David M. Hedge

Accounting for the Quality of Black Legislative Life: The View from the States

Theory: Differences in the experiences of and perceptions among African-American state legislators on the quality of black legislative life are the result of individual and contextual factors. Hypotheses: The quality of black legislative life will be greater among males, more senior members and those who serve in key leadership positions. Contextually, black perceptions of how blacks and black interests fare in state legislatures will be more positive among those who serve in legislatures in which African-Americans serve in greater proportions and where the balance between the two parties is more even. In addition, members who represent more affluent and white majority districts, serve outside the Deep South, and live in states with better race relations will report a higher quality of legislative life. Methods: Responses from a national survey of black state legislators conducted in 1991 are used to estimate the impact of individual and contextual variables on member perceptions of the quality of black legislative life. Results: The data support several of the hypotheses. More senior members, males, those who represent white majority and more affluent districts, those from outside the Deep South, and those who report better race relations are likely to view the black legislative experience more positively.

Regulatory Attitudes and Behavior: the Case of Surface Mining Regulation:

TREET-LEVEL bureaucrats enjoy considerable discretion and autonomy in carrying out their responsibilities. As a result, the actual content of public policies is frequently determined by the actions and decisions of those responsible for carrying out programs on a day-to-day basis (K. Davis 1969; Elmore 1978; Lipsky 1980; Sorg 1983; and C. Davis 1985). Against this backdrop of line discretion and responsibility, a number of scholars stress the importance of attitudes in shaping field-level behavior. In his classic study of the Forest Service, Kaufman (1967: 222-23), for example, goes so far as to maintain that,

The Principal-Agent Model and Regulatory Federalism

a principal-agent model can also guide analysis of federal-state relations. Chubb provides the most cogent statement of that thesis. According to that author, federalism can be viewed as a hierarchal system of control in which federal officials are able to obtain state compliance to national standards. Federal control is achieved in two stages. Initially, federal elected officials shape the decisions of federal bureaucrats, who, in turn, condition the decisions of subnational governments. Although the evidence (discussed below) is incomplete, a handful of studies (Chubb 1985; Scholz and Wei 1986; Crotty 1988) suggest that the

VOTING IN AN OPEN PRIMARY

Using data collected from state-wide surveys for the four most recent presidential primaries in Wisconsin, together with data from three other states for 1976 and 1980, this study examines (1) the preponderance of party-consistent, independent, and cross-over voting; (2) the percentages of votes given various candidates from these types of voters; and (3) the probable “winners” in the four Wisconsin primaries under different hypothetical participation rules.

Fiscal Dependency and the State Budget Process

The analysis reported here looks at the impact that dependency on federal aid has on the politics of the state budget process. With data obtained for 58 West Virginia state agencies, the findings indicate that dependent agencies are more assertive in seeking state funds, enjoy greater gubernatorial support for their requests, and are somewhat more likely to get what they want from the state legislature. Those findings, in turn, suggest an alternative explanation for the stimulative effects of federal aid and imply that Reagans New Federalism, like its predecessors, will alter the character of state budget politics.

The Effects of Alternative Grant Mechanisms on the Distribution of Federal Aid to the Cities

on a multiplicity of grant mechanisms to deliver grants-in-aid monies to state and local governments. Increasingly, federal officials are able to draw upon a variety of grant instruments and conditions to allocate federal funds to state and local recipients: General Revenue Sharing, block grants, formula and project categoricals, and variable matching grants. While considerable research effort has been expended examining the distributional effects of federal aid,’ and despite a growing concern with who wins (and loses) the competition for federal aid dollars. little systematic attention has been given to the effects that alternative kinds of aid programs and grant conditions have on who receives federal grant dollars and under what conditions. Yet, there are good reasons for believing that the means by which federal aid dollars are allocated to the states and local governments determine, in part, who wins the federal grant game. There is, for example, limited evidence that suggests that both General and special (block grants) revenue sharing have shifted

The research values of policy analysts

While there is growing consensus that conventional notions of the scientific method do not exhaust the methodological needs of policy analysis (at least applied analysis), there is less agreement as to what an improved method would entail. As a result, policy analysts must choose among often competing notions of what constitutes valid policy inquiry. Data from a content analysis of six policy journal articles together with responses from a survey of authors are used to determine what choices are made and whether these matter. Two sets of research norms are discovered within the policy studies community’one which mirrors traditional social science values and another which reflects recent attempts to adjust that methodology to meet the information needs of policy actors. Equally important, values tend, albeit slightly, to condition the character (e.g., degree of rigor or focus) of policy research.

Welfare Reform and Racial Policy Regimes in the American State

Scholars have known for decades that welfare in America entails a fair amount of racial bias. Recent research suggests that the welfare reforms in the 1990s with their emphasis on work and the granting of more authority to the states may well have made matters worse. Our analysis seeks to add to the larger understanding of how race and politics interact in the new system of welfare. Our findings suggest that race conditions not only the content but also the politics of welfare reform.