摘要:

This article examines the underlying theory for the proposition that the single-member plurality rule encourages the emergence of a two-party system while other rules favor the emergence of a multiparty system. The key axioms of the theory are that (1) minor parties under the plurality rule cannot translate their popular support into a proportionate parliamentary strength, and (2) political entrepreneurs and a substantial proportion of voters will attempt to maximize their expected utility by stopping their support of minor parties. We argue that the first axiom is true only under certain conditions that cannot be specified without considering the underlying cleavage structure of a society, especially the regional concentration of cleavage groups. We propose a modified theory that subsumes several disparate propositions of prior theory and produces new propositions.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/70.3.575

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1992

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

When making decisions or talking to others, people use mental models of the world to evaluate choices and frame discussions. This article describes a methodology for representing mental models as maps, extracting these maps from texts, and analyzing and comparing these maps. The methodology employs a set of computer-based tools to analyze written and spoken texts. These tools support textual comparison both in terms of what concepts are present and in terms of what structures of information are present. The methodology supports both qualitative and quantitative comparisons of the resulting representations. This approach is illustrated using data drawn from a larger study of students learning to write where it is possible to compare mental models of the students with those of the instructor.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/70.3.601

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1992

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

Social contacts between middle-aged women and those in the younger and older generations help define the social networks that hold the generations together. Through the interpersonal ties constituting these networks, friends, as well as families, exchange various kinds of support that affect an individual's social, psychic, physical, emotional, and economic status. This article sets up a theoretical framework for studying women's social contacts with family and friends and tests it using data from the 1981 wave of the National Longitudinal Survey of Mature Women. Our results indicate that the contacts that middle-aged women have with kith and kin depend on the nature of the relationship, household structure, distance, resources, and a predisposition to contact with family. But the effects of the most important of these depend on other characteristics in key ways.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/70.3.637

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1992

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

Despite critical attention, Black's (1976)The Behavior of Lawhas been subjected only to limited empirical research, mostly at the microsociological level. These studies have at best provided mixed support for Black's thesis. The present study offers a more extensive, macrosociological test of his five major propositions through analysis of aggregate-level data for the U.S. from 1948 to 1985. We examine four models of longitudinal changes in the quantity of law as a function of levels and changes in levels of the aspects of social life addressed by Black. As with previous studies, our findings offer limited support for Black's propositions. The majority of the relationships investigated do not behave as Black has posited. We offer an extended discussion of two of the more consistent findings: the relation of organization to change in law and the lack of a relationship between morphology and change in law.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/70.3.655

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1992

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

Two competing approaches to the study of black social and political participation — the compensatory and ethnic community perspectives — have dominated attempts to explain the relatively high levels of collective involvement within the black population. One of the main limitations of research in this area has been its weak treatment of the meaning and measurement of compensatory theory. The erroneous belief that blacks had disproportionately low self-esteem was widely held at the time that this theory was developed. Therefore, unlike most previous researchers, we use a measure of low self-esteem to operationalize compensatory behavior. In contrast to the equivocal findings of several previous studies, our results are clear: the ethnic community approach receives strong support, while the compensatory approach finds virtually no support.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/70.3.681

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1992

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

This study uses demographic censuses to estimate infant and child mortality rates among children born to white and nonwhite mothers in Brazil Estimates of associated levels of life expectancy showed that whites outlived nonwhites by 7.5 years in 1950. The mortality gap between the white and Afro-Brazilian populations remained about the same in 1980 (6.7 years). Tobit regression analyses of sample data for metropolitan areas in 1980 found that race of mother continued to have a significant effect on child mortality after controlling for region, household income, and parental education. Tests for interaction effects indicated that key social indicators (maternal and paternal education, indoor plumbing, access to the public health system, and the demographic characteristics of the household) had significantly different effects on the probability of death among white and nonwhite children. We show the contribution of these findings to research on racial inequality in Brazil and discuss the implications of the results for the fields of development studies and comparative race relations.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/70.3.703

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1992

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

Data from a 1972 three-state survey are used to compare city, suburban, town, and rural dwellers in terms of five urbanism characteristics: (1) anonymity, (2) tolerance, (3) community social bonds, (4) alienation, and (5) deviant behavior. Suburbanites displayed less urbanism than city dwellers, but they did not differ much from other noncity people in this regard. In fact, residents of the various types of settlement do not fall on a neat continuum of urbanism from country to town to suburb to city. The dominant pattern is simply a city-noncity differentiation, although there are a few anomalies. These results suggest that urban theories have limited usefulness for understanding urbanism among suburbanites, but they also reveal so little evidence of suburban distinctiveness that it may not require a unique explanation beyond that needed to account for simple urbannonurban differences.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/70.3.725

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1992

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

Substantial research suggests that inequality in life chances in the U.S. is legitimated through the equity principle. Some authors have suggested that variation in agreement with the equity principle corresponds to stratification position. Della Fave has argued that equality counternorms may form a potential threat to the self-reinforcing character of equity norms. This article develops measurement models for both equity norms and equality counternorms and examines the effects of ascribed and acquired life-chance positions on equity and equality attitudes. Nonrecursive models that examine the influence of the two attitudes on each other are tested as well. Equality counternorms are strongly related to ascribed and acquired life-chance positions. Equity norms are indeed undermined, though weakly, by equality counternorms.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/70.3.745

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1992

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

Will religion become a major source of political conflict in America? Wuthnow describes a growing conservative-liberal rift in American religion that threatens to fan the flames of political conflict. Warner agrees that there is a split in religion but feels it will foster little political conflict because the two sides pursue nonopposing agendas. Among religious elites (seminary faculty) we find two political agendas (liberal and conservative), both linked to religion but only partly opposed to each other. Within the general public we find that the same two agendas are uncorrelated and only the conservative social-moral agenda is linked to religion. While important, religion will not soon become the major axis of political conflict in America.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/70.3.765

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1992

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

An essential result from the poverty research of the 1970s was an indication that much poverty urns episodic, in contrast to then-conventional stereotypes about the poor. However, recent treatments of poverty in the U.S. have emphasized the increase ofchronicpoverty. This study tests the hypothesis of increasing intragenerational chronicity by using a series of multiyear windows that track income experiences of households from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) from 1968 to 1987. Results show an increase in the incidence of chronic poverty after 1973, with an acceleration in the early 1980s. Thereafter, as the annual poverty rate begins to decline, chronicity levels off at rates consistent with the heightened chronicity observed during the late 1970s. As expected, the trends are sharper among blacks and women than among whites and men, and are sharpest of all among black female-headed households.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/70.3.787

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1992

数据来源: OUP