American Politics Research

A major debate in school desegregation policy is whether voluntary, market-based mechanisms (such as magnet schools) result in more school desegregation than command-and-control approaches (such as mandatory reassignment). Using data obtained from a national probability sample of 600 school districts, we explore the effects of different types of desegregation plans on White flight, racial imbalance, and interracial exposure from 1968 to 1991 Based on the results of multiple regression analyses, we find that (a) voluntary plans result in lower levels of White flight and higher levels of change in interracial exposure than mandatory-reassignment or controlled-choice plans (which fall between the two approaches) and (b) voluntary plans are not disadvantaged in comparison to mandatory-reassignment or controlled-choice plans in the achievement of racial balance.

Public opinion researchers have long believed that Americans' attitudes on foreign policy issues fail to demonstrate the level of structure and stability that is present in attitudes on domestic issues. Several recent studies have challenged this view, claiming that mass orientations toward foreign policy are coherent and rational but are structured differently than attitudes on other issues. Using data from the 1984 and 1988 American National Election Studies, I find that some members of the public evaluate foreign policy issues using the same ideological yardsticks as they do for domestic issues, while others exhibit less structured evaluations of both issue areas I conclude that arguments suggesting that foreign policy attitudes have a unique organizational structure are unnecessarily complex. A more parsimonious model provides a similar degree of explanatory power and accounts for foreign and domestic policy attitudes equally well.

In this study of preprimary gubernatorial endorsements by state parties, we find that the endorsee is less likely to be challenged in a primary if the endorsement is based on state law rather than party rules; though in both situations, the percentage of contested endorsees who win has been declining. Evidence from a number of 1994 endorsing conventions shows that the gubernatorial endorsee is more likely to win nomination if (a) the party endorses a politically strong candidate, (b) the endorsing convention is reasonably united and representative of party primary voters, and (c) the endorsee receives considerable tangible support as a result of being endorsed.

In this research, we seek to explain state-to-state variation in how harshly term limits treat incumbent state legislators. Harshness is measured by how quickly and how permanently state limits remove incumbents from the legislature. Overall, there is considerable support for the contention that political structure influences how harshly states treat their incumbents. Much of the variation in the harshness of term limits may reflect the idiosyncrasies of leaders or small groups in the various ad hoc organizations that have pushed for limits in the different states. However, the impact of at least one contextual variable is significant: Variation in turnover rate accounts for 33% of the variance in harshness. In comparing states that have adopted term limits, the lower the existing turnover rate in the legislature, the harsher the term limits they tend to adopt.

The Rehnquist Court is a conservative court. A number of scholars, however, have found a surprisingly stable level of support for liberal outcomes in civil liberties cases despite important changes in membership that should have made the Court even more conservative. We offer an explanation for this stability based on changes in the Court's context as measured by the direction of lower court decisions reviewed by the Supreme Court. The relative liberalism of the Rehnquist Court is explained by its reversals of conservative lower court decisions, reversals that have constituted a larger proportion of the Court's decisions in recent years. These findings present a more complex and accurate picture of the conservatism of the Rehnquist Court.