With data from 15 Indian states, in this study I demonstrate that political capacity, defined as the ability of government to penetrate society and extract resources, has a more significant—though indirect—effect on fertility behavior than does level of economic development. A path-analysis model with six variables—crude birth rate (the dependent variable), family-planning-program effort, mean female age at marriage, physical-quality-of-life index (PQLI), income per capita, and political capacity—showed a strong indirect effect by the political-capacity measure on fertility decline through both the PQLI and family-planning effort. Within the model, income per capita had little effect on birth rate or any of the intervening variables. The conclusion drawn is that under conditions of economic backwardness as exist in India, it is politics, not economics, that is the primary determinant of fertility patterns.

Participation in committee decision making is an important form of legislative behavior but one we know little about. I develop a model of committee participation and test it using data drawn from staff interviews and records of the House Committee on Education and Labor. The analysis confirms that congressmen are purposive actors, but it also shows that different interests incite participation on different issues and that motivational effects vary in predictable ways across legislative contexts. If members are purposive, however, they also face a variable set of opportunities and constraints that structure their ability to act. Members and especially leaders of the reporting subcommittee, for instance, enjoy advantages in terms of information, staff, and lines of political communication. At the same time, freshman status entails behavioral constraints despite the reputed demise of apprenticeship in legislative life. Understanding such patterns of interest and ability, I conclude, should permit us to illuminate several larger questions regarding decision making and representation in a decentralized Congress.

For the ancient philosophers, constitutionalism meant classifying regimes and constructing regimes to form virtuous citizens. In the modern world it generally means checks and balances, institutional mechanisms limiting the power of government and protecting private rights. In Democracy in America Tocqueville attempts to combine both views in his interpretation of the U.S. constitutional system. He employs the regime analysis of ancient constitutionalism to understand the new phenomenon of popular sovereignty and its potential for despotic control over the minds and characters of citizens. At the same time, he shows how the constitutional devices found in the United States—such as federalism, judicial review, and the separation of powers—can be adapted to inculcate a kind of moral virtue by teaching citizens to exercise liberty with moral responsibility and to govern themselves. The result is a constitutional theory that weaves ancient and modern principles into an original and coherent whole.

Do the states of the United States matter (or are they of no political consequence)? Using a data set with over 50 thousand respondents, we demonstrate the influence of state political culture on partisanship and ideology. For individuals, we find that the state of residence is an important predictor of partisan and ideological identification, independent of their demographic characteristics. At the aggregate level, state culture dominates state demography as a source of state-to-state differences in opinion. In general, geographic location may be a more important source of opinion than previously thought. One indication of the importance of state culture is that state effects on partisanship and ideology account for about half of the variance in state voting in recent presidential elections.

We examine the effects of individual political preferences and the distribution of such preferences on the social transmission of political information. Our data base combines a 1984 election survey of citizens in South Bend, Indiana with a subsequent survey of people with whom these citizens discuss politics. Several findings emerge from the effort. First, individuals do purposefully construct informational networks corresponding to their own political preferences, and they also selectively misperceive socially supplied political information. More important, both of these individual-level processes are shown to be conditioned by constraints imposed due to the distribution of political preferences in the social context. Thus, individual control over socially supplied political information is partial and incomplete. Finally, these information-transmitting processes interact with the social context in a manner that favors partisan majorities while undermining political minorities.

Causal beliefs are important ingredients of public opinion. Citizens are able to identify the causes of complex national issues and do so spontaneously. Evidence is presented that individuals' explanations of political issues are significantly influenced by the manner in which television news presentations “frame” these issues. These results are politically consequential, for individuals' explanations of national issues independently affect their assessments of presidential performance.

Work by Axelrod, Hardin, and Taylor indicates that problems of repeated collective action may lessen if people use decentralized strategies of reciprocity to induce mutual cooperation. Hobbes's centralized solution may thus be overrated. We investigate these issues by representing ongoing collective action as an n-person repeated prisoner's dilemma. The results show that decentralized conditional cooperation can ease iterated collective action dilemmas—if all players perfectly monitor the relation between individual choices and group payoffs. Once monitoring uncertainty is introduced, such strategies degrade rapidly in value, and centrally administered selective incentives become relatively more valuable. Most importantly, we build on a suggestion of Herbert Simon by showing that a hierarchical structure, with reciprocity used in subunits and selective incentives centrally administered, combines the advantages of the decentralized and centralized solutions. This hierarchical form is more stable than the decentralized structure and often secures more cooperation than the centralized structure. Generally, the model shows that the logic of repeated decision making has significant implications for the institutional forms of collective action.

Political context has an important impact on individual attitude change. This is an analysis of the dynamic effects of contextual variables. Drawing on data taken from the American National Election Study (ANES) panel study, we demonstrate that the environment shapes the way the citizen views politics. While varying in degree, the results hold for a broad (county-level) and a narrow (residential neighborhood-level) definition of the relevant context. The patterns involved suggest that citizens' evaluations of candidates and parties are most directly influenced by what their neighbors are saying at the moment, that is to say, the content of current discussion. In contrast, citizens' self-identification evinces sensitivity to the more stable partisan character of the environment. The results indicate that the impact of social influence is crucially dependent on the nature of contemporary political debate and that the social setting serves as an intervening mechanism in the broader communication system and not merely as an exogenous source for political information.

Interest-group interactions may be examined in ways comparable to the analysis of conflict and coalition in other areas of political science. We seek to measure and compare the structure of interest-group participation and conflict in four domains of U.S. domestic policy: agriculture, energy, health, and labor. Data are drawn from a survey of 806 representatives of organizations with interests in federal policy, supplemented by interviews with 301 government officials in the same four domains. Several types of data are adduced regarding the intensity and partisanship of group conflict in each domain and the range and variety of group participation. Coalitional patterns are described and the mutual positioning of different kinds of organization—peak-association groups versus more specialized trade, professional, or commodity groups, for example—are examined.

A reduced form equation system is used to analyze the influence of economic, political, and institutional influences on the budgetary priorities of the executive branch and Congress during fiscal 1955–81. Three related issues are considered: the extent to which political and macroeconomic factors affect priorities; the degree of interdependence among the components of the federal budget and between spending and revenues; and differences between the executive branch and Congress with respect to these issues. Both types of interdependence are present within both executive branch and congressional budgeting, although this interdependence is stronger within the executive branch. The influence of economic conditions on budgetary outcomes is strong but varies considerably across spending categories. There is no evidence of apolitical business cycle. Political variables exert a modest influence on the budgetary outcomes examined; differences between Democratic and Republican budgetary policies, as well as differences in the budgetary priorities of different presidential administrations, are small by comparison with the differences between executive and congressional policies.

A decision-theoretic analysis of the central incident of Homer's Odyssey reveals the insufficiency of rational calculation as a guide for political prudence. Surprisingly, the poet distinguishes between two rational and formally identical calculations in no uncertain terms; he condemns one as utter recklessness and praises the other as consummate wisdom. I maintain that this discrepancy is neither an artifact of sloppy editorial patchwork nor the result of a “homeric nod” but instead points toward a politically significant distinction as yet obscured by a merely rationalistic perspective. The recklessness of Odysseus' crewmen, who deliberately slaughter sacred cattle to forestall starvation, consists in their rationalistic transgression of the limits of reason. These limits are most evident in the defiance of commensurability that characterizes the sacred. The wisdom of Odysseus, by contrast, is manifest in his learning to temper reason with respect for the sacred. By virtue of reverence, Odysseus wins his struggle to preserve his psychê, home and regime.

We develop a model of crisis stability based on a deterrence game. Players are assumed to be able to choose any level of initial cooperation or noncooperation; the more cooperative player (if there is one) may then choose to retaliate. In a crisis, players are assumed to have escalated their conflict and desire to stabilize it before it explodes. Players can, by threatening their opponent, stabilize the new status quo. In addition, points of threat escalation are identified at which neither player can prevent the opponent from escalating further without threatening the opponent more severely than before the crisis erupted, thereby heating up an already tense situation. Crisis stabilization is aided by being close to the full-cooperation position, though, paradoxically, both players may benefit from having created a crisis that only escalating threats may resolve. We discuss ways of avoiding threat escalation and the increased risk of war that it entails, especially in conflicts between the superpowers.

A considerable theoretical literature argues that if everyone votes sincerely, then an agenda setter has near dictatorial influence on final outcomes, whereas if everyone votes strategically, then an agenda setter's power is considerably reduced. This literature assumes that all feasible agendas are of a special type called amendment agendas. But actual legislative and committee agendas—notably those found in Congress—often are not of this type. Once we expand the domain of feasible agendas to include all types allowed by common parliamentary practice, the influence of agendas on legislative outcomes expands, even with strategic voting. Besides showing with counterexamples that previous results do not extend to a more realistic domain of agendas, we prove some theorems that specify the limits (such as they are) of an agenda setter's power.

The relationship between nationalization of the U.S. electorate and partisan realignment is explored. Concepts and measurement of nationalization are examined, as well as definitions of electoral change. The British concept of swing is utilized as an appropriate measure of electoral change. Examination of long-term trends in the variances of the congressional vote and swing from 1842 to 1980 shows they are related to the electoral dynamics of realignment. Analysis utilizing a variance-components model shows there has never been a nationalization in terms of configuration of the electorate. But nationalization in the movement of the electorate has taken place cyclically, corresponding to the partisan realignments of the 1890s and the 1930s, rather than monotonically, as suggested by previous research.

Voting systems combine balloting methods with decision rules or procedures. Most analyses of approval voting (a balloting method) assume it will be combined with plurality rule but advocates often urge its use with more complex procedures. Because much of the case for approval balloting hinges on its encouragement of sincere voting, we ask whether it retains this advantage when combined with multistage procedures. After distinguishing five forms of sincere and insincere approval voting, we find that certain elements of multistage procedures promote departures from purely sincere strategies, including, in some instances, strictly insincere voting. However, most strategic approval voting involves truncating the approved list, including bullet-voting, which is especially likely under certain threshold rules. Coalitions also increase members' incentive to truncate. We conclude that approval balloting with plurality rule remains preferable to conventional single-vote plurality, but we urge caution and further research regarding combining approval balloting with multistage rules.

Most theories of bureaucratic politics depict state bureaucracies as a conservative force in the political system. Their resistance to radical politics and innovative programs is attributed to certain typical traits of bureaucratic structures and career patterns. I summarize the arguments for bureaucratic conservatism, and then describe how civilian bureaucracies serving military regimes in Japan (1937–45), Peru (1968–75), and Egypt (1952–70) invalidated those arguments by promoting radical policy programs through the three devices of supraministerial bodies, low-ranking ministries, and new specialized agencies. I conclude that middle theories of bureaucratic politics may prove more fruitful than grand theoretical attempts to encompass all bureaucracies in a single set of propositions, and that structural and occupational explanations of bureaucratic behavior need to be modified by a greater appreciation for the role of individual bureaucratic leaders.

The translation of citizen votes into legislative seats is of central importance in democratic electoral systems. It has been a longstanding concern among scholars in political science and in numerous other disciplines. Throughout this literature, two fundamental tenets of democratic theory, partisan bias and democratic representation, have often been confused. We develop a general statistical model of the relationship between votes and seats and separate these two important concepts theoretically and empirically. In so doing, we also solve several methodological problems with the study of seats, votes, and the cube law. An application to U.S. congressional districts provides estimates of bias and representation for each state and demonstrates the model's utility. Results of this application show distinct types of representation coexisting in U. S. states. Although most states have small partisan biases, there are some with a substantial degree of bias.

The authors elaborate a model of electoral competition for a fixed number of seats in a legislature. The novel feature of this model is that candidates (or parties) not only choose spatial locations as platforms but also determine whether to enter the contest at all. In most previous spatial models, the set of candidates is specified exogenously. Here, however, the spatial positions and the set of candidates are determined endogenously. An equilibrium in this context is defined and results are proved, suggesting that entry may disrupt spatial equilibria. Finally, the authors compare their treatment of spatial competition with entry to that of Palfrey.

Empirical studies suggest that mission-oriented bureaucrats bias their design of program alternatives to increase the odds that a superior will choose the kind of program the officials want. However, political executives may anticipate this manipulation and try to reassert control. These struggles are examined in three models. In Model 1 a senior bureaucrat is interested only in missions; the bureaucrat's political superior controls him or her by rejecting inferior proposals and entertaining new options from other policy specialists. Model 2 is a principal-agent analysis. Here the official is interested only in budgets; the official's superior reduces search bias by creating an ex ante incentive scheme. In Model 3 the bureaucrat cares about both budgets and programs; the superior uses both his or her final review authority and ex ante incentives to reduce agenda manipulation. The models' contrasting implications for the political control of bureaucracy are examined.

Lebanon's banking system is viewed as an “international regime” that held the country together in the face of all pervasive warfare. The system illustrates the underlying logic of such regimes, in that the banks' credit policies operationalized the rational choice model of an iterated prisoner's dilemma game. And just as international regimes are supposed to reflect the interests of state actors, analysis of the banks' balance sheets and income statements reveals changes in capital structure that reflect changes in Lebanon's political balance. While sustaining elite cohesion, the banks serviced political clienteles and might, if a political settlement were reached, support the restructuring of a consociational system more in line with Lebanon's demographic balance. If, on the other hand, no settlement is reached, the poor country's suicide may highlight certain aspects of international reality that seem recalcitrant to the theory of international regimes.