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The article discusses various issues related to welfare research. One of the biggest conceptual dilemmas in welfare research is the definitional problem. A few social scientists have stepped back from empirical data and have developed a panoramic view of the welfare system or have struggled to provide a conceptual framework for a field one might term the social science of welfare. These analysts have not been content with the everyday situation. Even among those who have made important contributions toward delineating a science of social welfare there is as yet no agreement on what should or should not be included in definitions, and by implication social science analyses, of social welfare. Despite definitional limitations, current welfare research has developed substantial information about public assistance programs and recipients. Several research papers, particularly that of economists, have zeroed in on the determinants of work-welfare choices. In spite of the growing literature on recipients little attention has been given to demographic or ecological analysis. Since public assessments have accentuated speculative propositions linking demographic change to welfare problems, it would be appropriate for more social scientists to undertake such analysis.

The article focuses on population commission's report in the U.S. The report of the commission and the papers accompanying it constitute a remarkable document and suggestions that could, if expanded and fully translated into policy, bring a nearly optimum demographic state into being. While discussion of population questions in both quantitative and qualitative terms has commanded attention in America since even before the nation's founding, treatment of demographic matter has been circumscribed by particular premises and objectives which have never, at least until recently, been transformed into an approach that is systematic. With the disappearance of the frontier in the 1890's, attention was directed to conservation of resources and possible shortages of agricultural land and critical minerals. Congressional concern was directed less to problems of this sort, however, than to control of immigration, demand for which issued not from fear of excessive population growth but from concern about increasing ethnic and cultural heterogeneity, labor's fear of excessive competition from immigrant workers, and so on.

In this article the author presents an empirical discussion of urban terrorism in the U.S. According to the author the purpose of this paper is twofold, first, to point out some of the problems in collecting data on urban terrorism and, second, to propose a theoretical perspective of terrorism somewhat different from the customary revolutionary or counter-insurgency model. Among the most frequently cited indicators of urban terrorism in the U.S. is the rising number of bombing incidents and threats combined with the sensational discovery of various bomb plots and caches. The authors remark that since explosive bombs require more effort in acquisition of materials, preparation and detonation than incendiaries, their greater frequency in densely populated areas suggests that explicit terror bombings as distinguished from vandal-type arson are more prevalent in an urban environment. While urban areas provide the concentrations of symbolic victims necessary for mass anxiety, unless the terrorist is very well organized into hierarchical cells and can demonstrate an escalating omnipresence, has access to resupply from a secure or liberated zone and is operating in conjunction with regular insurgent forces, any attempt at social paralysis is doomed.

The article presents an ecological analysis of urban mortality rates in the U.S. According to the authors much of the work taking account of the health factors has been done in a comparative perspective with the general conclusion being that improved health conditions and services and not pure economic factors have been the main influence in lowering mortality in the developing nations. The purpose of this paper is to examine the ecological correlates of neighborhood mortality levels in a large urban center. The focus is upon the identification of the relative contribution of demographic, environmental, and social organizational variables to the explanation of differences in urban subarea death rates. The authors take as their starting point the works of those social scientists who have clearly demonstrated the relationship of ecological phenomena to differential urban mortality. Past studies have shown the importance of a large number of specific variables in explaining differential aggregate community mortality levels. These specific variables may be grouped into three gross categories, such as demographic, environmental, and social organizational.

In his conclusion, Downes states that "cities experiencing hostile out- bursts have a very distinctive set of social, economic, and even political structural characteristics."19 It is true that Downes expresses reservations about his analysis, cautioning the reader that"… this analysis represents a preliminary examination of the information we have collected,"20 and adds that he intends to undertake more extensive analysis of his data.21 By coincidence, our work involves more sophisticated analysis of data related to some of the variables which Downes studied. Furthermore, while Downes treats variables which characterize city populations in toto, and deduces from these the conditions of nonwhite persons in the cities, our study employs direct measures of characteristics of the nonwhite population and of differentials between the white and nonwhite groups. Of course, our study examines just a few socioeconomic variables, using only one bit of demographic data, and is thus less broad in scope than Downes'. Nevertheless, the results using these variables cast doubt on some of Downes' conclusions. Thus, contrary to Downes' conclusion, we find that the per cent of the population in SMSA's that is Negro does not appear to be related to the occurrence or intensity of civil disturbances. Where Downes finds low educational levels to be related to outbreaks of violence, our results are equivocal on this score. In the study most closely related to Downes (Study I), we are in partial agreement on the role of education; however, when an intensity index is used or where white-nonwhite differentials are studied, no clear relationship is observed, Furthermore, where Downes concludes from per capita income data for entire city populations that income levels are inversely related to occurrence and intensity of disturbances, we find almost the reverse to be true when nonwhite income levels are studied. When white-nonwhite income differentials are used, the results are again equivocal. Using crowding as a surrogate for housing quality we find no relationship between housing quality and the disturbances, where Downes concludes that this characteristic may be important. On the other hand, we find that home ownership, which may be a kind of proxy for community stability, is related to the disturbances in both their existence and severity. In fact, in this case the white-nonwhite differential becomes important. Finally, it is important to emphasize that our results do not go very far in "explaining" the causes of the disturbances. As Cohen has said, "One of the major errors in both the white and Negro communities has been seeking a single answer to a complex of problems. Integration, for example, has now given way to a theory of upgrading the slums. Status frustration has `lost ground to economic frustration. These are false dichotomies. The racial problem is a complex of many problems which have accumulated over the years."22 Relatively simple deprivation models of the type discussed in Downes' paper may shed light on some of the roots of urban discontent, but are over simplifications. In a way, their failure indicates the existing lack of understanding of these complex and urgent problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a discussion related to Jack P. Gibbs' work on analytical typologies in criminology. Gibbs treated as problematic an issue that has been closed for students in the field for sometime. The research was competent, its limitations clearly spelled out for the reader, and the results carefully tied to theory. Certainly, none of the others have attracted as much attention. Expectedly, the best scholarship was to be found among the papers on social theory. Unfortunately, most of these were agonizing efforts over where sociology has been and ineffectual attempts to redirect activity in a more promising direction. One has to constantly remind oneself that sociology began with three interests in mind, a distinctive subject matter, social reform, and the application of the scientific method to social behavior; that one is perilously close to forsaking the first two in mindless deference to the last in that important questions go unasked because one cannot attack them scientifically; that the questions one asks are becoming more and more scientific but more and more trivial, and, in so doing, one is, if not becoming psychologists, following psychology down the path to intellectual oblivion.

The article presents notes on a research paper related to the analysis of public policy in the U.S. According to the author, this recent analysis is a most useful and needed clarification of a very emotion charged issue within the social sciences. In this study the researcher identifies a certain dialectical process which takes place between paradigms, as perceptions of social problems in terms of Paradigm II are translated into actions which fit the available technology of Paradigm I, and then lose their effectiveness by blaming the victim. The difficulty for the program planner or administrator is that there is no acceptable institutionalized thought structure, specifically, there is no belief-value system on which to base action within the second paradigm. Something more is involved than finding a satisfactory belief-value basis with which to induce a large qualitative change in social structure. The author remarks that within political science the challenge to empiricism for its own sake has been clearly made on the precise ground that much of its research outcomes are socially irrelevant.