This article introduces a theory of Nested Games which accounts for the cohesion of coalitions. The parties in a coalition are considered to be playing a game with variable payoffs. The payoffs depend on a higher-order game between the coalition and its opponents. Several political situations approximate to this conceptualization, such as Government and Opposition coalitions, factions inside parties, international coalitions, class conflict. The theory of Nested Games predicts the cohesion of coalitions as a function of the relative size of both the coalitions and the partners within each coalition.

The test case of the theory is the cohesion of French electoral coalitions in 1978. Empirical results corroborate the theory. All parties behave according to its predictions. Moreover, a difference in the way parties behave, according to whether the game is visible (by the electorate) or invisible, is discovered and explained.

This article explores some of the major reasons for the weakness of the European steel unions during the crisis years of 1974–84. The crisis revealed the absence of viable union strategies and the inefficiency of their tactics, and also exposed – and aggravated – the divisions within and between the unions and their inability fully to control their members. The crisis underlined the dilemmas inherent in tripartite crisis management and the problems of adjusting to the internationalization of the market and the Europeanization of decision making. Finally, the crisis highlighted the fact that subcontracting, new technology, new working practices and new patterns of labour relations at plant level harboured damaging implications for union organization and influence.

This second article asks what it means to be independent in the contemporary United States. Four different meanings are hypothesized: (1) negative feelings about major political parties and partisanship; (2) positive identification with ideals of independence, especially individualistic autonomy; (3) neutrality or indifference because of no detectable party differences of significance; (4) a self-perceived pattern of variability in partisan behaviour. These four attitudinal dimensions are supported empirically via principal components analysis using both national and Wisconsin data. The four dimensions of independence attitudes show varied patterns of association with general indices of Independence self-classification, relevant political attitudes and behaviours, and various antecedents such as age and education.

Two competing themes – traditionalism and constitutional design – lead to inconsistency in F. A. Hayek's work. This inconsistency and its implications for understanding his thought are examined. It is shown that his failure to reconcile these conflicting emphases reflects uncertainty about the proportions of reasoned choice and unreflective rule-following in human decisions. This uncertainty is traced to Hayek's growing pessimism about modern man's ability to preserve the market and the traditions upon which the market rests. Once Hayek's pessimism is set aside, the implications of his work on tradition can be developed in a more useful direction. Realization that reason rests on a non-rational matrix and that people's choices affect that matrix should not lead towards embrace and veneration of the past, but towards emphasis on the necessity of responsible political choice in the present and future.

There has been considerable controversy over the reasons why women hold less than 20 per cent of all local council offices in England. Using a simple model of the votes a candidate might be expected to receive, this Note uses data from the 1985 English non-metropolitan county council elections to shed light on the paucity of women in local elected office. Our analysis evaluates the following alternative explanations for the low proportions of women in local office:

1. Relatively few women are selected by parties to run for local office;

2. Parties tend to nominate their women candidates for unwinnable races;

3. Voters disproportionately vote against women candidates.

Nurmi has analysed a number of voting procedures with respect to various criteria. The purpose of this Comment is to extend Nurmi's analysis to include the so-called social utility method of candidate selection. This method assumes that each voter has a von Neumann-Morgenstern utility function defined over all candidates (i.e., that, roughly speaking, each voter can assign a cardinal rating to each candidate); then the winning candidate is the one with the greatest utility total.