Field experiments were conducted to determine the effect of a short-term spring-seeded smother plant on corn development and weed control. Yellow mustard was managed to provide interference durations of 2,4,6, or 8 wk, and maximum height of 10 or 20 cm. Three yellow mustard planting patterns and eight seeding rates were evaluated during 1989 and 1990 at St. Paul and Rosemount, MN. Yellow mustard seeded at 2120 seeds m−2 with an interference duration of 4 wk and a maximum height of 10 cm decreased corn yield 17% and reduced weed dry weight 4 wk after yellow mustard emergence an average of 66%. Yellow mustard with a 2-wk interference duration did not reduce weed dry weight. Yellow mustard seeded at 2120 seeds m−2 with a 6- or 8-wk life cycle and 10-cm height reduced weed dry weight at the end of the interference period an average of 82% but delayed corn silk emergence an average of 5.3 d and reduced average grain yield 19%. Increasing yellow mustard height from 10 to 20 cm delayed corn silk emergence and reduced grain yield but did not decrease weed dry weight. Yellow mustard with an interference duration of 4 wk and a maximum height of 10 cm, seeded over the corn row at 530 seeds m−2, reduced weed dry weight 4 wk after mustard emergence an average of 51%, and resulted in an average corn grain yield reduction of 4%, compared with corn grown in monoculture averaged over weedy and weed-free treatments. These results suggest that it may be possible to develop spring-seeded smother plants that reduce weed biomass up to 80% but have only a small impact on corn yield.

I'm pleased to report that the health of the American Political Science Association (APSA), and of political science as a discipline, is excellent.

Over The Past Two Generations The United States Has Undergone a series of remarkable transformations. It has helped to defeat global communism, led a revolution in information technology that is fuelling unprecedented prosperity, invented life-saving treatments for diseases from AIDS to cancer, and made great strides in reversing discriminatory practices and promoting equal rights for all citizens. But during these same decades the United States also has undergone a less sanguine transformation: its citizens have become remarkably less civic, less politically engaged, less socially connected, less trusting, and less committed to the common good. At the dawn of the millennium Americans are fast becoming a loose aggregation of disengaged observers, rather than a community of connected participants.

Domestic politics and international relations are often inextricably entangled, but existing theories (particularly “state-centric” theories) do not adequately account for these linkages. When national leaders must win ratification (formal or informal) from their constituents for an international agreement, their negotiating behavior reflects the simultaneous imperatives of both a domestic political game and an international game. Using illustrations from Western economic summitry, the Panama Canal and Versailles Treaty negotiations, IMF stabilization programs, the European Community, and many other diplomatic contexts, this article offers a theory of ratification. It addresses the role of domestic preferences and coalitions, domestic political institutions and practices, the strategies and tactics of negotiators, uncertainty, the domestic reverberation of international pressures, and the interests of the chief negotiator. This theory of “two-level games” may also be applicable to many other political phenomena, such as dependency, legislative committees, and multiparty coalitions.

Why do some new representative institutions succeed and others fail? This article tests several hypotheses about the ecology of institutional performance, drawing on a ten-year study of Italian regional governments. Institutional success is greater where socioeconomic development is more advanced, where the political culture is participant and sociable, rather than passive and parochial, and where social stability is greater; these three variables alone account for more than four-fifths of the variance in institutional performance. Of particular importance is the impact of historical patterns of social solidarity and political mobilization on contemporary institutional success.

The recent growth in Italian Communist party (PCI) influence on national policy making has been accompanied by a reversal of the party's traditional opposition to Italian participation in NATO and the European Communities. Why? Most fundamentally, this reversal is due to Italy's increasingly irreversible involvement in the network of economic interdependence that links the Western economies. PCI leaders have come to recognize and accept the political consequences of interdependence. Other important factors contributing to the policy shift are: 1) changes in Italian public opinion that made opposition to Italy's Western alignment increasingly costly for the PCI; and 2) constraints imposed by the PCI's need to seek alliances with non-Communists, both in Italy and elsewhere in Western Europe. Serious problems lie ahead for Italy's relations with her allies, but these problems would only be exacerbated by an apocalyptic assessment by Western leaders of the PCI's foreign policy line.

Can there really be much doubt who governs our complex modern societies? Public bureaucracies, staffed largely by permanent civil servants, are responsible for the vast majority of policy initiatives taken by governments. Discretion, not merely for deciding individual cases, but for crafting the content of most legislation has passed from the legislature to the executive. Bureaucrats, monopolizing as they do much of the available information about the shortcomings of existing policies, as well as much of the technical expertise necessary to design practical alternatives, have gained a predominant influence over the evolution of the agenda for decision. Elected executives everywhere are outnumbered and outlasted by career civil servants. 1 In a literal sense, the modern political system is essentially ‘bureaucratic’ – characterized by ‘the rule of officials’.

Si possono avere dubbi su chi dirige realmente le nostre moderne società complesse? Le burocrazie statali, formate in larghissima misura da funzionari permanenti, sono responsabili della grande maggioranza delle decisioni politiche prese dai governi. Il potere discrezionale di articolare il contenuto di buona parte dell'attività legislativa, e non piú soltanto di decidere casi individuali, è passato dai parlamenti agli esecutivi. Grazie al monopolio di fatto di gran parte delle informazioni disponibili sugli effetti delle linee politiche in corso, e della competenza tecnica necessaria a prospettare le alternative pratiche, la burocrazia si è assicurata un'influenza preponderante sulle fasi del processo decisionale. Gli esecutivi, di derivazione elettiva, sono ovunque superati, in entità numerica e in durata, dai funzionari di carriera. Il sistema politico moderno è essenzialmente ≪ burocratico ≫ in senso letterale, caratterizzato cioè dal ≪ governo dei funzionari ≫.

“Elite political culture” may be defined as the set of politically relevant beliefs, values, and habits of the most highly involved and influential participants in a political system. Studying elite political culture requires methodological innovation which will allow us to do justice to the subtleties of the belief systems of sophisticated political leaders without doing violence to our normal standards of reliability and verification. As one example of the study of elite political culture, this paper presents an empirically based analysis of “ideological politics” and “the end of ideology.”

After some clarification of the logical structure and empirical assumptions of existing descriptions of “ideological politics,” these descriptions are examined in the light of data from a study of the basic beliefs and values of British and Italian politicians, based on intensive interviews with random samples of 93 British MPs and 83 Italian deputati.

The core of the notion of “ideological politics” is interpreted in terms of “political style,” that is, how politicians talk and think about concrete policy problems such as poverty or urban transportation. Each respondent's discussion of two such issues was analyzed in terms of 12 “stylistic characteristics,” such as “inductive-deductive thinking,” “use of historical context,” “moralization,” and “reference to distributive group benefits.” Ratings of these stylistic characteristics are found to cluster in intelligible ways, and on the basis of the dominant stylistic dimension, an Index of Ideological Style is constructed. Those politicians who rank high on this Index are also found to be more ideologically motivated, more abstract in their conceptions of politics, especially party politics, and more idealistic than their less “ideological” colleagues. They are also more alienated from existing socio-political institutions and are concentrated at the extremes of the political spectrum. Further investigation shows, however, that contrary to the assumptions of the existing literature, these “ideologues” are not more dogmatic, not less open to compromise, not more antagonistic to the norms of pluralist politics, not more hostile to political opponents. Partisan hostility and ideological style are found to be two distinct syndromes.

The “end of ideology” thesis is examined by comparing the attitudes and style of respondents from different political generations. In both countries younger politicians are markedly less dogmatic and hostile, but in neither country are they any less “ideological” in their approach to political phenomena and problems of public policy.

In the light of these data the “end of ideology” debate is reformulated. The probable causes and consequences of both the decline of partisan hostility and the persistence of ideology are discussed. Finally, some conclusions are drawn concerning the role of ideology in politics and concerning the theoretical promise and methodological problems of studying elite political culture.

Military intervention in politics is extremely common. Outside the North Atlantic area, the armed forces are more likely than not to be among the most important power contenders in any political system, and military regimes are at least as widespread as either totalitarian or democratic ones. It is surprising, therefore, that until recently this phenomenon has attracted little attention from students of politics. Though there has been some speculation about the causes of military intervention, our actual knowledge of the subject is meager indeed.

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.