Donald R. Matthews

The Folkways of the United States Senate: Conformity to Group Norms and Legislative Effectiveness.

The Senate of the United States, we are told, is a “club.” The image, while hopelessly imprecise and occasionally quite misleading, does have at least one advantage: it underscores the fact that there are unwritten but generally accepted and informally enforced norms of conduct in the chamber. These folkways influence the behavior of senators to a degree and in directions not yet fully understood. “There is great pressure for conformity in the Senate,” one member (mercifully varying the simile) has recently said. “Its just like living in a small town.” And, as in small-town life, so too in the Senate there are occasional careers to be made out of deliberate nonconformity, sometimes only skin-deep, but sometimes quite thorough-going.

Perspectives on Presidential Selection.

We may not be able to make you love reading, but perspectives on presidential selection will lead you to love reading starting from now. Book is the window to open the new world. The world that you want is in the better stage and level. World will always guide you to even the prestige stage of the life. You know, this is some of how reading will give you the kindness. In this case, more books you read more knowledge you know, but it can mean also the bore is full.

United States Senators and the Class Structure

American politics has popularly been influenced by the traditional logcabin-to-White-House ideal. The study reported here, however, shows the effect of social class on the recruitment of American Senators and suggests that our societys class system may have as much to do with the nature of our political leaders as do our formal political institutions. The author is an Associate Professor of Politics at

Research, Participation, and the Teaching of Politics

The director of the Political Studies Program at the University of North Carolina discusses the programs outstanding features. Both graduate and under-graduate courses in American government and politics have accompanying laboratory sessions that permit student observation and participation in politics in a research-oriented situation. Begun in 1957, the program has already had excellent results. The following article discusses another aspect of social science research at North Carolina.