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L. J. Sharpe's two-part article ('American Democracy Reconsidered' in this Journal, III [1973], 1–28,129–68) is an important and controversial one. He questions many of the orthodox interpretations of American urban politics, suggests that some of the supposedly well-established observations about British and American contrasts may boil down to bits of conventional wisdom, and raises many points about social justice and democracy, which are at the centre of everyday practical politics but which sometimes slide from view in modern 'value free' social science. The article will hopefully attract the critical attention of American writers, but meanwhile here are some reflections from a slightly different point of view on some of the themes of the article.

66 Labour & Conservative Birmingham County Borough Council members were surveyed, via indepth interview, with regard to their attitudes toward 6 dimensions of role behavior. These dimensions include: (1) representational & area roles, (2) geographical focus of interest--the particular ward representative vs the representative who prefers large-scale city governing, (3) content of political work & the nature of characteristic activity--dealing with individual problems vs working on general policy matters, (4) specialization vs generalization, (5) group affiliation & pressure-group influences, & (6) party faithfulness vs party rebels, & abstaining on certain issues. Results of the survey serve to paint a detailed picture of these politicians of Birmingham, who comprise a good cross-sectional representation of the normal county borough council. Because the 6 dimensions deal primarily with stated attitudes, these assertions are also examined as they compare to actual behavior, & the 2 are found to by highly congruous. A hypothesis is advanced which postulates that variation from politician to politician in role preferences can be traced to 3 dimensions: (A) political party, (B) age of entry into politics, & (C) length of service. The patterns which emerge when the sample is simultaneously controlled for the 3 variables are complex; in general, however, ideological outlook, maturity of interpretation of politics, & degree of political dedication can be used as accurate indicators of role orientation. 7 Tables. C. Grindle.

I shall deal with the points made by Denver and Hands in the order in which they raise them.(1) Since my article tries to show that the relationship between marginality and both turnout and changes in turnout is, at best, a faint one, the assumption that 'parties are more efficient in, or put greater effort into, marginal wards' is in no way necessary to the argument. On the contrary, the assumption seems to be characteristic of those who claim a relationship between marginality and high turnout.Denver and Hands point to accumulated evidence that concentrated efforts can have a dramatic effect on turnout. It would be foolish to deny that this can be the case or has, indeed, been the case, but the figures seem to suggest that the effect is usually small to insignificant. Most of their British evidence is based upon general not local election results. While there is clear evidence to show that turnout increases when a constituency becomes marginal (Brighton, Kemptown in 1966 is the classic case), the evidence about local elections is muddled and inconclusive, and has often been used to support conclusions which do not follow.

A certain amount of evidence has accumulated in the past few years to show that local election turnout is high in marginal wards. A number of different sources make the point, but the most complete evidence is presented in a recent issue of Political Studies by Fletcher who summarizes the prevailing view when he writes that 'there was a very strong inverse correlation between the size of the majority in a contest and turnout. The smaller the margin between the victorious candidate and his closest opponent, the higher the proportion of electors voting was likely to have been.' In an earlier report it was suggested that the closeness of party conflict is the overwhelming influence on turnout. Only three writers fail to discover a high poll in marginal wards.