Our study of political participation in the Soviet Union, based on interviews with recent emigres, leads us to conclude that Soviet political culture is neither a “subject” nor a “subject-participant” one. There are meaningful forms of participation in the system, but they take place either outside the nominally participatory institutions, or within those institutions but in nonprescribed ways. The citizen may participate covertly, utilizing unsanctioned or blatantly illegal methods in attempts to influence policy implementation, not policymaking. The findings support the concept that traditional, prerevolutionary modes of citizen-state interactions are reinforced by the pattern of Soviet socioeconomic development and by a highly centralized and hierarchical administrative structure, itself a continuation of tsarist patterns. This study describes how different types of Soviet citizens try to influence policy implementation, and how they differentiate among the bureaucracies. Analysis of this activity leads us to reformulate our conception of Soviet political culture.

The purpose of this article is to contribute to the theoretical understanding of African military coups d'etat. We begin by replicating a well-known model (Jackman, 1978) that purports to identify the structural determinants of coups d'etat within the states of Sub-Saharan Black Africa. When the research problem is changed slightly to focus exclusively on military coups, we find major weaknesses in the original Jackman model. We then extend and refine this model and thereby account in a theoretically meaningful fashion for 91% of the variation in military coups within 35 Black African states from 1960 through 1982. Our major substantive findings indicate that Black African states with relatively dynamic economies whose societies were not very socially mobilized before independence and which have maintained or restored some degree of political participation and political pluralism have experienced fewer military coups, attempted coups, and coup plots than have states with the opposite set of characteristics.

Research within the agenda-setting framework has generally ignored the potential influence of purposive efforts by external actors (those outside the political system) to manipulate media coverage related to their interests. The present study uses interrupted time-series analysis to examine one such set of manipulative efforts, those undertaken by professional public relations consultants to influence the images of foreign nations as portrayed in the United States press. Data represent New York Times coverage of six nations that signed public relations contracts with American firms during the period from 1974 to 1978, and one nation that expressly rejected such a contract. The analysis identifies consistent patterns of improvement along two primary dimensions of national image, visibility and valence, which are associated in time with the public relations contracts.

As the first comparative study of religious terror groups, the article provides detailed analyses of the different doctrines and methods of the three best-known groups: the Thugs, Assassins, and Zealots-Sicarii. Despite a primitive technology, each developed much more durable and destructive organizations than has any modern secular group.

The differences among the groups reflect the distinguishing characteristics of their respective originating religious communities: Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism. The distinctive characteristics of religious terror are discussed, and relationships between religious and secular forms of terror are suggested.

In An Economic Theory of Democracy, Downs hypothesized that rational, utility-maximizing citizens would calculate the benefits from voting (as opposed to abstaining altogether) and then vote if this expected benefit exceeded voting cost. This hypothesis is logically derived from economic principles of rational behavior, but is counterintuitive: even if the utility increment is plausibly large, the probability of casting a pivotal, tie-breaking vote in any sizable polity is minute. Hence the expected benefit will be less than the time cost of voting, and no rational person will vote. Nevertheless, a number of statistical studies have found that voter turnout does respond to differences in the probability of casting a decisive vote, even though that probability may be small.

This article uses data gathered at the state level from the 1968, 1972, 1976, and 1980 general elections to reestimate the relationship between voter turnout and the probable closeness of the election. Pooled data Least Squares Dummy Variable (LSDV) regressions are used whenever preliminary tests indicate that such pooling is permissible. The empirical results suggest that the relationship between closeness and turnout is weak, unstable, or nonexistent in all of the models tested.

In this inquiry, we focus upon the question, “Why are political parties more competitive in some states than they are in others?” We have measured partisan competition as the closeness between the two major political parties in the results of state-level elections, and we have chosen to analyze elections in American states in the 1970s. To account for variations among the states on the dimension of partisan competitiveness, we formulate and present four discrete lines of reasoning—including socio-demographics, urbanization, diversity, and the strength of party organizations. We test each of these avenues of explanation in turn, always taking into account the watershed between North and South in partisan competition. The results vindicate the utility of our general approach, although we do find that each of the four modes of explanation is wanting in some respect. In a full-blown multivariate context, we report that educational levels and urbanization do influence variations among states in partisan competition. Equally compelling and perhaps more interesting, the strength and activism of local party organizations in the states profoundly affect political competitiveness, even when we take stark regional differences into consideration.

A new model of congressional compromise is constructed in which leadership, faced with a bill whose prospects are uncertain, is forced to compromise. Leadership has policy preferences of its own and seeks a compromise that will minimize its expected loss.

A reasonable expression for the probability of each outcome is assumed, and the form of the optimal compromise is derived based on two simple parameters. The solutions are quite revealing and support the expectation of compromises close to a 50-50 split under a broad range of conditions.

Niskanen's economic model of bureaucratic behavior assumes that bureaucratic agenda control allows the bureau to impose upon a passive legislature its most preferred alternative from among the set of alternatives that dominate the status quo. But does a monopoly on the agenda give bureaus this degree of influence over a voting body? This article reports on experiments that demonstrate that a monopoly on the agenda puts the agenda monopolist in a position to bargain with a voting body, without being able to impose his or her most preferred alternative on that body. This evidence supports theories of bureaucratic-legislative bargaining at the expense of theories of bureaucratic imposition.

Contemporary theories of politics tend to portray politics as a reflection of society, political phenomena as the aggregate consequences of individual behavior, action as the result of choices based on calculated self-interest, history as efficient in reaching unique and appropriate outcomes, and decision making and the allocation of resources as the central foci of political life. Some recent theoretical thought in political science, however, blends elements of these theoretical styles into an older concern with institutions. This new institutionalism emphasizes the relative autonomy of political institutions, possibilities for inefficiency in history, and the importance of symbolic action to an understanding of politics. Such ideas have a reasonable empirical basis, but they are not characterized by powerful theoretical forms. Some directions for theoretical research may, however, be identified in institutionalist conceptions of political order.

Two important findings from n-person game theory are that coalition formation is superadditive if and only if a game possesses an empty core, and Riker's size principle. Up to the present, both theorems have been proved and critiqued under the assumption of transferable cardinal utility.

This analysis eliminates the cardinal utility assumption on the grounds that it is generally inconsistent with the conditions that characterize collective choice on political issues. Instead, a model of collective decision making is set forth in terms of ordinal preferences, and the two theorems are reconsidered. The superadditivity theorem survives intact, whereas the size principle is weakened. Circumstances are identified in which there is no incentive to reduce an oversized winning coalition; however, under no condition is there an incentive to increase the size of a winning coalition. A number of coalition-size hypotheses are tested using roll-call data from the U.S. Senate. The results raise new questions about the role of coalition formation in legislative voting strategy.

In this article, I examine critically Donald Winch's interpretation of the politics of Adam Smith. I explain how Winch wrests Smith's political thought out of the larger vision of commercial society that is found in his moral, political, and economic writings, and how Winch misreads Smith's understanding of particular political problems such as the dehumanized workforce and the standing army. I also show how Winch's civic humanist reading of Smith's political thought fails to appreciate Smith's liberal conceptualizations of corruption and public-mindedness in a modern commercial society. Finally, I suggest that our failure to understand the politics of Adam Smith does not lie in our liberal interpretation of his work, as Winch claims, but in our understanding of what constitutes liberal political discourse.

Despite their widespread influence, Martin Heidegger's works have rarely been assessed for their own direct significance as political theory. In this article I undertake such an assessment by drawing out the political implications of Heidegger's understanding of freedom and community in two of his early works. Specifically, I argue that, although Heidegger's thought has been interpreted as advocating political conservatism, it in fact propounds a new kind of radicalism which is neither precisely conservative nor progressive, although decidedly revolutionary. When this is brought to light, it is easier to see the connection between Heidegger's works and the earlier Philosophy of Freedom, as well as ways in which they anticipate important trends in contemporary political thought.