¹ Seeman, Melvin, “On the Meaning of Alienation,” American Sociological Review, 24 (12 1959), 783–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² We view the concept of political support and alienation as a continuous variable ranging from support at the positive end of the continuum to alienation at the negative end. Thus, when we use the terms “support” and “alienation” we are referring to the same variable.

³ The most comprehensive theoretical treatment of political support is Easton, David, A Systems Analysis of Political Life (New York: Wiley, 1965), pp. 153–140Google Scholar. A seminal, though brief, discussion appears in Lipset, Seymour Martin, Political Man (Garden City: Doubleday, 1960), Ch. 3Google Scholar. See also Lane, Robert E., Political Ideology (New York: Free Press, 1962)Google Scholar; Almond, Gabriel A. and Verba, Sidney, The Civic Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gamson, William A., Power and Discontent (Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey Press, 1968), ch. 3Google Scholar; Easton, David and Dennis, Jack, Children in the Political System: Origins of Political Legitimacy (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969)Google Scholar. Other studies dealing with the conceptual problems of political support and alienation include: Aberbach, Joel D., “Alienation and Political Behavior,” American Political Science Review, 63 (03 1969), 86–99 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Finifter, Ada W., “Dimensions of Political Alienation,” American Political Science Review, 64 (06 1970), 389–410 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Muller, Edward N., “Correlates and Consequences of Beliefs in the Legitimacy of Regime Structures,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, 14 (08 1970), 392–412 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fraser, John, “The Impact of Community and Regime Orientation on Choice of Political System,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, 14 (08 1970), 413–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴ We define aggressive political behavior as collective action on the part of nonelites that is illegal and has a political focus in that it is intended to disrupt the normal functioning of government. It is important to the distinction between incumbent and system affect because the latter is thought to be a far more consequential antecedent of it than the former.

⁵ This was the central issue raised in the recent Miller-Citrin debate. See Miller, Arthur H., “Political Issues and Trust in Government: 1964–1970,” American Political Science Review, 68 (09 1974), 951–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Citrin, Jack, “Comment: The Political Relevance of Trust in Government,” American Political Science Review, 68 (09 1974), 973–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Miller, Arthur H., “Rejoinder to ‘Comment’ by Jack Citrin: Political Discontent or Ritualism?” American Political Science Review, 68 (09 1974), 989–1001 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶ The literature employing the concept political trust (or “cynicism”) is extensive, but for examples see Agger, Robert E., Goldstein, Marshall N., and Pearl, Stanley A., “Political Cynicism: Measurement and Meaning,” Journal of Politics, 23 (08 1961), 477–506 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Litt, Edgar, “Political Cynicism and Political Futility,” Journal of Politics, 25 (05 1963), 312–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McCloskey, Herbert, “Consensus and Ideology in American Politics,” American Political Science Review, 58 (06 1964), 361–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pinner, Frank A., “Parental Overprotection and Political Distrust,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 361 (09 1965), 58–70 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lane, Robert E., “The Politics of Consensus in an Age of Affluence,” American Political Science Review, 59 (12 1965), 874–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jennings, M. Kent and Niemi, Richard G., “The Transmission of Political Values from Parent to Child,” American Political Science Review, 62 (03 1968), 169–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Langton, Kenneth P. and Jennings, M. Kent, “Political Socialization and the High School Civics Curriculum in the United States,” American Political Science Review, 62 (09 1968), 852–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Aberbach, “Alienation and Political Behavior”; Abramson, Paul R. and Inglehart, Ronald, “The Development of Systemic Support in Four Western Democracies,” Comparative Political Studies, 2 (01 1970), 419–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dennis, Jack, “Support for the Institution of Elections by the Mass Public,” American Political Science Review, 64 (09 1970), 819–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Aberbach, Joel D. and Walker, Jack L., “Political Trust and Racial Ideology,” American Political Science Review, 64 (12 1970), 1199–1219 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Muller, Edward N., “The Representation of Citizens by Political Authorities: Consequences for Regime Support,” American Political Science Review, 64 (12 1970), 1149–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Paige, Jeffery, “Political Orientation and Riot Participation,” American Sociological Review, 36 (10 1971), 810–20CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Muller, Edward N., “A Test of a Partial Theory of Potential for Political Violence,” American Political Science Review, 66 (09 1972), 928–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Modigliani, Andre, “Hawks and Doves, Isolationism and Political Distrust: An Analysis of Public Opinion on Military Policy,” American Political Science Review, 66 (09 1972), 960–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Abramson, Paul R., “Political Efficacy and Political Trust Among Black School Children: Two Explanations,” The Journal of Politics, 34 (11 1972), 1234–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Searing, Donald D., Schwartz, Joel J., and Lind, Alden E., “The Structuring Principle: Political Socialization and Belief Systems,” American Political Science Review, 67 (06 1973), 415–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cole, Richard L., “Toward a Model of Political Trust: A Causal Analysis,” American Journal of Political Science, 17 (11 1973), 809–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Watts, Meredith W., “Efficacy, Trust, and Commitment to the Political Process,” Social Science Quarterly, 54 (12 1973), 623–31Google Scholar; Rodgers, Harrell R. Jr., “Toward Explanation of the Political Efficacy and Political Cynicism of Black Adolescents: An Exploratory Study,” American Journal of Political Science, 18 (05 1974), 257–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Miller, “Political Issues and Trust.”

⁷ Citrin, “Comment.” See also Citrin, Jack, McClosky, Herbert, Shanks, J. Merrill, and Sniderman, Paul M., “Personal and Political Sources of Political Alienation,” British Journal of Political Science, 4 (09 1974), 1–31 Google Scholar; Shanks, Merrill and Citrin, Jack, “The Measurement of Political Alienation: Strategic and Methodological Issues,” paper prepared for the Conference on Political Alienation, Iowa City, Iowa, 01 8–11, 1975 Google Scholar.

⁸ Miller, “Rejoinder.”

⁹ Citrin, in “Comment,” p. 975, uses two single items (with limited response options) as surrogate measures of system support: one question elicits respondents' pride in “our form of government” and the other inquires whether a “change in our form of government” is needed. For a succinct discussion of the weaknesses inherent in single-item measures, see Nunnally, Jum C., Psychometric Theory (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967), pp. 56–58 Google Scholar; Also, as Citrin points out (p. 80; see also Shanks and Citrin, p. 15), cross-sectional surveys simply do not capture sufficient variation in antisystem behaviors. Because of the limitations of his data source, Miller (“Rejoinder,” pp. 995–97) is restricted to three items measuring only approval-disapproval of three protest activities: legal protest marches, refusal to obey unjust laws, disruptive sit-ins and demonstrations.

¹⁰ Lipset, p.69.

¹¹ Loewenberg, Gerhard, “The Influence of Parliamentary Behavior on Regime Stability,” Comparative Politics, 3 (01 1971), 184 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹² Shanks and Citrin, p. 14.

¹³ Easton, David, “A Re-Assessment of the Concept of Political Support,” British Journal of Political Science, 5 (10 1975), 443–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴ Ibid., p.444.

¹⁵ For a discussion of this point, see Shanks arid Citrin.pp. 15–21.

¹⁶ Any rules regarding the strength of ordinal measures of association are always strictly arbitrary, but, nevertheless, quite necessary for specifying predicted relationships. The following conventions are used in this article: The degree to which participation in aggressive behavior is expected to vary as a function of a predictor variable is defined in terms of the strength of the relationship as measured by an ordinal correlation coefficient. When the correlation (absolute magnitude) does not exceed .10, the strength of the relationship is considered practically zero. A relationship of slight magnitude is defined as a correlation ranging between .10 and .25; moderate magnitude is defined as a correlation ranging from .25 to .50; strong, a correlation ranging from .50 to .75; and very strong, a correlation ranging from .75 to 1.00.

¹⁷ The interview schedule was prepared by the senior author and Jonathan Pool. Helpful advice in preparation of the schedule was received from many colleagues at the University of Mannheim, especially Rudolf Wildenmann and Uwe Schleth, and from Yola Laupheimer, director of the field work, and Dorothea Reppart, assistant director, both of the Economics Research Bureau, Infratest GmbH & Co., Munich.

¹⁸ A quota sample was used to alleviate previous sampling problems. In early studies of students, it was very difficult to acquire a proper sampling frame. For a detailed report of the sampling procedures, see the studies available from Yola Laupheimer or Dorothea Reppart at Infratest.

¹⁹ In Easton's terms, diffuse support “is not contingent on specific inducements or rewards of any kind, except in the very long run. On a day-to-day basis, if there is a strong inner conviction of the moral validity of the authorities or the regime, support may persist even in the face of repeated deprivations attributed to the outputs of the authorities or their failure to act.” Ibid., p. 278.

²⁰ Ibid.

²¹ The German test of the items is: (S₁) Es macht mir Sorge, wenn ich an den Unterschied zwischen dem denke, was Leute, wie ich, im Leben wollen, und was tatsaichlich in unserem politischen System geschieht”; (S₂) “Die politischen Einrichtungen der Bundesrepublik sind mir lieb und wert und ich achte sic hoch”; (S₃) “Meine Freunde und ich fuhlen uns in unserem politischen System eigentlich doch sehr gut vertreten”; (S₄) “Ich bin immer wieder erschrocken und betroffen dariiber, dass die wesentlichen Rechte der Burger in der deutschen Politik so wenig beachtet werden”; (S₅) “Heutzutage bin ich gegeniiber unserem politischen System sehr kritisch eingestellt”; (S₆) “Die Gerichte in der Bundesrepublik gewahien jedermann einen fairen Prozesses spielt dabei keine Rolle, ob er arm oder reich, gebildet oder ungebildet ist”; (S₇) “Die Grundeinstellung der Leute, die bisher in der Bundesrepublik politisch tonangeband waren, war immer in Ordnung”; (S₈) “Alles in allem genommen, verdient, die Polizei in der Bundesrepublik grossen Respekt.”

²² Two of these items are analogous in tone and content to items used in a measure called Political Alienation from the National Polity, developed in the United States by Schwartz, David C., Political Alienation and Political Behavior (Chicago: Aldine, 1973)Google Scholar. Item S₁ is similar to: “I generally share the basic values exhibited in the policies and processes of American politics” (p. 265); item S₃ is similar to: “I feel that my friends and I are still really represented in our government” (p. 266).

²³ These items are analogous to two items used by Schwartz in a measure called Conformity-Acceptance of the American National Polity: “If people would only use the laws and institutions of our political system they would find that the system really works quite well”; “I used to accept the American political system more fully than I do now. Today, I feel highly critical of it,” Ibid., p. 273.

²⁴ Easton and Dennis, p. 293.

²⁵ Two other items in the original political support scale were eliminated. One item (“The real political power in the Federal Republic is held by only a small elite; even citizens who have a great interest in politics have hardly any chance to influence political decisions”) correlated less than .25 with all other scale items. The other item (“In general, the police treat everybody in the Federal Republic equally, regardless of whether they are poor or rich, educated or uneducated”) was essentially a redundant measure to item S₈ (r = .63).

²⁶ The standard Kuder-Richardson reliability formula was used for computing scale reliabilities. See Edwards, Allen L., The Measurement of Personality Traits by Scales and Inventories (New York: Holt, 1970), pp. 20–21 Google Scholar; and Nunnally, pp. 191–97. The reliability index indicates the effectiveness of a measuring instrument and is a necessary, though not sufficient, condition for validity. The magnitude of riyt is a function of the homogeneity of the scale and the number of items in the scale. For basic research, reliability coefficients around the order of .80 are considered desirable, because at that level correlations are not attenuated appreciably by measurement error. See Nunnally, p. 226.

²⁷ Positively worded items were recoded so that all items ranged from positive to negative.

²⁸ Stokes, Donald E., “Popular Evaluations of Government: An Empirical Assessment,” in Ethics and Bigness: Scientific, Academic, Religious, Political, and Military, eds. Cleveland, Harlen and Lasswell, Harold D. (New York: Harper, 1962), p. 64 Google Scholar.

²⁹ Ibid., p. 72.

³⁰ See, for example, Muller, “Correlates and Consequences”; Muller, “The Representation of Citizens”; and Walker; Miller, “Political Issues and Trust”; Miller, “Rejoinder.”

³¹ Easton, , A System Analysis, p. 303 Google Scholar.

³² Gamson, p. 45.

³³ See, for example, Aberbach and Walker; Muller, “A Test of a Partial Theory”; Miller, “Rejoinder.”

³⁴ One of these items, T₁, was presented to the respondents as part of the cardsort procedure used for the political support items, and scoring was identical to that for the support items. Cf. supra, p. 12. The purpose of administering this item with the support indicators was to get at feelings of trust in government as a whole–a different referent from T₂ (the government in Bonn). The modest correlation of the two items indicates they are tapping somewhat different beliefs, although only 14 percent of those scoring in the negative range on the trust-government-in-Bonn item were positive on trust-in-government, while 24 percent of those scoring positive on the former item registered in the negative range on the latter item. Item T was administered identically to T₃ and T₄; see below, fn. 35. The German text of the two items is: (T₁) “Man kann sich im allgemeinen darauf verlassen, dass die Bundesreigierung das Richtige tut”; (T₂) “Wie sehr vertrauen Sie darauf, dass die Regjerung in Bonn so handelt, wie sie es eigentlich sollte?”

³⁵ Alan Marsh is director of the British segment of the project. The German version of these items was prepared by Max Kaase and Hans Klingemann, directors of the German segment of the project. Items T₃ and T₄ were presented with T₂ as part of a series of questions that included personality and social control items. The German text of these two items is: (T₃) “Wenn Bundestagsabgeordnete oder Minister im Femsehen oder im Parliament mit Joumalisten sprechen, wie oft sagen sie Direr Meinung nach die Wahrheit?” (T₄) “Wie sehr vertrauen Sie darauf, dass Regierungsmitglieder das Wohl des Volkes liber die Interessen ihrer eigenen politischen Partei stellen?”

³⁶ To attain comparability with the distributions of the other three trust measures, the response scores on either side of the neutral value for T₁ were collapsed (+1 and −1 with 0), providing for Ave response types in all. Response options for items T₂, T₃, and T₄ were: “about always,” “mostly,” “sometimes,” “only very seldom,” “never.”

³⁷ For both the Policy Output Evaluation and the Incumbent Evaluation variables the “very positive” to “very negative” zones correspond to each integer from 1 to 5 in ascending order. For the Political Support index, the “very positive” zone includes scores from 0 to 9; “positive” includes scores from 10 to 19; “intermediate” includes scores from 20 to 29; “negative” includes scores from 30 to 39; “Very negative” includes scores from 40 to 48. For the Political Trust index the “very positive” zine includes scores from 0 to 3; “positive” includes scores from 4 to 6; “intermediate” includes scores from 7 to 9; “negative” includes scores from 10 to 12; “very negative” includes scores from 13 to 16.

³⁸ Easton, , A System Analysis, pp. 289–90Google Scholar.

³⁹ The SPD administration also includes the FDP (Free Democrats), a small centrist party, as a coalition partner.

⁴⁰ See his “Testing and the Left-Right Continuum on a Sample of German Voters,” Comparative Political Studies, 5 (04 1972), 93–106 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴¹ Muller, Edward N., “Behavioral Correlates of Political Support,” American Political Science Review, 72 (06 1977), 454–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴² Ibid.

⁴³ The phrasing for many of these items comes from a pretest questionnaire developed for the German segment of the Nine Nation Study which is being carried out in West Germany under the direction of Max Kaase and Hans Klingemann of the Zentrum fur Umfragen, Methoden und Analysen, Mannheim.

⁴⁴ The German test of these behaviors is: (1) “Sich weigern, Mieten, Raten oder Steuern zu bezahlen”; (2) “Beteiligung an einem wilden Streik”; (3) “Besetzung von Fabriken, Amtern und anderen Gebäuden”; (4) “Beteiligung an Schlägereien (Kampf mit Polizisten, Kampf mit anderen Demostranten”; (5) “Beteiligung an einer Gruppe, die Regierung mit Gewalt stürzen will.”

⁴⁵ Missing data responses were treated in the following manner: Among those respondents refusing to say whether or not they had done the behavior, those who said they would do it or might do it were classified as “transitional.” Respondents who did not say whether they would do it or might do it were treated as having missing data. Individuals with no more than two missing data responses on the activity items were assigned the median score value for each activity in which a missing response occurred. Respondents with missing data on more than two activities were excluded from this analysis.

⁴⁶ A good discussion of corner correlation appears in Gaining, Johan, Theory and Methods of Social Research (Oslo: Universitets Forlaget, 1967), p. 223 Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ See Table 4 in Muller, , “Behavioral Correlates of Political Support,” p. 461 Google Scholar.

⁴⁸ When levels on a control variable are actually held constant, the Gamma coefficient is not reported if there is practically zero covariation on the Aggressive Behavior index, i.e., under 10 cases scoring at levels other than Inactivity.

⁴⁹ For a good discussion of ideology and aggressive political behavior, see Gurr, Ted, Why Men Rebel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), ch. 7Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ Miller, , “Rejoinder,” p. 995 Google Scholar.

⁵¹ Miller, , “Political Issues and Trust,” p. 962 Google Scholar.

⁵² In the SRC data analyzed by Miller, there was no zero-order relationship between trust and the approval of protest items, but when ideology was controlled for, a modest relationship occurred between these variables among those with a leftist ideological orientation. See Miller, , “Rejoinder,” p. 996 Google Scholar.

⁵³ Huntington, Samuel P., Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), pp. 290–91Google Scholar.

⁵⁴ For an especially good discussion of costs, see Oberschall, Anthony, Social Conflict and Social Movements (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973), ch. 5Google Scholar.