Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-kwt9d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-14T18:27:47.739Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Notes from the Editors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2009

Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This issue's articles address two large and related themes in political science: (a) mutual accountability between leaders and followers and (b) constraints on political actions and decisions.

Information

Type
From the Editor: In This Issue
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 103 , Issue 3 , August 2009, pp. iii - viii
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2009

IN THIS ISSUE

This issue's articles address two large and related themes in political science: (a) mutual accountability between leaders and followers and (b) constraints on political actions and decisions.

Political scientists typically focus on electoral accountability between politicians and voters. In our lead article, however, “Religious Competition and Ethnic Mobilization in Latin America: Why the Catholic Church Promotes Indigenous Movements in Mexico,” Guillermo Trejo looks instead at how religious leaders respond to changes among their following. Roman Catholic clergy in Mexico, their previous religious monopoly vigorously challenged by mainline Protestant evangelism, answered with a new “market strategy,” namely secular advocacy of indigenous movements and ethnic identities. Trejo advances both quantitative and qualitative evidence to show that it was Protestant competition, and not the new doctrines of Vatican II, that moved Latin American Catholicism in this direction.

Competition, this time in politics, plays a similarly important role in “Campaign Communications in U.S. Congressional Elections,” by James N. Druckman, Martin Kifer, and Michael Parkin. Examining new data taken directly from the Web sites of congressional campaigns over three election cycles and controlling for other factors, they find that, as races become more competitive, challengers more often engage in “risky” tactics (e.g., “going negative”), whereas incumbents play it safe by avoiding issues and talking up their achievements in office. Challengers, moreover, are likelier at all levels of competition to encourage interaction with voters. Like Trejo, Druckman et al. supplement their quantitative work with such qualitative evidence as interviews with campaigns' Web designers.

Looking at how (or even whether) politicians respond to citizens in “Gay Rights in the States: Public Opinion and Policy Responsiveness,” Jeffrey R. Lax and Justin H. Phillips ask whether state-level public policy in the United States responds to, lags behind, or gets out ahead of public opinion on the rights of gays and lesbians (e.g., non-discrimination laws and civil unions). Using a novel approach to estimate state-level public opinion from large national surveys and controlling for other relevant factors, they find a high degree of responsiveness to shifts in public opinion but less congruence between policy and levels of public sentiment, with policy often remaining more conservative, and almost never more liberal, than what voters support. Perhaps most surprisingly, standard measures of variation in state-level institutions (most notably, the extent of direct democracy) seem not to affect either responsiveness or congruence.

One domain in which politicians may properly calibrate policy to citizen preferences is that of spending on natural disasters, but the result nonetheless leaves much to be desired. According to Andrew J. Healy and Neil Malhotra in “Myopic Voters and Natural Disaster Policy,” voters reward incumbent presidents (or their party) for disaster relief but not for disaster preparedness (or—think Hurricane Katrina—lack thereof). Presidents have gotten the message, cutting federal spending on preparedness to the bare bones and boosting spending on relief to record levels. This finding seems a peculiarly perverse instance of voter myopia, since by the authors' calculation of net present value, a dollar of prevention is worth at least ten dollars of cure. It also raises larger questions about whether responsiveness to voter preferences, as expressed in elections, is a wholly good thing (to which we return below).

So politicians respond, if sometimes in ways we wish they wouldn't, to voters; but citizens, as we see in our next article, also respond to politicians. In particular, they adjust their economic expectations and behavior according to whether their preferred party is in power. The idea, considered almost heretical when it was first advanced, is by now supported by much survey evidence. Respondents, for example, regularly claim to feel better about the economy when their own party holds the Presidency. But are such responses only “cheap talk,” or do they affect voters' real economic behavior? In “Partisanship and Economic Behavior: Do Partisan Differences in Economic Forecasts Predict Real Economic Behavior?”, Alan S. Gerber and Gregory A. Huber provide the first solid evidence that U.S. voters actually do put their money where their partisanship is. Examining county-level sales tax data, they find that, in the months immediately after a Presidential election, consumption rises significantly in counties that share the new President's partisanship. This effect sets in before the new President takes office (i.e., before new policies can have any effect), affects consumption strongly, and endures (i.e., does not quickly recede to previous levels). To the extent that this finding is sustained and refined by subsequent research, it will better explain some things we already know (e.g., why markets respond to elections) and set new research agendas (e.g., are voters really as deeply partisan as these new findings suggest?).

How then can citizens, or leaders, become more responsible in their responsiveness? Here our second large theme emerges—namely, how citizens can constrain themselves or their leaders. Perhaps the most challenging of such problems is that of intergenerational distribution and justice, for if citizens cannot attend adequately to their own future welfare, how can they duly regard that of future generations? The problem, on reflection, is yet harder: Even as our own generation helps or hinders the following ones, so are we fettered or freed by our ancestors' choices. Modern democratic theorists such as Rawls and Habermas have explored (or, in Rawls's case, only adumbrated) the problem of democratic citizens' accountability to past and future generations but not resolved it. In “Birthrights: Freedom, Responsibility, and Democratic Comportment in Aeschylus' Oresteia,” Elizabeth Markovits finds a deeper examination, with strong implications for the present, in Aeschylus' tragedies. In newly democratic Athens, Markovits argues, where tragic drama was a civic institution that addressed a broad public, the trilogy invited popular reflection on powerful issues of intergenerational guilt, freedom, and responsibility. By exemplifying modes of democratic comportment worthy of praise and blame, Aeschylus' plays intimate how democratic justice might resolve (or absolve) inherited conflicts, how democratic deliberation might leave future generations with the possibility of their own democratic choice. Perhaps more profoundly, Markovits suggests, the Oresteia addresses us, no less than the Athenians, by modeling the inescapable tensions and sometimes impossible choices that past and future alike impose on every present generation.

The Athenians understood, probably better than we do, that democratic accountability presupposes as one kind of constraint the education and formation of democratic citizens. America's founders also saw this and sought ways to inculcate and preserve a “love of liberty” and its requisite virtues.Footnote 1 Not least among these ways of forming and maintaining a republican sensibility, the founder James Wilson contended, was the American innovation of a written constitution. In “The Language of Liberty and Law: James Wilson on America's Written Constitution,” James R. Zink finds in Wilson's unduly neglected political thought a powerful argument about how a written constitution, if regularly taught and reflected upon, could uplift and refine the character of a nation's citizens, indeed itself help to constitute a people, and reconcile natural rights with vigorous government. In Wilson's thought, Zink further argues, we find an answer to some of contemporary liberalism's critique of a “rights-centric” political order.

We do not usually think of Plato as having much to say about the education of democratic citizens; rather, from Isaiah Berlin onward, the Plato of The Republic has often been taken as the avatar of authoritarian rule and defender of the “noble lie.” In “Moral and Criminal Responsibility in Plato's Laws,” however, Lorraine Smith Pangle draws a clear and convincing link between the modern concerns of “restorative justice” movements and Plato's explorations of anger, retribution, and punishment in the criminal code proposed for the city of Magnesia. Unlike some modern advocates of restorative justice, she notes, Plato accepts the community's need for retribution and punishment, even as he shows how—by introducing philosophical reasoning into the preambles of the Laws—ordinary citizens might be constrained not only to become more responsible themselves, but also more thoughtful in their treatment of offenders. In closing, Pangle brings Plato's striking arguments to bear as applications and lessons for the projects and practices of restorative justice today.

Returning to constraint in the purely American context, and addressing a current controversy that came again to the fore in the Senate's confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, Brandon L. Bartels examines the extent to which the ideology (or policy preferences) of Supreme Court justices is constrained by the Court's own rules. Employing a method of multilevel or hierarchical modeling, Bartels tests the levels-of-scrutiny rules for the justices' review of acts by government agencies that affect the right of free expression under the First Amendment. Analyzing all the Court's free-expression prescribed cases between 1953 and 1998, he shows that not all rules are equal, that the constraining force of individual rules, even within a single prescriptive framework, varies according to their substance. Where the rules call for “strict scrutiny” of content-based governmental acts affecting free expression, they constrain ideological decision making; where the rules call for deference—or where they are neutral in their stance toward government acts—ideological decision making is unaffected, proceeding as if the rules were not in place. Bartels's findings might be expected to influence future scholarship on “legal” and “attitudinal” models of judicial decision making. Assuming Supreme Court clerks read relevant scholarship, they could well influence the way justices prescribe legal rules.

Finally, democracies' written constitutions constrain very differently governments' abilities to “manage their own demise” or, more specifically, to resign, be toppled, or dissolve parliament and call early elections. While we have traditionally focused on the distinction between governments and parliaments with fixed terms (the United States) and governments that can call new parliamentary elections at will (the United Kingdom), the variation among contemporary democracies is much broader. Exploiting a new and more inclusive dataset on constitutional rules and government terminations, the first to include both West and East European democracies, Petra Schleiter and Edward Morgan-Jones establish that (a) constitutional constraints on, and presidential influence over, government termination and parliamentary dissolution are now the norm rather than the exception, particularly among the newer democracies, and (b) such constraints have powerful and sometimes theoretically unanticipated effects on government survival and termination. (It turns out, to take one example, that presidential power to dismiss governments has no discernible effect on their duration.) Their findings, Schleiter and Morgan-Jones observe, should influence future work on such related topics as the opportunistic calling of elections, political business cycles, electoral synchronization and—to return to our first theme in this issue—electoral accountability. Paradoxically, they argue, constraining a government's ability to dissolve parliament at will, and thus to “surf” any handy uptick in popularity, may make governments more accountable to their citizens.

Thus we see a somewhat pessimistic complementarity between the twin themes of this issue's articles: If myopic citizens impel leaders to respond to short-term changes more than long-term or intergenerational needs, and if citizens' own behavior overreacts to anticipated changes of policy, then constraints—whether internalized by the citizens themselves, binding the laws and the impulse to retributive justice, or embodied in what the French call grandly the “organization of the public powers”—may produce policies that better reflect citizens' long-term interests.

INSTRUCTIONS TO CONTRIBUTORS

General Considerations

The American Political Science Review (APSR) strives to publish scholarly research of exceptional merit, focusing on important issues and demonstrating the highest standards of excellence in conceptualization, exposition, methodology, and craftsmanship. Because the APSR reaches a diverse audience of scholars and practitioners, authors must demonstrate how their analysis illuminates a significant research problem or answers an important research question, of general interest in political science. For the same reason, authors must strive for a presentation that will be understandable to as many scholars as possible, consistent with the nature of their material.

The APSR publishes original work. Therefore, authors should not submit articles containing tables, figures, or substantial amounts of text that already have been published or are forthcoming in other places, or which are included in other manuscripts submitted for review to book publishers or periodicals (including online journals) or otherwise committed. In many such cases, subsequent publication of this material would violate the copyright of the other publisher.

The APSR also does not consider papers that are currently under review at other journals or that duplicate or overlap with parts of larger manuscripts submitted to other publishers (including publishers of both books and periodicals). Manuscripts substantially similar to those submitted or published elsewhere, or to part of a book or other larger work, should also not be submitted. If you have any questions about whether these policies apply in your particular case, you should discuss any such publications related to a submission in a cover letter to the editors or as part of the author comments section of the online submission process. You should also notify the editors of any related submissions to other publishers, whether for book or periodical publication, that occur while a manuscript is under review at the APSR and which would fall within the scope of this policy. The editors may request copies of related publications.

The APSR uses a double-blind review process. You should follow the guidelines for preparing an anonymous submission in the “Specific Procedures” section that follows. If your manuscript contains quantitative evidence and analysis, you should describe your procedures in sufficient detail to permit reviewers to understand and evaluate what has been done and—in the event the article is accepted for publication—to permit other scholars to carry out similar analyses on other data sets. For example, for surveys, at the least, sampling procedures, response rates, and question wordings should be given; you should calculate response rates according to one of the standard formulas given by the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Standard Definitions: Final Dispositions of Case Codes and Outcome Rates for Surveys (Lenexa, KS: AAPOR, 2006). This document is available on the Internet (http://www.aapor.org/standards.asp). For experiments, provide full descriptions of experimental protocols, methods of subject recruitment and selection, subject payments and debriefing procedures, and so on. Articles should be self-contained, so you should not simply refer readers to other publications for descriptions of these basic research procedures.

Please indicate variables included in statistical analyses by capitalizing the first letter in the variable name and italicizing the entire variable name the first time each is mentioned in the text. You should also use the same names for variables in text, tables, and figures. Wherever possible, avoid the use of acronyms and computer abbreviations when discussing variables in the text. All variables appearing in tables and figures should have been mentioned in the text and the reason for their inclusion discussed.

As part of the review process, you may be asked to submit additional documentation if procedures are not sufficiently clear; the review process works most efficiently if such information is given in the initial submission. If you advise readers that additional information is available, you should submit copies of that information with the manuscript as “attached materials” on our website. If the amount of this supplementary information is extensive, please inquire about alternate procedures.

Manuscripts that are largely or entirely critiques or commentaries on previously published articles will be reviewed for possible inclusion in a Forum section, using the same general procedures as for other manuscripts. Well before any publication, however, such manuscripts will also be sent to the scholar(s) whose work is being criticized. The original author(s) of the article being critiqued will be invited to comment to the editors and to submit a rejoinder, which also will be peer reviewed.

The APSR now accepts only electronic submissions. To submit a manuscript, please go to www.editorialmanager.com/apsr. This web site provides detailed information about the submission procedure and required manuscript formatting. Please direct any questions to the journal editorial offices at .

Manuscript Formatting

Manuscripts should not be longer than 45 pages including text, all tables and figures, notes, references, and appendices. This page size guideline is based on the U.S. standard 8.5 × 11 inch paper; if you are submitting a manuscript printed on longer paper, you must adjust accordingly. Font size must be at least 11 point for all parts of the paper, including notes and references. The entire paper, including references, must be double-spaced, with the sole exception being any tables for which double-spacing would require a second page that would otherwise not be needed. All pages should be numbered in one sequence, and text should be formatted using a normal single column no wider than 6-1/2 inches (rather than the double-column format of the published version of the APSR). Include an abstract of no more than 150 words. The APSR style of embedded citations should be used, and there must be a separate list of references at the end of the manuscript. Footnotes or endnotes may be included, but should not be used for simple citations.

These specifications are designed to make it easier for reviewers to read and evaluate papers and for potential copyediting and production needs, if accepted for publication. Papers not adhering to these guidelines are subject to being rejected without review.

For submission and review purposes, you may place footnotes at the bottom of the pages instead of using endnotes, and you may locate tables and figures (on separate pages and only one to a page) approximately where they fall in the text. However, manuscripts accepted for publication must be submitted with endnotes, and with tables and figures on separate pages at the back of the manuscript with standard indications of text placement, e.g., [Table 3 about here].

In deciding how to format your initial submission, please consider the necessity of making these changes if your paper is accepted. If accepted for publication, you may also be asked to submit high resolution digital source files or camera-ready copies of graphs, charts, or other types of figures. Following acceptance, all elements within any tables submitted (text, numerals, symbols, etc.) should be accessible for editing and reformatting to meet the journal's print specifications. Instructions will be provided. For specific formatting style of citations and references, please refer to articles in the most recent issue of the APSR. And/or for unusual style or formatting issues, you may wish to consult the latest edition of The Chicago Manual of Style (15th ed.; Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2003).

Specific Procedures

Please follow these specific procedures for submission:

  1. 1. Before submitting any manuscript to APSR, it is recommended that you download a PDF of the Transfer of Copyright Agreement from the Editorial Manager login page (http://www.editorialmanager.com/apsr/) and review its terms and requirements as well as the permissions granted to authors under its provisions. At any time after submitting, you may sign this and send it on ahead, by mail, to: American Political Science Review, c/o Dept. of Political Science, UCLA, 4289 Bunche Hall, Box 951472, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1472. In any case, a signed agreement will be required in order for your work to be published in this journal.

  2. 2. During the online submission process at www.editorialmanager.com/apsr you will be invited to submit a list of scholars who would be appropriate reviewers of your manuscript. Do not include on this list anyone who has already commented on your paper or an earlier version of it. Likewise, exclude any of your current or recent collaborators, institutional colleagues, mentors, students, or close friends. You may also “oppose” potential reviewers by name but will be expected to provide specific reasons why they may be inappropriate. The editors will refer to these lists in selecting reviewers, though there can be no guarantee that this will influence final reviewer selections.

  3. 3. You will also be required to upload a minimum of two separate files: a) an “anonymous” digital file of your paper; this file should not include any information that identifies the authors, or any other collaborators in the work (including anyone responsible for creating tables or figures, if they are also an author/collaborator); and, do not thank colleagues in notes or elsewhere in the body of the paper or mention institution names, web page addresses, or other potentially identifying information.; b) a separate title page that includes the full manuscript title, plus names and contact information (mailing address, telephone, fax, e-mail address) for all credited authors in the order their names should appear, as well as each authors' academic rank and institutional affiliation. You may also include any acknowledgements or other author notes about the development of the paper (e.g., previous presentations of the research) as part of this separate title page. In the case of multiple authors, indicate which should receive correspondence. In addition, you may choose to include a cover letter.

  4. 4. Please review all pages to make sure the file contains all tables, figures, appendices, and references cited in the manuscript.

  5. 5. To insure anonymity throughout the review process, if it is important to the development of the paper that your previous publications be cited, please do this in a way that does not make the authorship of the submitted paper obvious. This is usually most easily accomplished by referring to yourself and any co-authors in the third person and including normal references to the work cited in the list of references. Your prior publications should be included in the reference section in their normal alphabetical location. Assuming that in-text references to your previous work are in the third person, you should not include redacted self-citations and references (i.e., do not delete the names of your manuscript's authors). If you are unsure as to the best use of these or any other procedures in rendering manuscripts anonymous, contact the editorial offices of APSR prior to submission.

Manuscripts that are judged to be lacking anonymity will be returned, potentially delaying the review processes.

ELECTRONIC ACCESS TO THE APSR

Back issues of the APSR are available in several electronic formats and through several vendors. Except for the last three years (as an annually “moving wall”), back issues of the APSR beginning with Volume 1, Number 1 (November 1906), are available on-line through JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/). At present, JSTOR's complete journal collection is available only via institutional subscription, e.g., through many college and university libraries. For APSA members who do not have access to an institutional subscription to JSTOR, individual subscriptions to its APSR content are available. Please contact Member Services at APSA for further information, including annual subscription fees.

Individual members of the American Political Science Association can access recent issues of the APSR and PS through the APSA website (www.apsanet.org) with their username and password. Individual nonmember access to the online edition will also be available, but only through institutions that hold either a print-plus-electronic subscription or an electronic-only subscription, provided the institution has registered and activated its online subscription.

Full text access to current issues of both the APSR and PS is also available on-line by library subscription from a number of database vendors. Currently, these include University Microfilms Inc. (UMI) (via its CD-ROMs General Periodicals Online and Social Science Index and the on-line database ProQuest Direct), Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) (through its on-line database First Search as well as on CD-ROMs and magnetic tape), and the Information Access Company (IAC) (through its products Expanded Academic Index, InfoTrac, and several on-line services [see below]). Others may be added from time to time.

The APSR is also available on databases through six online services: Datastar (Datastar), Business Library (Dow Jones), Cognito (IAC), Encarta Online Library (IAC), IAC Business (Dialog), and Newsearch (Dialog).

The editorial office of the APSR is not involved in the subscription process to either JSTOR for back issues or the other vendors for current issues. Please contact APSA, your reference librarian, or the database vendor for further information about availability.

OTHER CORRESPONDENCE

The American Political Science Association's address, telephone, and fax are 1527 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036, (202) 483-2512 (voice), and (202) 483-2657 (fax). E-mail: . Please direct correspondence as follows.

Information, including news and notes, for PS:

Circulation and subscription correspondence (domestic claims for nonreceipt of issues must be made within four months of the month of publication; overseas claims, within eight months):

EXPEDITING REQUESTS FOR COPYING APSR AND PS ARTICLES FOR CLASS USE AND OTHER PURPOSES

Class Use

The Comprehensive Publisher Photocopy Agreement between APSA and the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) permits bookstores and copy centers to receive expedited clearance to copy articles from the APSR and PS in compliance with the Association's policies and applicable fees. The general fee for articles is 75 cents per copy. However, current Association policy levies no fee for the first 10 copies of a printed artide, whether in course packs or on reserve. Smaller classes that rely heavily on articles (i.e., upper-level undergraduate and graduate classes) can take advantage of this provision, and faculty ordering 10 or fewer course packs should bring it to the attention of course pack providers. APSA policy also permits free use of the electronic library reserve, with no limit on the number of students who can access the electronic reserve. Both large and small classes that rely on these articles can take advantage of this provision. The CCC's address, telephone, and fax are 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400 (voice), and (978) 750-4474 (fax). This agreement pertains only to the reproduction and distribution of APSA materials as hard copies (e.g., photocopies, microfilm, and microfiche).

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) has created a standardized form for college faculty to submit to a copy center or bookstore to request copyrighted material for course packs. The form is available through the CCC, which will handle copyright permissions.

APSA also has a separate agreement pertaining to CCC's Academic E-Reserve Service. This agreement allows electronic access for students and instructors of a designated class at a designated institution for a specified article or set of articles in electronic format. Access is by password for the duration of a class.

Please contact your librarian, the CCC, or the APSA Reprints Department for further information.

APSR Authors

If you are the author of an APSR article, you may use your article in course packs or other printed materials without payment of royalty fees and you may post it at personal or institutional web sites as long as the APSA copyright notice is included.

Other Uses of APSA-Copyrighted Materials

For any further copyright issues, please contact the APSA Reprints Department.

INDEXING

Articles appearing in the APSR before June 1953 were indexed in The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. Current issues are indexed in ABC Pol Sci; America, History and Life 1954–; Book Review Index; Current Contents: Social and Behavioral Sciences; EconLit; Energy Information Abstracts; Environmental Abstracts; Historical Abstracts; Index of Economic Articles; Information Service Bulletin; International Bibliography of Book Reviews of Scholarly Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences; International Bibliography of Periodical Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences; International Index; International Political Science Abstracts; the Journal of Economic Literature; Periodical Abstracts; Public Affairs; Public Affairs Information Service International Recently Published Articles; Reference Sources; Social Sciences and Humanities Index; Social Sciences Index; Social Work Research and Abstracts; and Writings on American History. Some of these sources may be available in electronic form through local public or educational libraries. Microfilm of the APSR, beginning with Volume 1, and the index of the APSR through 1969 are available through University Microfilms Inc., 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 (www.umi.com). The Cumulative Index to the American Political Science Review, Volumes 63 to 89: 1969–95, is available through the APSA.

References

1 Among them, as Jefferson argued in his First Inaugural: “a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties . . . [and] to honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth but from our actions and their sense of them; . . . honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man.”

Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.