Roger Handberg

Public Support for the Supreme Court in the 1970s

In the 1960s, Murphy and Tanenhaus examined the linkages between public opinion and the U.S. Supreme Court. This article represents a new look at that question within the context of the 1970s, using national survey data. Four clusters of explanations are developed, based upon the previous literature, and tested, using trust in the Court as the dependent vanable. The two most important explanatory variables found are race and education, but race is declining as an explanation for variations in support for the Court.

Decision-Making in a Natural Court, 1916-1921

Beginning with C. Herman Pritchett’s The Roosevelt Court, there has developed an extensive literature analyzing ideological divisions on the U.S. Supreme Court. This literature has, for current policy reasons, focused upon the Court since the 1937 crisis. Building upon Pritchett’s (1969) initial bloc analysis, others have gone on to formulate more elaborate psychometric models of Supreme Court decision-making (Schubert, 1965; Spaeth, 1963; Spaeth and Peterson, 1971 ). In terms of the dimension of time, Pritchett’s analysis from its termination in 1947 has been extended until 1974 (Johnston, 1974). This paper attempts to extend the analysis of judicial ideologies into the past, with one purpose being an articulation of this research with that of Pritchett and Schubert in order to produce continuity of analysis over time. Although obvious gaps and distortions exist because of the differences with which the various research projects were initiated, this approach provides a base line for further analysis.

Women state legislators and the ERA: Dimensions of support and opposition

Abstract Attitudes of women state legislators toward ERA are explored in terms of social, institutional‐political and cultural correlates. Data base is a mail survey of the 688 women serving in state legislatures in 1977. As a group, women state legislators were heavily in support of ERA. Opposition to ERA is significantly higher among female legislators with lower education, less legislative seniority, who are Republican, from states with legislative party leadership opposed to ERA, in states which elect relatively large percentages of women legislators, and who are from states with moralistic as opposed to traditionalisme political cultures. Group size, psychological and political security, and personal experience of sex discrimination are suggested as explanations.

The myth of presidential attention to space policy

Abstract The president, many believe, is the prime force behind the civilian space program. Such beliefs or political mythologies often constitute a potent force that sustain agencies. For NASA, this myth began during the Kennedy Administration when the president committed the nation to placing a man on the moon by the end of the decade. The authors argue that recapturing that magical moment has been the implicit goal of NASA until only recently and discuss why space programs must become not only economically viable, but also linked with general public in meaningful ways.

The fluidity of presidential policy choice: the space station, the Russian card, and U.S. foreign policy

Abstract This paper examines the general executive policy processes that were in place in 1984. These processes, through which the original space station budget proposal was approved, became so uncontrolled that a severe and publicly embarrassing retrenchment became necessary in 1993 to enable the program to survive for another year. The focus here is on how presidential leadership is exercised in the science and technology policy arena which is normally viewed as peripheral to the presidents major policy interests. The survival of the current International Space Station now depends upon it remaining central to the presidents foreign policy agenda—which prompts recollections of earlier Apollo Program experiences.

The tortoise and the tortoise: The new race for space

Abstract Until now space activity has been driven by international political competition. But recent events in Eastern Europe have undercut the political incentives for expanded space activity, and meanwhile fiscal constraints, arising for different reasons in the USA, Europe and the USSR, are putting unprecedented pressure on space budgets. In the long term, however, it is likely that a new kind of competition fuelled by economic motives will provide the basis for a more determined and perhaps more stable opening of the space frontier. Dropping out of the space race for short-term reasons could be a costly and irrevocable decision.

Presidential Affect and Chauvinism Among Children

The expression of positive feelings toward the president by children has been challenged as possibly being a methodological artifact. This research attempts to separate expression of presidential affect from expressions of chauvinism. With data from 759 sixth grade students. we offer additional evidence of chauvinism among children which may be the source of the presidential affect reported by earlier researchers.

Rationales of the Space Program

For the believer in outer space as the next human frontier, the “why space” question, the rationale for exploring space, is self-contradictory. The very existence of space as an unexplored and, until recently, an inaccessible physical location justifies the cause for exploring space. One view holds that humans, being curious and adventurous as a species, naturally reach out to explore, exploit, and utilize new and unknown frontiers. Another view is that exploration is not necessarily natural to the human experience. Space as an object of interest fascinates the public; however, the public when asked to choose between expanding the United States (US) national space exploration effort and doing other socially relevant tasks, most citizens consistently choose the latter category. Space has remained ancillary US public policy for most of its history. This reality means that continued pursuit of a viable US civil space program must incorporate a number of goals and rationales. What has occurred historically is that the US, usually through NASA, has expounded a rationale for the exploration of space within which are nested several diverse and complementary facets. Those various facets rise and fall in importance and intensity with which they are pursued across the decades as US space policy responds to dramatic changes in the international and domestic political climates. This chapter sketches out that evolutionary path, focusing upon the past and present as a prelude to the future. Individuals often disagree as to the relative weight that should be assigned each facet at a particular time. The public disagreements usually reflect differences not in desired goals but in the intensity with which each are being pursued. For example, disputes have arisen over the relative importance assigned human spaceflight in comparison to space science undertaken by robotic probes. One must also acknowledge that there also exist those whose viewpoints reflect continual rejection of any significant governmental civil space program. Given the increasing ubiquity of space applications directly applicable to daily life, such a perspective might be more supportable today as

Dancing with the elephants: Canadian space policy in constant transition

Abstract Canadian space policy has long been a struggle for a middle sized economic and technological power to continue operating at the cutting edge of space activities, a field dominated by the superpowers at first. This paper provides a broad perspective within which to evaluate both Canada’s past and present space successes and the problems confronting it in the future. The elephants in the past were other public actors both at the national and international level but now have expanded to include private sector actors such as multinational corporations which are more of a threat to the independence of Canadian comparative space activities than the traditional entities such as NASA which was almost smothering in its approach to cooperative activities.

Judicialization across societies: the spread of judicial power and societal change

A win-win situation may be arising in a diversity of societies due to unprecedented changes in their judicial institutions. Such an anticipated result occurs because their previously comparatively politically passive judiciaries are becoming more assertive. The long term consequences are still tentative but present some intriguing possibilities. This paper basically discusses the judicialization process generally, some explanations for its occurrence in particular states, the effects of modern communications technologies, and finally some speculations as to outcomes and how that can lead to an aggregate win-win policy outcome.