In the postwar United States the president's party has always done worse in the midterm congressional elections than in the previous congressional election. Republican administrations exhibit below-average, and Democratic administrations above-average, economic growth in the first half of each term, whereas in the latter halves the two see equal growth. Our rational expectations model is consistent with these two regularities. In presidential elections, voters choose between two polarized candidates. They then use midterm elections to counterbalance the president's policies by strengthening the opposition in Congress. Since presidents of different parties are associated with different policies, our model predicts a (spurious) correlation between the state of the economy and elections. Our predictions contrast with those of retrospective voting models, in which voters reward the incumbent if the economy is doing well before the election. Our model performs empirically at least as well as, and often better than, alternative models.

We describe and test two process models of candidate evaluation. The memory-based model holds that evaluations are dependent on the mix of pro and con information retrieved from memory. The impression-driven model holds that evaluations are formed and updated “on-line” as information is encountered. The results provide evidence for the existence of stereotyping and projection biases that render the mix of evidence available in memory a nonveridical representation of the information to which subjects were exposed. People do not rely on the specific candidate information available in memory. Rather, consistent with the logic of the impression-driven processing model, an “on-line” judgment formed when the information was encountered best predicts candidate evaluation. The results raise both methodological and substantive challenges to how political scientists measure and model the candidate evaluation process.

We use a cognitive schema-based approach to model an African-American racial belief system, showing the content of racial belief systems in a national sample to be associated with the individual's degree of sodoeconomic status, religiosity, and exposure to black media. We find that African-Americans with a higher sodoeconomic status are less supportive of black political autonomy and that they feel themselves more distant from black masses and black elites than do those of lower socioeconomic status. Religiosity, while unrelated to black autonomy, strengthens closeness to black masses and black elites. Black television—and, to a much lesser degree, black print media—had a consistent impact on the racial belief system. We conclude by discussing the complexity of the African-American racial belief system and potential directions for future work.

Although a variety of age-related processes are known to affect rates of political participation over the adult life span, little is known about their interrelationships and relative impact. We set out a theory of life span civic development that focuses on how age-related changes in community attachment, strength of partisanship, church attendance, government responsiveness, family income, and civic competence impinge on voting participation. To test the theory, we estimated the coefficients of a structural equation model using data from nine National Election Studies combined into a large, cross-sectional time series data set. The model specifies the age-related processes and also controls for the effects of a large number of other variables. Overall, about one-half of the age-related increases in voting participation were attributable to these processes.

A public choice approach is used to build a model of bilateral trade flows employing international conflict and cooperation, as well as prices and income, to predict the level of imports. The model is consistent with neoclassical trade theory in economics, while employing data and measurement insights from the field of international relations to construct an indicator of bilateral diplomatic relations. The model is empirically tested using pooled, cross-section time-series analysis for six nations representing different worlds of development. Considerable empirical support is found for the model in general. The effects of diplomacy on commerce are significant and conform to model predictions in every instance. Estimation results also indicate possible cross-national differences in the political management of trade relations.

I suggest a new explanation of cross-national differences in unionization rates: the size of the labor force. Size matters because the gains unions are able to achieve in collective bargaining depend on the proportion of substitutable workers who are organized, while the costs of organizing depend in part on the absolute number to be recruited. The comparison of the costs and benefits of organizing new workers yields the conclusion that unions in larger labor markets will accept lower levels of unionization. Statistical analysis of cross-national differences in unionization rates among advanced industrial societies in the late 1970s indicates that the size of the labor force and the cumulative participation of leftist parties in government explain most of the variance.

Recent formal work in nuclear deterrence theory has focused on brinkmanship crises in which states exert coercive pressure by manipulating the risk of an unlimited nuclear exchange. This essay extends the formal analysis of deterrence theory to the strategy of limited retaliation in which states exert coercive pressure by inflicting limited amounts of damage in order to make the threat of future punishment more credible. This strategy is modeled as a game of sequential bargaining with incomplete information. The equilibria suggest that states prefer relatively smaller, less-destructive limited options; that counterforce options are desirable even if they cannot limit the total amount of damage an adversary can inflict; that smaller, less-destructive limited nuclear options may make a nuclear exchange more likely; and that uncertainty and incomplete information may significantly enhance deterrence.

Prior scholarly analysis of Israeli military spending has focused on national security questions. We present a mathematical model incorporating security threats as well as electoral cycles and corporate profits. The parameters are estimated empirically. The results support the idea that in Israel the military budget at the margins is also employed as a political-economic instrument to help manage the economy and to provide a favorable election climate for incumbents. It is suggested that the politicaleconomic dynamic widely attributed to Western industrialized societies may be of increasing importance in other societies throughout the world.

In 1981 a higher proportion of the multinational population of Yugoslavia chose to declare “Yugoslav” in place of an ethnic identity in response to the census question on nationality than ever before. We present arguments to support the interpretation of Yugoslav identity as evidence of shared political identity, and carry out an analysis of aggregate data on the level of social and material development, political socialization, and interethnic contact in the country's nearly five hundred counties to discover the sources of that identity. We find that with certain important regional variations, Yugoslav identity seems to be the product of interethnic contact and higher education rather than the level of material well-being. These findings support an interpretation of Yugoslav identity as evidence of diffuse support for the existence of a shared political community and suggest both the sources and vulnerabilities of Yugoslav stability.

It is commonly assumed that Supreme Court justices' votes largely reflect their attitudes, values, or personal policy preferences. Nevertheless, this assumption has never been adequately tested with independent measures of the ideological values of justices, that is, measures not taken from their votes on the Court. Using content analytic techniques, we derive independent and reliable measures of the values of all Supreme Court justices from Earl Warren to Anthony Kennedy. These values correlate highly with the votes of the justices, providing strong support for the attitudinal model.

This analysis demonstrates that the relative growth of per capita income change is an important determinant of post-World War II presidential election outcomes. Per capita income change is even a better predictor of presidential election outcomes than the electorate's relative attraction to the Democratic and Republican candidates as calibrated in National Election Study surveys. The significance of this finding is discussed.

Considerable research effort has been invested in establishing the appropriate relationship between patterns of land distribution and political violence. In an article in the June 1988 issue of the Review, Manus I. Midlarsky proposed and tested a new measure of the distribution of land, which he called “patterned inequality.” He presented supporting evidence with data from Latin American and Middle Eastern countries. In this controversy, Midlarsky's analysis is challenged by Edward N. Mutter, Mitchell A. Seligson, and Hung-der Fu. They advocate an alternative measure of land inequality, test its effect on levels of political violence in Latin America, and find it wanting. In his rejoinder, Midlarsky offers new analytical support for his claims.