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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Beyond The Party-Group Continuum: Massachusetts Interest Groups In The 1980s, John C. Berg Sep 1991

Beyond The Party-Group Continuum: Massachusetts Interest Groups In The 1980s, John C. Berg

New England Journal of Public Policy

Studies in the 1960s determined that Massachusetts had strong parties and weak interest groups. In the 1970s and 1980s, as the Republican Party shrank, party competition declined, conflict with the Democratic Party grew, and interest groups gained more importance — and probably will remain important despite the Republican gains of 1990. However, group conflict and citizen mobilization, including increased use of the initiative and referendum, create a situation of interest-centered conflict rather than interest-group dominance as traditionally conceived. This article, based on a 1987 survey of state legislators and legislative aides, plus a summary of recent Massachusetts political history, assesses …


From A Troubled Past To An Uncertain Future: Vietnam Veterans, A Community At Risk: Five-Year Follow-Up Report On The Status Of Vietnam Veterans In The Commonwealth Of Massachusetts, Paul R. Camacho, Kevin Bowen, David Hunt May 1991

From A Troubled Past To An Uncertain Future: Vietnam Veterans, A Community At Risk: Five-Year Follow-Up Report On The Status Of Vietnam Veterans In The Commonwealth Of Massachusetts, Paul R. Camacho, Kevin Bowen, David Hunt

William Joiner Institute for the Study of War and Social Consequences Publications

This report on the concerns of Vietnam and Vietnam-Era veterans in Massachusetts comes at a critical moment. When the inquiry was initiated in 1988, few people anticipated the precipitous decline in the state and national economy, fewer could have foreseen the rapid sequence of events leading to American entry into another war. As the state fiscal crisis has eroded gains made by veterans over the last 20 years and military service in the Gulf has changed the lives of a new generation of Americans, it becomes all the more urgent to recognize the long-term, multi-generational consequences of war and to …


The Impact Of The State Constitutional Convention Of 1917 On State Aid To Higher Education In Massachusetts, John P. Whittaker Mar 1991

The Impact Of The State Constitutional Convention Of 1917 On State Aid To Higher Education In Massachusetts, John P. Whittaker

New England Journal of Public Policy

The Massachusetts State Constitutional Convention of 1917 marked a turning point in the development of higher education in the state. An amendment adopted at the convention put an end to a long tradition of direct state appropriations to support the development of private colleges and to proposals for cooperative efforts between various state agencies and private institutions. After that time, only state institutions would receive state support. This decision resulted from an attempt to resolve an intense debate over the use of public funding for sectarian and other private institutions, which reflected the intense religious and class conflict inherent in …


Tax To Grind: Unequal Personal Income Taxation Of Massachusetts Single-Parent Families And Options For Reform, Randy Albelda Mar 1991

Tax To Grind: Unequal Personal Income Taxation Of Massachusetts Single-Parent Families And Options For Reform, Randy Albelda

New England Journal of Public Policy

While Massachusetts households headed by single parents have, on average, less income than other types of families, they are subject to the same effective income tax rate as the population as a whole. Consequently, such head-of-household families are victims of inequitable tax treatment in two ways. First, their current personal exemptions result in a higher tax burden on these families than on families of the same size and income who file joint income tax returns. Second, head-of-household families, defined as single filers, must apply a lower no-tax threshold than joint filers, even though the former are also composed of two …


Public Benefit And Private Interest: Chronicles Of The Hyde Park Paper Mill, Jeffrey E. Lindenthal Mar 1991

Public Benefit And Private Interest: Chronicles Of The Hyde Park Paper Mill, Jeffrey E. Lindenthal

New England Journal of Public Policy

Until it was mothballed and put up for sale in December 1987, a small paper mill in Hyde Park, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Boston 's city limits, was the oldest continuously operating paper mill in the United States. This particular plant closing occurred at a time manufacturing employment in the state had fallen off precipitously. It also coincided with an awareness among some policymakers that recycling programs were urgently needed to combat a garbage glut, in Massachusetts and states across the nation, attributable to an increasingly wasteful society and dwindling landfill capacity. Efforts to reopen the Hyde Park …


Social Investment In Massachusetts Public Higher Education: A Comparative Analysis, Clyde W. Barrow Mar 1991

Social Investment In Massachusetts Public Higher Education: A Comparative Analysis, Clyde W. Barrow

New England Journal of Public Policy

State expenditures on public higher education are increasingly viewed as a social investment that is necessary to sustain economic growth in a postindustrial economy. However, an analysis of comparative data indicates that state support for such education was below national averages during the 1980s and, when compared to its major competitor states, Massachusetts ranks poorly in support for these institutions. This article concludes that unless state support is increased over the next decade, Massachusetts will risk losing its competitive economic position, while educational administrators will be forced to choose between access or quality in public higher education.


Economic Development Policies Overall Economic Development Program, Umass Amherst Center Economic Development Jan 1991

Economic Development Policies Overall Economic Development Program, Umass Amherst Center Economic Development

Center for Economic Development Technical Reports

The purpose of this report was to identify key industries of the town of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, and to promote the transition of the town's image from a mill town to the Cultural, Financial and Educational center of Central Massachusetts.


Estimates Of Census Underenumeration Based On Genealogies, John W. Adams, Alice Bee Kasakoff Jan 1991

Estimates Of Census Underenumeration Based On Genealogies, John W. Adams, Alice Bee Kasakoff

Faculty Publications

We have been studying the migrations of the descendants of nine men who came to Massachusetts before 1650 and have compiled a computerized database that includes all the people born before 1860 in the patrilines. Thus we have what the nine genealogists who studied these families thought was close to a complete list of family members alive in 1850. Here we focus on our attempts to find these individuals on the 1850 federal census.