Suchergebnisse

Survey participation, electoral participation, and political interest have been given wide attention in the research literature, but no one so far has combined these three variables in one model. Taking the social isolation-hypothesis as our starting point, we developed a model with one factor, social involvement, as the common factor underlying these three types of participation. We reviewed the literature and concluded that we had to include a second underlying factor: attachment to society. Using a new data set, gathered on the occasion of the 1998 Dutch national elections and including validated voter turnout measures, we were able to test the model. After making some adaptions, we found a model with a satisfactory fit. The results show that, by including social involvement and attachment to society as mediating variables, we can reach much higher levels of explained variances of survey and electoral participation than we can with traditional models. The results also add to our understanding of the relationship between survey and electoral participation and political interest.

Abstract. This article describes the process of the aggregation of individual ministerial preferences into group decisions in a national cabinet, on the basis of a sample of crucial Dutch foreign policy decisions as described in the minutes of the council of ministers. The results of the study show that decisions in the cabinet were mainly made according to the norms of this group, which were consensus and the non‐interference of ministers in issues not concerning their department. Consensus turned out to be of secondary importance as compared with noninterference; key ministers could push through decisions by majority rule if they had consensus among themselves. Since specialists mostly made the decisions, the task of non‐specialist ministers was mainly to function as approvers or disapprovers, though they did make some minor contributions in cases of disagreement among the specialists. When there was agreement among the specialists they followed a process resembling the analytic model, i. e. one based on consideration of the consequences. However, when there was disagreement between specialists, they engaged in a cybernetic decision process, reviewing sequentially a large number of options, neglecting the consequences and striving for a consensus option such as incremental action, which would frequently be the result of a compromise.