The aim of this paper is to test vote and popularity functions in Italy. An alternative model on the demand for macroeconomic outcomes is presented. In addition, some preliminary results from a survey on Italian politicians' beliefs are illustrated. This field of research is shown to be of great interest in explaining the supply of public goods, of macroeconomic outcomes, and the relationships between the polity and the economy.

This paper contains a critique of much of the work on politico-economic models. These models are criticized on four grounds: that they should have a more explicit economic structure, that they should be estimated by systems estimators to prevent simultaneity bias, that they should be subjected more to full-model simulations, and that the estimations should be carried out over each election period separately better to reveal parameter instability. The hypotheses are tested on a monthly model of Sweden for the period 1970–82. It turns out that the interaction between the economy and the polity in this period is so small that the first three points of criticism are irrelevant. Estimated parameters in the evaluation function and in the policy function(s) are, however, so unstable as to cast doubt on the relevance of politico-economic models. This does not deny that there may be an interaction on specific instances, but there does not appear to be a systematic relationship.

The study of public policies in the contemporary Welfare States does not give enough consideration to the character of the public organizations that handle the concrete implementation. Building on recent neo-Marxist studies of public administration, this article examines the organizational connection to the ‘Active Labour Market Policy’ that was launched in Sweden by the Social Democrats during the late 1950s and that was exported throughout the OECD countries during the 1960s. The success of this policy was the result of a major organizational change in the public administration of the labour market in Sweden, which broke with the traditional bureaucratic mode of operation and established new principles of organizing public activities. This organizational change in the Swedish case is interpreted as an attempt to create a specific mode of Social Democratic cadre-organization.

This article reports on a research project on local educational politics in France, particularly on relations between the bureaucracy and the teachers’ unions. Three principal conclusions are reached. First, the local bureaucracy does not succeed in insulating itself from the political environment, nor does it seek to do so. Although curriculum decisions remain highly centralized, there has been sufficient administrative deconcentration to make lively local politics possible. Second, Communist control of the primary-school teachers’ union does not restrict communication between union and local bureaucracy. Nor does it prevent the effective representation of individuals and groups. But it does make bureaucracy/union relations more formal than they are in other departments, and it does break down the clear barrier which exists elsewhere between the professional and the bureaucrat, through the creation of a coalition of teachers, parents and sympathetic local politicians. Third, the unions constrain administrative action more effectively at the departmental than at the regional level. This contrast is explained mainly in terms of the different responsibilities of departmental and regional authorities in education.

If one accepts Samuelson's verdict that no decentralized pricing system can serve to determine optimally the levels of collective consumption, and that some other type of procedure or mechanism would have to be tried, two problems immediately arise. First, representation, i.e. the phenomenon that in all other existing mechanisms only a small fraction of the individuals involved can participate directly. The second problem is co-ordination, due to the fact that parallel mechanisms have to be used for the allocation of private and public goods. Furthermore, if one would opt for some sort of voting procedure in order to determine the levels of public goods, the additional problem of incentive compatibility has to be coped with. The article aims to clarify the political relevance of these issues.

The Portuguese revolution of 1974–75 produced a great outpouring of mass political activity, centred on three sites: industrial workplaces, urban neighbourhoods, and southern latifundios. In each, workers or residents organized to meet immediate needs (most often, employment security and housing), but in the favourable political conjuncture they moved beyond immediate grievances to demand far-reaching social and political changes. Small political parties of the far left attempted to interpret these demands and become their political vehicle; they failed, but achieved a surprising electoral success with the 1976 presidential campaign of Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho. Analysing the vote for him, I argue that it is best understood not (as some interpreters claim) as populist or representing Portuguese traditions of Sebastianism and the ‘saviour army’, but as a working-class-based expression of the demand for popular power.

A better understanding of political system performance from a public policy point of view requires a more rigorous concern with methodological and theoretical aspects of research design. In many comparative studies the lack of focus on the sub-systemic, intermediate level of the political system is striking and it is maintained that recent developments in organizational theory offer rich opportunities to analyse the effects of institutional and organizational factors on political system performance.

A Scandinavian research project covering Finland, Norway and Sweden, based on a ‘most similar systems’ research design, is used as an illustrative example of how the author thinks comparative studies may lead to an agglomeration of more cumulative knowledge in the field of public policy.