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Many of the nation's most respected advertising agencies have become reluctant to accept political campaigns as clients. And political candidates increasingly are choosing independent political consultants to direct their media campaigns. This paper analyzes the history of these trends and reports the results of a nationwide survey of 99 advertising agencies. Among firms that had not handled political accounts in five years or that planned to reduce political campaign involvement, the major reasons cited for avoiding political accounts centered on concerns that they may interfere with business client relations while creating an intolerable workload without commensurate profitability. The potential implications of replacing advertising agencies with political consultants are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the results of a comparative study of the factors which inhibited or facilitated the development of the issue of community control of schools in fiftyseven cities in the United States. The findings suggest that the degree to which blacks and the poor were mobilized for political action and the political characteristics of the city were important in determining whether or not the issue entered the political arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes a system of organized citizen participation in the Midwestern, mid-size city of Dayton. Ohio. Using a combination of historical, observational, and survey methods, the research examines the interplay of democratic and bureaucratic forces in the development of Dayton's neighborhood-based citizen participation system. The findings indicate that the system evolved from an essentially democratic, policy oriented system to a more bureaucratic, administratively oriented one. This shift is further associated with a change of political strategy from the politics of reform to the politics of accommodation. The paper concludes by analyzing the implications of these changes in light of the recent national trend toward decentralized political control of urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This experimental research compares exposure to presidential ads via the Internet versus traditional channels in the 2000 presidential campaign. The results indicate that undecided voters exposed to Internet political advertising changed their vote choice to Al Gore, whereas undecideds who viewed the same spots on television changed their preferences in favor of George W. Bush. The political cynicism levels of neither group were affected by exposure, but there were significant differences in the types of information seeking and political activity intentions between the two groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A survey was conducted to examine the effects of negative political advertising -- advertising which seeks to degrade perceptions of an opponent. Respondents were constituents of a state Assembly district in which candidates employed negative appeals. Results indicate that negative political advertising evokes negative affect toward both the targeted opponent and the sponsor. A relationship between party identification and response to negative advertising suggests that a negative strategy is not likely to be effective for a minority party candidate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published evidence questions the voter involvement explantion of promotional spending effects in high involvement elections. This study replicates and extends the Soley and Reid (20) study which showed that promotional expenditures have as great an effect on votes received in congressional elections as party affiliation and incumbency. Using an expanded data base and a different analytical technique, the replication found that House and Senate election outcomes were significantly affected by promotional spending, but that spending effects varied by candidate type (i.e., incumbent and challengers) and party affiliation (i.e., major third and independent parties). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information related to the Fiscal Year 1981 budget of the U.S. Department of Defense. The 1981 budget has shown a tremendous increase from 1980 and indications are that the total figures will go up further during congressional debate. The crises in Iran and Afghanistan and election year politics are key factors which fuel the upward rise. There are many controversial programs and serious policy and budgetary questions within the $158.7 billion in new Total Obligational Authority requested for the Pentagon.

The article discusses the attempt of U.S. to establish anti-communists government in Vietnam. The attempts to establish an anti-communist form of government started five years before the Geneva convention and initially with the support of French government. The U.S. broadened its bombings in the North and South and increases its fighting forces that insisted a greater military power to abide and attain their suitable position. The unsuccessful establishment left two significant political legacies, first Vietminh assumed overriding control on Vietnamese nationalism and most of rural Vietnam got accustomed to the administration of the Vietminh.

The author reflects on the relationship between physicists and politicians in the U.S. He argues that scientists lay no claim to a national monopoly in beauty, truth and wisdom. He emphasized the possibility of national sovereignty delusion due to the atomic age. It is stated that the physicist's naivety is his greatest professional asset but is his greatest limitation as a potential politician.

The article presents an examination into the foreign policy of U.S. President Harry S. Truman regarding the emergence of the state of Israel in the late 1940s. Particular attention is given to the domestic political dynamics of the Truman administration's interactions with the U.S. Zionist activism lobby. Discussion is given analyzing Truman's personal political philosophy and ambitions, suggesting that his decision-making process over Israeli-support made a larger priority of domestic political logistics than the greater need of the Middle Eastern situation at the time of the state's formation.

Recent scholarship and public discourse highlight an apparent waning of civic engagement in the United States. Although the welfare state is generally thought to support democracy by reducing economic inequality, it may paradoxically contribute to political disempowerment of some groups. We examine the effects of state interventions on civic participation among young adults, hypothesizing that involvement with stigmatizing social programs, such as welfare, reduces political engagement, while receipt of nonstigmatizing government assistance does not dampen civic involvement. Using official voting records and survey data from the Youth Development Study (YDS), a longitudinal community sample of young adults, a series of regression models suggests that welfare recipients are less likely to vote than nonrecipients, whereas recipients of non-means-tested government assistance participate similarly to young adults who do not receive government help. These effects hold even when background factors, self-efficacy, and prior voting behavior are controlled. Welfare receipt is not associated, however, with suppressed participation in nonstate arenas such as volunteer work. Intensive interviews with YDS welfare recipients are used to illustrate and develop the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how Iran is represented by neo-conservative activists and analysts primarily in the USA. It starts with the epistemological contention that every political activity occurs within a context, which is constituted by invented narratives, institutions, norms and other ideational factors. In a second step empirical evidence is marshalled that shows the mechanisms of contemporary US neo-conservatism, its impact on the decision-making process in Washington and the consequences for Iranian - American relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how federal authority exemplified in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) impacts another significant trend in educational governance and control-the significant growth and expansion of gubernatorial control over education reform. After briefly outlining the history of gubernatorial activism in education reform, the reaction of governors to NCLB is examined, including their opposition to specific provisions of the legislation. Despite some opposition, the endorsement of the goals of NCLB by an overwhelming majority of the nation's governors is attributed to four factors: consistency of purpose with state-level education reform initiatives, the use of NCLB by governors to leverage change within the educational system, the relative newness and lack of public awareness of the law itself, and fears of retribution from federal officials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A quantitative content analysis of the National Standards for Civics and Governrnent revealed that concepts associated with traditional liberalism—citizens' rights and freedoms-far outnumber concepts associated with classical republicanism or communitarianism (e.g., civic virtue, the reciprocal relation between citizens' rights and their responsibilities to the public good). Moreover, this focus on rights and freedoms to the relative exclusion of duties and obligations may be at odds with a more collectivistic value orientation held by many members of ethnic and racial minority groups. Consistent with previous studies of civics texts, our analysis indicates that the concept of political participation plays a very small role in the National Civics Standards. Finally, the "subtext" of the National Civics Standards does little by way of reflecting the contributions of women and minorities to public life. Implications for civic instruction in increasingly heterogeneous public school classrooms are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the elimination of differences in the population sizes of election districts, gerrymandering of district boundaries remains an obstacle to full equality for all social and political groups. Legal challenges to district lines on grounds of racial-vote dilution frequently fail because plaintiffs cannot show evidence of discriminatory intent on the part of the redistricting authorities and because no accepted measure of gerrymandering has been developed. A disputed redistricting may be one of hundreds of feasible, constitutional ways to redraw district lines. Charges of racial bias were evaluated using a statistical framework. Congressional districts in Manhattan were favorable to blacks, whereas districts in New Orleans and Mississippi were unfairly drawn to dilute black voting power. Courts, academics, and legal experts can use this evaluation method to determine the fairness of a proposed reapportionment or to judge a plan's equity for social or political interest groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The failure of black mayoral candidates in Detroit and Los Angeles in 1969 can be attributed to an increased voter turnout by the white electorate, combined with bloc-voting by blacks and whites. In 1973 racial bloc-voting increased in the Detroit and Atlanta mayoral elections and continued at a high rate in Los Angeles. Black candidates were successful in the three cities because of a significantly higher rate of black voter turnout. Significant changes in the voting surfaces of the three cities occurred between 1909 and 1973 related to residential change, the choice of candidates, voting age, and social status. The success of black political candidates can be predicted with some accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The redistricting of Washington State presented an opportunity to apply, with court sanction, a variety of geographic criteria: compactness and regularity; integrity of well-known units (counties and cities); following of natural geographic boundaries; and consideration of functional unity and cultural homogeneity--rather than a political criterion of partisan advantage to particular parties. The existence of two party plans provided an opportunity to measure the effect of such partisanship th rough comparing the operation of differing criteria to the same data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article at recent trends in political behavior and political alignating in the United States in terms of the sociology of generations. A period- and cohort-based generational unit perspective works best for explaining recent increases in approval levels for political protest and political alienation. For predieting voting, a life-cycle or aging approach works better. Campaigning behavior exhibits less clear relationships with generational variables. The tendencies towards both a generational-based nonconventional politics rooted in cynicism and distrust along with the trend toward increasing levels of voting as people age suggest that current political and social conditions contain the potential for a wide variety of citizen-initiated political activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing theories of political socialization and discussions of the impact of Watergate on children which have been based upon them have over emphasized affective orientations and have paid comparatively little attention to political cognition. Data are presented which suggest that this has resulted in not only incomplete theories of Watergate's influence on youth but has perpetuated a limited theoretical approach to political socialization. The approach has been consistent with the continuation of educational practices which defeat their own purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]