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Several alternative explanations of U.S. defense expenditure policy-making behavior have been heralded as theoretically sound and empirically supported representations of U.S. defense expenditure policy making. This has created an atmosphere in which almost as much effort is directed towards criticizing and/or defending existing explanations as is given to improving them through continued theoretical and empirical investigations. To overcome this impasse, I have developed in this article a working synthesis of three current approaches–Arms Race, Organizational Politics, Bureaucratic Politics–based on the insights and observations of Samuel Huntington (1961), Warner Schilling (1962), Colin Gray (1971), and James Rosenau (1971). The resulting formulation, which is labeled theReactive Linkage Model,characterizes the pattern of U.S. defense spending in terms of an initial response by the armed services to the anticipated USSR expenditure level which is subsequently filtered through the president, Congress, and the Departmen t of Defense to determine the magnitude, scale, and timing of the reaction.On the basis of the theoretical and empirical analyses here presented, I have reached the following conclusions. First, the Reactive Linkage Model successfully synthesizes the three existing explanations of U.S. defense expenditure policy making into a coherent and plausible whole. Second, the estimated version of the model provides an accurate representation of the pattern of U.S. defense expenditure policy making from 1954 to 1973. Specifically, the individual equations account for a large portion of the variance with parameter estimates that are both sharp and plausible and the model as a whole generates extremely accurate historical forecasts. Finally, I investigate the impact of war, presidential party, and negative public opinion on individual decisions, basing my inquiry on the assumption that the model accurately represents U.S. defense expenditure policy making. The results show that different events have an impact on only some of the steps in the policy-making process and the steps which are so affected vary from event to event. As a consequence of these results, I argue that the Reactive Linkage Model, and hence the idea of combining the key elements from competing explanations, represents a positive step forward in the study of U.S. defense expenditure policy making.

The focus of this study is the policy-making process which has as its principal output the annual U.S. defense expenditure total. A Richardson-type arms race model and a Davis, Dempster, and Wildavsky-type organizational politics model have been identified as contending but not mutually exclusive models of this process. Underlying each model is the assertion that a series of inputs is translated in a specified manner into the U.S. defense expenditure total. A systematic empirical evaluation is undertaken to determine the ability of the models to forecast by using each of them to generate a series of historical and ex post forecasts of the U.S. defense expenditure time series from 1954 to 1973. Tests are made in order to determine which model generates the more accurate forecasts and whether these forecasts are adequate. The results of the empirical test indicate that the forecasts of the two models are indistinguishable both from one another and from a naive model. Several reasons are given for these results, and the paper closes with suggestions for further research.

Beginning with Mueller's (1970) seminal work, researchers have wrestled with explanations of the movement of presidential approval over time. In his initial argument, Mueller states thatin tandem, the concepts underlying the coalition of minorities and rally round the flag variables predict that the president's popularity will continually decline over time and that international crises and similar events will explain short-term bumps and wiggles in this otherwise inexorable descent. (1970, 22)From this basis, Mueller posits "… a general downward trend in each president's popularity" (1970, 19) that is linear and deterministic over the course of a term. Others later moved away from arguments of linearity (e.g., Stimson 1976) and from the coalition of minorities concept (e.g., Kemell 1978), but these early characterizations of approval's time path, perpetuated in the "myth of the inexorable descent," remain to this day.

To evaluate the comparability of the Gallup and Michigan Survey Research Center measures for studying levels of partisanship among the U.S. electorate we compare the overtime distribution of partisanship and the correlates of partisanship using the results of Gallup surveys, the National Election Studies, and the General Social Surveys. Compared with the Gallup results, both the other two surveys reveal less short-term variation and also less total variation. Compared with the Gallup results, the National Election Studies partisanship results are less related to short-term electoral outcomes and do not appear to be strongly driven by short-term economic and political evaluations. Our analyses suggest that scholars should be cautious about using Gallup results to revise conclusions based upon analyses that employ the Michigan Survey Research Center party identification measure.

Opinion poll data collected between 1981 & 1987 measuring public support for former President Ronald Reagan during his incumbency reveal a unique pattern -- two instances of rapidly declining support followed by sustained recoveries -- & raise questions about recent assertions on the inability of modern presidents to maintain public support. Explanations that account for this pattern of public support are reviewed, the relative impact of political drama is assessed, & a methodology is developted for incorporating political drama into a general model of public support for Reagan. Utilizing this model, analysis indicates that public support for Reagan was determined by conditions of the political environment & that political drama had little effect. 3 Tables, 11 Figures, 37 References. Modified HA

Conventional wisdom asserts that televised speeches & foreign travel by the US president (1) have increased over time, (2) exert a uniformly positive impact on public evaluations of the president's performance, & (3) can be used as a strategy for influencing the president's approval ratings. Here, this conventional wisdom is evaluated, with focus on the value of televised speeches & foreign travel as influences on presidential approval. Analysis of published poll data collected at times of major presidential televised speeches & foreign travel casts considerable doubt on the conventional wisdom & leads to the conclusion that the use of political drama is not an all-purpose strategy guaranteed to halt declines or replenish sizable losses of presidential approval. 5 Tables, 1 Appendix, 43 References. Modified HA