Coalition-Building by Party Leaders: A Case Study of House Democrats

This study explores the process by which party leaders build winning coalitions. Focusing on House passage of impoundment legislation in the 93rd Congress, the essay documents the extensive efforts of Democratic leaders to create a viable bill and persuade party members to support it. Analyses of whip counts demonstrate that the leaders passed the impoundment bill in part because they could bargain with and convert “successful” party members whose past career advancement and future achievements depended in part on leadership assistance. The essay concludes by identifying six conditions that nurtured the bargaining capacity of the Democratic leaders and fostered their coalition-building success.¹     

Woodrow Wilson's Congressional Government and the Modern Congress: The "Universal Principle" of Change

In Congressional Government Woodrow Wilson analyzes change in Congress during its first century of development. This essay argues that Wilson's analysis of the 19th century Congress, which explains congressional behavior as an outgrowth of both institutional and societal forces, provides a more useful interpretation of change than the institutionalist perspective dominant in the specialized studies of the modern Congress. The essay illustrates the value of Wilson's analysis to contemporary scholars by tracing its impact on the evolution of the author's interpretation of the congressional reforms and changes of the 1970s. The essay attributes the continuing value of Congressional Government to its broad and unified portrait of Congress as a whole.     

A Review of “When Courts and Congress Collide: The Struggle for Control of America's Judicial System”

Brenner, Philip. The Limits and Possibilities of Congress. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983. Pp. ix, 206. $15.95 hardbound; $8.95 softbound.

Maass, Arthur. Congress and the Common Good. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1983. Pp. xi, 273. $18.95.

Dilger, Robert Jay. The Sunbelt/Snowbelt Controversy: The War Over Federal Funds. New York: New York University Press, 1982. Pp. 240. $27.50.

Kelley, Stanley Jr. Interpreting Elections. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983. Pp. xv, 267. $27.50 hardbound; $8.95 softbound.

D. Roderick Kiewiet. Macroeconomics and Micropolitics. University of Chicago Press, 1983. Pp. 176 + vii. $15.00.

Perry, Michael. The Constitution, the Courts, and Human Rights: An Inquiry into the Legitimacy of Constitutional Policymaking by the Judiciary. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982. Pp. 288. $24.00.

Polsby, Nelson W. Consequences of Party Reform. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. Pp. 267. $24.95 hardbound; $8.95 softbound.

Davis, James W. National Conventions in an Age of Party Reform. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983. Pp. 304. $35.00.

Smallwood, Frank. The Other Candidates: Third Parties in Presidential Elections. Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 1983. Pp. xiii, 317. $20.00 hardbound, $9.95 softbound.     

Household Archaeology, Lifecycles and Status in a Nineteenth-Century Australian Coastal Community

The analysis of a ceramic assemblage from a late nineteenth-century site in a coastal town near Melbourne, Australia, is used to explore issues relating to household cycles and comparative status. Acquisition of household goods closely matches the stages of growth and decline in family size and the nature of the assemblage has directed further research into the relative status of the family.     

Book reviews

Steve Smith and Michael Clark (eds), Foreign Policy Implementation. Allen & Unwin, London, 1985, pp. 195. $45.00 (cloth), $18.95 (paper).

David A. Baldwin, Economic Statecraft. Princeton University Press, Princeton. 1985, pp. 409. $US63.50 (cloth) $US 14.50 (paper).

J. O. Langtry and Desmond Ball (eds), A Vulnerable Country? Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1986, pp. 649. $45.00.

Michael O'Connor, To Live in Peace, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1985, ppxii+176. $9.50.

Robert Milliken, No Conceivable Injury. Penguin Books Australia, Ringwood, 1986, pp.xv+383. $7.95.

Desmond Ball (ed.), The AN7AC Connection. Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1985, pp. 169. $9.95.

Robin Kay (ed.), The Anzus Pact and the Treaty of Peace with Japan. Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington, New Zealand, 1985, pp. 1268. $NZ85.00.

Oliver Clubb, KAL Flight 007: The Hidden Story. Permanent Press, Sag Harbour, N.Y., 1985, pp. 174. $US 16.95.

Joni Lovenduski, Women and European Politics: Contemporary Feminism and Public Policy. Wheatsheaf Books, Brighton, 1986, pp xvi + 320. $60.00 (cloth), $23.95 (paper).

Marilyn Waring, Women, Politics and Power. Unwin Paperbacks, Wellington, 1985, pp. 121. $9.95.

R. Apthorpe and A. Krahl (eds), Development Studies: Critique and Renewal. E.J. Brill, Leiden. 1986, pp.264. $68.00.

S. Enders Wimbush (ed.), Soviet Nationalities in Strategic Perspective. Croom Helm, London and Sydney, 1985, pp. xxviii + 253. $49.95.

Rasma Karklins, Ethnic Relations in the USSR. The Perspective from Below. George Allen & Unwin, Boston, 1986, pp. xvi +256. $54.00.

Richard H. Solomon and Masataka Kosaka (eds), The Soviet Far East Military Buildup. Auburn House, Dover, MA, USA, 1986, pp. xv+301. No price given.

David Lane (ed.), Labour and Employment in the U.S.S.R. Wheat‐sheaf Books, Brighton, 1986, pp.viii+280. $75.00.

Maria Hirszowicz, Coercion and Control in Communist Society: The Visible Hand in a Command Economy. Wheatsheaf Books, Brighton, 1986, pp. vii+226. $75.00.

David Childs (ed.), Honecker's Germany. Allen & Unwin, London, 1985, pp.xv+201.$54.00.

M. J. Akbar, India: The Siege Within. Challenges to a Nation's Unity. Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1985, pp. 325. $7.95.

Judith M. Brown, Modern Indian. The Origins of an Asian Democracy. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1985, pp. 429. $24.99.

Mohamed Ariff and Hal Hill, Export‐Oriented Industrialisation: The ASEAN Experience. Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1985, pp. 270. $19.95.

Thai Quang Trung, Collective Leadership and Factionalism. An Essay on Ho Chi Mink's Legacy. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 1985, pp. viii + 136. $ 19.50.

Audrey R. Kahin (ed.), Regional Dynamics of the Indonesian Revolution. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1985, pp.xii, +306. US$25.00.

Nazaruddin Sjamusddin, The Republican Revolt — A study of the Acehnese Rebellion, Institute for Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 1985, pp.x+359. $S45.00 (cloth), $S32.00 (paper).

Richard Robison, Indonesia: The Rise of Capital. Allen & Unwin Australia. North Sydney, 1986, pp.xxv + 425. $ 19.95.

Judith Nagata, The Re/lowering of Malaysian Islam: Modern Religious Radicals and Their Roots. University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver, 1984, pp. 307. $C32.00.

James Home, Japan's Financial Markets: Conflict and Consensus in Policymaking. George Allen & Unwin Australia, Sydney, 1985, pp. 271. $29.95 (cloth), $ 17.95 (paper).

The Commonwealth Group of Eminent Persons, Mission to South Africa: the Commonwealth Report. Penguin Books, Harmond‐sworth, for the Commonwealth Secretariat, 1986, pp. 176. $6.95.

Peter King, Wendy Lee and Vincent Warakai (eds), From Rhetoric to Reality? Papua New Guinea's Eight Point Plan and the National Goals After a Decade. University of Papua New Guinea Press, Waigani, 1985, pp. xii + 459. (Available from Department of Government, University of Sydney, NSW 2006), $32.00.     

Hunter-gatherer economic complexity and “population pressure”: A cross-cultural analysis

This paper examines the relaionship between “population pressure” and socioeconomic complexity among hunter-gatherers. Population pressure is defined as the ratio between population density and the density of available resources. Socioeconomic complexity is measured by means of several correlated variables: storage-dependence, sedentism, social inequality, and use of a medium of exchange. Correlations between these variables are calculated from an ethnographic sample of 94 hunter-gatherer groups. The correlations between population pressure and socioeconomic complexity are found to be extremely high. Two major types of hunter-gatherers exist which are distinguished by a number of variables and may be termed “simple” and “complex.” Transitional groups between these two types are quite rare. It is also noted that population pressure does not arise in continental climates where famine mortality is common because of high-amplitude changes in productivity from year to year. It is argued that population pressure is a necessary and sufficient condition for and the efficient cause of socioeconomic complexity. The widespread disavowal by archaeologists of population pressure as a possible explanation for the prehistoric development of complex hunter-gatherers has no basis in ethnographic fact.