The Journal of Politics

Table of Contents - February 1981 - Volume 43, Issue 01  

Articles

Measuring Responsiveness: A Brief Reply

Thomas R. Dye and T. Lane Hurley

We are pleased that our inquiry into the responsiveness of federal and state governments to urban problems has generated discussion on this important topic. Our initial charges were serious—that the federal government is largely unresponsive to generally accepted measures of social need in cities, and fails to have significant re-distributional effect among cities with very different resources. We must stand by that position. We do not believe Peter D. Ward's hypothetical tables, or even his “count measures,” refute our charges.

Thomas R. Dye is professor of Government and director of the policy sciences program at Florida State University.

Thomas Lane Hurley is assistant professor of political science at the University of Alabama.