176 NATIONAL CIVIC REVIEW [March ~~~ ~-

Books in Review . . Jewel Bellush, Editor

Council-Manager P h THE ABANDONMENT OF CITY MANAGER

GOVEBNXENT BY SOUTH DAKOTA MUNIC- IPALITIES. By Eugene W. Kimmel. Gov- ernmental Research Bureau, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, 1966. 55 pp.

South Dakota has tried the council- manager plan in six small cities ranging from the earliest one, Clark, population 1,500, which adopted it by ordinance in 1912, to Rapid City, population 42,000. But only one manager city, Yankton, now survives. All of them except Clark op- erated under a good optional law.

The author visited each of the six cities which had abandoned the plan, interviewed the logical people, read the local press and summed up the episode in each city in three or four pages. He failed to find any uniform pattern of reasons for abandonment, although these cities were characterized by lack of growth in popu- lation and of expectations of growth. In several cases, unfavorable reaction to the personality of the city manager counted for more than the good work he did.

Clark, which had the mayor-and-council form until 1912, thus is entitled to share with Staunton (1908) and Fredericks- burg, Virginii (which copied Staunton shortly thereafter), the historical status of having been one of the three com- munities which had an officer officially described as “manager” before the first adoption of what was then called the commission-manager form in Sumter, South Carolina.

R.S.C.

Elections and Voting THE RESPONSIBLE ELECTORATE. By

V. 0. Key, Jr. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1966. Xxi, 158 pp. $4.

While the focus of this outstanding monograph is on presidential voting, it is a valuable book to be read by all, par- ticularly those concerned with state and local governments. Central to the study is an attack on those who see the Ameri- can voter as a rather unintelligent pris- oner of sociological and psychological factors influencing his voting decisions.

By carefully analyzing the voting be- havior of the standpatters, the switchers and the new voters, Key discovers the “thinking man” who sees the play of public policy in making up his mind to cast his ballot. Furthermore, the party switchers do not constitute an electorate significantly lower in political interest than those who stand faithful to the party line. They do not lack interest but rather agree on broad political issues in the party to which they shift. And it is this group which contributes to the major adjustments in our political system, in- fusing it with new perspectives.

Local Government POWER IN COMMITTEES : A n Experiment

in the Govermenfal Process. By James David Barber. Rand McNally and Co., Box 7600, Chicago 60680, 1966.

Immediately after reading this book, three points come to mind: The will- ingness of American officialdom to be “tested” in the laboratory is amazing if not a delight to brilliant researchers (such as Barber) ; local government is certainly a valuable, if not too long ne- glected, arena for empirical study of a wide range of phenomena; the fascinat- ing approach and insightful thinking of the author enlarges one’s faith that the persistent struggle of scholars to make politics a science is not in vain.

Congratulations to Dr. Barber for wooing the brave officials of Connecticut