THE HANDBOOK OF

POLITICAL
BEHAVIOR
Volume 1
A Continuation Order Plan is available for this series. A continuation order will bring
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THE HANDBOOK OF
POLITICAL
BEHAVIOR
Volume 1

Edited by

SAMUEL L. LONG
Center for the Study of Business and Government
Baruch College - City University of New York
New York, New York

PLENUM PRESS • NEW YORK AND LONDON

 ISBN-13: 978-1-4684-1076-1 e-ISBN-13: 978-1-4684-1074-7
001: 10.1007/978-1-4684-1074-7

© 1981 Plenum Press, New York

Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1981
A Division of Plenum Publishing Corporation
233 Spring Street, New York, N.Y. 10013
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming,
recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher
CONTRIBUTORS

W. LANCE BENNETT • Department of Political Science, University

of Washington, Seattle, Washington

FAYE CROSBY • Department of Psychology, Yale University, New

Haven, Connecticut

TRAVIS L. CROSBY • History Department, Wheaton College,

Norton, Massachusetts

ANNE FREEDMAN • Department of Political Science, Roosevelt Uni-

versity, Chicago, Illinois

P. E. FREEDMAN. Department of Psychology, University of Illinois

at Chicago Circle, Chicago, Illinois

PHILIP A. MANN • Bremwood School, 106 16th Street, S.W.,

Waverly, Iowa

WILLIAM F. STONE • Department of Psychology, University of

Maine, Orono, Maine
v
FOREWORD
On Revolutions That Never Were

"If you want to understand what a science is," the anthropologist Clifford
Geertz (1973, p. 5) has written, "you should look in the first instance not
at its theories or its findings, and certainly not at what its apologists say
about it; you should look at what the practitioners of it do." If it is not
always possible to follow this instruction, it is because the rate of change
in scientific work is rapid and the growth of publications reporting on
this work is great. It is therefore the task of a handbook, like this Hand-
book of Political Behavior, to summarize and evaluate what the practi-
tioners report. But it is always prudent to keep in mind that a handbook
is only a shortcut and that there is no substitute for looking directly at
what the practitioners of a science do. For when scientists are "at work"
(Walter, 1971), the image of what they are doing is often quite different
from that conveyed in the "briefs" that, in their own way, make a hand-
book so valuable that we cannot do without it.
These reflections set the stage. While a handbook serves as a guide
to the present and the emerging future, both present and future are ex-
tensions of the past; and it is on the past as context for the present and
the future that I want to comment in order to give some meaning to the
enterprise of which this particular Handbook of Poliiical Behavior is a
significant part. In doing so, I take satisfaction that some ten years after
something called the "behavioral revolution" in political science had
been declared burned out and a "post behavioral revolution" had been
announced (Easton, 1969), it seems necessary, desirable, and feasible to
publish this work.

vII
vIII FOREWORD

The explanation for this course of events is not hard to find: the "new
revolution in political science" was not a scientific revolution at all, or
even a serious intellectual challenge to normal political science. It was
a near-hysteric response to political frustration engendered by the discon-
certing and shocking events of the late sixties and early seventies, at home
and abroad. It had much to do with politics (in the "real world" of the
American nation as well as in the organizational life of the American
Political Science Association) and almost nothing to do with science. It
had something to do with the uses of political science but nothing with
knowledge-making. Barely concealing a simplistic and vulgar under-
standing of the sociology of knowledge, it propagated an ill-conceived
and mistaken view of disciplinary development in political theory and
research. As a well-informed observer, speaking of his own specialty,
wryly commented several years later, "the 'post behavioral' revolution
heralded by David Easton so far appears to have had little influence on
legislative study" (Wahlke, 1975, p. I). The same can be said of the dis-
cipline of political science as a whole. In fact, by 1980 postbehavioralism
as a challenge or concept has disappeared altogether from discourse about
the study of politics. A new and vigorous generation of behavioral re-
searchers is busy extending the frontiers of knowledge about political
behavior patterns and processes.
In retrospect, it seems that what made the metaphor of a "postbe-
havioral" revolution so palatable to at least some political scientists was
the contemporary popularity of Thomas Kuhn's (1962) conception of
scientific development. Whatever validity this conception might have in
regard to fundamental transformations in the natural or physical sciences
(where it is far from being noncontroversial), it is inappropriate for ex-
plaining and understanding the development of the social sciences. Yet,
in an era in which the word "revolution" was fashionable, it was of no
concern that Kuhn's theory of scientific revolution did not really fit the
scientific circumstances of a field like political science. It was sufficient
that the theory supplied a vocabulary that was congenial and that could
serve to rationalize and legitimize the misgivings of those who had never
been comfortable with the scientific orientation introduced into the dis-
cipline in the wake of the behavioralists' ascendancy, or of those who did
not like the discipline's pragmatic commitment to the established polit-
ical order. In a scientific perspective, the irony that the "new revolution,"
had it come off, would be counterrevolutionary and even reactionary was
lost on the self-styled postbehavioralists.
There never was a "postbehavioral revolution" because there had
never been a "behavioral revolution" in political science in the first place.
True, David Truman (1955) had entitled an essay on the current behav-
ioral tendencies in political science research "The Impact on Political Sci-
FOREWORD Ix

ence of the Revolution in the Behavioral Sciences," but he did not envisage
the kind of fundamental paradigmatic change in the discipline's thought-
ways which Kuhn later had in mind as characteristic of basic changes in
the physical sciences. On the contrary, it was the contention of Truman's
essay that the new tendencies were a continuation of traditional political
science. Even the moderate position, expressed by Robert Dahl (1961),
that the behavioral approach had been a "successful protest" was an over-
statement and was rejected at the time. As Eulau (1962, p. 29) put it:
Professor Dahl overestimates what he calls the "triumph" of the be-
havioral persuasion and underestimates the resilience of "the main
body of the discipline" -whatever that is. His prognostication is suf-
ficiently ambiguous to permit varying interpretations. But if he means,
as I have reason to assume, that the historical, legal, or doctrinal ap-
proaches to the study of politics will succumb under the onslaught of
the behavioral movement, his view must be very long indeed. On the
contrary, I believe that these approaches will persist.
This is not to say that things had not changed in political science or did
not continue to change under the behavioral impact, but as I wrote some
years later: "A more sober look at what has happened in political science
would characterize the new tendencies not as a revolution but as a renais-
sance. It is in the nature of a renaissance to look both forward and back-
ward, to seek out what seems worthwhile in the past in order to shape a
more promising future" (Eulau, 1967, p. 172).
There have always been lively intellectual disputes in political sci-
ence, but at issue in the fifties or sixties was not some battle over alterna-
tive paradigms (in Kuhn's profound sense) concerning the study of politics
but the quality of disciplinary research. None put the issue more bluntly
than David Easton (1953, p. 40): "However much students of political life
may seek to escape the taint, if they were to eavesdrop on the whisper-
ings of their fellow social scientists, they would find that they are gener-
ally stigmatized as the least advanced." The behavioralists may not have
realized or appreciated it at the time, but the promise of successful be-
havioral instruction and research depended on a better political science
generally. I knew at the time-from the middle fifties into the early six-
ties-of a number of political science departments where, in fact, the be-
havioralists were allied with respected scholars working in other genres
(historical, philosophical, juridical) in a common effort to improve the
quality of instruction. When, in the middle sixties, I had occasion to re-
view some of the changes that had occurred between 1956 and 1966, I
could write, evidently with considerable satisfaction:
In general, the core and the periphery of political science were
no longer defined by subject matter but by modes of attack. No longer
x FOREWORD

could one think of "political theory" as being core and "behavior-

alism" as being periphery. Political theorists themselves moved to
the periphery as they experimented with linguistic and contextual
analysis, and behavioralists moved to the core as they applied his-
torical and institutional methods of inquiry to old problems and
new. If the intellectual processes involved made for tension between
tradition and innovation, they were symptomatic of scientific move-
ment and development. (Eulau, 1967, pp. 236-237)
Without the general improvement of the discipline as a whole, it seems to
me now, the behavioral persuasion in political science might not have
survived as well as it did the attacks launched against it in the name of a
"postbehavioral revolution." Behavioral research proved more robust
than the left-wing ideological critics had thought and not only continued
into the seventies but reached a higher level of accomplishment and so-
phistication than even its earlier practitioners had expected.
To understand the role that behavioral research has played in polit-
ical science and the influence it continues to have on the discipline, it is
important to be clear about the emergence of behavioralism. It seems to
me that too great a differentiation has been made between an "earlier"
political science, dating back to the turn of the century, and a "modern
era when the behavioral mood began to permeate the discipline. It is true
that the bulk of the early political science was formalistic, moralistic or
historicist in approach. But already, beginning with A. Lawrence Lowell
(1902), the young discipline entered a partly empirical, partly reformist
phase which has continued to the present day and suggests more of a grad-
ual transition than has been generally recognized. Moreover, regardless
of whether they were oriented more toward reform, as some were, or to-
ward science, as others were, the leading political scientists of the earlier
era were, above all, pragmatists and not positivists, though the discipline
as a whole remained rather innocent of either epistemology or methodol-
ogy well into the fifties.
If there was a "break" between an earlier formalism and historicism,
on the one hand, and the later behavioralism (with its emphasis on meth-
odological individualism, sociological determinism, or theoretically guided
empiricism), on the other hand, it did not come in the fifties but in the
twenties with Charles Merriam and what later came to be called the
"Chicago School of Political Science." Much has been written about this
(Crick, 1959; Somit & Tanenhaus, 1967); my point is simply that there
never was a "behavioral revolution," not only because behavioralism was
in part a continuation of earlier trends but also because the behavioral
movement never did "capture" all of political science. Indeed, long-dormant
scholarship in political philosophy began to blossom precisely in the pe-
riod presumably dominated by the behavioralists-say from the symbolic
FOREWORD xl

accession of Harold D. Lasswell to the presidency of the American Polit-

ical Science Association in 1956.
I do not want to exaggerate continuity in disciplinary development
or claim undue credit for the behavioral movement as the only force that
made for improved scholarship in all branches of political science. But I
do want to deflate the latter-day myth that there were ever so bitter and
raucous confrontations between "behavioralists" and "antibehavioralists"
somehow shattering the unity of the discipline-a myth that, for obvious
reasons, gained favor among the latent "postbehavioralists" of the late
sixties. Again, this myth was predicated on a false assumption-that there
had been a unified discipline. In fact, as I wrote of the state of affairs in
the late fifties: "If, therefore, at mid-century, political scientists are agreed
on anything, it is probably on the muddled state of their science. Political
scientists are riding off in many directions, evidently on the assumption
that if you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there"
(Eulau, 1967, pp. 131-132). There were, of course, critiques and defenses
of behavioralism (Charlesworth, 1967; Ranney, 1962; Storing, 1962), but
the intellectual combat was quite genteel and measured. To view behavior-
alism as a revolutionary scientific ideology at perpetual loggerheads with
the rest of the discipline is to miss the transactional nature of the relation-
ship between those who sought an improved political science through the
application of rigorous scientific procedures and those who sought to
reach the same goal through the methods of philosophy, history, or law.
If I have stressed, then, the continuity of disciplinary development
in political science, it has been in order to set the record straight: to speak
of a "behavioral revolution" was simply to engage in metaphorical license,
just as the prophecy of a coming "postbehavioral revolution" was a dis-
ingenuous use of analogy. But continuity is only one side of the ledger on
which the history of political science as an intellectual enterprise can be
entered. On the other side is what Eulau (1976, p. 7) called "a chronic curse
of the social studies":
No model of knowledge-making in the social sciences can therefore
bypass the problem of discontinuity-the apparently immutable cir-
cumstance that yesteryear's ideas or findings are all too often for-
gotten or neglected, only to be rediscovered in innocence and at con-
siderable cost. This explains, perhaps, why Thomas Kuhn's theory
of "scientific revolutions" has been so popular among at least some,
and usually younger social scientists. Because the intellectual memory
is short or, as I have reason to believe, the homework has not always
been properly done, what is only rediscovery rather than discovery
is taken as an indication that "normal science" is in crisis, and that
some fundamental change in "scientific paradigm" is just around the
corner.
xII FOREWORD

Although discontinuities in theory and research are combinations

of innocent and willful neglect-I cannot say how much one or the other
contributes to the variance-they are likely to become greater and more
frequent as the discipline grows. Indeed, the number of specialties and
sub specialties has increased so much in the last fifteen years or so that
it is quite hazardous to make any generalizations about the "state" of
political science. Twenty-five years ago, and even as late as the middle
sixties, I was able to write two comprehensive bibliographical articles
about the discipline (Eulau, 1959, 1967). I would not dare to make a sim-
ilar effort today. Moreover, research developments in different subfields
are uneven and discontinuities are likely to increase as theoretical or meth-
odological fertilization across specializing fields and subfields decreases.
The need for handbooks is self-evident.
Also conducive to discontinuity is the discipline's craving for novel-
ties. "Like all literature," I once wrote, "writings on politics follow fashion.
New styles, topics, aims come to dominate the creative imagination of
successive generations. Fashions, of course, are not arbitrary. They are
themselves symptoms of temporary predispositions and orientations
stemming from and being responses to new conditions" (Eulau, 1967,
p. 129). When, in the middle sixties, new social programs poured out of the
federal cash register like coins out of a slot machine, political scientists
not surprisingly turned to the study of public policies. Understandable
as this evidently new disciplinary turn was, it was only a renewal. If one
remembers that from its inception as an independent discipline political
science had a reformist tinge, the "new public policy" of the sixties and
seventies was not so new after all and, as I have argued elsewhere, "is the
old public administration in a refurbished wardrobe" (Eulau, 1977a,
p. 419). As political decision became policy decision, issue voting became
policy voting, social problems became policy problems, budget outlays
became policy outputs, and so on, prefixing the noun "policy" to familiar
topics may have given the impression that something new was being created,
but such verbal cosmetics hardly concealed the often opportunistic quality
of the game that was being played.
Motives aside, public policy research is eminently representative of
the continuity-discontinuity problem. The new public policy could claim
newness because it conveniently ignored or denied its heritage. In fact,
there had been serious concern with public policy and with the excruci-
atingly difficult problems of studying it from the discipline'S very beginning-
from Goodnow's (1900) attempt to distinguish between "policy" and "ad-
ministration" to Simon's (1947) effort to purge the field of its ambiguous
or contradictory proverbs or Dahl and Lindblom's (1953) tantalizing
synthesis of politics and economics in regard to public welfare. Although
the problems raised by these authors are also addressed in the volume on
FOREWORD xIII

Policies and Policymaking of a recent eight-volume, general handbook

of political science (Greenstein & Polsby, 1975), there is no indication in
the volume's essays that the writers appreciated their predecessors.
As the new public policy made its presumed advances there were
some writers, even some political behavioralists among them, who thought
that it spelled the end of an allegedly positivist and "value-free" political
science (Graham & Carey, 1972). But this belief was only the product of
a revisionist imagination which confused value neutrality as a possible bias,
value neutralism as a possible ideology, and value neutralization as a pos-
sible strategy (Eulau, 1968a). What was ignored, it seems, was that behav-
ioral political science had been directed not only against specious scientism
but also against naive reformism. For Charles Merriam and especially
Harold D. Lasswell, who had been so influential in shaping the course of
the discipline from the twenties on, behavioral science had always been
a "policy science" profoundly concerned with the problem of values in
the real world of politics as much as in political research. The task of polit-
ical science as a behavioral science, as they saw it, was to bring political
knowledge to bear on public problems, although not necessarily on the
momentary issues of the day which, they knew in their wisdom, basic
research could neither handle nor solve-a lesson which policy analysts
still have to learn. "The basic emphasis of the policy approach," Lasswell
(1951, p. 8) wrote, "is upon the fundamental problems of man in society,
rather than on the topical issues of the moment." Lasswell had explicitly
articulated this crucial aspect of a behavior-oriented policy science as
early as 1930, even though he did not use the term "policy science" until
later: "The problem of politics is less to solve conflicts than to prevent them;
less to serve as a safety valve for social protest than to apply social energy
to the abolition of recurrent sources of strain in society." This redefinition
of politics "may be called the idea of preventive politics." Once politics
was so defined, the role of the political scientist vis-a.-vis the policy process
was given: "Our problem is to be ruled by the truth about the conditions
of harmonious human relations, and the discovery of the truth is an ob-
ject of specialized research; it is no monopoly of people as people, or of
the ruler as ruler" (Lasswell, 1930, p. 197). Behavioralism as a policy sci-
ence was thus to be a long-range program of intervention in the policy
process; yet this view of the behavioral enterprise as an interventionist
synthesis of basic knowledge about human affairs and the needs of public
policy long eluded scholarly attention, to be rediscovered only recently
(Merelman, 1976). I think it was this balanced stance that has enabled the
behavioral persuasion in politics to live through the doldrums of the fif-
ties, the turbulence of the sixties, and the renewal of its mission in the sev-
enties. As I once put it, "The Root is Man ... The Goal is Man" (Eulau,
1963).
xlv FOREWORD

As a new generation of behavioral scholars moves into the eighties,

they have the opportunity to bring with them a rich heritage of accomplish-
ments. Many of the difficulties that fascinated and perplexed my own gen-
eration have been and are being solved. The challenge of causal analysis
that loomed so large in the fifties (Simon, 1957) has been faced and is be-
ing pursued in the sophisticated ways of multivariate modeling. The pro-
duction and exploitation of longitudinal or time-series data have muted
the argument that behavioral research is necessarily ahistorical and can-
not be dynamic. Comparative analysis, within and across nations, is no
longer encumbered by the parateleological formulas of systems analysis
or structural functionalism. The long-standing problem of linking the
behavior of individuals and larger units, variously called the "micro-
macro problem" or "level-of-analysis problem," is being exposed to alterna-
tive solutions (Boyd & Iversen, 1979; Eulau, 1969, 1977b). Through the
Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, political
and other social scientists have an organizational resource only dreamt of
in the fifties (Eulau, 1968b). The new generation of behavioral scholars in
political science is better trained in research methods and strategies of the-
orizing, even if they may not escape the discipline's supreme paradox that
there is continuity in its discontinuities and discontinuity in its continuities.
Sensitivity to this paradox is not the hallmark of a discipline whose prac-
titioners sometimes seem to think that present trends will continue indef-
initely into the future. Hopefully, this Handbook of Political Behavior
will serve them not only as a guide into the future but also as a reminder
that the latest is not always the best.

HEINZ EULAU

Department of Political Science

Stanford University
Stanford, California

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mont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1979.
Charlesworth, J. C. (Ed.). Contemporary political analysis. New York: The Free Press, 1967.
Crick, B. The Amer;canscience of poliiics: Its origins and conditions. Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1959.
Dahl, R. A. The behavioral approach in political science: Epitaph for a monument to a suc-
cessful protest. American Po/iiical Science Review. 1961,55,763-772.
Dahl, R. A., & Lindblom, C. E. Po/iiics,economics and weI/are. New York: Harper, 1953.
Easton, D. The poliiical system: An inquiry into the state of po/iiical science. New York:
Knopf, 1953.
FOREWORD xv

Easton, D. The new revolution in political science. American Political Science Review, 1969,
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Eulau, H. Political science. In B. F. Hoselitz (Ed.), A reader's guide to the social sciences.
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Eulau, H. Segments of political science most susceptible to behavioristic treatment. In J. C.
Charlesworth (Ed.), The limits of behavioralism in political science. Philadelphia: Amer-
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Eulau, H. The behavioral persuasion in politics. New York: Random House, 1963.
Eulau, H. Political science I and II. In B. F. Hoselitz (Ed.), A reader's guide to the social
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Eulau, H. Micro-macro political analysis: Accents of inquiry. Chicago: Aldine, 1969.
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Eulau, H. Multilevel methods in comparative politics. American Behavioral Scientist, 1977,
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PREFACE

In the writing of prefaces for works of this sort, most editors report being
faced with similar challenges and have much in common in relating how
these challenges are met. They acknowledge that their paramount ob-
jective is to provide more than an overview of topics but rather to offer
selective critical reviews that will serve to advance theory and research
in the particular area reviewed. The question of the appropriate audience
to be addressed is usually answered by directing material to a potential
audience of social scientists, graduate students, and, occasionally, ad-
vanced undergraduate students. Editors who are confronted with the
problem of structuring their material often explore various means by
which their social science discipline might be subdivided, then generally
conclude that no particular classification strategy is superior. In elabo-
rating on the process by which the enterprise was initiated, editors typ-
ically resort to a panel of luminaries, who provide independent support
for the idea and then offer both suggestions for topics and the authors
who will write them. Editors usually concede that chapter topics and
content do not reflect their original conception but are a compromise
between their wishes and the authors' expertise and capabilities. Editors
report that inevitable delays occur, authors drop out of projects and are
replaced, and new topics are introduced. Finally, editors frequently con-
fess that the final product is incomplete, with gaps occurring because of
failed commitments by authors or because authors could not be secured
to write certain chapters.
With these commonalities in mind, then, and, with the advice of past
editors of comparable works, the Handbook of Political Behavior project
xvII
xvIII PREFACE

was initiated. In some ways, the experiences associated with the genesis
and formulation of this series coincide with the experiences cited by edi-
tors in the prefaces of previous comparable works; in other respects, the
experiences of this project diverge markedly from those same works. For
instance, like other social science research, the Handbook of Political
Behavior was conceived as a vehicle by which selected topics with an in-
terdisciplinary focus might be critically reviewed. At the same time, how-
ever, authors were also instructed to "do their own thing" after having
dealt with the subject area, preferably by highlighting gaps in theory and
research and by indicating how theoretical and empirical deficiencies
might be remedied. Moreover, relative to other collections, much more
emphasis was placed on securing authors with diverse backgrounds, not
only in political science but also in psychology, sociology, and anthro-
pology as well. Another objective concerned the provision of new subject
matter not found elsewhere, or at least not readily available to students
of political behavior.
The audience envisioned for the handbook is similar to that of other
collections, namely, professional social scientists with a special interest
in political psychology and political sociology; graduate students, too,
particularly those with an interest in the political behavior area; and,
given the inquiries to date, it is clear that faculty members in the social
sciences will assign chapters from the handbook to advanced undergradu-
ate students in political behavior courses. Such a diverse and compre-
hensive audience assures that the unique subject matter found in the hand-
book will be disseminated throughout the social science community.
Although the Handbook of Political Behavior was originally planned
as a two-volume work, divided between political psychology and political
sociology, it quickly became apparent that the material would require
more than two volumes and that the simple distinction between political
psychology and political sociology was difficult to maintain in categoriz-
ing certain topics. This task was made especially difficult because one of
the objectives of the handbook was to extend the traditional boundaries
of the political behavior field into areas which, although dealt with in the
disciplines of psychology and sociology, were not usually considered from
a political science perspective. Another problem, similar to categorization
of subject matter, concerned the objective of providing new perspectives
on relatively traditional material. Attaining these objectives made it par-
ticularly difficult to classify a given chapter as clearly falling either within
the domain of political psychology or of political sociology. Thus, the hand-
book was expanded, and a much less rigid categorization scheme was used
in assigning specific chapters to different volumes.
The Handbook of Political Behavior is unique in that it is compara-
tively open-ended in structure and is being written by a group of social
PREFACE xix

scientists associated through other professional activities. Continuity is

a major attribute of the chapters published here. Many of the authors are
associated with a new journal, Micropolitics, as either contributors, re-
viewers, or editorial board members. Some of the material published in
the handbook has appeared in abbreviated form in Micropolitics. Other
chapters in the handbook will shortly appear as expanded monographs
in the Topics in Political Behavior Series to be published also by Plenum.
Finally, plans are also underway for continuing the Handbook of Political
Behavior in the form of annual volumes which will focus on additional
subjects in the political behavior field.' Thus, the omission and incomplete-
ness problems encountered in other collections have been circumvented
in the handbook and its related publications.
Editing these volumes has been somewhat analogous to juggling si-
multaneously a multitude of pins, and many people have assisted me. My
family has been especially supportive throughout the project: my wife,
Ruth Taylor Long, by maintaining her equanimity in the face of my ob-
session with the handbook, and my editorial assistant, Samantha Taylor
Long, by continually showing me that other activities, such as kindergarten-
league soccer, can be as equally diverting as the social sciences. The staff
of the Plenum Publishing Corporation, particularly my editor Frank
Columbus-an exemplary juggler himself-has contributed to the ex-
perience being both enlightening and exciting. The contributing authors
have been very cooperative, given the pressures exerted on them by the
deadline. My friend and mentor, Donald Gordon, of the Center for the
Study of Business and Government, Baruch College, of the City Univer-
sity of New York, has been generous with both his time and Center re-
sources, contributions I greatly appreciate. Helen and Robert Lane pro-
vided much encouragement, warm companionship, and liebfraumilch during
the earliest stages of this project while I was a postdoctoral fellow in the
Psychology and Politics Program at Yale University. Impetus was also
provided this project by William Siffin, who repeatedly questioned my
sanity for undertaking the editorship of the Handbook of Political Be-
havior and who insinuated it would never be brought to fruition. It is with
much satisfaction and glee that I refute the latter contention.

SAMUEL LONG

Alexandria, Virginia
CONTENTS

Chapter 1

POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY: A WHIG HISTORY

William F. Stone
Introduction ................................................ 1
Some Intellectual Predecessors of Political Psychology ....... 4
The Dawn of Modern Psychology ........................... 5
Wilhelm Wundt ......................................... 6
William James .......................................... 6
Psychoanalysis and the Instincts ........................... 7
William McDougall ..................................... 8
Behaviorism ............................................ 9
Political Psychology Emerges in the Twentieth Century ........ 10
Graham Wallas ......................................... 10
Harold Lasswell ......................................... 11
Junius Flagg Brown ..................................... 11
The Lasswellian Era: 1930-1950 ............................. 13
B. F. Skinner: Radical Behaviorism ........... '" .. ..... .. . 13
Focus on the Child ...................................... 15
Attitudes ............................................... 16
Psychology and Social Issues ............................. 17
Kurt Lewin ........................................... " 18
Learning Theory and Psychoanalysis ....................... 19
Need Hierarchy Theory .................................. 20

xxi
xxII CONTENTS

Authoritarianism and Alienation: The 1950s 21

Criticism of the Authoritarian Personality ................. . 22
Personality and Ideology ................................ . 23
Riesman and Erikson ................................... . 24
Social Psychology ...................................... . 25
Hyman's Political Socialization .......................... . 26
The New Frontier in Political Psychology: Personal Efficacy
and Involvement in the 1960s .......................... . 26
The American Voter .................................... . 27
Social Motivation: The Concept of Competence ............ . 27
Learned Motives: The Need for Achievement .............. . 28
Powerlessness and Personal Control ...................... . 30
Psychology, Intergroup Conflict, and Aggression ........... . 32
Psychological Conceptions of Political Leaders ............. . 34
Political Socialization and the Study of Student Activists .... . 35
Mapping the Causes of Political Behavior ................. . 38
The Escalation of Psychological Approaches in the 1970s ...... . 38
Political Psychology Emerges as a Self-Conscious Discipline .. 39
Problems of Conception, Integration, and Ethics ........... . 40
Some Current Research Topics .......................... . 43
"Psychological" Variables: A Theoretical Note ............... . 51
Personality: Normal and Deviant ......................... . 52
Types and Traits ....................................... . 53
Social Psychological Approaches ......................... . 54
Summary and Concluding Statement ....................... . 55
References .............................................. . 57

Chapter 2

PERCEPTION AND COGNITION: AN

INFORMATION-PROCESSING FRAMEWORK
FOR POLITICS
W. Lance Bennett
Introduction .............................................. 69
Some Problems in Behavioral Research on Politics ............ 69
Problematic Assumptions about Political Behavior .......... 70
Problems in Measuring Political Behavior .................. 75
The Absence of Grounded Concepts ....................... 79
Toward Integrated Models of Thought, Behavior, and
Political Process .................................... 82
Perception and Cognition: Clarifying the Concepts ............ 83
The Interaction of Perception and Cognition in
Sensory Processes ................................... 84
CONTENTS xxIII

The Perceptual and Cognitive Foundations of Emotions ...... 85

Learning, Perception, and Culture ......................... 86
Logical Arguments for and against the Independence of
Perception and Cognition ............................ 87
A Framework for Clarifying the Relations between
Perception and Cognition ............................ 87
Perception and Politics .................................... 105
The Relevance of Perception Variables for Political Analysis .. 105
Theories of Perception and Their Applications to
Political Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Psychophysics and the Split Brain: Some Ordering
Principles for Flexible Models of Perception ............ III
Cataloging the Variables in Perception Research ............ 113
Perception: The Simple and the Complex of It .............. 124
Cognition and Politics ..................................... 125
The Foundations of Cognition: Learning and Memory ....... 125
Cognitive Development .................................. 134
Styles of Political Thought ............................... 145
New Conceptions of Belief Systems ........................ 15'8
Conclusion: The Relations between Political Thought and
Political Behavior ..................................... 172
References ............................................... 174

Chapter 3

PSYCHOBIOGRAPHY AND PSYCHOHISTORY

Faye Crosby and Travis L. Crosby
Introduction ............................................ 195
Definition .............................................. 196
Varieties of Explanation ................................. 199
Psychobiography: Causal Explanations of Individuals .......... 199
In-Depth Review. . . .. ..... ... ... ... ... .. . .. ... ....... ... 200
Extensive Review ....................................... 213
Psychobiography: Coherent Whole Explanations of Individuals . 219
In-Depth Review ........................................ 220
Extensive Review ....................................... 226
Social Psychohistory: Causal Explanations of Group Behavior .. 233
In-Depth Review ........................................ 234
Extensive Review ....................................... 238
Social Psycho history: Coherent Whole Explanations
of Group Behavior .................................... 240
In-Depth Review. .. ....... .. ... .. ... . ................... 240
Extensive Review ....................................... 242
xxiv CONTENTS

What Is to Be Done? 243

References .............................................. . 246

Chapter 4

POLITICAL LEARNING
P. E. Freedman and Anne Freedman
Introduction .............................................. 255
The Study of Political Learning ........................... 257
A Behaviorist Stimulus-Response Model of Political Learning .. 263
Classical Conditioning ................................... 265
Instrumental Behaviors .................................. 274
Generalization and Discrimination in Instrumental Learning .. 287
N onexperiential Learning .................................. 291
Observational Modeling .................................. 291
Symbolic Learning ...................................... 294
Symbol Manipulation .................................... 295
Related Cognitive Processes ................................ 295
Concluding Remarks ...................................... 299
References ............................................... 299

Chapter 5

COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY
Philip A. Mann
Introduction .............................................. 305
Historical Events in the Formation of Community Psychology .. 306
Issues in the Definition of Community Psychology ............ 311
Problems of Knowledge Base ............................. 311
Problems of Professional Role Definition .................. 313
Problems of Community Settings.......................... 314
Problems of Training and Personnel ....................... 314
Models of Community Psychology .......................... 315
Mental Health Model .................................... 315
Organizational Model .................................... 321
Social Action Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
Ecological Model ....................................... 331
Persistent Common Concerns ............................... 337
Social Roles ............................................ 338
Citizen Participation ..................................... 339
CONTENTS xxv

Toward a Psychology of the Community ................... 340

Perspectives on Community Problems ..................... 342
The Problem of Community Settings ...................... 343
References ............................................... 345

INDEX .............................................. 351