John E. Schwarz

TV Entertainment Programming and Sociopolitical Attitudes.

ters appeared in a traditional male role-a network journalist in the anchor position at the time of this research. She was not cast in a contrived circumstance and her j o b was, and is, tied to a reality function. Maude exercises control over her mousy husband. Mary Tyler Moore influenced the affairs of co-workers and friends in the office and at home. She may also have been perceived as in control of her own life-an apparently well-adjusted professional woman. Except for Mary Tyler Moore, the television women regarded by the girls as “in control” were not the same ones thought by them to be much like themselves or like their idealized television women. A Mary Tyler Moore phenomenon was evident in the findings of this research and may help explain the program’s longtime popularity.12 Mary Tyler Moore was never ranked less than third on any dimension in the research. She was perceived by thegirls as the “typical American female.” someone “like me.” someone I want to “be like,” someone I would want as a “friend.” and someone I would like to have as a “mother.” She was a character for all needs and perceptions. Her multidimensional appeal may have contributed to her sustained acceptance by a n enormous national audience. Her program was companionship oriented.” The data gathered here confirmed the claim that Mary Tyler Moore was the most realistic and identifiable “heroine of all women on the tube.”I4 However, the early cancellation of a 1978 network television program which featured her as a variety show hostess (“Mary”), suggests that her influence and appeal may be limited. Trends in commercial television programming change as quickly as genres of shows fade in and out of favor with their audiences. Individual actors and actresses also attain varying degrees of popularity, depending in part upon the roles they assume. This study has documented some of the ways in which adolescent girls perceive many well-known women who have starred on television during the past few years. The degree to which girls’ behavior is ultimately affected by their recognition Q u A R .r F: R 1. Y

Exploring a New Role in Policy Making: The British House of Commons in the 1970s

The British House of Commons is frequently used in comparative analysis as a model of the kind of legislative institution that ratifies and legitimizes public policy decisions taken by the government. It debates but rarely does it actually legislate. Examination of the House of Commons of the 1970s reveals a very different legislature, one that regularly overturns the government on significant policy matters. Furthermore, backbench members of the governments own parliamentary party frequently join coalitions to defeat the government in standing committee and on the floor. The research describes the development of the House of Commons as a decision-making unit in the 1970s, compares its record during the 1970s to the workings of the Commons over preceding decades, and examines various factors that help explain why the behavior of the House and its members changed so over the recent decade.

On Television Viewing and Citizens' Political Attitudes, Activity and Knowledge: Another Look at the Impact of Media on Politics

T HE NATURE of American society is such that most us lead relatively secluded lives. Housewives, machinists, doctors, and especially academicians personally experience very little of the mainstream of problems in society. Most of us have few direct experiences with political corruption, or trade deficits, or corporate tax laws. Yet, as citizens who occasionally vote, or participate in some other ways in the body politic, we usually develop a broad range of attitudes about social and political life; we also develop images however hazy of political figures who cross through the political system, without ever having personally met any of those individuals.

In search of economic well-being: Worker power and the effects of productivity, inflation, unemployment and global trade on wages in ten wealthy countries

Theory: The theory addresses the forces that determine the real wages which workers receive. It is proposed that in the free market system, worker power plays a crucial mediating role between economic considerations involving labor supply and productivity, and the real wages available to workers in the economy. Hypotheses: In moderate and weak worker power countries, real wages will vary inversely with the labor supply in terms of domestic unemployment and international trade. In strong worker power countries, real wages will vary with changes in productivity and inflation. Methods: Separate regression analyses are developed for 10 countries varying in their level of worker power, over a 30 year time frame. Results: In moderate and weak worker power countries, changes in real wages were best predicted by levels of unemployment and changes in global trading. In strong worker power countries, changes in real wages were best predicted by changes in productivity and inflation, although in one case of a strong worker power country, a significant positive association occurred between global trading and real wages.

The Great society and its legacy : twenty years of U.S. social policy

A uniquely balanced look at the Great Society and its aftermath, this work describes and evaluates Americas key social policy initiatives from Presidents Johnson to Reagan.

Dimensions of Political Integration and the Experience of the European Community

One of the most successful experiments in voluntary international integration since 1945 has taken place in Westem Europe among the six member states of the European Community. Although full political federation, the ambition of the early 1950s, has not been achieved, a number of outstanding advances toward the integration of the member states have been made during the past twenty years. A number of others, especially in the integration of fiscal and monetary policies, appear to be relatively close at hand. The excitement of the European experiment along with the onset of integration experiments in many other regions of the world has prompted the development of a rich body of literature on the subject of interstate integration in the international system. In an attempt to uncover determinants of integration, analysis has gone through several phases. It has increasingly and belatedly come to focus on the concept of integration itself. One of the central questions raised by recent research is whether integration is a unidimensional phenomenon or whether it consists instead of several empirically distinct

The Impact of Constituency on the Behavior of British Conservative MPs: An Analysis of the Formative Stages of Issue Development

n an effort to understand better how members of Congress behave, a I considerable amount of research 1ias.been devoted to the association between congressional behavior and the interests of the districts congressmen represent. The findings have, for the most part, supported the proposition that voting patterns in Congress are related t o various constituency characteristics such as urbanism, the percentage of blue-collar workers, the percentage of farmers, and income. Studies making use of characteristics such as these relate the characteristics either to general voting patterns of the members or to voting patterns on specific issue areas (Froman, 1963; hlayhew, 1966; Jackson, 1967; and Shannon, 1968 are examples). The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between constituency and the behavior of British Conservative hlPs. I will focus on two issues in an attempt to determine whcther the behavior of the Conservative hlP on these issues ‘was related to certain characteristics of the hlcmber’s constituency. Two types of constituency factors will be investigated: factors indicative of the electoral vulnerability of the MP in lus constituency and factors indicative of the level of constituency policy interest on each issue.