Suchergebnisse

The five papers which follow were prepared during the summer of 1951 by the Social Science Research Council's Interuniversity Summer Seminar on Political Behavior. The seminar, which met at the University of Chicago, was attended by seven persons, who accept joint responsibility for the papers: Samuel J. Eldersveld, University of Michigan; Alexander Heard, University of North Carolina; Samuel P. Huntington, Harvard University; Morris Janowitz, University of Michigan; Avery Leiserson, Vanderbilt University; Dayton D. McKean, University of Colorado; and David B. Truman, Columbia University. Ralph M. Goldman met with the seminar as an associate, and later Elizabeth Wirth Marvick assisted in preparing some of the materials.The papers, one product of the seminar's work, were written to define and illustrate what the participants feel to be a significant contemporary development in political research. The first paper, "The Implications of Research in Political Behavior," outlines some of the requirements, characteristics, and implications of political behavior research. It is followed by plans for three research projects, "Party and Administrative Responsibility: Council-Manager Government," "Political Participation in a Metropolitan District: A Study of Group Influence on Political Activity," and "The Roles of Congressional Leaders: National Party vs. Constituency," drawn up in accordance with these specifications.

This paper studies, theoretically and empirically, the role of overconfidence in political behavior. Our model of overconfidence in beliefs predicts that overconfidence leads to ideological extremeness, increased voter turnout, and stronger partisan identification. The model also makes nuanced predictions about the patterns of ideology in society. These predictions are tested using unique data that measure the overconfidence and standard political characteristics of a nationwide sample of over 3,000 adults. Our numerous predictions find strong support in these data. In particular, we document that overconfidence is a substantively and statistically important predictor of ideological extremeness, voter turnout, and partisan identification. (JEL C83, D03, D72, D83)

Studies of individual political behavior have not been well integrated with studies of the total pol'al process. We have learned much about how individuals make pol'al decisions, but know less about how these individual decisions affect politics on the level of the pol'al system. Conversely, not enough attention has been paid to the effects of the institutions of the pol'al system on individual pol'al behavior. One reason for this is that studies of individual pol'al behavior have been limited largely to the US, so that the varying effects of diff pol'al systems cannot be considered. Models of pol'al choice, it is suggested, should be expanded to take into account the effect of pol'al variables on individual pol'al behavior. IPSA.

A review article of David Butler's THE STUDY OF POLITI- CAL BEHAVIOUR, with special emphasis on the fact that it is an appraisal by an American of a book by a British pol'al sci'st. There is first a short summary of the 5 'approaches' which characterize the current study of pol'al behavior.. And the bulk of the article is devoted to an analysis of why the behavioral approaches are so popular among Americans, whereas they are so conspicuously avoided by the British. 7 reasons, themselves based on an informal 'behavioral' analysis of the pol'al sci professions in the respective countries, are advanced for this diff in orientation. AA-IPSA.

An attempt to (a) locate the extent of the authoritarian predisposition in 2 nationwide samples, and (b) link such predispositions with certain types of political attitudes and behavior. The hypothesis was that high authoritarians would tend to participate less, and have less political self-confidence in politics than low authoritarians. The F-scale, modified by F. Sanford and the authors had been administered to 2 crosssectional, area probability samples, in addition to questions on opinions on foreign policy (N=1,470). The social profile of the authoritarian appears to be as follows: (1) younger people tended to be low, older people, high authoritarians, (2) those with limited education tend to be high, those with fuller education low authoritarian. (3) High authoritarianism occurs more frequently in Lc. (4) In the Mc the lower income group was more vulnerable, the higher income group was less vulnerable to authoritarianism. The same was true of Lc. (5) The highest concentration of authoritarians was found in the LLc and the poorly educated LMc. Analyzing the authoritarian's response to politics on the basis of the social profile it was found that (1) a signif. link exists between authoritarianism and isolationism though the isolationist is by no means always the 'reactionary.' (2) Authoritarianism is directly related to feelings of political ineffectiveness. (3) High authoritarians did not vote as frequently as the rest of the pop. (4) Authoritarianism was helpful in explaining candidate preference. L. P. Chall.

Alienation is both one of the most popular and vague concepts used by contemporary social scientists. Scholars often cite Robert Nisbet's statement that alienation is basically a perspective. The current age is said to be one of alienation, or writers declare alienation to be the fundamental interpretive concept for explaining deviant behavior. One author has even gone so far as to say that definition is unnecessary because we can all feel what "it" is in our very bones. Indeed, if we don't understand it intuitively we are alienated by definition.Recently, there have been a series of attempts to clarify the meaning of the term. Daniel Bell, commenting on the uses of the concept alienation in the works of Marx, distinguishes estrangement ("a socio-psychological condition") from reification ("a philosophical category with psychological overtones"). For research purposes, the fundamental difference between these meanings lies in the criteria which are applied in determining whether an individual is alienated. The existence of estrangement is determined by investigating the attitudes of individuals; reification is measured against "objective" standards about the quality of human life established by the investigator.The reification (objective) tradition has many strong exponents. It offers a potentially powerful concept to an analyst wishing to evaluate the human condition in terms of explicitly stated criteria of what man ought to be in his social and personal relationships. Most of the contemporary scholarly work, however, is concerned with estrangement, and my own interest also lies in the individual's perception of the situation he faces.