1. Theoretical Considerations

Much of political research can be said to belong to a class of explanations we could call a conditional probability model. The actions that an individual takes are implicitly or explicitly seen as a response to forces in his environment. One can argue that the aims of studies of this kind have been threefold. First, to locate the variables that best predict the outcome of a political event, such as the choice of party in an election. The identification of such variables can be used not only to forecast the behavior of political actors with given social characteristics; the estimation of effect parameters can also, secondly, be used for comparative research, as when the effect of belonging to the working class on voting socialist in one country is contrasted with that in another. Thirdly, the constellation of parameters and their interactions, like the effects of working-class status, religiosity, and language preference, can be used to identify what is specific to a political system and its culture.

This tradition has received a strong impetus from survey technology and methodology. The simplest form of conditional probability models one finds in cross-classifications. But the probability of a specific outcome, given that the individual is in a particular state, is also estimated in multiple regression and path analysis. For data over time, techniques exist for analysis based on Bernoulli trials or Poisson events and their elaborations into Markov processes. Both the types of problems analyzed and the methods used are largely due to Paul F. Lazarsfeld and the tradition that started with The People's Choice.

The drawbacks of this approach are, first, that it is too oriented towards the
atomistic individual, which to some extent is built into the survey technology.

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* This is a slightly changed version of a paper presented at the International Political Science Association's Congress in Munich, 1970.

Secondly, it does not distinguish between actors and social structure: social structure is entered into explanations as attributes of individuals. One might therefore argue that such analyses to a large extent are aggregate social psychology rather than sociology. The model of man used is also rather restricted: his action is not really considered a choice but is rather seen as a response that results in an identifiable probability for having certain characteristics or being in a particular state.

In contrast to these conditional models, where the individual's actions are seen as the outcome or resultant of the system of forces he is subject to, intentional models, where actors are seen as purposively allocating their resources in order to obtain specific outcomes of public policies, have been used relatively little. The theory or methodology of such models have not been carried so far, and empirical studies applying this perspective have been few.

Obviously such a perspective, where actors are viewed as attempting to increase their assets and reduce their liabilities by converting the individual and collective resources at their disposal into political power, will have to draw on economic theory. Economics uses the same basic approach for explanining how actors allocate their resources in order to maximize their gain.

Some of the most prominent contributions to political theory over the last two decades have used rational actors and economic theory as their point of departure. Anthony Downs in An Economic Theory of Democracy indicates his approach by his title.¹ Ten years later Mancur Olson took up the problem of how men can organize to pay the cost of public goods in The Logic of Collective Action.² These are goods that are indivisible, so that if they are to be enjoyed by one can be enjoyed by all (like clean air). Since they cannot be reserved for those who pay for them, individuals have no motivation to share in their costs. Olson argues that in contrast to private goods, which are reserved for the purchaser, a special motivational system has to be set up if public goods are to be provided and those who enjoy them are to share in their cost. In 1970, Albert O. Hirschman bridged the classical domains of political and economic theory in Exit, Voice and Loyalty.³ Other important theoretical contributions have been made by the sociologist James S. Coleman.⁴ And in the literature on organizations, the use of rational actor models, with modifications started by Simon and March, have been used for some time. Although the use of the model of purposive actors pursuing their goals does not constitute the mainstream of political research, it is safe to say that its influence is growing.

In presenting an analytical framework for political resource transformation, we shall first introduce the model of political actors used, then define the concepts of resources and power, and finally relate the inputs and outputs of resources to different arenas of political action.

Since the framework is inspired by economic analysis, our point of departure will be the same. We will assume an intentional model of man, i.e. rational actors pursuing their self-interest. As in economic theory, this will constitute the dynamic element in the analysis. From the point of view of resource transformation, it has an important implication:

In many respects, the problem of social mobility, from the individual's perspective, is like the problem of economic growth from a national perspective, or the problem of firm growth from the firm's perspective. The individual at an early point in life allocates his resources to provide various outputs, which in turn constitute resources to be again allocated in particular directions - always with the general goal of maximizing the total present and discounted future value of the product.⁵

The postulate of rational actors is thus a basic premise of the model for resource
transformation. However, we have to state more clearly what we mean by resources.

In exchange theory one has resources if one controls what other people are interested in, since one can then exchange these resources for those of other people that one is oneself interested in. By both actors exchanging a resource they have less interest in for one they have more interest in, the benfit of both is increased. This can come about by barter, or through the use of a medium of exchange. A medium of exchange like money is therefore a generalized control, since it can be exchanged for many different types of resources.

Power we can define as the capacity of an actor to obtain control over what is of interest to him, controlled by others, in exchange for what he controls of interest to them.⁶ The interrelationship between resources and power then is simple. Your resources are the actions you control that other actors are interested in. Your power is your capacity to determine their choice of action by what you control of interest to them (your resources), relative to their capacity to determine your choice of action by what they control of interest to you (their resources). From this it immediately follows that the power of an actor is reduced to the extent that he does not control anything of interest to others. This situation can be changed either by his increasing their interest in what he commands or by engineering to get more exclusive control of what they care about. His power is also reduced to the extent that they control what is of great interest to him. This situation can be changed by his reducing interest in what they conrol or by finding alternative sources of gratification so that their monopoly is reduced.⁷

This definition of power also has immediate implications for the role of information. First, the reciprocity of knowledge with respect to power becomes evident: An actor's power is reduced to the extent that he does not know who is interested in what he controls and to the extent that he does not know who controls what he is interested in, since he cannot then engage in exchanges to affect their choice of action. By postulating rational actors, it also follows that they, in situations where they lack information about the distribution of interest and the distribution of control, will attempt to get that information.

Secondly, it follows that if an actor does not know whether those he wants to affect in fact do what he wants them to do, he is excluded from exercising power over them. Arthur L. Stinchcombe has used a dramatic example to illustrate the point.⁸ Imagine a man A in a box, and that he can be killed if a man B outside

pushes a button. One can then imagine B commanding A to carry out certain actions under the threat of execution. However, if B cannot see or otherwise find out what A in fact is doing, his power is nil and his control over life and death of no avail. This is of course why information feedback is so important in any administrative system. Any kind of steering necessitates information feedback about the actual performance of the system guided.

It is in this theoretical perspective that we can view two prominent features of representative democracy: secret ballot for the voters, and public ballot for representatives in voting on laws. In the first case we actually put the voter in a box with no possibilities for communicating his behavior to the outside. Thereby we effectively prevent the voter from being forced to cast his vote in another man's interest, or from selling his vote, since there is no way the buyer can know that the deal is kept.

As for representatives, we in effect institutionalize exchanges of control and the
use of power:

The transaction between the representative and his constituents is directly one of exchange: he works to obtain for them policies that will be most satisfactory to them, with the aim of inducing them to reelect him. He has control (with his fellow legislators) of the creation of policies that are important to his constituents, and he in effect gives up to his constituents that control (by using it to further their interests), in return for which he anticipated their continuing to give to him control over his seat in the legislature, which they can revoke at election time.⁹

We do not claim that everything the representatives do to please their constituents is a matter of policy output or that all actions within a legislature should be interpreted as exchange. Nevertheless, it seems that the definitions of power and resources given above are both simple and useful. They incorporate other power phenomena, such as the role of information, exchanges, and threats, and can be used in the analysis of a wide variety of political structures and processes, ranging from the structural arrangements of voting to coalition building, from the generation and maintenance of power to the generation of patterns of cooperation and conflict.¹⁰

Since we have discussed power in terms of an exchange model, it may be useful to point out some of the differences between political power and money. The question has been discussed extensively in Coleman's paper 'Political Money'. Money, as a generalized medium of exchange is independent of the subject who has it, the object for which it can be used, and the time at which it is used, to make the point without reservations.¹¹ It is independent of who has it, what it is used for, and when it is used. Political power, on the other hand, is specific with respect to who can use it, what it can be used for, and when it can be used. For example, a vote in a general election can be used only by the incumbent of a specific role (a citizen of voting age), for a specific purpose (selection of a representative), at a specific point in time (election day). Since political power is associated with a role and an

event - since it is inalienable and time-specific - it cannot be accumulated in the same sense as money can, nor spent in the same manner. Personal power or credit, on the other hand, may be built up in exchange processes, as by logrolling in legislatures, when a vote is cast in a certain way now in assistance of a colleague in expectation of a similar return favor in the future.

Formal power as laid down in tables of organization or constitutions cannot be accumulated, and neither can it be spent. But informal and intangible power, that arises from skillful use of one's power, and from political exchanges that are payable in the future, can be accumulated. Similarly, personal power, in contrast to power associated with a role, can be accumulated. Personal power may arise from simultaneous occupancy of several roles, from having special information or ability to perform a role, or from an extensive line of credit, or reputation that has been built up over a period of time.... Thus it may be that the dividing line between power that can be accumulated and that which cannot is the dividing line between personal power and power directly deriving from a role.

One kind of accumulation of power associated with roles is possible, however,
bringing about a change in the structure of the political system.12

The last point is illustrated, for example, by reallocation of rights of decisionmaking
among subordinates.

For our purposes it therefore seems useful to distinguish between three aspects of power. One is formal: those actions over which the incumbent of a role has legal or constitutional control and in which other actors take interest - power ex officio, so to speak. The amount of formal power can therefore be changed by a legal redefinition of the scope of actions controlled by a role. Emergency laws, for example, expand the range of actions controlled by the executive. Secondly, there is personal power, which is based on individual capacities or personal control over actions others are interested in, not associated with the roles the person has. The charisma of a political leader could serve as an example. Finally, there is a social subset of personal power, power credit: the store of returns to be expected for services already rendered.

Credit is needed more often in political interaction than in economic transactions owing to the lack of a medium of exchange. Since trust in individuals is frail, a very important problem for political analysis is the social construction of trust. Institutions can serve as systems of trust, as, say, the duty of revenge among feuding clans, or military backup of the police, much in the same way as a guarantor gives security and underwrites the loan of another man. The social construction of trust has been a central topic in political analysis at least since Hobbes. One may argue that a solution to the problem of trust has been to reduce the dependence of credit on single individuals.

The interrelationships between formal and personal power also become important
as soon as we turn our attention to resource transformation. A legislator,
by using his power credit, may be able to redistribute formal power in a society

by obtaining sufficient support to pass a bill that redistributes the legal control
over certain actions, as, for instance, the right of workers to organize or the duty
of corporations to make their accounts public.

Having commented on the concepts of power and resources, let us now turn to a scheme within which they can be used. A simple model for resource transformation that we can borrow from the economists is a Leontief input-output table. Here the resources that one actor (sector) gets from and delivers to another is represented in a matrix, where the conversion coefficients are entered. Before it can be applied to the analysis of political resource transformation, this framework needs to be generalized. First we have to allow for an activity to have several outputs or outcomes. Secondly, allowance must be made for the interaction of different resources, i.e. a relaxation of the fixed relation between inputs and outputs. This generalization of the Leontief system was incorporated in a general equilibrium model developed by von Neumann before the war. In Resources for Social Change, Coleman adapts the von Neumann growth model so as to obtain an analytical framework for social resource transformation.¹³ It can conveniently be represented by three matrices.

The first of these is a 'Resource Interaction Matrix'. The reason for introducing this matrix is that resources of various kinds may interact and modify the effect of each other. For example, an increase in the resources held by an actor may intensify the resources held by his context, as when a new conductor heightens the performance of a symphony orchestra. Or the opportunities and constraints that characterize the context in which an action takes place may multiply the effects of an individual's resources, as when the achievement of a student is heightened by the capacities of his fellow students. Naturally, the lack of individual resources may reduce the effect of collective resources, as when a bad keeper loses the game for an otherwise excellent soccer team. Or the effect of an individual's resources may be impaired by the quality of contextual resources, as when a charismatic political leader loses a presidential election because of public distrust in his party. In Table I an illustration is given of a Resource Interaction Matrix, where an X indicates that the resources specified by the row and column interact, so as to modify the joint effect, either intensifying or reducing it.

Thus, for a given society, one set of personal resources may intensify other personal resources, as when the level of information multiplies the effect of commitment to a political cause. Or one form of political organization may facilitate the work and increase the effect of another, as when a trade union strengthens a

Labor party. Or the demographic distribution of support may increase the effect of political organization: for a minority party in a system of single-member constituencies it is better to have the majority in some of the constituencies than a minority in all. This last example is borrowed from Coleman, who notes that the convertibility of the votes of a minority into government action depends on its geographic distribution, but much less so in a system of proportional representation than in a system of simple majority constituencies. (This could be called the resource-transformation aspect of the 'cube law'.) Altogether, then, resources of various kinds may have external economies, and in a resource transformation matrix such interactions are identified.

However, it is obvious that we cannot study the transformation of resources, ignoring the context in which it takes place or the arenas of actions in which the resources are deployed. We therefore have to interject a specification of the arena of action in which a resource is invested, where it may interact with other resources of a personal, organizational, and contextual nature, and through which their joint effect is determined. This has been done in Table 11, where resources (which may interact and have their effect jointly with other resources) are listed as input to various arenas of action. Here an X indicates that the resource listed in the row is (assumed) to serve as an input to the various arenas of actions, or processes in which the resources may modify the effects of each other, and transformed into other resources.

To describe the transformed resources that result, we set up the transpose of the matrix in Table 11, and list the different outputs from the combined investments in the various arenas of action. This has been done in Table 111, where an X indicates (assumed) output from a given arena of action.

To illustrate the meaning of the X's in the cells, we could say that in Table II we have assumed that legal rules have an effect on education through laws requiring compulsory education, on elections through laws on who may vote, on the composition of legislatures by rules for what it takes for a party to be represented (e.g. 5% of the total vote). In Table 111, we could interpret the X's in the legislature row as meaning that the legislature may generate resources for political organization (for example, as appropriations for political parties, as is the case in Norway), and for demographic distribution through economic policy. Obviously both the number and types or resources as well as of arenas of action can be expanded. But for the moment we are only concerned with the logical structure of the analytical framework, rather than its empirical content.

Essentially, then, the framework as presented here consists of three parts. First the resources (of a set of actors) that serve as input to processes or activities. They may be consumed in the creation of other resources or interact with others so that their joint effect is reduced or intensified. This part of the model was represented in the resource interaction matrix. The second part of the model consists of the processes or activities with multiple inputs and outputs. That is, the arenas of action to which resources of various kinds are allocated as inputs, where they interact with each other, and where they, transformed and modified, are converted into output resources. This was represented in the input and output matrices in Tables II and 111. The third element of the model, its deus ex machina, so to speak, which makes it dynamic, is economic man, or the concept of an actor who within social constraints allocates his resources so as to maximize his gain.

Thus the general conceptual scheme is that the resources held by actors, intensified by resources of social organization and by the opportunities that characterize the institutional arena of action, determine the level of functioning in each arena of action. Each of the arenas of action then produces as outputs resources of different kinds.¹⁴

There are some theoretical problems involved in the use of this model. We shall
not dwell on them here, however, but rather pose some of the questions that it
generates.

The first two are strategic decisions for empirical analysis: Which types of resources should be included? How can they be measured? And, furthermore, which arenas of action should the model comprise? If one is to give general answers to these problems, it can only be that they will have to be determined by the processes or system under study. If we are studying the electorate, our choices are likely to be different from those when studying a legislature.

Then there are several theoretical questions we can ask. What is the distribution of political resources that various subgroups possess? How do they change over time? What is the convertibility of resources acquired in one system into resources of another? To what extent are the conversion coefficients between resources of various kinds fixed, and what factors affect their change over time? Which resources in a given system interact, and how do they do so? Given a set of conversion

coefficients, what projections can we make for the future, contingent on their
remaining constant or changing in specified ways? To what extent can legislative
action open new arenas and give rise to new types of political resources?

The framework is well suited for studying the interrelationships between social
structure and political behavior and can be used to establish a system of social
accounts of transformations of political and other resources into each other.

It also implies that we should choose a wide definition of 'political. By resources we generally mean something at an actor's command that may be put to alternative uses (or, in the limiting case, may or may not be used). Therefore we would expect citizens to evaluate the relative payoffs of investing their resources in political action in the restricted sense and in other social actions through which their goals may be reached. As a matter of fact, the extent to which the citizenry or various social groups use their resources in the official political arena and the extent to which they use other strategies are very important characteristics of a political system.

This also delimits the present approach from 'the study of voting behavior'. It has been a major preoccupation of the political scientist, probably due to some extent to the simple availability, or even abundance, of voting records. 'The study of voting behavior' easily restricts one's attention to the questions generated by what we initially called 'the conditional probability model'. Or, to put it differently, one is likely to take the vote a citizen casts as the dependent variable and to use other characteristics of him as independent variables, to use the image of a regression equation. By using the model suggested above, a vote becomes a medium of exchange, which to some extent can be put to alternative uses, and only one of the political resources at a citizen's command.

In the rest of this paper we shall try to give an answer to some of the questions generated by the framework sketched above. To illustrate its application, we shall focus on resource transformation with respect to a legislature. Votes are generally not translated directly into governmental action but work at a remove, through elected legislators. But if the relation between a representative and his constituents can be considered one of exchange, it becomes crucial, both to the constituents and to the representative, what resources he controls when he enters the legislature and how easily they can be converted into political power in the legislature so that he may affect the outcomes of legislative decisions. We may also ask whether different subsystems or arenas within the legislature have differential effects on the resources of the representatives. And we may ask whether capacities acquired as a legislator can be transformed back into resources outside the legislature.

We shall address ourselves to resource transformation with respect to a specific legislature, the Norwegian Parliament or Storting. First we shall investigate the convertibility of assets acquired outside the legislature into assets inside it. Then we shall look at some conversion processes inside it. And finally we shall ask to what extent assets acquired inside the Parliament are convertible into outside resources when or if a representative leaves it. In this analysis we shall draw on data from different sources, published and unpublished. It must be underlined at the

outset that these data have been collected for purposes other than the use we put them to here. The types of data available are of course to a large extent determined by the theoretical orientations of those who collected them or that were available at the time of their collection.

2. The Conversion of Societal Resources to Legislative Resources

Some assets acquired outside the legislature are converted into legislative resources by constitutional law or custom. In parliamentary democracies, a party or coalition commanding the majority of seats has the right to appoint the prime minister and form the government. It is the majority of seats that gives this right, not the majority of votes.¹⁵ The conversion coefficients of votes has gone into the construction of electoral laws based on proportional representation. Similarly, the conversion coefficients of votes within the legislature into different types of laws are fixed: constitutional changes require a greater majority than the adoption of an ordinary bill. One could also investigate whether there are empirical regularities in proportion of cabinet portfolios that accrue to coalition parties of different sizes.

However, our focus here is on a variable that is not regulated by law or custom but which is a basic dimension in social relations in general: social status. We will ask: to what extent can social status, an attribute of a person in society at large, be translated into parliamentary assets or deficits? We shall look at this from different angles.

Let us first ask the question in a more operational manner: How does the possession of a certain rank in society at large affect the acquisition of a position with a certain rank within the Parliament? In Table IV a first answer can be found for the Norwegian Parliament (Storting). Here all representatives from the establishment of the Parliament in 1814 up to 1969 have had their occupations classified into High, Medium, and Low social status. The 2485 representatives have also been identified by the status of their formal position within the Parliament. (By 'high formal position' we mean having become president in the Storting, in one of its two subunits, Lagting and Odelsting, or chairman of one of the standing committees.) Cross-classifying these attributes, the relationship is clear: high social status is an asset that with a considerably higher probability than low status can be turned into high formal positions within the Parliament. Or, to phrase it more precisely: high social status interacts with other resources that a representative has - often collective, like the number of seats his party has, or individual, like tenure - so as to increase the probability that he will obtain a high formal position within the Parliament. Note that the 'conversion coefficients' in this case and in much later discussion really are conversion probabilities. In this respect the mode of analysis corresponds to what we have called 'the conditional probability' approach. But otherwise the analytical framework is different in that we explicitly use a resource-conversion perspective.

It is also possible to show that the rates of acquisition of high formal positions differ for the three status groups: the higher the social status of a representative, the sooner he is likely to obtain a formal position if he obtains one. And with respect to committee positions, the type he obtains is likely to be different for representatives of different social status. Those of high status are more likely to end up in committees of high national importance, whereas those of low social status in positions of high local importance.¹⁶

However, rather than elaborate on the latter questions, we will return to Table IV and ask: to what extent have the conversion coefficients or probabilities changed during the century and a half since the Storting was established? Is it now easier or more difficult than before to translate social status into parliamentary rank? To answer these questions, we have listed in Table V differences in the proportions of representatives belonging to the three status groups who obtained high formal positions in the Storting in selected periods between 1814 and the present. The proportions give us estimates of the conversion probabilities of status into parliamentary rank in these periods.

On comparing the four periods in Table V, the dominant tendency is clear: with the exception of the years 1922-40 those of high social status had a higher probability of obtaining high formal positions within the Parliament. However, over time there is a decrease in the ratio between those of high and low social status who obtain formal positions. But if we compare the first and the last period, the difference between the proportions of high and low status who obtain formal positions is not very great: 26.1 v. 22.8. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that the relative distance between those of high and low socio-economic status (SES) has declined over the period in question. This is in part due to the general increase in the level of education. More important is probably the training in organizations that representatives acquire before they enter the Parliament. However, a more thorough investigation into the degree of constancy of conversion probabilities for different status groups would have to keep constant variables we have not considered. Changes in average levels of seniority, for example, might confound the figures given above. It is possible that the convertibility of social status has remained relatively constant but that a higher proportion of low-status members obtain formal positions simply owing to the fact that their average tenure has increased relative to those of high SES. Before such an analysis is carried out, no definite answer to the constancy of conversion probabilities can be given.

The relationship between status and tenure is an example of interaction of resources.
We shall give another empirical illustration of how resources may interact.

One of the most important resources distributed among representatives in the Norwegian Parliament is committee position. Membership on a committee whose issues other representatives care about gives rise to power owing to the control that membership yields over their interests.¹⁷ A crucial question for the representatives of various parties is what criterion is used for their allocation to the different committees. Two criteria used are socio-economic status, as an index of general capacities, and seniority, as an index of capacities acquired in the Parliament. We will argue that the relative value of these resources is different in large and small parties.

In the Storting each representative becomes a member of one, and only one, standing committee. Presently there are 12 such committees; in the period for which we shall consider data, 1965-69, there were 13. Each party is allocated seats on each committee proportional to its size, although subject to the rule that a party should be represented on as many committees as possible. In other words, a party of 13 representatives would have one member on each committee, as in fact the Christian Democrats had during the period in question. A party of 75 representatives will fill roughly half of the positions on each committee since there were 150 representatives altogether.

Our hypothesis is that smaller parties have fewer resources in terms of personnel to allocate to the various positions and that social status therefore takes on much less importance as a criterion for allocation than in larger parties. First, in smaller parties there may not be enough representatives of high SES to place one on each committee. Secondly, if there is a certain amount of turnover after elections, it is

more important for a party to place on an important committee someone with parliamentary experience than a new member with considerable general capacities or high status. Similarly, if a small party is given the chairmanship of a committee, it has to use the man with some knowledge of the issues of the committee - which means the man having served on the committee before, irrespective of other criteria of competence. We have deliberately used the phrase 'the man' of a party on a committee, because smaller parties often only have one member on each, in contrast to larger parties which have several and therefore, given the choice of who among them shall be promoted, may use SES as an implicit but reasonable criterion.

This means, first of all, that low-status members of smaller parties easily become the party spokesman in the issue-area covered by his committee. Being the only, or one of two party members of a committee, also implies having to follow more closely all issues the committee considers. In larger parties there may be some division of labor between its members on a committee. This has two further implications. First, that the low-status members of smaller parties are given more thorough 'on-the-job-training' than those of larger parties and that tenure therefore leads them to acquire more general capacities. Secondly, by being the only or one of two party members on a committee, a representative should come to control relatively more of interest to his party. This line of argument has two empirical consequences, which we can test with available data. First we would expect to find a decreasing correlation between SES and influence for parties of decreasing size. We should also expect this situation to manifest itself in the subjective experience of influence in party groups of different sizes.

Table VI supports our hypothesis: there is a significant positive correlation only for the two larger parties. For the smaller parties the correlation coefficients are not significant at the 5% level; to the extent that they are indicative, they suggest a zero or negative relationship between SES and influence in the smaller parties.

But the differential impact of SES in smaller and larger parties also manifests itself in the subjective construction of reality of the representatives in parties of different sizes. In Table VII we have first split the representatives into a highstatus and a low-status group. Then the parties have been divided into three

groups, listed according to size from left to right (compare the right column in Table VI). As our dependent variable we have taken the responses to the following question: 'How often have you changed the political sentiment or modified opinions in your party, as compared to the average member?' The interpretation of the table is simple. Among the high-status representatives there is little difference in the experience of being instrumental in changing attitudes among the parties of different sizes. As for the low-status representatives, on the other hand, the tendency is very definite: The smaller the party, the higher the proportion of those who feel they have changed the climate of opinion more often than the average and the smaller the proportion who feel they have changed the orientation of the party less often than the average. As a matter of fact, in the small parties there is practically no difference between representatives of high and low SES.

Thus the impact of party size on the relationship between SES and influence has a correspondence in the subjective perception of influence of representatives of different status in small and large parties. Size and SES interact in that increasing size increases the effect of SES on influence, actual and perceived. Or, put differently: There is an inverse effect of collective resources (having many party colleagues) and individual resources when converted into resources within the Parliament. When personnel is scarce, capacities acquired within the organization count more in relation to generalized capacities acquired outside the organization. If a party has a choice of candidates, SES becomes a criterion for allocation of personnel to positions that give differential influence. When personnel is scarce, it has to be ignored and more importance attached to parliamentary experience.

One corollary is that representatives of small parties to a larger extent become generalists. In part this is due to the fact that they are often the only party member on a committee and have to follow all its issues with greater care, whereas there is a within-committee division of labor in larger parties. Often representatives in smaller parties also have to 'safeguard' the member of another committee.

And in a small party all representatives can and must to a greater extent take part in caucus deliberations. In small parties, parliamentary experience, therefore, is a better predictor of span of interest than SES, since SES in the larger parties affects the within-party division of labor. Another corollary of the fact that SES in smaller parties more quickly decreases in importance than does parliamentary experience is that, ceteris paribus, low-status members in small parties are more motivated to pursue a parliamentary career. They can become big fishes in small ponds.

Let us then turn to another example of how the conversion of outside resources is affected by the action context of the representatives. In the Norwegian system the representatives are elected from party lists by proportional representation. This means that the candidates for Parliament have to make it in their party before they can make it in the Parliament. Here the total social situation of socialist and non-socialist representatives is different. For socialist candidates whole sectors of the labor market are more or less foreclosed: even if he has the capacity, a socialist candidate cannot make it in private business. What for a conservative candidate may be alternative or even complementary career opportunites are for a socialist mutually exclusive. This means that socialist candidates are much more dependent on their party for upward social mobility than non-socialist candidates. If so, we should expect systematic differences between socialist and non-socialist representatives in the extent to which they experience their career and achievements as dependent on their party.

In an interview in 1969 the representatives were asked to express their agreement with the following proposition: 'The Party has, through the tasks it has given me, to a great extent made me into what I am.' Keeping SES constant, the difference between socialist and non-socialist representatives is given in Table VIII.

It is obvious that irrespective of social status, the experience of career dependence on party organization is much greater in socialist than in non-socialist parties. Or, expressed differently, the experience that personal career and social achievement are generated with resources independent of party is much rarer in socialist than

11 Scandinavian Political Studies

in non-socialist parties. To sort out the relative effects of SES and party affiliation the results of a path analysis are given in Figure 1. Svalastoga's scale is used to identify social status, and a dummy variable to identify party affiliation. It is obvious from the figure that the effect of party type is much greater than the effect of social status. Or, expressed in terms of resource transformation: high social status has much less the effect of reducing a representative's dependence on his party within the action-context of a socialist party than within a non-socialist one. In Norwegian public debate much has been made of the strong 'party whip'. The explanation for socialist party loyalty is probably better sought in the weakness of party members rather than in the strength of the leadership, compared to other parties. For socialist representatives the party controls their career. Non-socialists to a greater extent have alternative careers. We shall return to this point later.

The major point of this section is to suggest that our analytical framework can be used to study the conversion of resources acquired or ascribed in society into legislative resources. In comparative studies of organizations one would be interested in how the conversion coefficients between organization-specific resources and resources acquired in the social system outside differ, and what aspects of

organizational structure affect these differences. In particular one would be interested in the interaction of individual and collective resources, and the stability of such interactions over time. Comparative studies of public organizations, like legislatures, public bureaucracies, universities, and churches, are probably a good starting point, since so much biographical and other historical material is fairly easily accessible.

3. Conversion of Resources Within the Legislature

Let us now turn to the conversion of resources of various types within the legislature. Again the assumption is that a legislator allocates the resources he commands by virtue of his role and personal capacities to various arenas of action so as to generate a different and more optimal distribution of resources as output.

In 1969 we asked two questions that enabled us to analyze such resource transformations over time. The first was, 'What is the most important basis for your influence and position in the Parliament?' and the second, 'How has this changed since you were first elected - what was then most important for your influence in the Parliament?' In both cases, the representatives were given five response categories. They could choose among position in their committee, in their district or constituency (district and constituency have been used interchangeably in this article), in their party, in the Parliament in general, and personal abilities or competence. By cross-classifying the responses given to two questions, we will in fact obtain a distribution of changes from one category to another over time, as seen by the representatives themselves. Another way of putting this is that we have multiplied the two matrices in Tables II and 111, that is, the inputs of various resources to various arenas of activity, and the outputs from them of various resources, leaving us with an input-output matrix for resource transformation. It must be remembered, however, that we have not entered estimates of the distribution of resources of all five kinds for all the representatives - only the most important input and output resources, the former at the outset of the parliamentary career, the latter at the time the question was asked. The resulting inputoutput matrix is listed in Table IX.

It is instructive to look first at the marginal column and row of Table IX, since they give a summary of aggregate changes over time. Most striking is the reduction of constituency as the most important base of influence. More than half of the representatives started out with their constituency as the most important base (52.0%), whereas by the time of the interview this has been reduced to a fifth (20.6%). Concomitantly the fraction whose most important base is their committee had almost quadrupled (from 8.0% to 30.6%), and likewise the fraction who had the Parliament as a whole as their major resource had increased five times (from 2.6% to 15.3%). The basic trend is clear: units outside the legislature (party, constituency) decline in importance as a base for the influence of the representatives, and a concomitant increase of the Parliament itself of its subunits take place over time.

These are the aggregate changes. But it is as important to look at the transformations between the various units that are given in the table. Each row adds up to (approximately) 100%. Inspecting the main diagonal first, it is clear that, with the exception of district or constituency, more than half of the representatives have retained their most important power base over time. This may indicate a certain division of labor among the representatives, such that they specialize in different functions.

However, rather than looking at the individual cells in greater detail, we shall explore whether there is any general pattern in the transitions of Table IX. In particular we shall look at the net flows between the units in the table. This can be done by subtracting percentages in cell (/, i) (that is row / and column f) from the percentages in cell (/, /). This gives the net flow in percentages between the units. If we do this for the whole table, and put a plus sign in the cells in which there is a net flow out, we obtain the pattern given in Table X.

As can be seen from Table X, in terms of percentages committees lose less to any of the other four power bases than they gain from them. The party has a net loss to committees but a net gain from the others, and so on. One may argue that the longer a representative stays in Parliament, the more likely it is that he will move up towards the left along the main diagonal as his main power basis. However, the most striking feature of the table is its strong, 'Gutman-scale-like' ordering. We return to this fact in a moment.

First, however, we investigate whether there are systematic differences among different types of representatives in what they start out with as their primary power base, and what they convert it into. In particular we look at the differences between 'influentials' and 'non-influentials'.¹⁸ In Table XI we have listed the most important power base at present and at the outset of the parliamentary career for influentials and non-influentials, respectively. Looking at the two lefthand columns first, it is clear that those who became influentials to a greater extent started out their parliamentary career with their party or the Parliament as their most important source of power. They also increased these resources to a greater extent than non-influentials, who more often started out with their district as most important and most frequently converted it into committee-based influence. One may note that influence based within the legislature or on the party

is considerably more important for influentials than non-influentials. They have a
greater capacity for basing their influence on the national political system, as
compared with personal- or constituency-based resources.

The question therefore arises whether the resource transformation pattern is
different for influentials and non-influentials. An answer can in part be based on
an analysis of Table XII.

Again, rather than looking at individual cells, we look at the overall pattern in the same manner as in Table X. In Table XIII we have indicated the net flows between the various categories in Table XII. For both influentials and noninfluentials the internal ordering of the transition rates is quite strong and consistent.

(The zeroes are due to the fact that the entries compared are both zero.)
But the transition patterns for the two groups are different. How is this to be
interpreted?

In another analysis it was found that party and committee influence are interrelated, but in a complex way.¹⁹ By a mathematical model applied to data over time, the following result was obtained. Whereas influence in one's party has a strong effect on gaining influence in one's committee, it has little effect on maintaining it. The reverse holds for committee influence: it has little effect on gaining

party influence but plays an important role in maintaining it. This result is comparable with the results in Table XIII. The committee influence of non-influentials have not been converted into party influence, whereas the party influence of influentials to some extent seems to be buttressed by committee influence. Other results lend support to this interpretation, for example, that non-influentials specialize in committees of high local importance, such as the communications committees, whereas influentials specialize in nationally important committees, such as finance or foreign affairs. Locally and nationally important committees represent different avenues of status for non-influentials and influentials. In other words, the strong orderings in the above tables reflect different career paths or different strategies of two kinds of actors. However, it will take us too far if we pursue this subject further here.

Other complex interactions between resources of different kinds can be shown to operate within the Parliament. For example, the informal influence a representative obtains through his activities is generally converted into formal positions if a representative is reelected, whereas a formal position is not sufficient to maintain the informal standing of a representative.²⁰

Thus there is evidence that the transformation of resources within the Parliament often implies interactions of a complex nature, and that there may be no simple transitivity between the processes involved. Analysis of other organizations will probably lead to the same conclusions. And such conclusions about specific organizations may lead to conclusions on a more general level about the nature of organizational conversion processes.

4. Conversions of Resources from Legislature to Society

One of the reasons why formal positions are not sufficient to maintain the informal influence of a representative has to do with power credit and the factors that affect whether obligations will be discharged. Power credit, as we remember, is the store of returns to be expected from services rendered.

If someone does not have to settle his account with his creditor, this naturally reduces the power of the latter. In economic transactions credit is therefore backed up by legal sanctions. In political transactions in a legislature, there are no arrangements that can force a representative to discharge obligations for services rendered aside from long-term self-interest. If a 'creditor' is to leave the legislature, there is no simple way he can realize the outstanding liabilities of his debtors.

This situation is well known among the representatives - even to the extent of having a special label for it: the 'lame duck' phenomenon. By a 'lame duck' is meant an officeholder who is nearing the end of his tenure, and the epithet is used because it is generally felt that if this fact is known, it will weaken his influence as a legislator. It will reduce the probability that those he has assisted in the past will feel obliged to return the favor, since they expect no further interaction and therefore no further sanctions or rewards for acting one way or the other. But not only are political debts less likely to be repaid. The legislators who expect to return are also less likely to help or enter into obligations with those whom they believe are serving their last term: for // the latter are serving their last term, then they do not have a future in which to discharge the obligations or return favors. Lame ducks are lame ducks for a double reason: since they have no legislative future those who are indebted to them can get away with not returning favors, and since the lame ducks have no legislative future the others will not assist them because the debts incurred in this way cannot be repaid. The data on the change in sociometric choices, received as being one of the three most influential representatives in their party, show a marked decline for the lame ducks in all parties between 1966 and 1969.

The lame ducks, in short, can neither cash in on obligations or commitments nor enter into new debts. The reason for this is the low convertibility of the resources a man commands after his legislative career has ended. One might speculate that with a strong institutionalized party system, the lame duck effect is smaller, since transactions are more likely to take place between representatives as agents of their parties rather than as individuals: the parties as organizations with a longer lifetime

than single representatives may then serve as credit institutions, so to speak. Furthermore, to the extent that there is a strong coupling between the legislature and political organizations outside, such as parties, trade unions, and interest groups, those who leave the legislature for these organizations may still have a lever with their former colleagues if the latter have some probability of a career in these organizations.

This raises the question of whether all categories of representatives have the same prospects of a career outside the legislature. Is the legislature a body for acquiring general resources that can be translated into resources in society at large at the end of the legislative career? One might guess that the effect would be greatest for those who entered the legislature with the poorest formal training, i.e. those of low social status. One might also guess that there are differences between the parties in this respect.

In particular we could expect low-status socialists to have considerable problems
in returning to the ordinary labor market. They are overqualified and often out
of physical shape for their previous occupations. They are also more or less ex

eluded from a large part of the economy where middle-class people are employed: in supervisory or executive capacities in the private sector. For ideological reasons they are unlikely to seek such positions, and, should they get them, they may be considered political renegades.

To test whether there are systematic differences between different status groups in different parties, we have in Table XIV cross-classified the responses to a question asked of the representatives in 1969: 'Would/will returning to the ordinary labor market create problems for you?' The table is simple to read: for those of high status (5 or less on Svalastoga's scale), the differences between socialists and non-socialists are negligible. However, for the low-status group, the differences between socialists and non-socialists are considerable. As a matter of fact, among the non-socialist representatives the profile for those of low status is almost identical to those of high status.

Thus the differences in the degree of career dependence between socialists and non-socialists manifests itself not only in what they feel they have become in life. It also affects their notions about the ease with which they can return to the labor market. Here low-status socialists feel they would have considerable difficulties in translating the capacities they have acquired inside the Parliament into jobs outside it. As one of them put his dilemma: 'In contrast to a school, they don't give you a diploma here, certifying what you have learned and which could enable you to get the kind of job you really are qualified for and would like to have. Those who know you have these capacities in the private sector of the economy, you either feel you cannot work for, or they feel they can't hire you. If I got a job in the public sector on the basis of my real qualifications, the party would be accused of favoritism or nepotism, since I would bypass those with a formal education.'

Obviously, the differential convertibility of resources acquired inside the legislature of low-status socialists and non-socialists affects the functioning of their parties. First of all the loyalty of low-status socialists to their parties must be expected to be greater due to their greater party dependence.²⁰ Furthermore, we must expect the turnover of low-status socialists to be lower than the turnover of low-status non-socialists, which in turn affects their legislative careers. It will take us too far to pursue these leads here.

5. Conclusion

In this paper we have used concepts and a framework adapted from economics for the analysis of the transformation of resources. The framework generates new questions and the need for new types of data. Also, much theoretical work needs to be done to elaborate the analytical scheme.

We have also attempted to illustrate how the framework can be used in empirical analysis by investigating some conversions of resources from society at large to a legislature, the interaction of various resources within the legislature when they are transformed, and, finally, differences in the convertibility of capacities acquired within the Parliament for different groups of representatives. Since the data were collected for other purposes, they are very rough indicators of the types of processes we try to describe. For a more thorough analysis, indicators must take as their point of departure the conceptual constructs of the framework.

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NOTES

1. Anthony Downs. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York, Harper and Brothers, 1956.

2. Mancur Olson, Jr. The Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1965.

3. Albert O. Hirschman. Exit, Voice and Loyalty. Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States. Cambridge, Harvard. University Press, 1970.

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4. Here we shall especially draw on four of his works: 'Foundations for a Theory of Collective Decisions', The American Journal of Sociology, LXXL, 1966: 615-627; Individual Development and the Transformation of Resources', (Mimeo), Johns Hopkins University, 1967; 'Political Money', The American Political Science Review, LXIV (4), 1970: 1074-1087; and Resources for Social Change. New York, Wiley, 1971.

5. Coleman. 'Individual Development and the Transformation of Resources', op. cit., p. 1.

6. For a stringent definition of power, see 'Foundations for a Theory of Collective Decisions', op. cit., where the value of differcnt actions and the power of different actors are simultaneously calibrated: 'Actions are valuable when powerful actors have a great deal of interest in them. Actors are powerful when the actions they control have high value' (p. 622). In mathematical terms, value and power are defined as follows: 'The value of control over action / is equal to the sum of interests of / of each actor times the total power of that actor. In turn, the total power of actor / is equal to the power of/over each action k times the value of action k, summed over all actions k' (p. 627). The definitions used here are somewhat more informal, but their underlying logic is the same.

7. Compare Richard M. Emerson, 'Power-Dependence Relations', The American Sociological Rcview 21, 1962: 31-41; and Gudmund Hernes, 'Om det strukturelle grunnlaget for makt', (Mimco), Bergen, 1973.

8. Arthur L. Stinchcombe. 'An Information Concept of Power', pp. 163 ff. in Constructing Social Theories. New York, Harcourt Brace & World, 1968. For the role of information in the use of power, see also Thomas G. Schelling. The Strategy of Conflict. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1960.

9. Coleman, 'Political Money', op. cit., p. 1076.

10. The model has been applied to several such phenomena in Gudmund Hernes. Interest, Influence and Cooperation. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 1971.

11. There are of course certain restrictions. One interesting aspect relates to the interface between economics and politics: money may not be used to buy votes or the outcome of court decisions. Nevertheless, the differences between money and political rights are so great as to make it reasonable to speak of a qualitative difference.

12. 'Political money', op. cit.

13. Resources for Social Change, op. cit., pp. 83 ff. (For a simple presentation of the von Neumann model, see R. Dorfman, P. Samuelson and R. Solow. Linear Programming & Economic Analysis. Tokyo, Kogakusha, pp. 300 ff.)

14. Ibid., p. 84.

15. For example, in 1965 the three socialist parties in Norway (Labor, Socialist, and Communist) had a majority of the votes, but not a majority of the seats, so the non-socialist parties formed the government.

16. Compare Ottar Hellevik. Stortinget - en sosial elite? Oslo, Pax, 1969.

17. See Interest, Influence and Cooperation, op. cit., and Gudmund Hernes. 'Stortingets komitésystem og maktfordelingen i partigruppene', Tidsskrift for Samfunnsforskning 13 (1), 1973: 1-29.

18. 'Influential' is defined as one who receives at least one sociometric choice from members of his party as being one of its three most influential members.

19. See Interest, Influence and Cooperation, Chapter VII, for details.

20. For similar arguments, see Maurice A. Gamier. 'Power and Ideological Conformity: A Case Study', American Journal of Sociology 19 (2), 1973: 343-363.