Dan Thomas

The Supreme Court and Policy Legitimation: Experimental Tests

This article examines the legitimacy-conferring potential of the U.S. Supreme Court. Legitimacy-conferring potential is conceptualized as the Courts ability, through mere endorsement of a particular policy, to elevate mass acceptance of that policy. The study reports the results of three experiments utilizing a split-ballot design where, in general, one group is given a version of an issue endorsed by the Supreme Court and a second group is given the same issue not endorsed by the Court. In two of the experiments a third attribution condition is used where an issue is endorsed by the Supreme Court as interpreter of the Constitution. Based on the analysis of 16 policy issues across three experiments, the Court does not appear to have the power to legitimate specific policies bearing its stamp of approval.

Deconstructing the Political Spectacle: Sex, Race, and Subjectivity in Public Response to the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill "Sexual Harassment" Hearings

Extending Edelmans (1988) analysis of the constructed, phenomenal nature of political spectacles, this research employs Q-methodology as a means of interrogating the range of meanings implicit in public reaction to televised hearings held by the U.S. Senate in connection with Anita Hills charges of sexual harassment against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. Results disclose a range of five alternative, subjective constructions of the same set of events. The accounts so revealed are examined in light of the diverse subjectivity they manifest as well as in terms of their ties to race and gender cleavages within the viewing audience. A concluding discussion makes note of the implications for the further analysis of politics as spectacle.

Are Quests for a “Culture of Assessment” Mired in a “Culture War” Over Assessment? A Q-Methodological Inquiry

The “Assessment Movement” in higher education has generated some of the most wide-ranging and heated discussions that the academy has experienced in a while. On the one hand, accrediting agencies, prospective and current clientele, and the public-at-large have a clear vested interest in ensuring that colleges and universities actually deliver on the student learning outcomes that they promise. Anything less would be tantamount to a failure of institutional accountability if not outright fraud. On the other hand, it is no secret that efforts to foster a “culture of assessment” among institutions of higher learning have frequently encountered resistance, particularly on the part of faculty unconvinced that the aspirations of the assessment movement are in fact achievable. One consequence of this tension is the emergence of an embryonic literature devoted to the study of processes that monitor, enhance, or deter the cultivation of a “culture of assessment” with sufficient buy-in among all institutional stakeholders, faculty included. Despite employment of a wide-ranging host of research methods in this literature, a significant number of large unresolved issues remain, making it difficult to determine just how close to a consensual, culture of assessment we have actually come. Because one critical lesson of extant research in this area is that “metrics matter,” we approach the subjective controversy over outcomes assessment through an application of Q methodology. Accordingly, we comb the vast “concourse” on assessment that has emerged among stakeholders recently to generate a 50 item Q sample representative of the diverse subjectivity at issue. Forty faculty and administrators from several different institutions completed the Q-sort which resulted in two strong factors: the Anti-Assessment Stalwarts and the Defenders of the Faith. Suggestions are offered regarding strategies for reconciling these “dueling narratives” on outcomes assessment.

Personality and Political Participation: Does Self-Ideal Discrepancy Make a Difference?

Rival accounts of the relation between personality adjustment, e.g., psychic fulfillment, self-actualizarion, and the like, and political participation are summarized, and the notion of self-ideal congruence introduced as an independent variable of relevance. The latter, as an aspect of self-actualization, was then investigated for its relationship to political participation. Findings from a sample of 85 college students did not conform to expectations derived from “actualization” theory but were not inconsistent with “compensation” perspectives, as no positive relationship was found between congruence and two measures of political participation.