Huckshorn, Robert J.

The general hypothesis is that variation in party competition
can be accounted for in terms of socio-economic diversity. Since this
general hypothesis is not amenable to direct testing, eleven lowerlevel
hypotheses concerning the relationship between party competition
and variation in socio-economic structure were used. The county was
the unit of analysis. Party competition was measured for two levelsthe
presidential and the gubernatorial--for each county. Party competition
was defined at each level in teras of the percentage of the
vote which a county gave to the candidate who failed to carry the
county. For the presidential levelf an average was taken for the
1956 and 1960 elections. Por the gubernatorial level, an average was
taken for the elections between 1956 and 1960. The higher is the
average, the higher is party competition for the county.
Measured thusly, party competition was predicted to vary directly
with: (1) per cent urban; (2) median income for the county;
(3) median number of years of education of those twenty-five years of
age or older; (4) the degree of income variation for the county;
(5) the degree of variation in number of years of school completed by
those twenty-five years of age or older in the county; (6) the degree
of dispersion among the major occupational categories within the
county; (7) population density per square mile; (8) the per cent of the
labor force engaged in white-collar occupations; (9) the per cent Negro
of the county population. Party competition was predicted to vary inversely with (l) the extent to which urbanism in a county deviated
from fifty per cent ; and , (2) the extent to which the per cent employed
in white-collar occupations deviated from fifty per cent.
Multiple correlation and regression analysiB was used to teat
the hypotheses. A selected sample was used, consisting of the counties
of two sets of states. The Homogeneous Set consisted of the counties
of Maine, New Hampshire, Wyoming, and North Dakota. The Heterogeneous
Set consisted of the counties of New Jersey and Ohio. Also, these two
sets were combined to form a Combined Set.
The multiple correlation coefficients indicated that party competition
could be accounted for in terms of socio-economic diversity
to a significant degree at the presidential level but not at the gubernatorial
level for each of the sets. However, many of the relationships
were not in the predicted direction, indicating that party competition
will not necessarily increase with all types of socio-economic
diversity. A surprising finding was that the relationships between
party competition and the independent variables were often reversed for
the two ballot levels . It was suggested that perhaps two party systems
are operating in these states at the different ballot levels. The most consistent finding was the negative relationship-contrary
to the predicted positive relationship--between party competition
and the median educational level of a county. Several others of the
independent variables were found to have some tmportance, but there
were many inconsistencies in the findings between the ballot levels and,
to a lesser extent, between the sets of counties. The results auagest
that the simple linear model which vas used might need complicating; the
relationships may be more complex than can be accommodated by a linear
model.

The theory of a dualism in a moving consensus, as a
covariance in the party's outlook on major governmental
issues, is explained in the introduction of the paper.
It is illustrated by the most noteworthy example, the
convergence in attitudes of both parties on the importance
of governmental aid in economic And social areas after the
Great Depression. The importance of developing parallel
examples of interparty dualism on other issues is presented
as the goal of the paper.
The utility of the party platforms as the most
suitable continuous documents available for the measurement
of issue covariance is supported by a brief description of
their historical background and the political processes
involved in their completion . It is proposed that with the
party leadership determining the process of their adoption,
they are the best indicators of party attitude on major
issues.
Three platform hypotheses are presented to test the
dualism theory. The first hypothesis tests the covariance
of subject matter which each party develops in the major
issue areas of the platforms, to prove that they are in
agreement on the importance of the same problems. The
test of the second hypothesis requires the proof of a similar covariance of attitude toward these issues. The
third hypothesis is a test to eliminate the factor of being
in or out of power as the prime determinant of a party's
attitude toward major issues, rather than the dualism in a
moving consensus which slowly changes a party's outlook.
The background and methodology of content analysis is
developed to show its application to the first hypothesis.
The coding of the units of content on six major issue areas
and their subsequent statistical correlation validated
this hypothesis on the covariance of subject matter in the
platform8. The technique of the Q-sort is explained as a
measurement of party attitudes on the issues of Big Government
and Interventionism. Correlation of Q-sort data from both
parties on these issues did not support the second hypothesis.
The data failed to show a dualism in party attitude similar
to that found in subject matter. When the third hypothesis
was tested by Q-sorting it was rejected because it indicated
that a covariation of attitude toward the two issues is
correlated with the parties' change in control of the
presidency. It is therefore concluded that the theory of
a dualism in a moving consensus does not extend itself to
cover the issues tested . Instead it was indicated that
the condition of being in or out of power is the main fa ctor
in the formation of party attitude on the issues.

The history of the development of the party newspapers is
reviewed in the first chapter. The goal of the research was to
attempt to discover the uses and goals of state political party
newspapers.
Five propositions were proposed which would accomplish
this aim. The first proposition was to discover the extent to
which the state party paper is used to extend the publicity of
the state chairman. The second proposition was to discover to
what extent the party newspaper is used as a tool in finance and
fund-raising appeals. The third proposition attempted to reveal
to what extent the state paper is used to extend the publicity of
the incumbent governor. Proposition IV sought to ascertain
whether or not a party not holding the governor's office openly
criticized the state opposition party, while the incumbent party
merely spoke of its own accomplishments while neglecting the
opposition. The fifth, and final, proposition attempted to
ascertain whether less populous state Republican party papers were
more apt to relate themselves to the national Republican party
and administration.
The research method of content analysis was discussed
and the methodology used in this study was explained. The scores
for nine content categories were compiled and the findings from
a one-issue analysis of sixty-two papers confirmed Propositions
I-IV. The fifth proposition was disproven. A time analysis of six selected papers was performed and
these findings confirmed the findings of the one-issue analysis.
Furthermore, this analysis proved the existence of patterns of
column-inch space allocations in a state party newspaper.

This is a study of the impact of constituency pressures on
the United States House of Representatives in the Eighty-seventh
Congress. It is an attempt to measure by quantitative methods
the relative effectiveness of pressures on congress from the
various types of constituencies normaily associated with one party
or another. Political pressure is defined here as a force which
brings about distinctive patterns of voting behavior on the part
of the representatives. whether the force is applied through conventional
forms of coercion or through the appeal of loyalties and
ideologies. The two sources of pressure which are the major concern
of this research are the representative's party affiliation and
his constituency. The former is held constant while the latter
is permitted to vary in order to observe more closely the differing
impact of certain constituency pressures on members of the Democratic
and Republican parties.
The dependent variable in this study is party loyalty
which is the per cent of the times a congressman voted with his
party on a set of one hundred and fifteen party unity roll-calls.
These roll-calls are those on which a majority of one party opposes
a majority of the other party. The independent variables are gross
measures of broad demographic, socio-economic, and political characteristics
of congressional districts. The theory is that these
factors reflect significant differences between the Democrats and
Republicans with regard to electoral centers of support. Consequently, it is hypothesized that variations in a congressman's constituency
would be related to variations in legislative voting
behavior as measured by party unity roll-calls .
The step-wise multiple regression technique is the means
of testing the major proposal. It indicates that a proportion
of the variance in party loyalty can be explained by variation in
constituency. But the proportion explained for the Democrats
(34.7%) is much greater than that for the Republicans (11. 8%).
The threshold concept is proposed as an explanation for this. It
is also suggested that new research is needed to clarify the types
of constituencies most likely to associate with the two major
parties.
Thus, the theory that constituency pressures can explain,
to some extent, legislative voting behavior has been tentatively
validated. However, the findings indicate that a more complex,
multi-variate, theory of legislative behavior is needed before
accurate predictions can be made. Therefore, the constituency model
must be expanded to include other factors such as psychological and
institutional ones.

This represents a study of the relationships between congressional district
demographic characteristics, electoral competitiveness and representative
voting behavior. Census data is used to compute heterogeneity
scores for all congressional districts. Literature dealing with the effect of urbanization on electoral competitiveness and studies on the impact
of competitiveness on congressional voting behavior are discussed.
A hypothesis on the relationship between heterogeneity and electoral
voting behavior is presented. Two hypotheses on the relationships between
heterogeneity and congressional voting behavior are presented.
Congressional behavior is measured by party unity and conservativeness.
Correlational techniques arc used to study all three suggested relationships and some knowledge of such techniques is advised.

The purpose of this project was to determine the legal powers
and duties of state political party chairmen, as enumerated in party
by-laws and state election laws. The thesis is divided into six chapters, the most extensive
of which contains empirical tests of twenty-six hypotheses pertaining
to eleven groups of items organized from 235 judge-evaluated items.
The groups are: Qualifications, method of election and term of office; Appointive powers; Removal powers; Vacancy-filling powers; Voting; and
Functions of the chairman vis-a-vis the state committee, executive
committee, subcommittees, local committees, state conventions, local
conventions and elections. There are also chapters which analyze the 235 evaluated items,
the effectiveness of the by-laws and election laws, and the relationship
be tween the party scores and selected political and demographic
variables. The final chapter recapitulates the major findings and
conclusions. Ten appendices contain data utilized in the study.