New York. Despite Republican control of the redistricting process the Democrats captured 58.5% of the seats (24–17) with a statewide congressional vote plurality of only 50.9%. And of the 6 districts in which there was no effective contest be eliminated, the outcome is even more unexpected: the Democrats with 49.7% of the congressional vote captured 54.3% of the seats (19–16). Source: Computations of David I. Wells using initial unofficial figures.

31 See Dixon, “The Warren Court Crusade,” supra note 21 at 231–233.

32 Oxford University Press, 1969 (edited by Theodore L. Becker).

33 Dixon, , Democratic Representation, supra note 10 Google Scholar, and see also works of Malcolm Jewell, Gordon Baker, Ruth Silva, and others.

34 Book Review, 58 Georgetown Law Journal 435 (1969).

35 Pritchett, supra note 1 at 509.

36 The analytic movement in philosophy yields a similar problem: “In much contemporary philosophy, what is thought has relevance only to the thought of other philosophers. We dig so far down into foundations that we come to see life only in terms of our own subterranean existence. What we term philosophical analysis often might better be called ‘notes from the underground.’” Kaplan, Abraham, “The Travesty of the Philosophers,” 2 Change in Higher Education 12 (1970).Google Scholar

37 Shapiro, Martin, Law and Politics in the Supreme Court (New York: Free Press, 1964), p. 20.Google Scholar

38 Wechsler, Herbert, “Toward Neutral Principles of Constitutional Law,” 73 Harvard Law Review 1 (1959).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 Mendelson, Wallace, Justices Black and Frankfurter: Conflict in the Court (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961).Google Scholar

40 See also Kelly, Alfred H., “Clio and the Court: An Illicit Love Affair,” 1965 Supreme Court Review 119 (1965).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41 Several actual and potential applications are noted in Nagel, Stuart S., The Legal Process from a Behavioral Perspective (Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey Press, 1969), at pages 377–86.Google Scholar