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Commentary on Prothro's Content Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Howard B. White
Howard B. White
Affiliation:
New School for Social Research
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Extract

James W. Prothro's hypothesis is that, while there has been a resurgence of “conservatism” in American political theory and practice, the actual intervention of the New Deal between the conservative government of Hoover and the conservative government of Eisenhower makes the complete rejection of New Deal appeals by a conservative administration difficult, if not impossible. There can be little quarrel with that thesis itself. Once given the assumptions that “conservatism” is an adequate frame of reference, that Hoover and Eisenhower may in some understandable way be classed as “conservatives,” and that, since the administration did in fact reluctantly accept certain New Deal symbols, they were necessarily obliged to do so, there is some question as to whether the thesis is not obvious. Prothro, however, gives serious reasons for buttressing “impressions” with precision, and presents a careful content analysis which strengthens his argument and should serve to enhance our understanding of current political trends.

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Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , September 1956, pp. 740 - 750
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1956

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References

1 New York Times, August 3, 1956, p. 7Google Scholar.

2 Kirk, Russell, The Conservative Mind (Chicago, 1953); pp. 9–10, 54 ff.Google Scholar; Rossiter, Clinton, Conservatism in America (New York, 1956), pp. 50–51, 166–68Google Scholar, and passim; Rossiter, , “Toward an American Conservatism” in 44 Yale Review (Spring 1955), especially p. 362Google Scholar, in which the “bold conservative thinker” must try “describing the process through which plutocracy may become aristocracy.” Rossiter understands that that is no easy task.

3 Conservatism in America, p. 50; Lubell: Revolt of the Moderates (New York 1956), pp. 3–4Google Scholar.

4 Op. cit. 52.

5 Rossiter, op. cit., pp. 10, 16; Yale Review, loc. cit., pp. 356–7; Kirk, op. cit., pp. 3 ff., 423; Viereck, Peter, Conservatism Revisited (New York 1949)Google Scholar, also stresses the modern historical period, while paying tribute to pre-modern roots.

6 Rossiter, op. cit., pp. 20, 231; Kirk, op. cit., opening; cf. Viereck, op. cit., p. 6, where he speaks of the “nostalgia for the permanent beneath the flux.” Nostalgia is not search. Note also Reston's article cited above.

7 On the importance of Burke see Kirk, passim, esp. Ch. 2; Viereck, 83 ff.; Rossiter, pp. 16, 44; when Kirk speaks of the aristocracy “inextricably interwoven with the fabric of every civilized society,” he refers (p. 55) to Burke, who describes a “class of legitimate presumptions, which, taken as generalities, must be admitted as actual truths.” Appeal, Works (Boston 1866), Vol. IV, pp. 174–5Google Scholar. In Aristotle, the very comparison of aristocracy and oligarchy would suggest the contrary.

8 Viereck, op. cit., p. 26; Kirk, op. cit., p. 7; also Kirk, , Academic Freedom (Chicago 1955), pp. 30–1Google Scholar; Wilson, Francis Graham, The Case for Conservatism (Seattle, 1951), pp. 61–2Google Scholar.

9 Rossiter, op. cit., p. 44; Kirk, , Academic Freedom, p. 31Google Scholar.

10 Road to the Right (1954), p. 6Google Scholar.

11 Wilson, op. cit., p. 25; Kirk, op. cit., pp. 428 ff.; Rossiter, Yale Review, loc. cit., p. 356; Harrison, op. cit., p. 314, etc.

12 Civil Disobedience, in Works, Canby, ed. (Boston, 1937), pp. 789–90Google Scholar.

13 Op. cit., p. 45.

14 Berelson, Bernard, Content Analysis in Communication Research (Glencoe, Illinois, 1952), p. 18Google Scholar.

15 Speech on War with Mexico, January 12, 1848, opening paragraph.

16 Persecution and the Art of Writing (Glencoe, Illinois, 1952)Google Scholar, particularly Essay 2, of same title.

17 Op. cit., p. 423.

18 Federalist, No. 49.

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