Donald D. Searing

The Deliberative Potential of Political Discussion

What is the deliberative potential of everyday political discussion? We address this question using survey data and qualitative data collected in six communities in the United States and Britain. Our findings suggest that political discussion is infrequently public, modestly contested and sometimes marred by inequality. But the factors inhibiting more deliberative discussions – structural, cultural and motivational in nature – should be amenable to some change, particularly through education.

The Structuring Principle: Political Socialization and Belief Systems.

This paper assesses the theoretical significance of data on childhood political learning. Two socialization models are involved. Each confers relevance on childhood learning by linking it with political outcomes. The first is an allocative politics model, which seeks a linkage with policy outputs. The other is a system persistence model, looking toward the stability and continued existence of political systems. Each model incorporates the following assumptions: (a) the primacy principle: childhood learning is relatively enduring throughout life; (b) the structuring principle: basic orientations acquired during childhood structure the later learning of specific issue beliefs. It is this structuring principle which we examined and tested in the present paper. The data show no or little association between childhood orientations and the later learning of specific beliefs about the most important political issues of the day. Our evidence suggests a need to carefully reexamine the basic assumptions and directions of current political socialization research.

The Primacy Principle: Attitude Change and Political Socialization

The ‘primacy principle’ comprises three assumptions about political orientations. The first is that they are learned during childhood. The second is that this childhood learning further shapes any subsequent modifications of them. The third is that the scale of any such subsequent modifications is small: fundamental political orientations tend to endure through life. We propose, using cohort analysis, to examine the extent to which three political orientations – party identification, political efficacy and political trust – do, as a matter of fact, endure through adulthood.

The Elusive Ideal of Equal Citizenship: Political Theory and Political Psychology in the United States and Great Britain

It is a fundamental ideal of liberal democracy that all citizens should enjoy fully equal citizenship. Yet many minorities are still routinely ignored, excluded, patronized, and not regarded as full members of the political community. This denial of equal standing undermines their equal citizenship. Liberalism and Cultural Pluralism each advocate strategies to improve this situation. Their arguments build upon expectations about how citizens should, can, and do understand membership in the political community. Our survey and focus group data from six matched communities in the United States and Great Britain show how citizens’ understandings of membership in the political community incorporate communitarian attitudes that impede the liberal and cultural pluralist projects.

Ideological Change in the British Conservative Party

We address both a puzzle and a theory. The puzzle is posed by the emergence of “Thatcherism,†an un-Conservative ideology that has appeared in an antiideological British Conservative party. We address this puzzle by determining what Thatcherism is and by showing that although it represents a minority viewpoint, it does indeed fit into previous Conservative thinking. The theory in question is the spatial theory of ideological change, which, we argue, is impugned by the circumstances of Thatcherisms construction. We address this theory by investigating potential constituencies at the time of Thatcherisms creation and by examining evidence about the intentions of those who created it. Finally, we seek both to draw out the implications of Mrs. Thatchers campaign to convert the voters to her views and to explain why the same spatial theory that Thatcherism confounds seem confirmed by equally striking cases in postwar British politics.

Public Discussion in the Deliberative System: Does It Make Better Citizens?

In democratic theory, the practice of discussing public affairs has been associated with desirable consequences for citizenship and democracy. We use Anglo-American survey data to examine twelve hypotheses about psychological foundations for four general conditions that such discussions might promote: autonomous citizens, political legitimacy, good representation and democratic communities. Our data combine detailed measures of public discussion with measures of more of its hypothesized civic consequences than have heretofore been available. They also enable us to probe, using specialized samples, causal inferences suggested by our analyses of random samples in our British and American communities. Six of the hypotheses are supported, including at least one regarding each of the four general liberal democratic conditions we investigate.

Rules of the Game in Britain: Can the Politicians Be Trusted?

Politicians do not endorse rules of the game as reliably as is implied by traditional constitutional commentaries or by modern democratic theory. Interviews with Members of Parliament and candidates demonstrate that their views are deeply and systematically divided between alternative constitutional interpretations constructed upon foundations of party-political bias. Thus, attitudes towards nearly all rules of the game are powerfully shaped by political values such as authority and equality, values that differentiate views within as well as between the Conservative and labour parties. Similarly, patterns of support seem much affected by a disposition to boost norms that aid ones own party, depending on whether it is in Government or Opposition, and to downgrade norms that might aid political opponents. The article considers implications of these results for the viability of Britain s unwritten Constitution and for theories about the foundations of representative government.

Models and Images of Man and Society in Leadership Theory

LEADERSHIP THEORY construction has been confounded by two often dogmatic controversies. One is the great man-social forces dispute in individual leadership studies. The other is the pluralist-stratification debate in elite research.1 The controversy has to some extent followed disciplinary lines, though it would be incorrect to characterize the disputants as neatly divided as all that, since disagreements continue within disciplines as well as among them.2 This paper attempts to clarify discussion by explicating the following points. First, both controversies involve the same two alternative images of man and society, mechanistic and organismic. Secondly, current empirical research has frequently gone beyond

Westminster's World: Understanding Political Roles.

Introduction - roles, rules, and rationality. Part 1 Backbench roles: policy advocates - checking the executive ministerial aspirants - anticipatory socialization constituency members - redress of grievances parliament men - a window to the past. Part 2 Leadership roles: parliamentary private secretaries - fagging at 40 whips - managing members ministers - leadership in Westminster and Whitehall ministerial role strains and role choices conclusion - institutional structure and individual choice in perspective. Appendices: interviewing members of parliament coding preference roles.