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On the Neo-Elitist Critique of Community Power1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Richard M. Merelman
Richard M. Merelman*
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Extract

The process of inquiry occasionally exhibits a dialectical pattern in which a series of assertions is advanced and then attacked. A third phase, which consists of an attempt to salvage the first set of assertions, often ensues. The study of American community power has followed this sequence almost classically, and today we find ourselves in the third phase of the dialectic. The first period marked the contemporary emergence of community power as a distinct field of study, mainly through the investigations of Hunter, Mills and their followers. These observers contended that communities were controlled by “elites,” usually economic, who imposed their will, often covertly, on non-elites. The second phase was marked by the challenge of another group of observers, the “pluralists.” Pluralists contended that the methods and premises of the “elitists” predisposed them to conclusions about community power which were unjustified. Elitists commonly reached their conclusions either by investigating the reputations for power of various members of the community or merely by assuming that all who possessed certain presumed sources of power were in fact powerful. The pluralists claimed that reputations did not guarantee control and demanded evidence that community decisions on political issues, major and minor, were controlled by a reputed elite. The pluralists, after studying community decisions on a variety of subjects, concluded that shifting coalitions of participants drawn from all areas of community life actually controlled local politics. Rarely could a single elite be discovered imposing itself in each area of decision, policy, and conflict.

Many observers felt that the pluralists had won the day. Their methodology studied actual behavior, stressed operational definitions, and turned up evidence. Most important, it seemed to produce reliable conclusions which met the canons of science. Recently, however, new considerations have been introduced which intend to prop up the elitist Humpty Dumpty on a more substantial wall of theory than the one from which it had previously tumbled. The beginnings of a new position on community power appear in the work of those responsible for the third phase, the “neo-elitists,” as I shall call them. That position forms the subject of this analysis.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 62 , Issue 2 , June 1968 , pp. 451 - 460
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1968

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Footnotes

1

I am indebted to Stephen Stephens, Fred Greenstein, and James Eisenstein for cogent comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

References

2 For good statements of positions, see Polsby, Nelson W., Community Power and Political Theory (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963)Google Scholar; Miller, Delbert C., “Democracy and Decision-Making in the Community Power Structure,” in D'Antonio, William V. and Ehrlich, Howard J. (eds.), Power and Democracy in America (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1961), pp. 25–73 Google Scholar; Robert A. Dahl, “Equality and Power in American Society,” in ibid., pp. 73–91; Wolfinger, Raymond, “Reputation and Reality in the Study of Community Power,” in Polsby, Nelson, Dentler, Robert A., and Smith, Paul A. (eds.), Politics and Social Life (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1963), pp. 703–712.Google Scholar The literature in this area is voluminous. Obviously, not all those who use the reputational method come to elitist conclusions, nor do all those who use the decisional approach come to pluralist conclusions. For example, see Agger, Robert E., Goldrich, Daniel and Swanson, Bert E., The Rulers and the Ruled (New York: Wiley, 1964).Google Scholar However, it is fair to say that most investigators using the reputationalist approach start off with elitist premises and most investigators using the decisional approach begin with pluralist assumptions. Hence, I will oversimplify a bit and consider approach and premises as coextensive. Indeed, as John Walton shows, decisional theorists do tend to find pluralist power situations and reputationalists elite situations. This is only partially due to the different arenas they have examined. See Walton, John, “Substance and Artifact: The Current Status of Research on Community Power Structure,” American Journal of Sociology, 71 (01, 1966), 430–439.CrossRefGoogle Scholar It is important to note that, for the most part, in the discussion to follow I take the notion of “elite” as given and meaningful. The substance of my argument does not turn in any crucial way on the obvious difficulties, which have been explicated elsewhere, with definitions of community power elites.

3 The neo-elitist critique relies primarily on the notion of non-decision-making. In particular, I will be treating the writings of Peter Bachrach and Morton S. Baratz, “Two Faces of Power,” this Review, 56 (Dec., 1962), 947–952; Bachrach and Baratz, “Decisions and Non-decisions: An Analytical Framework,” in ibid., 57 (1963), 632–642; Schattschneider, E. E., The Semi-sovereign People (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960)Google Scholar; and Vidich, Arthur J. and Bensman, Joseph, Small Town in Mass Society (Garden City: Doubleday, 1960).Google Scholar These writings relate closely to theory exemplified in Oppenheim, Felix, Dimensions of Freedom (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1961), chap. 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Friedrich, Carl J., Man and His Government (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), chap. 3.Google Scholar Recent influential writings which embody traces of “non-decision” theory include Neustadt, Richard E., Presidential Power (New York: “Wiley, 1962)Google Scholar, passim; and Deutsch, Karl W., The Nerves of Government (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1963), pp. 110–111 Google Scholar, et passim.

4 Schattschneider, op. cit., chaps. 1–3, et passim.

5 “False consensus” is a term borrowed from Robert Dahl, “A Critique of the Power Elite Model,” this Review, 52 (June, 1958), 463–469, at 468.

6 For complex examples of the phenomenon of anticipated reactions, see Dahl, Robert, “The Power Analysis Approach to the Study of Politics,” unpublished, April, 1965, 27–28 Google Scholar; and James G. March, “An Introduction to the Theory and Measurement of Influence,” this Review, 49 (June, 1955), 431–451, at 443–444.

7 Bachrach, and Baratz, , “Two Faces …,” op. cit., 952.Google Scholar

8 Bachrach, and Baratz, , “Decisions and Nondecisions …,” op. cit., 637.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., 636.

10 Ibid., 641.

11 For a similar criticism of the elitists, see Polsby, op. cit., 24.

12 On the criterion of falsifiability in theory construction, see Popper, Karl R., The Logic of Scientific Discovery (London: Hutchinson, 1959), chap. 4.Google Scholar

13 See especially McClosky, Herbert, “Consensus and Ideology in American Politics,” in Dreyer, Edward C. and Rosenbaum, Walter (eds.), Political Opinion and Electoral Behavior (Belmont, California: Wadsworth, 1966), pp. 37–64 Google Scholar; and Dahl, Robert, Who Governs (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961), chap. 28.Google Scholar

14 For a discussion of a variety of constraints on elites, see Polsby, op. cit., pp. 128ff. Put in a rather simplified form, the neo-elitist critique accepts a “Great Man” theory of leadership much at variance with current studies of leadership which indicate the extent to which leaders are constrained to conform to group values. See, for example, the theory of Hollander, E. P.: “Emergent Leadership and Social Influence,” in Leadership and Interpersonal Behavior, ed. Petrillo, Luigi and Bass, Bernard (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1961), pp. 30–48.Google Scholar

15 See the discussion of the challenge to the village elite launched by James West in Vidich and Bensman, op. cit., 162–171. I will rely heavily on the Vidich and Bensman study, not through a a paucity of other useful material, but rather because it is interpreted primarily as support of the non-decision argument.

16 The major difficulty stems from specialization of leadership roles which leads to conflict. The most obvious example is the conflict inherent between staff and line in a bureaucracy. Even the insular, homogeneous elite in Springdale could not continually maintain consensus: ibid., pp. 46–53.

17 For a theoretical statement of the same proposition, see Emerson, Richard, “Power-Dependence Relations,” American Sociological Review, 27 (1962), 31–41, at 32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 For a case study see Schulze, Robert O., “The Bifurcation of Power in a Satellite City,” in Janowitz, Morris (ed.), Community Political Systems (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1961), pp. 19–81.Google Scholar

19 This has become especially true of American cities and metropolitan areas, but is also becoming true for smaller towns wishing to make use of urban renewal funds available from the federal government. On this point see the figures of Anderson, Martin, The Federal Bulldozer (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1962), p. 44.Google Scholar

20 Snyder, Glenn, Deterrence and Defense (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), pp. 9–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Blau, Peter, Exchange and Power in Social Life (New York: Wiley, 1964)Google Scholar, chap. 8.

22 Wildavsky, Aaron, The Politics of the Budgetary Process (Boston: Little, Brown, 1964), chaps. 2 and 3Google Scholar.

23 See especially the case of New York: Sayre, Wallace S. and Kaufman, Herbert, Governing New York City (New York: Norton, 1965)Google Scholar, chap. 19.

24 I speak here not only of governmental agencies, to which reference will be made later, but to the role of the Community Club at the local level: see Vidich and Bensman, op. cit., pp. 133–135.

25 Bachrach, and Baratz, , “Decisions and Nondecisions …,” op. cit., 634.Google Scholar

26 Bachrach, and Baratz, , “Two Paces …,” op. cit., 950.Google Scholar

27 Cartwright, Dorwin, “A Field Theoretical Conception of Power,” in Cartwright, Dorwin (ed.), Studies in Social Power (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1959), p. 202.Google Scholar Here it seems clear that Cartwright is thinking about the disposition to demonstrate power forcefully and visibly when such demonstration is feasible and inviting.

28 “And men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of ob ligation which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails”: The Prince and the Discourses (New York: The Modern Library, 1940), p. 61.

29 Bachrach, and Baratz, , “Decisions and Nondecisions …,” op. cit., 636.Google Scholar

30 Of course, no index is “infallible.” What we look for is an index which will be reliable under most circumstances. To put it another way, past and present demonstrations of power are a less fallible index of present anticipations on policy matters than any other index we could use.

31 Theory underlying these formulations is drawn primarily from Braybrooke, David and Lindblom, Charles E., A Strategy of Decision (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1963), chaps. 4–6Google Scholar; and Schelling, Thomas, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960), chap 2.Google Scholar

32 For examples of many of these and other techniques, see Vidich and Bensman, op. cit., passim. For an examination of the ways in which rules governing decisional priorities are generated and operate in a decision-making body, see Barber, James David, Power In Committees (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966), chaps. 2 and 3.Google Scholar

33 Schattschneider makes this argument about intra-business conflict: “It is the losers in intrabusiness conflict who seek redress from public authority. The dominant business interests resist appeals to the government”: Schattschneider, op. cit., p. 40. Italics his.

34 This formulation is reminiscent of Riesman's “veto groups” concept. See Riesman, David et al, The Lonely Crowd (Garden City: Doubleday Anchor Books, n.d.), pp. 246–251.Google Scholar

35 Evidence is only suggestive and scattered. However, we can note thatmore Americans (22%) preferred firm and aggressive leadership, honesty and sincerity, to other leadership qualities in a 1960 Roper poll (see Roper Commercial Poll, No. 101, question 21). Similarly, we may note the familiar upsurge of support for a President after his forceful intervention in foreign affairs. This response was most recently exploited by President Johnson in the Tonkin affair. Nor is it any accident that most of those who write on “great” Presidents ordinarily talk about activists such as Lincoln, Roosevelt, etc. The evaluation of greatness arrived at by scholars is reflected in the opinions of most Americans. Support for governmental initiators may well reflect a deeper support for initiators throughout the system.

36 Vidich and Bensman, op. cit., p. 131.

37 Ibid., p. 136.

38 For a sophisticated treatment of conflict strategies and expansionist tendencies in governmental bureaucracies, see Matthew Holden, Jr., “‘Imperialism’ in Bureaucracy,” this Review, 60 (Dec., 1966), 943–952.

39 Vidich and Bensman, op. cit., p. 118.

40 Indications are that political activists are much more likely to be strongly ideological than their followers. Therefore, they will be even more likely than their followers to use the political process actively as a vehicle for obtaining their values. See Herbert McClosky et al, “Issue Conflict and Consensus Among Party Leaders and Followers,” this Review, 54 (June, 1960), 406–427. Also, see Milbrath, Lester, Political Participation (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1965), chap. 3Google Scholar, for a review of the literature relating political participation to the development of ideological thinking. Finally, Warner et al note the idealistic, activist self-conceptions of federal bureaucrats: see Warner, W. Lloyd et al, The American Federal Executive (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963), chap. 13.Google Scholar Such role identities seem entirely incompatible with perpetual non-decision-making.

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