This paper describes how the contributions that different groups make to a party's total strength can be specified by breaking down each contribution into its three components—size, turnout, and loyalty. Through the use of survey data on reported vote rather than party identification, the voting coalitions of the Democrats and Republicans are analyzed. By means of examples of selected groups, the actual magnitude of these contributions and their components are presented for each of the last five presidential elections. Major attention is given to a group-by-group evaluation of the generally accepted view that the Democrats are a coalition of diverse overlapping minorities including the poor, Blacks, union members, Catholics and Jews, Southerners, city dwellers and perhaps the young; and the view that the Republicans have appeal for the corresponding non-minorities. The empirical results show which aspects of these views are valid and which are not. Some implications for the party system as well as the strategic considerations inherent in this approach are also discussed.

This paper provides a partial test of the widely-held assumption that preference primaries are the most representative element of the presidential nominating system. It notes that the average voting turnout in presidential primaries is only 39 per cent, compared with 69 per cent in the same states' ensuing general elections. The representative quality of these electorates is examined with data from sample surveys of the 1968 New Hampshire and Wisconsin primaries. A comparison of the primary participants with non-participants among each party's identifiers shows, first, that presidential primary electorates are demographically unrepresentative of their nonvoting fellow partisans in age, education, income, and social status. Second, primary participants have no more intense party identifications than do non-participants. Third, participants hold issue positions more strongly than nonparticipants do, and on some issues they even hold positions contrary to those of nonparticipants. Finally, both of the Democratic primaries overrepresented Johnson sentiment and underrepresented McCarthy and Kennedy sentiment. The author concludes that the preference primaries' claim to be the most representative element of the presidential nominating system may not be warranted, especially if and when the national conventions are reformed along lines such as those laid down by the McGovern-Fraser Commission. In any case, 1972 offers a unique opportunity to study the comparative representativeness of local, state, and national party conventions and the preference primaries.

How are decisions made in Soviet cities? Who are the municipal decision makers? What kinds of decisions do they make? Is there a Soviet urban political system? This article attempts to answer these questions by focusing on four aspects of decision making in Soviet cities: budget formulation, the planning process, housing construction and allocation, and the staffing of key municipal posts.

Urban autonomy has increased in the past decade, but Soviet municipalities are very much restricted in their decision making. Superior Party and governmental authorities continue to dominate the decision-making process and any decision made by municipal authorities can be vetoed by superior Party and governmental organs.

Soviet municipal decision making is now being influenced by three tendencies: municipal administrators are acquiring more influence in municipal government and administration; the educational qualifications and professional expertise of city Party members are rising; ad hoc citizen and group interest articulation may be developing. Comparisons between Soviet and North American urban decision-making models are useful and valid, although they require an improved methodology and much more Soviet data.

This article analyzes the influence of interest groups in the formation of British policy toward participation in European unity From the important theoretical literature bearing on the subject, it derives and tests two hypotheses relating group behavior to the political integration process. The hypothesis imputed to the group politics approach holds that if interest groups influence policy formation, then progress toward integration is likely to be impeded. The hypothesis suggested by an extension of the functionalist approach implies that if interest groups influence policy formation, then progress toward integration is likely to be facilitated. The data indicate a confirmation of the first hypothesis and a rejection of the second. Groups were unfavorable toward European unity for both organizational and economic reasons. They restrained Britain's movement toward participation in integrated European ventures until the onset of effective politicization. Then the introduction of broadly conceived national interest considerations displaced cost-benefit calculations as the criteria for judgment and diminished the groups' influence. At least in the task of enlarging a geographic area of integration, if not in expanding that integration once a grouping already exists, a conscious political decision was found to be essential.

The concept of political clientelism is one if the few genuinely crosscultural concepts available to political scientists for the comparative study of transitional systems. As a descriptive concept, political clientelism helps us uncover patterns of relationships which deviate markedly from those ordinarily associated with class or ethnicity. As an analytic concept political clientelism provides crucial insights into the internal dynamics of social and political change. Moreover, if, as some contend, patterns of resource allocation are more meaningful indicators of political development than their conceptual opposites, political clientelism may well supply the critical “missing link” between micro- and macro-sociological or system-centered theories of political development.

The analysis presented here is an effort to elaborate the patron-client model of association, developed largely by anthropologists, and to demonstrate its applicability to political action in Southeast Asia. Inasmuch as patron-client structures are not unique to Southeast Asia but are much in evidence, particularly in Latin America, in Africa, and in less developed portions of Europe, the analysis may possibly have more general value for understanding politics in preindustrial societies. After defining the nature of patron-client ties and distinguishing them from other social ties, the paper discriminates among patron-client ties to establish the most important dimensions of variation, examines both the survival and transformations in patron-client links in Southeast Asia since colonialism and the impact of major social changes such as the growth of markets, the expanded role of the state, and the creation of local regimes. Finally, the paper shows how patron-client bonds interact with electoral politics to create distributive pressures which, in turn, often lead to inflationary fiscal policies and vulnerability of regimes to losses of revenue.

Much that is characteristic of contemporary anarchist thought can be found in the writings of the founder of that tradition, William Godwin. He is ambivalent on the value of technology and modernity, nostalgic at one moment and progressive another. He extols individual autonomy while preaching community solidarity. Above all he shares with modern anarchism an elitist disdain for ordinary men and women, which in the case of Godwin leads to an unresolved tension between theoretical radicalism and practical conservatism. His anarchist doctrine repudiates all forms of coercion, law, and government. It eschews cooperation of all kind as deleterious to individual development. At the same time it posits an ideal order characterized by a high degree of informal coercion practiced by zealous neighborly inspection. But Godwin was a less than eager friend of reform and agitation during the years of Pitt's repression of radical movements in England. This was clear even in the pages of Political Justice, but all the more obvious in his feud in 1795–96 with John Thelwall and the London Corresponding Society, the leading radical activists. This paper outlines Godwin's anarchism and points out the implications of his dispute with Thelwall. In addition it shows the extent to which Godwin has given anarchism certain of its enduring qualities.

It is commonly held that Congress has made only inconsequential changes in the President's requests for defense appropriations. Scholarly studies of the budgetary process, notably the work of Fenno and Wildavsky, do not include defense spending in their analyses. For nondefense spending they find that Congress has primarily a fiscal rather than programmatic orientation toward appropriations.

House and Senate changes in the President's defense appropriations requests were analyzed for the fiscal years 1960 through 1970. It was found that small Congressional changes in total defense spending obscured more substantial activity in particular budget categories. The concentration of Congressional activity in two of these categories—Procurement and R&D—indicates that Congress has had a significant programmatic orientation toward defense spending. Changes in the level of Congressional activity across time confirm this hypothesis.

Efforts to measure the relative influence of the House and Senate proved inconclusive. The Senate dominated the conference committee, but the Senate's influence was concentrated in the least important budget categories. The House made most of the changes in the President's budget requests, but very few of such changes were appealed by the Defense Department to the Senate.

Office-holders periodically face the problem of choosing among a set of career alternatives, and these alternatives customarily include the choice of dropping out of political life, or seeking reelection, or of choosing to seek higher office. This paper assumes that officeholders behave according to a rational calculus in making such choices, and that the main elements involved in the choice process include the probabilities and values attached by the candidate to his alternatives, and the investments required to obtain these alternatives. Political ambition, or the desire to seek higher office, is shown to develop as a product of the investments that politicians make in their political careers, and the investments are shown to be associated with the structural characteristics of community size and electoral competitiveness. The subjects of the research are 435 city councilmen from 89 cities of the San Francisco Bay Region, and the data include information derived from interviews with the councilmen and aggregate election data collected on each city.

In legislative systems a bill is commonly considered and reported by an appropriate committee before it is considered on the floor of the house. Since motions on the floor frequently relate to such bills, it is often apposite to refer to a motion's relevant committee. This article presents a mathematical model of the relationship between the relevant committee's divisions on the floor and a motion's probability of passing. Let x be the proportion of the relevant committee voting yea on the floor, z be the proportion of the relevant committee voting nay on the floor, and y be the proportion of the relevant committee neither voting yea nor voting nay on the floor, then a motion's probability of passing is (x2 + y2)/(x2 + y2 + z2). The fit between theory and observation is quite good: six hundred eleven roll calls from the 90th and 91st Congresses have been analyzed; 0.628 of the motions actually passed; and 0.613 of the motions were expected to pass.