Public Policy: The Essential Readings (Theodoulou &
Cahn)
Public Policy: The Essential Readings (Theodoulou &
Cahn)
Part I: The Nature of Public Policy
(Summarized by: Kuheli Dutt)
Chapter 1: The Contemporary language of Public Policy
(Stella Theodoulou)
1. We need to be able to distinguish between what governments
intend to do and what they actually do
2. PP involves all levels of govt. and is not restricted to
formal actors
3. PP is an intentional course of action with an accomplished
end goal as its objective
4. PP is both long term and short term
Policy is an ongoing process; it involves not only the decision
to enact a law but also the subsequent actions of implementation,
enforcement and evaluation. PP does at least one or more of the
following: it reconciles conflicting claims on scarce resources; it
establishes incentives for cooperation and collective action that
would be irrational without govt. influence; it prohibits morally
unacceptable behavior and provides direct benefits to citizens.
Approaches to Studying Public Policy
1. Cycle-process approaches: The basic assumption in these
approaches is that policy makers respond to the demands placed on
them. The focus is on the process of policy making.
a. Systems Theory: PP is a political systems response to demands
arising from the environment. The political system is thus a
mechanism by which popular demands and popular support for the
state are combined to produce those policy outputs that best endure
the long term stability of the political system. The basic idea is
that political systems should be seen as analogues to operating
mechanical systems with feedback loops and clear goals. Weakness of
this approach: it says little about how decisions are determined or
how they arrive into the decision-making structures. Also, it
stresses the importance of stability rather than change.
b. Structural Functionalism: Looks at the necessary functions
that must be carried out in any political system if it to cope with
its environment and achieve its goals. Also looks at the location
of structures political parties and socializing agencies that
facilitate that functioning. This approach acknowledges that the
structures, arrangements, and procedures of political institutions
have important consequences for the adoption and content of public
policy. Institutions provide part of the context for policy making
and need to be considered along with more dynamic aspects like
political parties, groups, and opinions. Weakness of this approach:
it tends to fragment the study of policy making by focusing on the
various structures, thus making it difficult to concisely draw all
of the different elements involved in the policy process
together.
c. Policy Cycle: This approach views the policy process as a
cycle that is deliberative, staged, recursive, and administrative.
Policy making is thus seen as a dynamic ongoing process. Policies
are described in two different senses: how they are made, and how
they can be made better.
2. Models of who makes Public Policy: These models look at how
the policy process operates and, most importantly, who controls or
dominates the process and who benefits from it. a. Group
Theory/Pluralism: PP is a product of group struggle. The central
argument is that societies consist of a number of social, ethnic,
or economic groups, who are more or less well organized. The public
interest tends to emerge out of the struggle of competing
individual and group claims. PP is the result of a unique process
of interaction. The basic elements of this approach are multiple
centers of powers and optimum policy developments through competing
interests.
b. Elite Theory: Policies are made by a relatively small group
of influential leaders who share common goals and outlooks. PP is
not a product of group conflict and demands but rather as
determined by the preferences of the minority ruling class who have
political and economic power.
c. Corporatism: Interest groups do not merely attempt to
influence PP but themselves become a part of the decision making
and implementation system, thereby making society more manageable
for the state or govt.
d. Subgovernments: The govt. alone does not make policy choices
but endorses decisions made by groups like members of Congress, the
bureaucracy, and interest groups. These structures develop around
particular policy areas and involve the relevant legislators,
bureaucrats, and interest groups. Therefore policy outcomes are
determined by the relationship of these groups with the govt. and
not just the govt. alone. This perspective has been outmoded in
recent years among political scientists since there are a much
larger number of interested actors in the policy making process,
not just the three posited by this model.
Types of Public Policy
1. Classic typology: attributed to Theodore Lowi. PP is
classified according to whether it is regulatory, distributive, or
redistributive in nature.
2. Material/ Symbolic: Attributed to Murray Edelman. PP is
either material or symbolic. Material policies provide tangible
resources or substantive power to their beneficiaries and may
impose costs on those who are adversely affected. Symbolic policies
appeal to the values held in common by individuals in society. They
can be used to divert public attention or satisfy public demand
when no substantive benefits are being produced.
3. Substantive/Procedural: Attributed to James Anderson.
Substantive policies are what the govt. intends to do and they
provide advantages/disadvantages and costs/benefits of any given
policy. Procedural policies look at how something will be done or
who will do it.
4. Liberal/Conservative: Liberal polices seek govt. intervention
to bring about social change while conservative policies oppose
such intervention. However this distinction has been blurred in
recent years, with the emphasis being not on whether the govt.
should intervene or not, but in what areas, in what form, and on
whose behalf.
Chapter 2: Political Science and Public Policy
(Paul Sabatier)
Public policy did not appear as a significant subfield of
political science until the 1960s and 1970s. Policy research by
political scientists can be divided into 4 types:
1. Substantive area research: This looks at the politics of a
specific policy, such as health, education, transportation, or
foreign policy. This work has consisted mainly of detailed, largely
atheoretical, case studies. While being informative, they are
probably less useful than theoretical case studies on
implementation or agenda setting.
2. Evaluation and Impact Studies: Mostly based on contributions
from other disciplines, these studies have broadened the criteria
of evaluation from traditional social welfare functions to include
process criteria such as opportunities for effective citizen
participation.
3. Policy process: This looks at the factors affecting policy
formulation and implementation, as well as the subsequent effects
of policy. The focus on the policy process provides opportunities
for applying and integrating accumulated knowledge concerning
political behavior in various institutional settings.
4. Policy design: This approach focuses on such topics as the
efficacy of different types of policy instruments.
Sources of strain between political scientists and the subfield
of policy scholars:
1. Difference in the fundamental conception of the purpose of
govt. and political life. Policy scholars tend to view govt. in
instrumental terms: govts are there to improve the welfare of
members of society to provide public health, provide for common
defense, correct externalities, improve public safety, etc.
Political scientists view citizenship and political participation
as ends in themselves rather than as a means of influencing policy
decisions.
2. Difference in the normative assumptions. Policy scholars try
to influence policy in areas in which they are specialists.
Conversely, political scientists try to understand the way the
world operates within their areas of specialization with lesser
emphasis on trying to influence political behavior in the
system.
3. Contributions to the field: In the eyes of political
scientists, policy scholars have made only modest contributions to
developing generalizable and empirically verified theories of the
policy process.
In addition, the dominant paradigm of the policy process the
stages heuristic is not really a causal theory. Instead, it divides
the policy process into several stages (agenda setting, formulation
and adoption, implementation, and evaluation), but contains no
coherent assumptions about what forces are driving the process from
stage to stage and very few falsifiable hypotheses. While the
stages heuristic has helped to divide the policy process into
manageable units of analysis, researchers have tended to focus
exclusively on a single stage with little recognition of work in
other stages. Also, the real world process often does not fit the
sequence of stages envisaged.
On the other hand, a great deal of policy research has been
methodologically sophisticated and guided by explicit theory.
Examples include studies on agenda setting; implementation; long
term policy change; and institutional arrangements for managing
common property resources.
However, none of these sources of strain should pose serious
obstacles to close collaborations between political scientists and
the subfield of policy scholars both groups share a common interest
in developing a better understanding of the policy process, i.e.
the range of factors that affect governmental policy decisions and
the impacts of those decisions on society.
Chapter 3: Distribution, Regulation, Redistribution: The
Functions of Govt.
(Theodore Lowi)
Distributive Policies: characterized by the ease with which they
can be disaggregated and dispensed unit by unit, with each unit
more or less in isolation from other units and from any general
rule. These policies can also be called Patronage policies, in that
they are highly individualized decisions that can be called policy
only by accumulation. In these policies the recipient and the
deprived need never come in direct confrontation.
Regulatory Policies: like distributive policies, these are also
specific and individual in their impact, but they are not capable
of the level of disaggregation typical of distributive policies.
Regulatory policies involve direct choices about who will be
indulged and who deprived. Policies cannot be disaggregated to the
level of the individual firm (as in the case of distributive
policies), since decisions are made by the application of a general
rule. Regulatory decisions are cumulative largely along sectoral
lines, and are disaggregable only down to the sector level.
Redistributive policies are similar to regulatory policies in
that relations among broad categories of private individuals are
involved. However, on all other counts there are great differences
in the nature of impact. The categories of impact are much broader,
approaching social classes. Roughly speaking, they are haves and
have-nots; bigness and smallness; and bourgeoisie and proletariat.
The aim involved is not the use of property but property itself;
not equal treatment but equal possession; not behavior, but being.
The nature of a redistributive issue is not determined by the
outcome of a battle over how redistributive a policy is going to
be.
Arenas of Power
Once one posits the general tendency of these areas of policy or
governmental activity to develop characteristic political
structures, a number of hypotheses become compelling. These
hypotheses begin to resemble the three general theories of
political process.
1. The distributive arena: Distributive issues individualize
conflict and provide the basis for highly stable coalitions that
are virtually irrelevant to the larger policy outcomes; thousands
of obscure decisions are merely accumulated into a policy of
protection or of natural-resources development or of defense
subcontracting. The structure of the relationships usually lead to
the Congress and this structure is relatively stable because all
who have access of any sort usually support whoever are leaders.
And there tend to be elites of a particular sort in the
Congressional committees whose jurisdictions include the subject
matter in question. For example, the Public Works Committee is
virtually the govt. on rivers and harbors. Similarly, until
recently, for tariff matters the House Ways and Means Committee was
the governing authority. It is a broker leadership but policy is
best understood as cooptation rather than conflict and
compromise.
2. Regulatory arena: Composed of a multiplicity of groups
organized around tangential relations or shared attitudes. Owing to
the relatedness of regulatory issues (as opposed to the
unrelatedness of distributive issues where the activities of single
participants need not be related) these decisions involve direct
confrontations of indulged and deprived, and the typical political
coalition is born of conflict and compromise among tangential
interests that usually involve a total sector of the economy.
Therefore the power structure in regulatory politics is far less
stable than that in the distributive arena. Since coalitions form
around shared interests, the coalitions will shift as the interests
change or as conflicts of interest emerge. With such group-based
and shifting patterns of conflict built into every regulatory
issue, it is in most cases impossible for a Congressional
committee, an administrative agency, a peak association governing
board, or a social elite to contain all the participants long
enough to establish a stable power elite. Policy outcomes seem
inevitably to be the residue remaining after all the reductions of
demands by all participants have been made in order to extend
support to majority size. However, in regulatory decision-making,
relationships among group leadership elements and between them on
any one or more points of governmental access are far too unstable
to form a single policy-making elite. As a consequence,
decision-making tends to pass from administrative agencies and
Congressional committees to Congress, the place where uncertainties
in the policy process have always been settled. Congress as an
institution is the last resort for breakdowns in bargaining over
policy. Beginning with reciprocity in the 1930s, the tariff began
to lose its capacity for infinite disaggregation because it slowly
underwent redefinition, moving away from its purely domestic
significance towards that of an instrument of international
politics. It became a means of regulating the domestic economy for
international purposes. The significant feature here is not the
international but the regulatory part of the redefinition. As the
process of redefinition took place, a number of significant shifts
in power relations took place as well, since it was no longer
possible to deal with each dutiable item in isolation. By the 1960s
the tariff had emerged as a regulatory policy with a developing
regulatory arena.
3. Redistributive Arena: Issues that involve redistribution cut
closer than any others along class lines and activate interests in
what are roughly class terms. If there is ever any cohesion within
peak associations, it usually occurs on redistributive issues.
There is also a structure of communications favoring generalized
and ideological demands; this structure consists of the peak
associations, and it is highly effective when the issues are
generalizable. This is the case consistently for redistributive
issues, almost never for distributive issues, and only seldom for
regulatory issues. Where the peak associations have reality, their
resources and access are bound to affect power relations. Owing to
their stability and the impasse (or equilibrium) in relations among
broad classes of the entire society, the political structure of the
redistributive arena seems to be highly stabilized. Its stability,
unlike that of the distributive arena, derives from shared
interests. But in contrast to the regulatory arenas, these shared
interests are sufficiently stable and clear and consistent to
provide the foundation for ideologies.
The following table summarizes the hypothesized differences in
the political relationships described above:
Arenas and Political Relationships: A Diagrammatic Survey
ArenaPrimary Political UnitRelation Among UnitsPower
StructureStability of StructurePrimary Decisional
LocusImplementation
DistributionIndividual, Firm, CorporationLog-rolling, mutual
non-interference, uncommon interestsNon-conflictual elite with
support groupsStableCongressional committee and/or agencyAgency
centralized to primary functional unit (bureau)
RegulationGroupThe Coalition, shared subject-matter interest,
bargainingPluralistic, multi-centered theory of
balanceUnstableCongress, in classic roleAgency decentralized from
center by delegation; mixed control
RedistributionAssociationThe peak association, class,
ideologyConflictual elite, i.e. elite and counterelite
StableExecutive and peak associationsAgency centralized toward top
(above bureau), elaborate standards
Chapter 4: Symbols and Political Quiescence
(Murray Edelman)
If the regulatory process is examined in terms of a divergence
between political and legal promises on the one hand and resource
allocations and group reactions on the other hand, the largely
symbolic character of the entire process becomes apparent. Some
generalizations are commonly made:
1. Tangible resources and benefits are frequently not
distributed to unorganized political group interests as promised in
regulatory statutes and the propaganda attending their enactment.
This is true of the values held out to (or demanded by) groups
which regard themselves as disadvantaged and which presumably
anticipate benefits from a regulatory policy.
2. When it does happen, the deprived groups often display little
tendency to protest or to assert their awareness of the
deprivation. Although the presumed beneficiaries of regulatory
legislation often show little or no concern with its failure to
protect them, they are nevertheless assumed to constitute a
potential base of political support for the retention of these
statutes in the law books.
3. The most intensive dissemination of symbols commonly attends
the enactment of legislation which is most meaningless in its
effects upon resource allocation. In the legislative history of
particular regulatory statutes the provisions least significant for
resource allocation are most widely publicized and the most
significant provisions are least widely publicized.
4. Policies severely denying resources to large numbers of
people can be pursued indefinitely without any serious
controversy.
Two broad patterns of group interest activity vis--vis public
regulatory policy are evidently identifiable on the basis of these
various modes of observing the social scene. These can be
summarized as:
1) Pattern A: A relatively high degree of organization rational,
cognitive procedures precise information an effective interest in
specifically identified, tangible resources a favorably perceived
strategic position with respect to reference groups relatively
small numbers
2) Pattern B: shared interest in improvement of status through
protest activity an unfavorably perceived strategic position with
respect to reference groups distorted, stereotyped, inexact
information and perception response to symbols connoting
suppression of threats relative ineffectiveness in securing
tangible resources through political activity little organization
for purposeful action quiescence relatively large numbers.
Signs and symbols in themselves do not have any magical forces
as narcotics. They are, rather, the only means by which groups not
in a position to analyze a complex situation rationally may adjust
themselves to it, through stereotypization, oversimplification, and
reassurance. There have been many instances of effective
administration and enforcement of regulatory statutes. In each such
instance it will be found that organized groups have had an
informed interest in effective administration. Sometimes the
existence of these groups is explicable as a holdover from the
campaign for legislative enactment of the basic statute; and often
the initial administrative appointees are informed, dedicated
adherents of these interests. They are thus in a position to secure
pertinent data and to act strategically, helping furnish
organization to the groups they represent. Sometimes the resources
involved are such that there is organization on both sides; or the
more effective organization may be on the reform side. The
securities exchange legislation is an illuminating example, for
after Richard Whitneys conviction for embezzlement, key officials
of the New York Stock Exchange recognized their own interest in
supporting controls over less scrupulous elements. This interest
configuration helps to explain the relative popularity of the SEC
in the thirties both with regulated groups as well as organized
liberal groups.
Chapter 5: The Analysis of Public Policy: A Search for Theories
and Roles
(Robert Salisbury)
One may distinguish three major positions on what we mean by
policy.
1. Public policy consists in authoritative or sanctioned
decisions by governmental actors. It refers to the substance of
what govt. does and is to be distinguished from the processes by
which decisions are made. Policy here means the outcomes or outputs
of governmental processes.
2. Policy consists of a general framework of authoritative
rules, and, while the precise boundary between policy and
non-policy is nearly always debatable in the particular situation,
the distinction crops up very often, with terms like discretionary
versus ministerial acts, controversy versus routine, and policy
versus administration suggesting the manifold permutations on the
theme of policy.
3. Policy refers to those actions calculated to achieve goal or
purpose, and all political activity should be viewed as policy
oriented. This conception is summed up in Friedrichs definition of
policy: a proposed course of action of a person, group or govt.
within a given environment providing obstacles and opportunities
which the policy was proposed to utilize and overcome in an effort
to reach a goal or realize an objective or purpose. It is essential
for the policy concept that there be a goal, objective, or purpose.
According to Friedrich, there is a difference between specific
decisions and actions, and a program or course of action, and that
it is the latter to which the term policy refers. It is patterns of
behavior, rather than separate, discrete acts which constitute
policy.
Policy typologies may be based on data that are composed of
perceptions of the actors. Thus whether a particular policy is
classified as zero sum or non-zero sum may depend on how the
relevant actors perceive it, and similarly, with the distinction
between symbolic and material policies. Lowi, on the other hand,
attempts to classify policies as distributive, redistributive, or
regulatory in part, according to their impact on society. However,
impact on society appears to be beyond our present capacity to
measure in any way that goes beyond the plausible hunch. This
criterion then becomes a special case of the criterion of actors
perceptions, with observers replacing decision-makers as the active
party.
From the array of extant possibilities, we employ a typology
that is adapted from Lowis formulation and uses data derived from
actor perceptions. Policies are classified as distributive,
redistributive, regulatory, and self-regulatory. A question that
immediately arises is how this formulation fits the distinction
between zero-sum and non-zero sum policies. One may argue that none
of the four types necessarily implies zero-sum conditions.
Distributive and self-regulatory policies can be definitely
considered non zero-sum, while redistributive and regulatory
policies may approach zero-sum conditions. However, in general,
American politics are mostly decided in distinctly positive sum
games.
Chapter 6: With the Consent of All
(Robert Dahl)
There are at least four reasons for insisting that governments
ought, ideally, to derive their just powers from the consent of the
governed. First, govt. without consent is inconsistent with
personal freedom. Second, govt. without consent can be an affront
to human dignity and respect (aka concentration camps). Third, one
may demand solely out of self-interest that a govt. rest on consent
(no dictatorships, etc). Finally, consent is necessary because
govts that derive their power from the consent of the governed are
more likely to be durable and stable.
While it is relatively easy to state why govts should derive
their just powers from the consent of the governed, it is difficult
to state how this should be accomplished. The difficulty stems from
the inevitable element of conflict in the human condition: people
living together simply will not always agree. When people disagree,
how can a decision be based on the consent of all?
Even if people cannot always agree specific policies, a solution
may be to gain their consent for a process. Thus the consent of the
governed may be interpreted to mean their approval of the processes
by which decisions are arrived at and their willingness to abide by
these decisions, even if these seem wrong. This solution is what
links consent with democracy. In the real world, democracies dont
always satisfy all the conditions implied by this solution; but it
serves as one standard against which to measure their success and
failure.
But how is this solution to be applied? What sort of democracy
are we talking about: decision making by a sovereign majority, or
pluralistic democracy?
Decision making by a sovereign majority:
In this vision of democracy, the citizens of a given country all
approve of the principle of majority rule, according to which all
conflicts over the policies of govt. are settled by a majority of
citizens or voters, either directly in a referendum or public
assembly, or indirectly through elected representatives. To approve
of a system that applies the principle of majority rule, one needs
to believe that during this historical period and in this
particular society the principle represents the fullest attainable
achievement of ones values. It is reasonable to conjecture that the
more diverse the beliefs held among a body of people, the less
likely it is that they will approve of the idea of making decisions
by majority rule.
Possible ways to maintain homogeneity among the population, such
as ostracism and secession, are painful and present serious moral
and practical difficulties. Also, there is one further difficulty
in trying to apply the majority rule which has special significance
for Americans. That some people may have voted in the distant past
to accept the Constitution of the United States is surely no reason
to feel bound to accept their verdict even today. Ideally then,
every new generation must be free to make their own constitution
and throw out the old rules. The Declaration of Independence
contains these ringing phrases:
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of
these ends (Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness) it is the
Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new
Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing
its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to
effect their Safety and Happiness
Seventy years later, confronted by secession, and on the eve of
war, Lincoln reaffirmed:
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who
inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing
Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of
amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow
it
But the phrase the People is ambiguous. Does it mean that any
majority is free to change the Govt.? If so, then what is the
significance of the Constitution? Is there no legitimate way in
which minority groups can receive guarantees that the rules they
agree to abide by will not change at the whim of the next
legislature? These are difficult questions to answer and no answers
seem to command universal agreement. To gain consent of all
applying the majority principle gives rise to serious problems,
both practical and logical. In practice, popular govts have moved
towards a rather different solution, that of a pluralistic
democracy.
A Pluralistic Solution:
The practical solutions that democratic countries have evolved
are a lot less clear than the straightforward application of the
principle of majority rule. These solutions seem less logical, less
coherent, more untidy, and more unattainable. Patterns of
democratic govt. do not reflect a logically conceived philosophical
plan so much as a series of responses to problems of diversity and
conflict, by leaders who have sought to build and maintain a
nation, to gain the loyalty and obedience of its citizens, and at
the same time to conform to aspirations for democracy. However,
some common elements can be discovered. For one thing, in practice,
countries with democratic regimes use force, as other regimes do,
to repel threats to the integrity of the national territory.
Consequently, secession is usually either impossible, or extremely
costly. Second, many matters of policy (e.g. religious beliefs) are
beyond the legal authority of any govt. Third, many questions of
policy are placed in the hands of private, semi-public, and local
governmental organizations such as churches, families, business
firms, trade unions, towns, cities, etc. These questions of policy
are also outside of the reach of any national policy. Fourth,
whenever a group of people believe that they are adversely affected
by national policies or are about to be, they generally have
extensive opportunities for presenting their case for negotiations
that may produce a more acceptable alternative.
In addition to all these, the United States has limited the
sovereignty of the majority in still other ways. In fact, it is
sometimes called a pluralistic system, the fundamental axiom in
theory and practice of which is: Instead of a single center of
sovereign power there must be multiple centers of power, none of
which is or can be wholly sovereign. Although the only legitimate
sovereign is the people, in the perspective of American pluralism
even the people ought never be an absolute sovereign; consequently
no part of the people, such as a majority, ought to be absolutely
sovereign.
Chapter 8: Imperfect Competition
(Ralph Miliband)
What is wrong with the pluralist-democratic society is its
implicit assumption that the major organized interests in these
societies, and notably capital and labor, compete on more or less
equal terms, and that none of them therefore is able to achieve a
decisive and permanent advantage in the process of competition. In
reality, business enjoys a massive superiority both inside and
outside the state system, in terms of immensely stronger pressures
which, as compared with labor and any other interest, it is able to
exercise in the pursuit of its purposes.
One such form of pressure is the pervasive and permanent
pressure upon govts. and the state generated by the private control
of concentrated industrial, commercial and financial resources. Of
course, govts. do have the formal power to impose their will upon
business by the exercise of legitimate authority. However, the
control of large businesses, especially those in crucially
important areas of economic life makes it extremely difficult for
govts to impose upon them policies to which they are firmly
opposed. What is involved here is not active resistance but the
inert power of business: the failure to do things that are not
positively commanded by the state but merely asked for, and the
doing of other things, which are not strictly illegal but are not
recommended by the state either.
In the abstract, govts. do indeed have the power to wield the
big stick against business, but in practice find it politically and
economically difficult to do so. These difficulties are best
epitomized in the phrase loss of confidence. It is an implicit
testimony to the power of business that all govts. have been
profoundly concerned to gain and retain the confidence of business
more than they have for any other organized interest group. The
presidency of John F Kennedy provides some illuminating instances
of this. Soon after he came to office, he found himself engaged in
a power struggles with the Business Advisory Council (BAC), a group
of top corporate executives that had enjoyed a special relationship
with the govt. since 1933. After a series of difficulties, (which
included the insistence of the Secretary of Commerce to modify the
manner of appointment of the BAC, the subsequent severing of
official connections by the BAC and its renaming as the Business
Council, the govts plans to create a new BAC a plan which never
quite materialized) the president was faced with the insistence
that he was anti-business and he turned full circle from his
earlier, firm, bold posture towards the BAC. In spite of the labor
leaders complaint against inflationary wage increases, the
president placed emphasis on restoring a good working relationship
with the Business Council.
Nowadays, it is not only with the power of their own business
class that govts. have to reckon: they also have to reckon with the
power and pressure of outside capitalist interests and forces, such
as large foreign firms, powerful and conservative foreign govts.,
central banks, private international finance, and organizations
like the IMF and World Bank. Given that capitalism is now a major
international system whose constituent economies are closely
related and interlinked, most govts depend on the goodwill and
cooperation of the international capitalist community.
In the light of the strategic position that capitalist
enterprise enjoys in its dealings with govt., simply by virtue of
its control over economic resources, the basic notion of the
pluralist theory that there are several veto groups in society is
questionable. Of these other groups, the power of labor as an
interest group in society is often assumed to equal the power of
capital. In reality, however, labor has nothing of the power of
capital in the day-to-day decision making process of the capitalist
enterprise. What a firm produces; whether it exports or not;
whether it invests and in what; whether it absorbs or gets absorbed
by other firms these are decisions over which labor has minimal
influence. In this sense, labor lacks a firm basis of economic
power, and consequently much less pressure potential vis--vis the
state and therefore govts. are not as concerned about obtaining the
confidence of labor as they are about business.
The one important weapon that labor wields as an interest group
is the strike; and where it has been used with real determination,
its effectiveness as a means of pressure has been clearly
demonstrated. However, determination is the problem because labor
is extremely vulnerable to man internal and external influences
calculated to erode its will and persistence. Among the weaknesses
of labor as a group are: its inability to speak with the same sort
of authority as business; and the extent of divisions within the
labor group, both in sectoral and ideological terms. Because of the
effectiveness of these influences, govts. have generally found it
unnecessary to treat labor with the same sort of deference that
they have accorded to business.
Chapter 9: Group Politics and Representative Democracy
(David Truman)
In recent decades, the vast multiplication of interests and
organized groups in the political process is not a peculiarly
American phenomenon. The causes of this growth lie in the increased
complexity of techniques for dealing with the environment, in the
specializations that these involve, and in associated disturbances
of the manifold expectations that guide individual behaviour in a
complex and interdependent society. In the United States, the
multiplicity of interest groups not only has been fostered by the
extent of technical specialization, but also has been stimulated by
the diversity of the social patterns that these changes affect.
Diversity of interests is a concomitant of specialized activity,
and diversity of groups is a means of adjustment. The activities of
political interest groups imply controversy and conflict, the
essence of politics.
Interest Groups and the Nature of the State
Predictions concerning the consequences of given political
activities are based upon conceptions of the governmental process.
A major difficulty in political prediction is that, in part because
the relevant processes are extremely complex, our understanding of
them is often not adequate; that is, the conceptions do not always
account for all the variables and specify their relative
importance. Such conceptions being inadequate in these respects,
predictions based upon them are not always reliable, with their
accuracy often being a matter of chance. However, we cannot escape
the necessity to predict. A second handicap in political prediction
is that the underlying conceptions are often almost completely
implicit. Many, if not most, predictions about the significance and
implications of organized interest groups on the American scene
rest on unreliable, implicit conceptions, often relying on
inadequate and unacknowledged theory of the political process.
People participate in established patterns of continuing
interactions (interest groups) with almost all such interactions
involving power. An increasing proportion of interest groups in the
United States are politicized, that is, they make claims through or
upon the institutions of government. The institutions of govt. are
centers of interest-based power. In order to make claims, political
interest groups will seek access to the key points of decision
within these institutions. The extent to which a group achieves
effective access to the institutions of govt. is the resultant of a
complex of interdependent factors. Broadly, these can be classified
into three (somewhat overlapping) categories:
(1) Factors relating to the groups strategic position in
society: This includes the groups status or prestige in society;
the extent to which govt. officials are formally or informally
members of the group; and the usefulness of the group as a source
of political and technical knowledge.
(2) Factors relating to the internal characteristics of the
group: This includes the degree and appropriateness of the groups
organization; the degree of cohesion it can achieve in a given
situation, especially in the light of competing group demands; the
skills of the leadership; and the groups resources in numbers and
money.
(3) Factors peculiar to the governmental institutions
themselves: This includes the operating structure of govt.
institutions since these affect the groups advantages and
handicaps; and the effects of the group life of particular units or
branches of govt.
A characteristic feature of the governmental system in the
United States is that it contains a multiplicity of points of
access. The federal system establishes decentralized and more or
less independent centers of power, vantage points from which to
secure privileged access to the national govt. The peculiar
character of the American party system is both a sign and cause of
the strength of the constituent units within the federal scheme.
National parties tend to be poorly cohesive leagues of locally
based organizations rather than unified and inclusive structures.
Thus, especially at the national level, the party is an
electing-device and only in limited measure an integrated means of
policy determination. Within the Congress, furthermore, controls
are diffused among committee chairmen and other leaders in both
chambers. The variety of these points of access if further
supported by relationships stemming from the constitutional
doctrine of the separation of powers, from related checks and
balances, and at the State and local level from the common practice
of choosing an array of executive officials by popular election. At
the Federal level the formal simplicity of the executive branch has
been complicated by a Supreme Court decision that has placed a
number of administrative agencies beyond the removal of the powers
of the President.
Depending on the whole political context in a given period, and
on the relative strength of contending interests, one or another of
the centers of power in the formal govt. or in the parties may
become the apex of a hierarchy of controls. The total pattern of
govt. over a period of time thus represents a protean complex of
crisscrossing relationships that change in strength and direction
with alterations in the power and standing of interests, organized
and unorganized.
Chapter 10: The Power Elite
(C. Wright Mills)
The power elite is composed of men whose positions enable them
to transcend the ordinary environments of ordinary citizens, and to
make decisions having major impacts on the lives of these citizens.
They are in command of the major hierarchies and organizations of
modern society. The power elite are not solitary rulers. Political
advisors and spokesmen often influence their thoughts and
decisions. Immediately below the elite are professional politicians
(both in the Congress as well as in pressure groups), and below
them are professional celebrities who, even if they are not the
head of any dominating hierarchy themselves, often have the power
to attract public attention.
The power of the American elite has been explained in two broad
ways: through historical events that have led some people to
influence and control others; and through the personal awareness of
the actors involved and the perception of others about their
assumed powers. However, while both these are relevant, in order to
understand the power of the American elite, we have to look beyond
these factors towards the major institutions of modern society.
Within American society, major national power now resides in the
economic, the political, and the military domains (referred to as
the big three). Typically, the decisions made within the political
domain determine economic activities and military programs. Other
institutions such as religious, family, and educational
institutions are considered subordinate to the big three and are
shaped by them.
Within each of the big three, the typical institutional unit has
become enlarged and administrative, and in the power of its
decisions, has become centralized. The means of power at the
disposal of the decision makers have increased enormously; their
central executive powers have been enhanced, and within each of
them modern administrative routines have been elaborated and
tightened up. As each of these domains becomes enlarged and
centralized, the consequences of its activities become greater, and
its traffic with the others increases. The decisions of a handful
of corporations bear upon the economic, political and military
developments of the rest of the world. In a structural sense, the
big three form a triangle of power, which is the source of the
interlocking directorate that is most important for the historical
structure of the present. This interlocking is clearly revealed at
each of the points of crisis of modern capitalist society slump,
war, and boom. In each, men of decision are led to an awareness of
the interdependence of the major institutional orders. As each of
these domains coincide with the others, and as decisions tend to
become total in their consequence, the leading men in each of these
three domains of power the warlords, the corporate chieftains, and
the political directorate tend to come together, to form the power
elite of America.
The power elite are considered people who have the most of
whatever there is to have in society, which generally includes
money, power, and prestige as well as the lifestyles that they wish
to lead. But the elite themselves would not have these if it were
not for their positions in great institutions, these institutions
being the necessary bases of power, wealth and prestige, and at the
same time the chief means of exercising power, of acquiring and
retaining wealth, and of cashing in the higher claims for prestige.
Accordingly, no one can be truly powerful or wealthy unless they
have access to the command of major institutions, while great
prestige increasingly follows the major institutional units of the
social structure.
The people of the higher circles may also be conceived as
members of a top social stratum, as a set of groups whose members
know one another, see one another socially and at business, and so,
in making decisions, take one another into account. According to
this conception, the elite feel themselves to be the inner circle
of the upper social classes. They form a more or less compact
social and psychological entity and behave toward one another
differently from the way they behave with members of the other (or
lower) classes.
In eras of equalitarian rhetoric, the more intelligent or the
more articulate among the lower and middle classes, as well as
guilty members of the upper, may come to entertain ideas of a
counter-elite. In western society, there is a long tradition of
considering the poor, the exploited and the oppressed as the truly
virtuous, the wise, and the blessed.
The conception of the power elite and of its unity rests upon
the corresponding developments and the coincidence of interests
among economic, political, and military organizations. It also
rests upon the similarity of origin and outlook, and the social and
personal intermingling of the top circles from each of these
dominant hierarchies. This conjunction of institutional and
psychological forces, in turn, is revealed by the heavy personnel
traffic within and between the big three institutional orders, as
well as by the rise of go-betweens in the high level lobbying. The
American power elite has also planned and plotted once the
conjunction of structural trend and of the personal will to utilize
it gave rise to the ruling elite class. However, claims that the
ruling elite was founded by plotting cannot be given any real
weight. So far as explicit organization conspiratorial or not is
concerned, the power elite, by its very nature, is more likely to
use existing organizations, working within and between them, than
to set up explicit organizations whose membership is strictly
limited to its own members. With the wide secrecy that usually
cover their operations and decisions, the power elite can mask
their intentions, operations, and further consolidation. There is
nothing hidden about the power elite, though its activities are not
publicized; as an elite it is not organized, though its members
know one another; and there is nothing conspiratorial about it,
although its decisions are often publicly unknown and its mode of
operation manipulative than explicit.