John S. Jackson

HERBERT McCLOSKY AND FRIENDS REVISITED 1980 Democratic and Republican Party Elites Compared to the Mass Public

McCloskys classic study of party leaders and followers is replicated and extended using 1980 data on party elites, party followers, and the mass public. Dramatic interparty differences emerge in terms of liberalism-conservatism and views on public policy issues. As in the McClosky study, party elites tend to take relatively extreme issue positions, while the mass public continues to occupy a centrist position.

Citizen Participation, Democratic Representation, and Survey Research

There are two basic objectives of this article. The first is to demonstrate how survey research can be used as a form of citizen participation. Specifically, the authors will report a survey research application as a part of the &dquo;Goals for Carbondale&dquo; program which was conducted last year in Carbondale by the Citizens Advisory Committee, that city’s officially designated CP unit. Carbondale is a small city of some 30,000 located in the extreme southern portion of the state. The chief industry of the city is Southern Illinois University which is a large, diversified state school of approximately 20,000 students. The size of the university compared to the city and the unique mixture of urban and rural, university and townspeople, and

Alienation and Black Political Participation

* The author would like to express his appreciation to the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and the National Science Foundation for support of the larger research project on which this article is based. Of course neither institution bears any responsibility for the views expressed in this paper. My appreciation also goes to Dr. Benjamin Walter of Vanderbilt University whose advice greatly enhanced the quality of this study. Finally I would like to acknowledge the crucial role played by Dr. Tandy Tollerson of Fisk University. Without his help the study could not have been done. This article is a revised version of a paper originally delivered at the 1971 annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago.

A Comparison of Party Elites

T his study of two groups of political elites that recently . performed important: representational functions in the Democratic party has three objectives: first, to provide descriptive data en some impbrtant personal characteristics, political preferences, and party policy preferences of the members of the Sanford Commission which ’drafted the national Charter of the Democratic party ?and -of the delegates to the Democratic Mid-Term Conference ,meeting in Kansas Gfy which ratified thati charter’; second, to provide an explicit comparison of these two important party elite groups on the dimensions described above, and to explain the theoretical implications of these comparisons. This is a kind of intraparty elite comparison that has rarely been attempted before, partially because the occasion of writing a national party Charter has never existed before. While the occasion was unique, we suspect these two groups are representative of other groups of party elites, a proposition that can be partially tested by our third objective

The Simon Poll: Spring 2014 [Illinois Statewide]

The mission of the non-partisan Paul Simon Public Policy Institute polling is to provide citizens, policy-makers, and academic researchers with objective information about trends and issues facing society. The 2014 Simon Poll interviewed 1,001 registered voters across Illinois. The margin of error is 3 percent at the 95 percent confidence level for the entire sample. Areas covered by the poll are: Illinois 2014 primary election, Illinois governor head-to-head matchups, Illinois budget, Illinois political reform, political corruption, guns and society, news sources, health care, abortion and gay marriage. Demographic information is also included, covering age, race, gender, income, political party affiliation, employment, household income, and religious activities. Respondents’ ZIP Codes are included.

The Southern Illinois Poll: Fall 2013

The mission of the non-partisan Paul Simon Public Policy Institute polling is to provide citizens, policy-makers, and academic researchers with objective information about trends and issues facing society. The 2013 Southern Illinois Poll interviewed 403 registered voters in 18 southern Illinois counties. The sample of voters came from the Southern Illinois counties of Alexander, Franklin, Gallatin, Hamilton, Hardin, Jackson, Jefferson, Johnson, Massac, Perry, Pope, Pulaski, Randolph, Saline, Union, Washington, White, and Williamson. For the entire sample, the statistical margin for error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level. Areas covered by the poll are: general outlook, Illinois 2014 primary election, Illinois political reform, Illinois budget, feelings toward industries and occupational groups, hydraulic fracturing, personal financial situation, abortion and marriage equality. The data includes a series of questions regarding higher education in Illinois, its funding, the priority it should be given, and opportunities for individuals to seek higher education. Demographic information is also included, covering age, race, gender, income, political party affiliation, political ideology, employment, household income, and religious activities. ZIP codes and county of residence are included.

Some Correlates of Minority Representation in the National Conventions, 1964-1972:

he major objective of this paper is to offer some possible Texplanations for the different levels of minority representation in state delegations to the last three national party conventions. American presidential campaigns provide high drama of a supersaturated intensity, and one of the focal points of that drama is the national convention. Indeed, this quadrennial exercise is one of the few reaffirmations that the national parties even exist at all. In spite of all the attention and commentary lavished on the conventions by the media, the polls and even the public, it is surprising how little noted and incompletely analyzed some of the most significant and far-reaching events of the conventions remain. (The landmark political science study of national conventions and the delegates is David et al., 1960; see also Soule and Clarke, 1970, 1971; McKeough and Bibby, 1968; McClosky et al., 1960; Munger and Blackhurst, 1965.) One such story that has waxed and waned every four years since 1964 is the account of conflict and changes within the