Suchergebnisse

In spite of the fact that the religious issue seems to be of major interest to the pol'al analysts & to the churchmen, there is little evidence that it will be decisive for the voters themselves. It is possible to argue that Smith did as well or even better than one would have expected a Democrat to do in 1928, & that his religious affiliation may have been an asset at the polls. In 1928 the real issue was Prohibition. Smith advocated repeal & Hoover supported its retention. This is found in a detailed ecological study of the 1928 voting pattern by 2 sociol'ts, William Ogburn & Nell Talbot (Soc. Forces, Dec, 1929). 3 decades after Smith's defeat, the revived possibility of a Catholic nominee for President led the pollsters to investigate the connection between religious feeling & vote preference. In 1958, the Gallup Poll found that 34% of Protestants interviewed would not vote for a Catholic or a Jew: of the Jews interviewed, only 6% opposed the possibility of a Catholic President. When Catholics were asked whether they would change party lines to support a Catholic candidate. 52% said they might shift parties & 37% said they would not. The 2 major non-Protestant religious groups (26% Catholics & 4%, Jewish) of the Amer Electorate should therefore give 75 to 80% of their vote to a Catholic presidential candidate. Class background for Protestants is more important a factor in party allegiance than for Catholics & Jews. The majority of the Protestant workers are Democrats. The Mc Uc are preponderantly Republican. When entering the ballot box many Protestants are likely to find the idea of voting for a Republican more repugnant than voting for a Catholic. V. D. Sanu<.

Summary of a section of his forthcoming book, "They would rather be left.".

Eugene E. Burdick's & Arthur J. Brodbeck's AMERICAN VOTING BEHAVIOR seems to review soc-psychol'al res on the resolution of the vote. The lead article by Peter H. Rossi makes a notable methodological analysis of predecessors (Stuart Rice, P. Lazarsfeld, B. Berelson, Angus Campbell). From this & the other contributions, what are the future res directions suggested? Investigation of the personality factors which mediate the influence of group affiliations, for those with a soc-psychol'al orientation. For sociol'al theory, the direction seems to be in examination of the function of the voting process in the soc system (Parson's conceptualization of problems of consensus, stability, etc, & Key's historical analysis of consensus). Robert E. Lane's POLITICAL LIFE (See SA 7521) is a comprehensive reference work on pol'al participation, from letter-writing, influence on politicians, discussion & reading to electoral work, party-joining & voting. The burden of analysis on psychol'al, group-structure & institutional influences is absorbed with the correlates of the rates of participation. But it concludes with a general section on reforming the nature of pol'al society to increase participation of the status-deprived. IPSA.

A high level of econ development, attained gradually, & legitimate pol'al institutions (accepted by all major segments of the society) are 2 important conditions of a stable democratic order. A comparison of 15 indices of econ development available from UN data (on diff aspects of wealth, degree of industrialization & urbanization, level of educ) for European, English-speaking & Latin-American democracies & dictatorships shows that the (mean - average)'s of each more democratic group are higher on each index than the less democratic countries. The level & tempo of econ development largely determine the form which the 'class struggle' takes in a country, & therefore the degree to which the lower strata develop gradualistic pol'al perspectives consonant with democracy. The dislocations of the soc situation of affected groups in periods of rapid development, rather than poverty as such, produce instability & extremism. If institutions are accepted & valued (legitimate), econ instability does not necessarily endanger democracy. Crises of legitimacy occur during soc change if all major groups do not have access to the pol'al system, if major conservative institutions are threatened, or if other historical issues, such as the place of the church, have not been settled. The major pol'al problem of the 19th cent-integration of the Wc into the system-has largely been solved in most Western democracies, but in some of Latin & Eastern Europe, & parts of Asia, the Communists have gained the support of workers' movements, preventing their full integration, & endangering democracy. The prognosis for democracy is poor in the poverty-stricken, poorly educated, highly stratified countries. A methodological appendix discusses the problems of treating such complex attributes of total societies. AA-IPSA.

E. Digby Baltzell's most important thesis in his PHILADEL- PHIA GENTLEMEN is that the US is developing an Uc comparable in many ways to the aristocracies of the old world. Characterized by descent from old wealth, an Anglo-Saxon ethnic background, membership in the Episcopalian church, educ at a private boarding Sch & then at Princeton, Yale or Harvard U's, membership in the Somerset, Knickerbocker, or Philadelphia clubs-it is this class which also, in Philadelphia at least, controls the major sectors of the economy. By its combination of high SS & econ wealth it possesses tremendous community power. The creation of one Uc whose members share a common background & values also serves to create a class of power holders who can be disciplined for violation of the code by their status peers. Baltzell's one major deficiency is his failure to deal with the continued vitality of the value of egalitarianism in America & its effect on US Uc life. The constant tendency toward aristocracy has always been countered by egalitarianism & by large-scale SM. J. A. Fishman.