Temple University Press Journals
Not a member yet
549 research outputs found
Sort by
Before the Constitution: Interest Groups from 1763-1789
Get PDFThe movement for American independence from Great Britain was closely associated with interest group activity, and cannot wholly be understood without reference to the phenomenon. This association is documented with reference to a consistent definition of "interest group." Lesser known is the role that interest groups played in the movement to adopt a new constitution. Still, this paper argues, the growth of interest group activity during this era seemingly would have happened, although perhaps to a lesser extent, even without these movements
Explaining Implementation Politics: The Case of Pennsylvania\u27s Seasonal Farm Labor Act
Get PDFAn implementation politics model is proposed to explain how the extent and direction of policy implementation is determined by the impact of politics and the changing political and economic environments on implementation activities. The model is used to analyze the delay in implementation of the 1978 Pennsylvania Seasonal Farm Labor Act. The primary methodology employed in the research is the interviewing of key participants in the implementation of this law. The model suggests why policy implementation does not unfold in neat progressive stages but instead moves forward and backward according to some dis-cernible patterns based on the opportunities and constraints presented by the changing political and economic environments
Re-thinking Ideological Diversity in Group Theory: Implications of Clinton\u27s Middle East Policy
Get PDFIn addition to clarifying points of unity within political groups, group theory must incorporate an analysis of ideological diversity within political groups and policy domains. Group theorists can begin to do so by attending to groups as dynamic players in a developing political process. Assumptions that differing groups will compete and thereby weaken public positioning must also by challenged. This article uses a case study of American pro-Israel politics to explore the expanded theory
Dynamic Patronage Coalitions: A State-Society Framework for Interpreting African Politics
Get PDFThis study suggests that the framework of dynamic patronage coalitions, based on Roker\u27s coalition theory and the workings of patron-client networks, ran fruitfully be utilized in analyzing African politics, particularly in light of the increasing prevalence of state-society approaches and the need for a comparative referent. The dynamic of coalition narrowing helps explain the frequency of coups, secession attempts, and exile invasions in the first decade or so after 1960, while coalition retraction accounts for the disengagement of portions of the citizenry from the channels of state in more recent years. The current sociopolitical turmoil affecting many African states indicates that coalitions stemming from an anti-incumbent class identity may successfully challenge stagnating coalitions of long-entrenched patrons
Recent Developments in Interest Group Activity in the Northeastern States: A Comparative Perspective
Get PDFThis article uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze the contemporary interest group systems of eleven Northeastern states and compares these with the interest group systems in the fifty states as a whole. It is found that recent changes in the socio-economic and political life of the Northeast have affected surface aspects of the region\u27s interest group systems, such as the range of groups represented and the styles of representation, and has extended power to some new interests to an extent greater than in any other region of the nation. However, recent changes have not altered the fundamental dominance of the policy process by traditional economic and institutional interests which enjoy a marked advantage in the possession of the resources necessary for political influence. The findings from the research also call into question existing theories of an inverse relalionship between group power and (1) socio-economic development, (2) government professionalism, and (3) political party power in the Northeast and the states as a whole
Evolution of Participation in International Organization: The United States Experience
Get PDFThe misapprehension that, because of its isolationist tradition and rejection of the League of Nations, the United States eschewed the joining of multipartite public international organizations prior to World War II is controverted by historical evidence. Except for noninvolvement in Europe\u27s alliances prior to the 1940s, infact, the United States has participated enthusiastically in multilateral as well as bilateral international agencies in which it has a vital interest or which it regards as beneficial in implementing its foreign relations
Costa Rican Democracy: Pluralism and Class Rule
Get PDFThe article argues that the emergence and maintenance of Costa Rican democracy cannot be attributed to unique economic or social circumstances, but rather to identifiable elite actions that changed the character of political life. The argument is supported by a review of recent political history and an analysis of the functioning of the contemporary political system. This runs counter to a very common argument that attributes Costa Rica\u27s unique democracy to the relative equality of wealth and status that has characterized the country since colonial times. A second persuasion emphasizes the virtual powerlessness of the mass of the population, but sees the maintenance of democracy as an outgrowth of a pluralistic dispersion of power and divergence of interests among the powerful minority. A third viewpoint, essentially the opposite of the first, sees the democratic regime as a continuation of patterns of class domination with deep historical roots. This article stands between the second and third schools of thoughts, attributing the democratic regime to explicit accommodations of interests among rival elites, while emphasizing the persistence of class domination in Costa Rican politics
Thomas Aquinas and the Overlapping Consensus
Get PDFJohn Rawls claims that the belief that there is but one reasonable and rational conception of "the good" is incompatible with political liberalism. A close examination of the thought of Thomas Aquinas, however, reveals that commitment to a particular conception of "the good" need not imply a rejection of liberalism. In fact, Aquinas\u27 notion of political virtue anticipates Rawls\u27 overlapping consensus. In addition, a thorough exploration of Aquinas\u27 work indicates that, for the most part, he accepts the underlying assumptions that William Galston finds at the core of political liberalism
Censorship of the Internet: The First Amendment Lost in Cyberspace
Get PDFComputer technology is changing faster than the laws governing it, raising the question of whether laws formuluted to address conflicts arising in the "real world" are applicable to conflicts in "cyberspace." This question is particularly relevant to the debate over sexually explicit material on the Internet. This article argues that because the Supreme Court\u27s current approach to the obscenity is not transferable to cyberspace, a different legal framework is necessary for dealing with "cybersmut.