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This research examines the responses of the American States to new trade opportunities created by recent political and economic reforms in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Specifically, the research focuses on the level of business interest in these potential new markets and on the type and amount of assistance that states are providing to firms seeking trade opportunities in this region. The analysis suggests that interest on the part of domestic firms is high and that states are responding by providing business firms with a variety of different types and levels of assistance.

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The purpose of this paper is to determine which of a selected number of factors in the urban environment are important in influencing the priorities and goals mayors espouse for their cities. Mayors are often deemed influential in community politics; however, little is known about what shapes their priorities. To probe this question, four goal areas—community attractiveness, economic development, aid to the disadvantaged, and government efficiency—are selected for analysis. The results—based on data from National Opinion Research Center's Permanent Community Sample—suggest that no one political or social factor in the urban environment dominates across all four goal areas, but rather that there tends to be a different "politics" at work in each goal area.Much of the post-1950 literature dealing with American mayors has focused on the issue of community decision making and the degree of influence mayors have in the community decision structure, with particular attention being given to their influence vis-A-vis business and industrial leaders. Two major propositions of the early community studies are that decision making is characterized by a monolithic power structure with business and economic leaders at the helm or that it is characterized by a more fragmented array of elites, each of whom specialize in a different issue area. The latter proposition implies that AUTHORS' NOTE: We would like to express our appreciation to Wanda Foster for her assistance in preparing this manuscript for publication.