This paper presents evidence that candidate issue positions have a measurable impact on elections for the U.S. House of Representatives. For eight election years, electoral margins of Northern incumbent congressional candidates were examined to test the proposition that “moderates” within each party are better vote getters than those whose roll call records reflect their party's ideological extreme. The effects of roll call positions on election results were estimated by examining the relationships between roll call “extremism” and vote margins with district presidential voting held constant as a control for normal constituency voting habits. Although no strong support was found for the proposition that Democratic Representatives lose electoral support when they take extremely liberal roll call positions, a clear pattern emerged for Republicans: the Republican Congressmen who are the best vote getters tend to be the relative moderates and liberals who avoid the extreme conservative end of the political spectrum. An analysis of survey data suggests that the small group of voters whose electoral decisions are influenced by their Republican Congressman's roll call performance are found within the ranks of a select group who are both free of strong partisan motivations and highly politically informed.

In their 1993 article in this Review, William Mishler and Reginald Sheehan reported evidence of both direct and indirect impacts of public opinion on Supreme Court decisions. Helmut Norpoth and Jeffrey Segal offer a methodological critique and in their own reanalysis of the data find, contrary to Mishler and Sheehan, no evidence for a direct path of influence from public opinion to Court decisions. Instead, they find an abrupt-permanent shift of judicial behavior consistent with an indirect model of influence whereby popularly elected presidents, through new appointments, affect the ideological complexion of the Court. In response, Mishler and Sheehan defend the direct public opinion linkage originally noted, at both individual and aggregate level; respond to the methodological critique; and offer further statistical analysis to support the aggregate linkages.

In this inquiry, we focus upon the question, “Why are political parties more competitive in some states than they are in others?” We have measured partisan competition as the closeness between the two major political parties in the results of state-level elections, and we have chosen to analyze elections in American states in the 1970s. To account for variations among the states on the dimension of partisan competitiveness, we formulate and present four discrete lines of reasoning—including socio-demographics, urbanization, diversity, and the strength of party organizations. We test each of these avenues of explanation in turn, always taking into account the watershed between North and South in partisan competition. The results vindicate the utility of our general approach, although we do find that each of the four modes of explanation is wanting in some respect. In a full-blown multivariate context, we report that educational levels and urbanization do influence variations among states in partisan competition. Equally compelling and perhaps more interesting, the strength and activism of local party organizations in the states profoundly affect political competitiveness, even when we take stark regional differences into consideration.

Five voting paradoxes are examined under procedures which determine social choice from voters' preference rankings. The most extreme forms of each paradox are identified, and their potential practical significance is assessed using randomly generated voter preference profiles.

The first paradox arises when the winner under sequential-elimination simple-majority voting is less preferred by every voter than some other alternative. The fifth paradox occurs when one alternative has a simple majority over every other alternative and one or more of the simple-majority losers beats the winner on the basis of every point-total method that assigns more points to a first-place vote than to a second-place vote, more points to a second-place vote than to a third-place vote, and so forth.

The other three paradoxes are solely concerned with point-total procedures. They include cases in which the standard point-total winner becomes a loser when original losers are removed, and in which different truncated point-total procedures (which count only first-place votes, or only first-place and second-place votes, and so forth) yield different winners.

The computer simulation data suggest that the more extreme forms of the paradoxes are exceedingly unlikely to arise in practice.

Recent research on House elections has focused on the decline in congressional competition since the mid-1960s. However, this body of research suffers from three major problems: 1) an imprecise specification of the nature of change in the degree of congressional competition, 2) its exclusive reliance on a limited time frame, which calls into question the generalizability and adequacy of its explanations, and 3) its overemphasis on incumbency-oriented explanations. Using a Multiple Interrupted Time Series (MITS) analysis of trends in aggregate electoral data from 1824 to 1980, we find that current low levels of congressional competition are not historically unique, but instead constitute a continuation of a long-term trend established in the mid-1890s. In addition, and in contrast to the general thrust described in the literature, there appears to be a post-1965 trend toward greater competition, although the absolute level of competition is lower after the mid-1960s. Finally, a disaggregation of electoral results by incumbency status suggests a growth in the incumbency advantage since the mid-1890s, but that lower post-1965 levels of congressional competition are the result of a winners' and not an incumbency, advantage. Such findings cast doubt on the adequacy of explanations that focus on post-1965, incumbency-oriented factors.

In this note we elaborate on the conditions under which on-line and memory-based strategies of political candidate evaluation can be implemented. We suggest that the structure of information may be an important contextual variable affecting the voter's choice of these strategies. In addition, we propose that citizens with less political sophistication are particularly sensitive to structural differences in the political information environment. We use an experimental design that manipulates the information-processing context to test these ideas. Our results suggest that the context in which information is presented plays a critical role in moderating the influence of individual differences in political sophistication.

Retrospective voting is a crucial component of democratic accountability. A large literature on retrospective voting in the United States finds that the president’s party is rewarded in presidential elections for strong economic performance and punished for weak performance. By contrast, there is no clear consensus about whether politicians are held accountable for the local economy at other levels of government, nor how voters react to the economy in a complex system of multilevel responsibility. In this study, we use administrative data on county-level economic conditions from 1969 to 2018 and election results across multiple levels of government to examine the effect of the local economy on elections for local, state, and federal offices in the United States. We find that the president’s party is held accountable for economic performance across nearly all levels of government. We also find that incumbents are held accountable for the economy in U.S. House and gubernatorial elections. Our findings have broad implications for literatures on representation, accountability, and elections.

We return to the analysis of cooperation among interdependent rational individuals. We emphasize the limited impact of iteration (or repeated play) and explore the possibility of an alternative: intervention by rational agents, whom we call leaders. We show that leadership is more significant for initiating cooperation than for sustaining it. In addition, we identify two features of organizations that are critical in determining a leader's ability to initiate and sustain cooperation by structuring the incentives of his followers: the leader's capabilities (information and strategy sets) and reward structure (payoff function).

The “policy scientist of democracy” was a model for engaged scholarship invented and embodied by Harold D. Lasswell. This disciplinary persona emerged in Lasswell's writings and wartime consultancies during the 1940s, well before he announced in his APSA presidential address, printed in the Review precisely 50 years ago, that political science was “the policy science par excellence.” The policy scientist of democracy knew all about the process of elite decision making, and he put his knowledge into practice by advising those in power, sharing in important decisions, and furthering the cause of dignity. Although Lasswell formulated this ambitious vision near the zenith of his influence, the discipline accorded the ideal—and Lasswell—a mixed reception. Some heralded the policy scientist of democracy; others observed a contradictory figure, at once positivist and value-laden, elitist and democratic, heroic and implausible. The conflicted response exemplifies Lasswell's legacy. The policy scientist of democracy was—and is—too demanding and too contradictory a hero. But the vital questions Lasswell grappled with still must be asked a century into the discipline's development: what is the role of the political scientist in a democratic society? Do political scientists have any obligation to inform or shape policy? Are there democratic values that political science should serve, and if so, what are they? Lasswell never satisfactorily answered these questions. But in asking and trying to answer them—in his writings and in his own career—he was guided by a profound and inspiring conviction: Political science has a unique ability, and even perhaps a special obligation, to engage with issues of democratic choice that fundamentally affect the life circumstances of citizens.

Is authoritarian power ever legitimate? The contemporary political theory literature—which largely conceptualizes legitimacy in terms of democracy or basic rights—would seem to suggest not. I argue, however, that there exists another, overlooked aspect of legitimacy concerning a government’s ability to ensure safety and security. While, under normal conditions, maintaining democracy and rights is typically compatible with guaranteeing safety, in emergency situations, conflicts between these two aspects of legitimacy can and often do arise. A salient example of this is the COVID-19 pandemic, during which severe limitations on free movement and association have become legitimate techniques of government. Climate change poses an even graver threat to public safety. Consequently, I argue, legitimacy may require a similarly authoritarian approach. While unsettling, this suggests the political importance of climate action. For if we wish to avoid legitimating authoritarian power, we must act to prevent crises from arising that can only be resolved by such means.

We move in equalitarian directions; the distribution of income flattens out; the floor beneath the poorest paid and least secure is raised and made more substantial. Since the demise of Newport and Tuxedo Park, the very rich have shunned ostentatious display. The equality of opportunity, the chance to rise in the world is at least as great today as it was thirty years ago. The likelihood of declining status is less. Where does the energy for this movement come from? Who is behind it?

Since 1848, it has been assumed that the drive for a more equalitarian society, its effective social force, would come from the stratum of society with the most to gain, the working classes. This was thought to be the revolutionary force in the world—the demand of workers for a classless society sparked by their hostility to the owning classes. It was to be the elite among the workers, not the lumpenproletariat, not the “scum,” who were to advance this movement. Just as “liberty” was the central slogan of the bourgeois revolution, so “equality” was the central concept in the working class movement. Hence it was natural to assume that whatever gains have been made in equalizing the income and status of men in our society came about largely from working class pressure.

To be responsive, politicians have to rely on beliefs about public will. Previous research suggests that perceptions of public opinion are often distorted. However, it remains unclear (1) why reelection-seeking officials misperceive public preferences and (2) how to mitigate these distorted beliefs. I argue that misperceptions result from unequal exposure to different subconstituencies and a tendency of legislators to project their own preferences on voters. I find support for these arguments in a six-wave panel of Swedish MPs combined with mass surveys. Elite beliefs disproportionately reflect the preferences of privileged voters and the personal positions of legislators. Additionally, an experiment with Swiss representatives leveraging real political events reveals how misperceptions can be reduced by encouraging a more balanced exposure to voters. The study concludes that economic and political inequalities are rooted in elite beliefs about the electorate and reveals ways to bolster the links between voters and their representatives.

This article examines the basic social science concepts of “power” and “social exchange” in order to determine the possibility and desirability of integrating them. It is argued that: (1) all exchange relationships can be described in terms of conventional power concepts without twisting the common-sense notions that underlie such concepts; (2) most–but not necessarily all–power relationships can be described in terms of exchange terminology; (3) there are some advantages to conceiving of power in this way; (4) recent social exchange theorists have neither illuminated nor recognized most of these advantages. After a preliminary examination of the concepts of “power” and “exchange,” the discussion focuses on the analytical and conceptual problems associated with volition, exchange media, asymmetry, sanctions, and authority.

This paper presents an evolutionary-biological perspective on the stratification of political authority, power, and influence. The rudiments and relevance of a biobehavioral approach are indicated, particularly in regard to study of the behavior of subhuman primate species. Dominance-deference behavior patterns in four species—rhesus macaques, savanna baboons, gorillas, and chimpanzees—are described and compared, followed by discussion of some stratification concepts that have been derived from primate studies and applied to human societies. The possible continuing influence on man's behavior of his evolutionary history is considered through discussion of a zoologist's attempt to reconstruct it, and through tentative reinterpretations of social psychological conceptions of leader-follower relationships and dispositions to obey authority figures. Finally, it is suggested that the modern conception of political authority per se as contingent and contrived may be empirically untenable, and, if so, that certain implications may follow concerning theories of political obligation and constitutionalism.

When do lawmakers craft broad policies, and when do they focus on narrow legislation tailored to a local interest? We investigate this question by exploring historical variation in the types of bills produced by American state legislatures. Drawing on a new database of 165,000 bills—covering sessions over 120 years in thirteen different states—we demonstrate the surprising prominence of particularistic bills affecting a specific legislator's district. We then develop and test a theory linking the goals of legislators to their propensity to introduce district bills rather than broad legislation. We find that, consistent with our predictions, politicians are more likely to craft policies targeted to a particular local interest when a legislature is dominated by one party or when it pays its members relatively high salaries. These findings provide empirical support for Key's (1949) thesis that one-party politics descends into factionalism and undermines the making of broad public policy.

As arguments about the effectiveness of “muddling through” have proven frustratingly inconclusive, incrementalism—once a major approach to the study of boundedly rational policy processes—has gone dormant. In an attempt to revitalize the debate, I present a formal model of muddling through. The model, by clarifying the logical structure of the informal theory, presents a clearer target for criticism. More importantly, it establishes numerous deductive results. First, some of Lindblom's less controversial conjectures—about the benefits of seriality (repeated attacks on the same policy problem) and redundancy (multiple decision makers working on the same problem)—turn out to be correct if conflict across policy domains is absent or takes certain specified forms. But given other empirically reasonable types of conflict, even these claims are wrong. Second, the advantages of incremental (local) policy search (Lindblom's best-known and most controversial claim) turn out to be still less well founded: in many empirically plausible contexts the claim is invalid.

Kautilya is believed to have been Chanakya, a Brahmin who served as Chief Minister to Chandragupta (321–296 B.C.), the founder of the Mauryan Empire. Chandragupta gained his first successes, soon after the death of Alexander the Great, in campaigns against some of the satraps the Macedonian conqueror had established west of the Indus. He then turned against the Nanda Empire and succeeded in destroying it. The victory over the Nandas and his subsequent conquests gave him control over a large part of the Indian subcontinent, including the Ganges and Indus valleys and parts of the Deccan.

A major unexplored area in the field of international politics is the consequences of major war for members of the international system in terms of power lost or gained. This paper explores these shifts of power among neutrals, winners, and losers as a result of these wars, using a sample of 32 cases and time series analysis. The findings register unexpected but systematic patterns after major conflicts; while winners and neutrals are affected marginally by the conflict, losers' powers are at first eroded. Over the long run (15–20 years), though, the effects of the loss dissipate; losers accelerate their recovery and soon resume antebellum status. It is this phenomenon that the authors call the phoenix factor.

This paper is concerned with assessing the stability of the American public's attention to foreign affairs, and the relationship of this to public support of international programs and commitments. In particular, the paper presents an empirical investigation of the evidence for the “mood theory” proposed by Gabriel Almond as one element of his classic study, The American People and Foreign Policy.

The mood theory contends, first of all, that attention to or interest in foreign policy is generally low and subject to major fluctuations in times of crisis.

The characteristic response to questions of foreign policy is one of indifference. A foreign policy crisis, short of the immediate threat of war may transform indifference to vague apprehension, to fatalism, to anger; but the reaction is still a mood.

On the basis of this premise about attention, Almond predicts that the public will not provide stable support for international commitments undertaken by the U.S. Government.

Because of the superficial character of American attitudes toward world politics … a temporary Russian tactical withdrawal may produce strong tendencies toward demobilization and the reassertion of the primacy of private and domestic values.

The acceptance of this view by scholars is evidenced by its presentation in important textbooks and treatises. As far as I have been able to determine it has not been challenged.

The empirical investigation in this paper considers evidence on both of these variables—attention=interest, and support for foreign policy commitments.

Writers on parliamentary law frequently begin their essays by citing with approval Hatsell's famous observation that “… it is more material that there should be a rule to go by than what that rule is ….” So generally is this notion accepted that it probably ought to be regarded as a fundamental premise of parliamentary law. Indeed the whole structure of this branch of law rests on the assumption that form is more important than content. Its literature consists almost entirely of the compilation of precedents, and, furthermore, parliamentarians have seldom been concerned to justify the decisions they compile. This indifference to rationalization clearly follows from Hatsell's premise: if one believes that form alone is important, one appropriately concentrates on the form of rules, largely ignoring questions of whether or not their substance is efficient, or fair, or reasonable.