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Attempts to determine the impact of party control on state welfare policy have produced mixed and inconclusive results, in part due to our inability to account for variations in the state partisan environments. I used CBS/New York Times surveys combined over the period 1976–88 to offer a detailed examination of the state party systems, resulting in a description of the dominant social group partisan cleavage in each state. This information is then used to examine the impact of party control on state welfare benefits. The findings show that the coalitional bases of the parties vary in important ways, both within and across the states. These differences in the state party systems have an important influence on the relationship between party control and state welfare effort. Specifically, party control has a significantly greater impact in states where partisan divisions reflect class-based New Deal-type coalitions. When examined in the context of state partisan environments, party control has a much greater impact on state welfare effort than has been suggested by previous studies.

Examines sociodemographic characteristics of the Democratic and Republican parties, and impact of party control on state welfare benefits; based on CBS/New York Times polls, 1967-88.

We reexamine the effects of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) legislation on aggregate participation rates in the states. We approach NVRA as working directly on registration, and only indirectly on turnout, and we argue that the most appropriate way to evaluate NVRA is to examine how it translates increased registration into turnout. Using Federal Election Commission/Electoral Assistance Commission and census data, we find that an unanticipated impact of NVRA has been to alter the long-standing empirical relationship between registration and turnout. Further analyses suggest this failure to transmit registration into turnout may, ironically, be the result of another success of NVRA—an increase in the relative equality of registrants. By encouraging lower income citizens to register, NVRA has helped create a pool of registered citizens less likely to vote. These findings have implications for discussions of NVRA and for the participation literature that views registration as a primary catalyst for turnout.

Three exploratory studies examined the relevance of a developmental model for approaching supervision of graduate students in evaluation studies. The developmental model described in this article includes three stages and eight developmental tasks within each stage. The studies found a significant correlation between a measure of autonomy and self-ratings of competence, in that self-ratings of competence and attitudes toward evaluation were more positive after a graduate seminar but did not change significantly after a practicum experience. Case studies found the developmental model helpful in conceptualizing student progress and that it provided useful ways of thinking about students and instructional strategies.

AbstractEvaluators wishing to increase the utilization of their information can do so if they are willing to assume an active, planful, and ongoing role.