PERIODICALS
POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
of a revival.
Their survey of 40 Republican and 30 Democratic state party chair- men suggests that the GOP is faring better. [Nevertheless, the Democrats hold 34 governorships, the Republicans only 16.1 More than half the Re- publican state party organizations report annual budgets above $500,000; the majority of their Democratic counterparts spend less than $250,000. All but a few of the chairmen say that their organizations re- tain full-time staff members,...
the can- didates and on "independent expenditures" noncampaign organizations.) A 1979 amendment permitted unlimited spending on grass roots activities by political parties. The result, unforeseen at the time, was a vast advantage for the Republicans, thanks to their fund- raising prowess. Ever since, Glen writes, both parties have been on guard against "hidden agendas" in reform proposals.
There is no shortage of reform ideas. But one that seems logical to some outside observers...
other means." Each major new weapons system-antiballistic missiles, multiple war-heads, the Strategic Defense Initiative-brings a new round of arms talks. Even when they "succeed," Draper writes, nuclear arsenals keep growing. Seeking "plain, simple, and sufficient" deterrence with a small number of nuclear weapons on each side is the only logical so- lution, in Draper's view. But until both sides decide they want it, he concludes, talks at Geneva are futile.
The Red Phone...
Don-Who Needs A ald Kagan, in The Public Interest (Winter 1985),20th & Northampton Sts., Easton,
Peace Institute? Pa. 18042.
Unnoticed amid all the legislation that Congress passed in its haste to adjourn last fall was a bill establishing a new United States Institute for Peace. The institute's mission: to subsidize research into the causes of war, to support public "peace education," and to train public offi- cials in "international peace and conflict resolution."
Kagan,...
human impulses-revenge, greed, wishful thinking-that can-not be measured statistics. The new Peace Institute, he predicts, will not just subsidize earnest academic thumb-twiddling but "will erode the forces of common sense, experience, and history that argue for a strong defense as a deterrent to war."
ICS, LABOR, & BUSINESS
'Do Large Deficits Produce High Inter- 'he Interest Rate est Rates?" by Paul Evans, in American Economic Review (Mar. 1985), 1313 21st Puzzle Ave. So.,...
Larry T. Adams, in Monthly Labor Review (Feb. 1985), Super-
For Big Labor intendent of Documents, U.S. Govern- ment Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402.
For several years now, there has been nothing but bad news for leaders of organized labor. Yet, because the federal government stopped gath- ering national data on union membership after 1978, nobody was sure just how grim the tidings on union membership were.
Recently, reports Adams, a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics econo- mist, Washington...
employers added to the impact; all told, 1.9 million union jobs disappeared.
More worrisome to organized labor is the fact that membership fell even in growing sectors of the economy. The payrolls of service indus- tries (e.g., health care, communications, and transportation) swelled nearly five million during the five-year period, but unions lost some 700,000 members. Up to half the losses were the result of federal dereg- ulation of the trucking and airline businesses, which spurred harsher competition...
"Losing Faith in 'Losing Ground'" by
Defending the Robert Greenstein, in The New Republic (Mar. 25, 1985), P.O. Box 955, Farming-
Great Society dale, N.Y. 11737-9855.
Twenty-three years ago, Michael Harrington fired the first shot of the War on Poverty with his expos6 of poverty, The Other America. Today, another book, Charles Murray's Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980, is providing plenty of ammunition for opponents of federal social welfare programs.
Murray's fact-laden...
the late 1970s. If it were not for the nation's erratic economic performance during the 1970s, Greenstein contends, the War on Poverty might have been won.
"Empirical Research on the Insanity De- fense" Henry J. Steadman, in Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (Jan. 1985),Sage Publica- tions, 275 South Beverly D;., Beverly Hills, Calif. 90212.
In June 1984, President Reagan's would-be assassin, John Hinckley, Jr., was found not guilty by reason of insanity....
Steadman estimates that insanity pleas were entered in 0.17 percent of New York State's 127,068 felony cases in 1978.
Successful insanity defendants share certain characteristics. They are mostly male, white, middle-aged, and unmarried. The vast major- ity are either unskilled or unemployed. Their crimes vary from state to state: More than half of New York's criminally insane are murderers, but only one-quarter of New Jersey's are. Assault and burglary offenses are common; sex offenders account...