Spring 1984
Norway
In Essence
Theodore Lowi, in PS (Fall 19831, American Political Science Associ- ation, 1527 New Hampshire Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.
For more than a decade, Democrats and Republicans have searched for ways to shore up their party organizations. A vain exercise, declares Lowi, a Cornell political scientist. The best medicine for both would be a third national political party.
Lowi contends that Americans' thinking about third parties is mud- dled political myths. One article of faith, for example,...
don't have many defenders in academe. Yet Tesh, a Yale political scientist, finds it odd that "having a passionate conviction about abortion, disarmament, homosexuality, guns, femi- nism, tax laws, or the environment" is seen as a political vice.
Single-issue groups, she says, are often viewed as just another "spe- cial interest" or "pressure group." But traditional interest groups work for legislation that directly (often economically) benefits their mem- bers; membership...
Do Nonvoters Austin Rannev. in Public Opinion (0ct.-Really Matter? Nov. 1983), American ~nter~rise
Insti-tute for Public Policy Research, 1150 17th St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.
Most political scientists see the steady decline in U.S. voter turnout for presidential and congressional elections since the early 1960s as a sign of failing national political health. Ranney, a political scientist at the American Enterprise Institute, is not so sure.
In 1980, only 53 percent of voting-age Americans...
mail, for example- but doubts that they would boost turnout more than 10 percentage points. Blacks, Hispanics, and poor whites, the main stay-at-homes, won't be lured to the polls, he writes, until they "come to believe that voting is a powerful instrument for getting the government to do what they want it to do."
"The City Council Chamber: From Dis-
tance to Intimacy" by Charles T. Good-
sell, in The public ~n&st (Winter 1984),
Symbolism 20th & Northampton Sts.....
contrast, the contemporary layout of "the pit," as locals call it, where the Fort Worth, Texas, City Council meets, fosters the impression of informal contact between citizen and legislator.
studio" that extends the intimacy to the community at large.
Overall, says Goodsell, the new council chambers suggest that citi- zens and their representatives are equals, "mutually engaged in the work of government." He worries, though, that while the new designs reflect (and perhaps...
the 1972 ABM (antiballistic missile) treaty. But Jastrow contends that Moscow has repeatedly violated the pact. Last summer, for example, U.S. spy satellites discovered a sophis- ticated radar complex located near the Soviets' Siberian ICBM fields. The only possible use for the radar is to direct antimissile rockets. Other evidence suggests that Moscow has tested such ABMs.
Jastrow envisions a three-tier defense of lasers and "mini-missiles.'
If each layer had a 10-percent "leakage rate,"...
Alvin H.
Winning in Bernstein and John D.Wagelstein, in
Policy Review (Winter 1984), The Heritage
El Salvador Foundation, 214 Massachusetts Ave. N.E.,
Washington, D.C. 20002.
A negotiated settlement or a long, inconclusive war seem today to be the only options available to the US.-backed government of El Salva- dor. But Bernstein and Wagelstein, U.S. Naval War College professor and former commander of the 55 U.S. military advisers in El Salvador, respectively, have a plan to help the Salvadoran...
Neil C. Livingstone, inThe Rise World Affairs (Summer 1983), 4000 Albe-
marle St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20016.
In 1983, terrorist attacks on the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut and on the U.S. Capitol stunned Americans. More shocks are almost certainly in store, as terrorists around the world step up their campaigns.
Ironically, one of terrorism's major defeats-Israel's 1982 drive into Lebanon, which dislodged the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from Beirut-is also contributing to its...
7.6 percent in 1982. Even worse, industry analysts see a long-term decline of annual growth in worldwide auto sales to just two percent a year. In Japan, idled plants have already hurt productivity. Nissan, for exam- ple, suffered an 18 percent drop in 1982 auto output per worker. Japan's auto workers no longer see their employers' guarantees as im- mutable, Webber writes. Like their counterparts in Detroit, they are beginning to worry about automation and unemployment. Renewed labor strife is possible.
Auto...
Susan Fra- Fading MBAs? ker, in Fortune (Dec. 12, 1983), 541 North
Fairbanks Ct., Chicago, 111.6061 1.
A young lad or lass with a fresh MBA (master of business administra- tion) diploma has long been widely regarded as a shoo-in for the corpo- rate fast track. But Fraker, a Fortune editor, finds that MBAs have lost some of their luster.
Big Business does not like to admit that it is changing its ways, but the fact is that corporations are hiring fewer MBAs. General Electric, for example, trimmed...
first becoming masters of the shop floor.
"The Myth of U.S. Deindustrialization"
Robert Z. Lawrence, in Challenge
(Nov.-Dec. 1983), 80 Business Park Dr.,
U.S. Industry Armonk, N.Y. 10504.
Across the United States, dozens of steel mills, auto plants, and "smokestack" factories of all kinds have closed. Yet despite widespread fears that America is "deindustrializing," contends Lawrence, a Brook- ings Institution economist, U.S. manufacturers are actually outper-...
Why the Immigrant "The Crisis in Immigration Policy" by
Edwin Harwood, in Journal of Contempo-
rary Studies (Fall 1983), Transaction Peri- Door Is Ajar odicals Consortium, Dept. 541, Rutgers
University, New Brunswick, N.J. 08903.
Immigration to the United States is nearing the record levels of the early 1900s, and public opinion surveys show that Americans increasingly favor tighter controls. Yet Washington is doing little to stem the tide.
The sheer number of immigrants entering...
Richard W. Flint, in The Quarterly Journal of the
Of the Circus Library of Congress (Summer 1983), Su-perintendent of Documents, U.S. Govern- ment Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402.
As an Iowa farm boy during the 1870s, novelist Hamlin Garland re- garded the wonders of a traveling circus as the equivalent of "the vi- sions of the Apocalypse." To most Americans today, the circus is largely a relic of "simpler times."
In ancient Rome, a "circus" was an arena...
rail allowed touring circuses to bypass the smallest towns
and to transport a vast array of props, trained animals, and human per-
formers. (Rail travel had its drawbacks: Jumbo the African Elephant
was tragically killed a locomotive in 1885. An undaunted P. T. Bar-
num promptly put Jumbo's skeleton on display.) The Sells Brothers
Circus, though by no means the largest, employed 500 men and women
and logged 13,852 miles on its 1895 tour. Mark Twain's Huck Finn de-
scribed the circus of this...
concentrating on the needs of children, Head Start avoids the "stigma" of welfare dependency, and it responds to blacks' "unique claims on the American conscience" without relying on racial quotas or other de- vices. And it is one of the few federal programs that manages to tap the creative energies of the communities it serves.
"Tecumseh, The Shawnee Prophet, and Tecumseh and American History: A Reassessment" His Brother R. David Edmunds, in The Western His-
torical...
Bonafede, a National Journal correspondent, gen- erally throw up their hands at nost of the major complaints lodged against campaign coverage.
Charges academics that tkv press focuses too much attention on front-runners and incumbent presidents, says the Washington Post's Peter Silberman, ignore "the way of American politics." Portraying the campaign as a "horse race," many editors believe, is the only way to keep readers and viewers interested as the weeks wear on. Similarly,...
Michael J.When Newsmen Robinson. in Washington Journalism Re- ~~~k at Newsmenview (~ec.1983)' 253 Wisconsin Ave.
N.W., Suite 442, Washington, D.C. 20007.
U.S. journalists are often criticized for being too "negative" about the people and institutions they describe. They may be, says Robin- son, director of the Media Analysis Project at George Washington University, but at least they are consistent: These days, journalists are also hard on one another.
Robinson surveyed network TV news...
Michael J.When Newsmen Robinson. in Washington Journalism Re- ~~~k at Newsmenview (~ec.1983)' 253 Wisconsin Ave.
N.W., Suite 442, Washington, D.C. 20007.
U.S. journalists are often criticized for being too "negative" about the people and institutions they describe. They may be, says Robin- son, director of the Media Analysis Project at George Washington University, but at least they are consistent: These days, journalists are also hard on one another.
Robinson surveyed network TV news...
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PERIODICALS
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
"Remembrance of Things Partly" byThe Anatomy Wray Herbert, in Science News (Dec. 10,
1983), 231 West Center St., Marion, Ohio
f Memory 43302.
"H.M.," as he is known to scientists, underwent surgery in 1953 in which much of the hippocampus region of his lower brain was removed to stop his epileptic seizures. In a freak accident with a fencing foil in 1960,another man, "N.A.," suffered an injury to the left side o...
Space Shuttle M. Mitchell Waldrop, in Science (Oct. 28, 1983), 1515 Massachusetts Ave. N.W., Skeptics Washington, D.C. 20005.
After 13 missions, U.S. space shuttle launches still capture the public imagination sufficiently to merit live network TV coverage. But not everybody is cheering.
To scientists, reports Waldrop, a Science correspondent, the shuttle represents unmet expectations. During the early 1970s, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) promised scientists that there...
the early 1990s.
Bom-Again "Are New Diseases Really New?" Ed-
win D. Kilbourne, in Natural History Diseases (Dec. 1983), Membership Services, P.O.
Box 6000, Des Moines, Iowa 50340.
The world's last remaining pockets of smallpox had hardly been wiped out when a series of baffling new illnesses-Legionnaires' disease, toxic shock syndrome, and, most recently, AIDS (acquired immune defi- ciency syndrome)-seemed to materialize out of nowhere.
Most of these afflictions are actually old...
IODICALS
RESOURCES & ENVIRONMENT
"The Case for Ocean Waste Disposal" by
Where Will All William Lahey and Michael Connor, in Technology ~eview(Aug.-Sept. 1983),
The Garbage Go? Room 10-140, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass. 02139.
New York's Love Canal, Missouri's Times Beach, and other toxic waste dumpsites gone bad are making the oceans look better than they did 10 years ago as places to dispose of industrial by-products, municipal sew- age sludge, ind p...
the year 2000.
Wholesale clearance of tropical forests began when European plant- ers began colonizing Latin America in the 17th century, writes Jackson, a freelance journalist. Sugar and rubber plantations still cover vast ex- panses of land once occupied rainforest. Today, "shifting cultiva- tors," small-scale forest farmers numbering 150 million worldwide, are responsible for half of new losses as they slash plots out of the forest, then move on when the thin soil wears out.
Logging...
the year 2000.
Wholesale clearance of tropical forests began when European plant- ers began colonizing Latin America in the 17th century, writes Jackson, a freelance journalist. Sugar and rubber plantations still cover vast ex- panses of land once occupied rainforest. Today, "shifting cultiva- tors," small-scale forest farmers numbering 150 million worldwide, are responsible for half of new losses as they slash plots out of the forest, then move on when the thin soil wears out.
Logging...
the
U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service have ap- preciated 22-fold, and are now worth some $500 billion.
Clawson notes that the 200-year history of federal land use policy has been one of constant change. Until the early 19th century, the focus was on acquisition. A period of disposal through homesteading (which con- tinued until 1934), sales, and land grants for colleges and railroads fol- lowed. Beginning with the creation of the first National Forests (then called "forest...
what we would today call the "preppie class." Cheever views his subjects with sympathy but detachment, engendered his per- sonal demons-a stormy marriage, alcoholism, and, later in life, grow- ing homosexual proclivities.
With the exception of his first two (and best) novels, The Wapshot Chronicle (1957) and The Wapshot Scandal (1964), Cheever's books were attempts to exorcize those troubles and find redemption, argues Gus- sow. Both Bullet Park (1 969) and Falconer (1977) worked poorly...
such authors as James rep- resented an escape from the "frantic acquisitiveness" that dominated American life. Characters were catapulted into wealth and high sta- tus, as Zanger points out, in a way that carefully avoided "any realis- tic examination of the practical and moral problems attached to the accumulation of money."
Ultimately, says Zanger, an aristocracy of inherited wealth contra- dicts the American ideal of the self-made man. Yet as long as fame and fortune appear...
John McPhee, in The Swiss Army The New Yorkey (Oct. 31 and Nov. 7,1983),
25 West 43rd St.,New York, N.Y. 10036.
For nearly 500 years, Switzerland has stayed out of Europe's wars relying on what the Swiss call the "Porcupine Principle." The formula is simple, reports McPhee, a New Yorker writer: The tiny nation bristles with arms and its people stand ready to fight.
Topography-the Jura mountains and the Alps-makes Switzerland
The Wilson QuarterlyISpring 1984
39
PERIODICALS
OTHER N...
their de- signers, ready to self-destruct on command. Mountains are honey- combed with airplane hangars, tunnels full of food and munitions, and command posts. Shelters against nuclear attack are everywhere; one alpine highway tunnel is fitted with five-foot-thick concrete doors at either end, making it "the biggest bomb shelter in the world."
Almost all able-bodied Swiss men are drafted into the Army (it has only some 30,000 professional soldiers) for 30 years of part-time ser- vice....
15-25 percent) and slashed the public payroll (50 percent be- tween 1973 and '77), boosted taxes, and slowed money supply growth. During the next three years, inflation plunged from 340 percent to 30 percent annually. Economic growth accelerated to a 7.3 percent an- nual rate in 1978. Some economists began talking about a "Chilean economic miracle."
By early 1982, however, that talk had been silenced. Industrial out- put fell sharply, unemployment climbed to 23 percent, and bankrupt-...
the influx after midcentury of reform-minded white colonists-the same Europeans whose ancestors had vastly expanded the slave trade 200 years earlier.
ong Kong's "The International Position of Hong
Kong" Lucian W. Pye, in The China
(Sept. 1983), School of Oriental
Uncertain Future ~ua~terl~
and African Studies, Malet St., London WC1E 7HP, England.
Nervous businessmen in Hong Kong, facing a Chinese takeover once Britain's 99-year lease to the territory expires in 1997, were not...
Book Reviews
by Gertrude Himmelfarb
Knopf, 1984
196 pp. $25
by Edward N. Luttwak
St. Martin's, 1983
242 pp. $14.95
by Keith Weller Taylor
Univ. of Calif., 1983
397 pp. $38.50
by John J. Stephan
Univ. of Hawaii, 1984
228 pp. $16.95
by A. W. Simpson
Univ. of Chicago, 1984
354 pp. $25
by Frances Mossiker
Knopf, 1983
538 pp. $22.95
by Serge Guilbaut
translated by Arthur
Goldhammer
Univ. of Chicago, 1983
277 pp. $22.50
by Stanley Rothman &
S. Robert Lichter
Oxford, 1982
466 pp. $27.95
by Richard J. Barnet
Simon & Schusterl 1983
511 pp. $19.95
by Joseph J. Corn
Oxford, 1983
177 pp. $17.95
by Roger B. Swain
Scribner's, 1983
217 pp. $12.95
by Howard Gardner
Basic, 1983
412 pp. $23.50
By Mary Douglas and
Aaron Wildavsky. Univ. of Calif., 1983.
221 pp. $6.95
By Richard Selzer. Touchstone, 1983.
205 pp. $5.95
By J.P.V.D. Balsdon. Barnes &
Noble, 1983.351 pp. $6.95
Essays
artist Charles White. In 1950, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Negro could. The decision in Sweatt v. Painter was one of a long series of rulings the high COLL~I,
beginning in the late I930s, that chipped away at the legal foundations o/'iegregation.
The Wilson QuarterlyISpring 1984
48
On June 29, 1964, the United States Congress passed a sweeping Civil Rights Act, climaxing a decade of rising protest against the racial segregation that the Supreme Court had sought to end in Brown v. Board...
"There comes a time," Lyndon Baines Johnson liked to say, quoting Cactus Jack Garner, "in poker and politics, when a man has to shove in all his stack." For LBJ, the moment came on November 22, 1963.
On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court launched the modern quest for racial equality in America when it struck down public school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education. That quest has developed slowly into a controversy about the meaning of civil rights and the idea of equality-a controversy that contin- ues to inject itself into our politics today.
After the Civil War, black leaders and civil-rights advocates generally believed that the law should make no distinctions on the basis of race....
It is no secret that the social problems of urban life in the United States are, in great measure, associated with race.
While rising rates of crime, drug addiction, out-of-wedlock births, female-headed families. and welfare deoendencv have af- flicted American society generally in recent years, the increases have been most dramatic among what has become a large and seemingly permanent black underclass inhabiting the cores of the nation's major cities.
And yet, liberal journalists, social scientists,...
the end of the 17th century, the London-based Royal African Company was bringing 1,000 slaves into Virginia every year. Victory in America's War of Independence did not end the slave trade. 1790, roughly one of every five persons in the new republic was black. August Meier and Elliot Rudwick cover much of the same ground as Franklin in From Plantation to Ghetto (Hill & Wang, 1976, cloth & paper).
Congress outlawed the importa- tion of African slaves in 1807, but the domestic slave trade...
Before the printed book, Memory ruled daily life and the occult learning, and fully deserved the name later applied to printing, the "art preservative of all arts" (Ars artium omnium conservatrix). The Memory of individuals and of communities carried knowledge through time and space. For millennia personal Memory reigned over entertainment and information, over the perpetuation and perfection of crafts, the practice of commerce, the conduct of professions. By Memory and in Memory the...
In 1965, when Esso secured the first license from Oslo for offshore oil exploration, hopes ran high that the North Sea fields would provide a stable source of energy for the West-and a sta- ble source of income for Norway.
500 B.c., boat- shaped graves-with tall stones at either end representing prow and stern-were common.
The boats themselves, Hagen notes, were growing sturdier. Around A.D. 600, Norwegians built the first full keel-a single, arched beam, usually oak, which under- girded the hull. Ships now could sur- vive long voyages; Scandinavia had the technology to enter the Viking Age.
Of the many accounts of the Vi- kings' extraordinary outward surge during the ninth, loth, and 11 th cen- turies, the best...
public agencies and private institutions
'The Change in Women's Economic Status."
Paper presented June O'Neill before the Joint Economic Committee of the
U.S. Congress, November 9, 1983.
The first words in most public discus-
sions of why working women earn less
than men are "sex discrimination."
O'Neill, an Urban Institute analyst,
believes that there is more to say.
The male-female "pay gap" is not quite as wide as is commonly as-sumed, she notes. Feminists h...
When Walker Percy's first novel, The Moviegoer, appeared in 1961, the initial critical reaction was anything but encouraging-little more, in fact, than a few bland short notices in the New York Times and other major review outlets. It was just the sort of literary debut that has driven fledgling authors into real estate sales or computer software design.
But just as the The Moviegoer was beginning its quiet passage to that special oblivion reserved for unnoticed first novels, the New Yorker writer
A....
In 195 1, Harvard sociologist David Riesman published an essay called "The Nylon War." In it, he sug- gested that the easiest way to van- quish our Soviet adversaries would be to drop consumer goods on them from airplanes.
Deluge those deprived masses with Ansco cameras and Schick shavers, and they would soon forsake their jobs at the Red October Tank Works. Shower them with Camel cigarettes and Ronson lighters, and Karl Marx would quickly fade into the recesses of collective memory.
In f...
