Encyclopedia of SociologyVol._3

regions and countries of the world. In part, this is because of the abruptness of change in general, the pressure built over decades of ethnic differentiation in the distribution of power and resources, and fluidity in the structure of central authorities that suppressed their expression as happened in Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union. The influence of fluidity in power structures is illustrated by Naimark in his foreword to a volume aptly entitled The Revenge of the Past:

The collapse of the Soviet Union was caused by nationalism, that is, by the demands of the subject nationalities of the USSR for genuine independence and autonomy. Unified in their hostility to the Kremlin’s authority, the fifteen constituent Union Republics, including the Russian republic, declared sovereignty and began to build state institutions of their own

. . . . With the failure of the August 1992 putsch attempt, sovereign republics obtained their independence. Nationalism reigned supreme’’ (1993, p. ix).

Another major trend expected to have significant dampening effects on violent nationalism is the development of global and regional governmental and nongovernmental organizations addressed, in part or in whole, to investigating, reporting, and intervening with cases of discrimination and abuses of human rights. Precedents, of historic importance, were introduced in 1999 with the military intervention of the NATO countries in attempting to reverse ‘‘ethnic cleansing’’ in Kosovo, and the indictment of a head of state and high officials in a serving government by a United Nations Tribunal for ‘‘crimes of war and against humanity.’’ To focus on the United Nations for a moment, among its achievements over the first fifty years, Alger cites the following:

It has invented new tools such as peacekeeping. It has extended its mission to include violent conflicts within states. It has broadened peace-keeping to include an array of supportive humanitarian operations. It has drafted a broad array of human rights conventions covering economic, social, cultural, civil, and political dimensions. (1998, p. 422).

Finally, other trends with potential impacts on nationalism include the voluntary formation of

economic and political federations among states such as the European Union, and the globalization of the economy. The growing interdependence among countries brings to bear the weight of regional and global communities in containing the risks of disruptive violence. Furthermore, these trends facilitate greater autonomy for small sociopolitical units by offering multilateral niches that reduce dependence on bilateral economic relations with the countries in which they are part or from which they have seceded. In other words, globalization and regionalization tend to transfer power and authority from the states upward to the larger structures and downward to local levels, thus, increasing local autonomy. As has already been explained, a host of other factors particular to each situation are also at work.

CONCLUSIONS

In conclusion, it can be said that the current pervasiveness of nationalism should be self-evi- dent. The socioeconomic, political, and other human costs are frequently staggering. In the short and intermediate term, the ubiquity of the phenomenon can be expected to continue. In addition to Africa and the Balkans, there remain significant ethnic tensions, if not risks of violence, in many countries of Asia—Russia, China, and India, among others. However, in the long run, major trends of modernization, economic globalization and interdependence, and the development of international organizations and forums to address the problem, all point to conditions less conducive to the mobilization of nationalist sentiments and more tending to peaceful resolutions of such tensions.

As a major feature of social structure, ethnicity is of central theoretical importance. However, many (and often large) gaps in the state of knowledge exist, both in theory and in accumulated data. Basically, three shortcomings in the literature account for this. First, there are conceptual and theoretical limitations, especially at the intermediate levels of abstraction that connect abstract explanatory schemes—of which a notable few ex- ist—with concrete events. Second, the preponderance of empirical work in this area is in the form of case studies that are mostly historical. These case studies offer uniformity neither in concepts nor in

evidence. The third problem with literature on ethnic nationalism is its fragmentation. A coherent picture must draw upon concepts and propositions from a number of traditions, and there are many overriding concepts with which to assemble frameworks to advance theory and to guide the collection of evidence. While they are difficult to plan and execute, there is compelling need for comparative studies to advance understanding of the underlying principles. Clear understanding of nationalism, and of the processes involved, is essential to the evolving of appropriate educational, policy, constitutional, and other legal means for accommodating cultural diversity.

Hechter, Michael 1986 ‘‘Theories of Ethnic Relations.’’ In John F. Stack, Jr., ed., The Primordial Challenge: Ethnicity in the Contemporary World. New York: Greenwood.

Heraclides, Alexis 1990 ‘‘Secessionist Minorities and External Involvement.’’ Internal Organization 44(3):341–378.

Hermann, Margaret G. 1986 ‘‘Ingredients of Leadership.’’ In Margaret G. Hermann, ed., Political Psychology: Contemporary Problems and Issues. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

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SAAD Z. NAGI

NATURE VS. NURTURE

See Gender; Intelligence; Sex Differences;

Socialization.

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NEGOTIATION OF POWER

In ordinary usage, negotiation signifies contracting, bargaining, and attempting to reach an agreement. Many studies of negotiation have been carried out particularly with respect to commercial, diplomatic, political, and trade union relations. Recently, acquisitions from the study of negotiation (modalities, styles, strategies, and so on) have been applied to the analysis of interpersonal and social dynamics, ranging from one-to-one relationships to more complex social situations and the management of organizations. Negotiation has also found a specific field of application in the solution of conflicts (Pruitt and Carnevale 1993).

Negotiation is, briefly, a process in which two or more parties try to reach a satisfactory solution to a shared problem. To be more specific, it is a process in which the actors define their own obligations, costs, and benefits to achieve a common result. It is important to emphasize that negotiation is a process, that is to say, it is a dynamic—and not an instantaneous situation—that may be adopted as a way of regulating relationships. Negotiation is a process of exchange (of information, threats, favors, and so on) that goes on until compromises beneficial for all parties involved begin to become apparent. It is a process that advances cautiously and methodically, so that the interests and the expectations of the parties involved are able to emerge gradually. Only when the parties have succeeded in deciphering the real interests and intentions that lie behind their respective declared positions can possible solutions be identified.

Negotiation processes can be analyzed from various points of view, using various techniques. It is possible, for example, to use macrostructural variables. In this case, the outcome is explained on the basis of variables in the context where the negotiation is carried out. Alternatively, it is possible to use psychological variables, interpreting the result of negotiation in the light of the personal characteristics of the actors and of the psychodynamics that develop between them. A third possibility is the ‘‘strategic’’ approach. A strategic analysis does not ignore context-defined effects and limits on the negotiation process nor the importance of the psychodynamic relationship established by the participants but it assumes that the outcome of negotiation will be primarily the result of strategic actions by the negotiators. According to this approach, a negotiation process can only be reconstructed by starting from the actual choices made from the alternative strategies available by actors in specific situations.

It is in this perspective that the special case of ‘‘interpower’’ negotiation (where the term ‘‘power’’ is used as an abbreviation for ‘‘institutional power’’ or ‘‘branch of government’’) has emerged. The topic has become important because in modern political systems the traditional concept of such powers has been modified; because the opportunities for conflict between them have multiplied; and finally because an increasing number of social and economic issues involving values of fundamental importance for individuals and communities have become the target of decisions, interventions, or actions taken or promoted by the various institutional powers.

During the twentieth century, the state has everywhere become increasingly interventionist, while respecting, in democratic societies, traditional civil and political freedoms. State intervention involves, on one hand, the economy and, on the other, various aspects of everyday life. In the economy, the state regulates private initiative relatively strictly, striving to guarantee the ‘‘social rights’’ of less favored groups without yielding to socialist collectivism. As well as impacting, sometimes significantly, on the lives of individuals, groups, communities, and enterprises, the intervention of the contemporary state upsets the parameters of the classic division of powers (legislative, executive, judicial), threatening its survival.

Indeed, it has led to the gradual rise of a new pattern of division of powers.

State intervention involves a massive increase in the production of regulations and therefore in the opportunities for violating such regulations and promoting legal action. It also exacerbates competition and conflicts among powers, among the various branches of state administration, and between decision-making centers and citizens (Field 1996). Normative activity has expanded so much that it can no longer remain the prerogative of parliament. For practical reasons, it is widely delegated to the executive and to administrative authorities. Moreover, a first decision on many conflicts must be referred to the administrative authorities, so that the classic principle of the exclusive attribution of fundamental functions to separate, corresponding powers is violated. The principle of the clear-cut division of powers has ceased to exist.

On the other hand, the very nature of public administration has changed. It not only carries out normative functions but also possesses wide-rang- ing discretionary power in defining and safeguarding the public interest. To do this, either official decrees or contractual instruments may be used.

Public administration has become a huge— indeed excessively large, according to many com- mentators—bureaucratic body. Formally, it continues to be subject to the law (which often leaves the administration a high degree of freedom for discretionary action) and to the directives of the executive. But there are many fields in which the law itself concedes considerable autonomy from the executive to administrative organs.

In addition, the nature of the work of the judiciary has changed. The system of sources for precedent is getting more complex and the number of regulations is mushrooming. Interpretation by judges therefore must involve strongly creative elements. There has also arisen a new area of intervention connected with the increasing number of functions assigned to public administration and the growing role of government. Judges are prompted to set aside their old self-image of being the ‘‘voice of the law ‘‘and to undertake an independent ‘‘political’’ role, inspired partly by new developments in legal theory, such as the law of interests and values, the sociology of law, and judicial pragmatism.

At the same time, Western states are experiencing two new and extremely important functions that are not comparable to the traditional ones. The first is that of political orientation. The intervention of the state must necessarily be organized around a program if it is to have significance and coherence. The program must be one on which the electorate expresses itself at elections and which an organ of the state has the task of translating into concrete provisions for the period of office of the legislature (at the next election, the electorate will decide whether to continue or to change program and governing team).

The body of the state delegated to administer the political orientation could only be the former executive. The executive, however, having been charged with its new task, has completely transformed its structures and authority. It has changed from a mainly executive body into a governing power that lasts for at least one legislature. Generally, it is the main initiator of the laws necessary to implement the political orientation and is followed in such action by both the legislative power and the public administration.

The second new function is that of guaranteeing the principles of the constitution. The United States provided a valid example in this respect, although for many years it was not followed by other countries. The much faster rate of change of the normative system makes it more likely that the laws themselves may violate fundamental values, as well as personal and social rights that the community wants to maintain intact. Parliaments have ceased to be reliable champions of the freedoms and the rights of the citizen. Frequently, they have been transformed into assemblies that merely represent sectarian or corporate interests. For that reason, there has emerged a demand to entrust the defense of those values and freedoms to a body that does not have to face a periodic electoral test. Constitutional courts were therefore created in nearly all political systems of the twentieth century. The interventionist state does not disclaim the division of power as such. The division must remain effective to avoid an excessive or even total concentration of power that would threaten citizens’ civil and political freedoms and social rights, or would jeopardize the proper, efficient government of society and the economy. But as we have

noted, the modern state can no longer be considered a harmonic whole made up of separate powers organized around the three functions of legislative, executive, and judicial power.

The division of the powers remains, but it has assumed a different form (O’Toole 1993). It has become a Weberian ideal-type with new features that can be summarily described as follows. There are at least five powers instead of the traditional three:

1.The governing power carries out the function of political orientation, defining the main policies. Whether it is embodied in a president, a prime minister, a chancellor, or some other figure, the governing power is an organ that enjoys guaranteed stability, which is indispensable for translating political orientation into action. In general, the governing power will attempt to perform a broader normative function than the one attributed to it, thus entering into conflict or competition with the parliament.

2.The legislative branch has taken on the function of confirming the political orientation decided by the governing power when its majority belongs to the same party. Where the majority belongs to a different party, the function is more political and relationships are competitive, because the overriding aim is to win the next election. Nevertheless, obstruction of the policies of the governing power, or its formal removal, must remain absolutely exceptional eventualities. The legislative branch also has other checks and controls over the governing power (formal questioning, inquiries, and so on).

3.Public administration has become one of the powers because, although it is subject to law and the directives of the governing power, its sheer size and the growing range of functions assigned to it enable the public administration to pursue objectives in the public interest which it identifies independently with discretionary freedom. The aims of the public administration are achieved by regulation and sanctions.

4.The judicial power is the power that guarantees in complete autonomy the proper application of the law to specific cases. The judiciary contributes creatively to the evolution of the normative system. For this reason, it may perform, intentionally or not, an important ‘‘political’’ role.

5.The supreme court (constitutional court) has the function of guaranteeing supreme political and social values for all the other powers, especially the governing and legislative powers. These values have to be removed from the cut and thrust of day- to-day politics and constantly defended. In fact, the supreme court identifies these values with wide discretion.

The new model of the division of powers places the governing—and not the legislative— power at the center of the state’s organization. It is the governing power that provides the driving force. The other powers act as potential brakes, the legislative branch on the political front and the supreme (constitutional) court on the legal side.

The governing power cannot therefore be compared to a medieval absolute (albeit elective) monarch. Still less can it be compared to the dictators of contemporary authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. It acts in a context of free democracy and in a system of the division of powers that places limits on it and prevents it from taking the place of other powers in the exercise of functions that do not properly belong to it. Realistically, its position within the organization of the state is probably less strong than might appear from the above model.

If we examine what has happened to the former legislative, executive, and judicial functions that today are no longer attributed to or exercised by a specific power, it will become apparent that they are distributed among the new powers without the rigid distinctions that once prevailed. Although every political system has mechanisms for blocking democracy-threatening initiatives (for example, penal norms can be only introduced by acts of parliament), the vagueness and fluidity of the new political situation demands the introduction of new procedures to regulate the relationships of the new powers. New procedures are necessary to

avoid the risk of permanent conflict, the blocking of all political plans, and the struggle to occupy ever-wider areas of influence.

Almost all the major Western nations have, to some extent, adapted to the new model. Of course, each system has chosen its own way of allowing a governing power to emerge and of defining a corresponding series of complementary authorities and checks. Indeed, a surprising variety of solutions has been devised to ensure the optimal functioning of the interventionist state. Since it is impossible to illustrate here the performance and the details of the models established by the major Western nations, we shall merely list some of the most important changes.

Great Britain in the twentieth century has transformed its classic parliamentarian government into government by the prime minister, who represents the governing power. This has been possible thanks to the rigid bipartite nature of the British political system, which guarantees the alternation of parties in power; to the adoption of a first-past-the-post voting system that reinforces the two-party system; and to the strict internal discipline in the parties.

France under the Fifth Republic has overcome the disadvantages of its extreme parliamentarianism, which were due to the excessive fragmentation and lack of internal discipline of the parties. This has been achieved through the direct election of the president of the republic, the reinforcement of the position of the government with respect to parliament, and the return to a majority electoral law with two ballots. The governing power in France is the president, except when the parliamentary majority is hostile (policies are decided with the prime minister). The Constitutional Council safeguards the ideals of French constitutionalism. In Germany, the governing power is represented by the chancellor. Elected by majority vote in the Bundestag, the chancellor enjoys remarkable stability, partly because of the principle of the constructive vote of no confidence. It is up to the chancellor to dictate the political orientation, which parliament normally backs. The strength of the German political parties, the federal organization of the state, and an effective constitutional court provide an effective counterweight to the power of the chancellor.

In the nineteenth century, Congress was the real center of American political life. During the twentieth century, however, the presidential system of the United States has become actual rather than nominal, and the true driving force of the nation today is the president. Congress has nevertheless kept a significant portion of its former power and is currently the most powerful of all the Western parliaments. The Supreme Court is also rather more than a mere check on the governing power.

Italy is something of an anomaly because its constitution enshrines the model of the social interventionist state, but the country has not succeeded in developing the structures for a new division of powers. The Italian parliament has jealously preserved all its normative functions, but the public administration interprets and applies the regulations with such a high degree of autonomy that it distorts the intentions of the legislator. The strict two-chamber structure slows down parliamentary activity; the government has only weak prerogatives over parliament; and the judiciary, originally conceived as a mere instrument to apply the laws, has actually been performing a largely political role in recent years. These modifications to the institutional order have been fostered by major changes in the political process, especially concerning the demands and behavior of citizens. Two aspects, in particular, deserve attention. First, increasingly frequently, public policy disputes among social or special-interest groups are taken to the legislator, the administrative branch, or the judicial arena for resolution. Second, more and more people request government intervention to solve private problems or to further group interests. The new powers therefore have to tackle new tasks and satisfy additional social demand.

The breakdown of the traditional division of powers, whose roles, functions and relationships are very clearly defined, at least formally, leads to a fluid situation in which the new powers are forced to negotiate with each other.

There are two aspects that coexist in interpower negotiation. The first is negotiation on matters of substance and—albeit generally in less explicit terms—for the attribution of roles. On fundamental issues, it is necessary to make a distinction between topics that involve nonnegotiable values

and interests on which it is possible to reach a compromise or to find some way of compensating the losing party.

Even though the present era is characterized by the spread of secularism and cultural relativism, there are topics on which people—and therefore institutions—are deeply divided. Abortion is one example, for it involves worldviews and values that are not negotiable. In such cases, the majority will impose its position without attempting to mediate an agreement with the minority. The decision adopted, whatever it is, will obviously produce resentment, the undermining of authority, and conflict. The process of developing a commonground culture and fostering empathy on sensitive topics, such as abortion, is complex, although it may be effective with small groups of participants (LeBaron and Carstarphen 1997). Another such example is the question of worship in schools. Moreover, people are becoming very sensitive about issues such as environment, health, and safety: Divisions and conflicts go through not only interests but values, ideologies, deep-rooted ideas. If the area of decisions imposed by a majority on the minority or the minorities were to extend, the already serious fractures in society would deepen, with consequences that could threaten the very continuance of coexistence.

In addition, negotiation over the attribution of roles can develop at two different levels, the institutional and the political. The subject of negotiation is always the same, concerning the organizational model to be applied to the powers, the levels of government (federal, state, and local), and the sphere in which each power will exercise its influence. All participants claim to be pursuing the public interest but the context in which negotiation is carried out changes. In the first case, constitutional principles, values, and rights are the benchmarks. In political negotiation, however, concrete policy priority decisions are negotiated as well as the allocation of financial and other resources and standards for crucial areas such as health, public safety, and education.

It is also important to bear in mind that other factors apart from those already mentioned play a part in interpower negotiation, including each actor’s unique characteristics and awareness of its source of legitimization. The president, or governing power, will be more sensitive to general public

opinion. The legislative power cannot ignore strong pressures exercised both by constituencies and by lobbies. The judiciary is the guardian of the laws, and the public administration bases its position on technical competence and a professed impartiality. The ensuing system looks rather unstable, so the problem then becomes how to combine diverse, conflicting interests, styles, and sensitivities, which all claim to be pursuing a common goal: the public interest and the satisfaction of individual and social needs.

In order to achieve this agreement, it is necessary, first of all, to establish common definitions of what is meant by the ‘‘public interest’’ and by ‘‘social and individual needs’’. Second, negotiating procedures must be agreed upon since the checks- and-balances principle, a feature of political systems with a traditional division of powers and welldefined functions, is no longer adequate. The checks-and-balances principle loses much of its value in a continuously changing situation with different actors. Third, it is necessary to seek the consent of the governed to clear the way for negotiations, enabling citizens to be informed and to exercise some kind of control (Susskind and Cruikshank 1989).

Interpower negotiation should not aim for minimum levels of agreements but should seek to create bargains that improve the working of the political system and produce a genuine gain for citizens. In contrast with normal conditions of negotiation, when powers are involved it is not appropriate to seek the victory of one or other of the parties. Instead, the actors must perceive that they should exploit their differences to achieve benefits jointly.

Taking advantage of differences of interest does not mean helping the other party in order to receive help in turn (do ut des) or making a simple exchange. It signifies, above all, learning how to recognize the priorities, responsibilities, and interests of each actor. The first problem to be resolved in interpower negotiation is to identify a limit beyond which it is in no one’s interest to go. In the literature on the subject, some analysts propose ‘‘best alternatives to nonagreement’’ (BATNA) as a criterion for verifying the motivation and interests underlying negotiation (Fisher and Ury 1981). Negotiation is thus the key to improvement. If

powers wage battle, each trying to impose its own interests and strengthen its own position, the result may be to block the political system, thus losing the confidence of citizens. Conflict between the courts, the political authorities, and the public administration is not the most effective way to deal with the breakdown of the traditional division of powers.

REFERENCES

Aharoni, Y., ed. 1997 Changing Roles of State Intervention in Services in an Era of Open International Markets. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Baruch Bush, R. A., and J. P. Folger 1994 The Promise of Mediation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Bercovitch, J., and J. Rubin, eds. 1992 Mediation in International Relations: Multiple Approaches to Conflict Management. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Breslin, J., and S. Rubin, eds. 1995 Negotiation Theory and Practice. Cambridge, Mass.: Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.

Dukes, F. E. 1996 Resolving Public Conflict: Transforming Community and Governance. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press.

Fisher, R., and W. Ury 1981 Getting to Yes: Negotiation Agreement without Giving In. Boston: Hougton Mifflin.

Goodwin, C. S. 1996 The Arc of the Pendulum: A Philosophy for Government in the 21st Century. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America.

Hanson, R. L. 1998 Governing Partners: State-Local Relations in the United States. Boulder, Colo.: Westview.

Lavinia, H. Negotiation, Strategies for Mutual Gain. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage.

Lax, D. A., and J. K. Sebinius 1986 The Manager as Negotiator: Bargaining for Cooperation and Competitive Gain. New York: Free Press.

LeBaron, M., and N. Carstarphen 1997 ‘‘Negotiating Intricable Conflict: The Common Ground Dialogue Process and Abortion.’’ Negotiating Journal (Octo- ber):341–363.

Leowenstein, K. 1965 Political Power and the Governmental Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lewicki, R. J., D. M. Saunders, and J. W. Minton 1997

Essentials of Negotiation. Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin.

O’Toole, L. J., ed. 1993 American Intergovernmental Relations: Foundations, Perspectives, and Issues. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press.

Pruitt, D. G., and P. J. Carnevale 1993 Negotiation in Social Conflict. Pacific Grove, Calif.: Brooks/Cole.

Raiffa, H. 1985 The Art and Science of Negotiation. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Simeon, R. 1985 Division of Powers and Public Policy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Susskind, L., et al. 1999 Negotiating Environmental Health and Safety Agreements. Washington D.C.: Island Press.

———, and P. T. Field 1996 Dealing with an Angry Public: The Mutual Gain. New York: Free Press.

———, and J. Cruikshank 1987 Breaking the Impasse: Consensual Approaches to Resolve Public Disputes. New York: Basic Book.

Ursel, J. 1992 Private Lives, Public Policy: 100 Years of State Intervention in the Family. London: Women’s Press.

Weiss, D. S. 1996 Beyond the Walls of Conflict: Mutual Gains Negotiating for Unions and Management. Homewood, Ill.: Irwin Professional.

BRUNO TELLIA

statistics and the term ‘‘distribution-free methods’’ were commonly used interchangeably in the literature, although they have different implications. Nonparametric statistics were often referred to as distribution-free statistics because they are not based on a particular type of a distribution in the population such as a normal distribution. It is, however, generally agreed that nonparametric statistics require fewer, or less stringent, assumptions about the nature of the population distribution being studied, compared to classical parametric statistics. It is important to note that nonparametric statistics are not totally assumption-free either, since they must be based on some assumptions applicable to specific tests, such as lack of ties or the independence of two random samples included in the study. They are flexible in their use and are generally quite robust. Nonparametric statistics allow researchers to arrive at conclusions based on exact probability values and the confidence interval.

NETWORK ANALYSIS

SeeSocial Networks.

NONPARAMETRIC

STATISTICS

Parameters are characteristics of the population being studied such as a mean (µ), standard deviation (σ) or median (Md). Statistics describe characteristics of a sample. Sample mean ( ) and sample median (m) are two examples. In traditional or classical parametric statistics, making inferences from a sample or samples to a population or populations necessitates assumptions about the nature of the population distribution such as a normal population distribution.

Nonparametric statistics may be defined as statistical methods that contribute valid testing and estimation procedures under less stringent assumptions than the classical parametric statistics. However, there is no general agreement in the literature regarding the exact specification of the term ‘‘nonparametric statistics.’’ In the past, nonparametric

The major advantages of nonparametric statistics compared to parametric statistics are that:

(1) they can be applied to a large number of situations; (2) they can be more easily understood intuitively; (3) they can be used with smaller sample sizes; (4) they can be used with more types of data; (5) they need fewer or less stringent assumptions about the nature of the population distribution; (6) they are generally more robust and not often seriously affected by extreme values in data such as outliers; (7) they have, in many cases, a high level of asymptotic relative efficiency compared to the classical parametric tests; (8) the introduction of jackknife, bootstrap, and other resampling techniques has increased their range of applicability; and (9) they provide a number of supplemental or alternative tests and techniques to currently existing parametric tests.

Many critics of nonparametric tests have pointed out some major drawbacks of the tests: (1) they are usually neither as powerful nor as efficient as the parametric tests; (2) they are not as precise or as accurate as parametric tests in many cases (e.g., ranking tests with a large number of ties); (3) they might lead to erroneous decisions about rejecting or not rejecting the null hypothesis because of lack of precision in the test; (4) many of these tests utilize data inadequately in the analysis because

they transform observed values into ranks and groups; and (5) the sampling distribution and distribution tables for nonparametric statistics are too numerous, are often cumbersome, and are limited to small sample sizes. The critics also claim that new parametric techniques and the availability of computers have reduced the need to use nonparametric statistics. Given these advantages and disadvantages, how does one choose between parametric and nonparametric tests?

Many criteria are available for this purpose. Statistical results are expected to be unbiased, consistent, or robust, or to have a combination of these characteristics. If both tests under consideration are applicable and appropriate, what other criteria may be used in the choice of a preferred test? The power and efficiency of a test are very widely used in comparing parametric and nonparametric tests.

The power of a test is the probability of rejecting the null hypothesis H0 when it is false. It is defined as 1 − ß, where ß is the probability of a Type II error, or acceptance of a false null hypothesis. If test A and test B would have the same alpha level of significance and the same sample sizes, and test B has a higher power, then test B is considered a preferred choice. However, calculations of the power of a test are often cumbersome. Another way of addressing the issue of the power of a test is through an asymptotic relative efficiency measure. The relative efficiency of a test in comparison to another test is the ratio of the sample size needed to achieve the same power with similar assumptions about significance levels and population distribution. Asymptotic relative efficiency of a test (sometimes called Pitman efficiency) is measured without a limit on the increase in sample size of that test. Thus, for example, when an asymptotic efficiency of Kendall’s τ relative to Personian r is given as .912, it means that the τ with a sample size of 1000 is as efficient as an r with a sample size of 912. The test for asymptotic relative efficiency is now routinely used in the literature to compare two tests.

Based on these criteria, it can be generalized that nonparametric tests and techniques tend to be preferred when: (1) nominal or ordinal data are involved; (2) robust tests are needed because of outliers in the data; (3) probability distribution or

density function of the data is unknown or cannot be assumed, as in the case of small sample sizes; (4) the effects of violations of specific test assumptions are unknown, or only weak assumptions can be made; (5) analogous parametric tests are not available, as in the case of runs tests and goodness- of-fit tests; and (6) preliminary trials, supplemental or alternative techniques for parametric techniques are needed.

NONPARAMETRIC STATISTICAL

LITERATURE

The term nonparametric statistics was introduced in the statistical literature in the 1940s (Noether 1984). The historical roots of nonparametric statistics are supposed to go as far back as 1710 when John Arbuthnot did a study that included the proportion of male births in London (Daniel 1990; Hettmansperger 1984) using a sign test which is a nonparametric procedure. Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient, which is widely used even today, was the forerunner of the chi-square test, which was introduced in 1900.

Initial major developments in the field that introduced and popularized the study of nonparametric methods appeared in the late 1940s and early 1950s, though a few nonparametric tests were published in the late 1920s such as the FisherPitman test, Kendall’s coefficient of concordance, and Hotelling and Pabst’s paper on rank correlation in the 1930s. Contributions by Wilcoxon and Mann-Whitney were introduced during the 1940s. The term nonparametric reportedly appeared for the first time in 1942 in a paper by Wolfowitz (Noether 1984). The 1956 publication of Siegel’s text on nonparametric statistics popularized the subject to such an extent that the text was one of the most widely cited textbooks in the field of statistics for a few years. It was during this time that computer software for nonparametric tests was introduced.

The major emphasis in the 1960s and 1970s was on the extension of the field into regression analysis, and analysis of variance to develop tests analogous to the classical parametric tests. It was also discovered during this period that nonparametric tests were more robust and more efficient than previously expected. The basis for the asymptotic