James Q. Wilson, in PS: Political Science &Politics (Dec. 1994), American Political Science Association, 1527 New Hampshire Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.
"Reinventing" the executive branch of the fed- era1 government so that it "works better and costs less," as Vice President A1 Gore's National Performance Review is supposed to do, is a very laudable goal, says political scientist Wilson, of them responsive, we expose them to access endless reporters, lawyers, committees,...
"Lyndon Johnson's Victory in the 1948 Texas Senate Race: A Reappraisal" Dale Baum and James L. Hailey, in Political Science Quarterly (Fall 19941, Academy of Political Science, 475 Riverside Dr., Ste. 1274, New York, N.Y. 10115-1274.
"Landslide Lyndon" they called Lyndon Johnson, after he won a 1948 run-off Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate by only 87 votes out of 988,295. In explaining LBJ's razor-thin victory (tantamount to election since Texas was then a virtual one-party...
A Survey of Recent Articles
If you were looking for fighting words dur- ing the 1980s, "mergers and ac-quisitions" would do nicely. This phrase could make the hair on a corporate titan's head stand on end and touch off ideological brawls among people worried about the future of the
U.S. economy. Some said the decade's extraor- dinary number of corporate mergers, takeovers, and leveraged buyouts was destroying the U.S. economy. Others insisted that these activities were a healthy development.
In...
Alex Marshall, inMetropolis (Jan.-Feb. 1995), 177 E. 87th St.,New York, N.Y. 10128.
To Americans who loathe suburban sprawl and shopping malls, Europe has always seemed the promised urban land. Writing about the woes of U.S. cities, architects and city planners frequently dot their texts with cosmopolitan asides about how much more Europeans still care about community, about public spaces, about cities. "Well, they don't. At least not as much as we think,"writes Marshall, a reporter for...
Heather Mac Donald, in City Journal (Winter 1995),Manhattan Institute, 52 Vanderbilt Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017.
In the debate about welfare reform, the "wel- fare" under scrutiny is the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, which assists single mothers and their off- spring. Reformers need to expand their hori- zons, argues Mac Donald, a contributing edi- tor of City Journal. They should take a look at
the federal government's mushrooming wel-
fare for the disabled,...