Chapter 01 - The Study of American Government

7/29/2019 Chapter 01 - The Study of American Government

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The Study of

AmericanGovernment

What Is Political Power?

What Is Democracy?

Is Representative Democracy Best?

How Is Power Distributed?

Is Democracy Driven by Self-Interest?

What Explains Political Change?

The Nature of Politics

C H A P T E R

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2


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After the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, it took the national govern-ment many years to implement just a fraction of the bipartisan homeland secu-rity policies and programs that nearly everybody favored (such as deployingsuper-high-tech bomb-detection devices at airports and tightening security for cargoships, among numerous others). Indeed, a half-decade after the attacks, the failure to actexpeditiously on national directives to reinforce vulnerable-to-attack levees and dams fig-ured in the devastation wrought when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck the Gulf Coast.

What was behind these historic failures? The answer, you may be surprised to learn,

is the same thing that was behind the governments historic achievements in reducingpoverty among the elderly, building the interstate highway system, improving publichealth, and rebuilding war-torn Europe. The answer is that sometimes things get doneeven when disunity reigns and power is divided between the parties.

The answer, in a word, is politics.Politics exists in part because people normally differ about two things: who should

govern, and the ends toward which they should work.We want to know the answer to the first question because we believe that those who

ruletheir personalities and beliefs, their virtues and viceswill affect what they do toand for us. Many people think they already know the answer to the question, and theyare prepared to talk and vote on that basis. That is their right, and the opinions they ex-press may be correct. But they may also be wrong. Indeed, many of these opinions must

be wrong because they are in conflict. When asked, Who governs? some people willsay the unions and some will say big business; others will say the politicians, thepeople, or the special interests. Still others will say Wall Street, the military,crackpot liberals, the media, the bureaucrats, or white males. Not all these an-swers can be correctat least not all of the time.

The answer to the second question is important because it tells us how governmentaffects our lives. We want to know not only who governs, but what difference it makeswho governs. In our day-to-day lives we may not think government makes much dif-ference at all. In one sense that is right, because our most pressing personal concernswork, play, love, family, healthare essentially private matters on which governmenttouches but slightly. But in a larger and longer perspective government makes a sub-stantial difference. Consider: in 1935, 96 percent of all American families paid no fed-

eral income tax, and for the 4 percent or so who did pay, the average rate was only about4 percent of their incomes. Today almost all families pay federal payroll taxes, and theaverage rate is 21 percent of their incomes. Or consider: in 1960, in many parts of thecountry, African Americans could ride only in the backs of buses,had to use washroomsand drinking fountains that were labeled colored,and could not be served in most pub-lic restaurants. Such restrictions have been almost eliminated, in large part because ofdecisions by the federal government.

W H O G O V E R N S ?1. How is political power actually dis-

tributed in America?

2. What explains major politicalchange?

T O W H A T E N D S ?1. What value or values matter most in

American democracy?

2. Are trade-offs among political pur-poses inevitable?


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4 Chapter 1 The Study of American Government

It is important to bear in mind that we wish to an-swer two different questions, and not two versions ofthe same question. You cannot always predict whatgoals government will establish knowing only whogoverns, nor can you always tell who governs byknowing what activities government undertakes. Mostpeople holding national political office are middle-

class, middle-aged, white Protestant males, but wecannot then conclude that the government will adoptonly policies that are to the narrow advantage of themiddle class, the middle-aged, whites, Protestants,or men. If we thought that, we would be at a lossto explain why the rich are taxed more heavily thanthe poor, why the War on Poverty was declared, whyconstitutional amendments giving rights to AfricanAmericans and women passed Congress by largemajorities, or why Catholics and Jews have been ap-pointed to so many important governmental posts.

This book is chiefly devoted to answering the

question, Who governs? It is written in the belief thatthis question cannot be answered without looking athow government makesor fails to makedecisionsabout a large variety of concrete issues. Thus in thisbook we shall inspect government policies to seewhat individuals, groups, and institutions seem toexert the greatest power in the continuous struggle todefine the purposes of government. We shall see thatpower and purpose are inextricably intertwined.

What Is Political Power?Bypower we mean the ability of one person to getanother person to act in accordance with the firstpersons intentions. Sometimes an exercise of poweris obvious, as when the president tells the air force

that it cannot build a new bomberor orders soldiers into combat in aforeign land. Some claim it is exer-cised in subtle ways that may notbe evident even to the participants,as when the presidents juniorspeechwriters, reflecting their own

evolving views, adopt a new tonewhen writing for their boss aboutcontroversial social issues like

abortion. The speechwriters may not think they areusing powerafter all, they are the presidents subor-dinates and may rarely see him face-to-face. But if the

power The abilityof one person to getanother person toact in accordancewith the firstpersons intentions.

authority The rightto use power.

president lets their words exit his mouth in public,they have used power.

Power is found in all human relationships, but weshall be concerned here only with power as it is usedto affect who will hold government office and howgovernment will behave. This fails to take into ac-count many important things. If a corporation closes

a factory in a small town where it was the major em-ployer, it is using power in ways that affect deeply thelives of people. When a university refuses to admit astudent or a medical society refuses to license awould-be physician, it is also using power. But to ex-plain how all these things happen would be tanta-mount to explaining how society as a whole, and inall its particulars, operates. We limit our view here togovernment, and chiefly to the American federal gov-ernment. However,we shall repeatedly pay special at-tention to how things once thought to be privatematters become publicthat is, how they manage

to become objects of governmental action. Indeed,one of the most striking transformations of Ameri-can politics has been the extent to which, in recentdecades, almost every aspect of human life has foundits way onto the governmental agenda. In the 1950sthe federal government would have displayed no in-terest in a factory closing its doors, a university refus-ing an applicant, or a profession not accrediting amember. Now government actions can and do affectall these things.

People who exercise political power may or maynot have the authority to do so. By authority we

mean the right to use power. The exercise of rightfulpowerthat is, of authorityis ordinarily easierthan the exercise of power that is not supported byany persuasive claim of right.We accept decisions,of-ten without question, if they are made by people whowe believe have the right to make them; we may bowto naked power because we cannot resist it, but byour recalcitrance or our resentment we put the usersof naked power to greater trouble than the wielders ofauthority. In this book we will on occasion speak offormal authority. By this we mean that the right toexercise power is vested in a governmental office. A

president, a senator, and a federal judge have formalauthority to take certain actions.

What makes power rightful varies from time totime and from country to country. In the United Stateswe usually say that a person has political authority ifhis or her right to act in a certain way is conferred by


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a law or by a state or national constitution. But whatmakes a law or constitution a source of right? That isthe question of legitimacy. In the United States theConstitution today is widely, if not unanimously, ac-cepted as a source of legitimate authority, but thatwas not always the case.

Much of American political history has been astruggle over what constitutes legitimate authority.The Constitutional Convention in 1787 was an effortto see whether a new, more powerful federal govern-

ment could be made legitimate; the succeeding ad-ministrations of George Washington, John Adams,and Thomas Jefferson were in large measure preoc-cupied with disputes over the kinds of decisions thatwere legitimate for the federal government to make.The Civil War was a bloody struggle over the legiti-macy of the federal union; the New Deal of FranklinRoosevelt was hotly debated by those who disagreedover whether it was legitimate for the federal govern-ment to intervene deeply in the economy. In our ownday, even many citizens who take the same view on ahot-button question like gay marriage disagree over

whether it is legitimate to address the issue throughan amendment to the Constitution that bans it na-tionally or whether the matter ought to be left foreach state to decide.

On one thing, however, virtually all Americans seemto agree: no exercise of political power by government

at any level is legitimate if it is not in some sense dem-ocratic. That was hardly always the prevailing view.In 1787, as the Constitution wasbeing debated, Alexander Hamil-ton worried that the new gov-ernment he helped create mightbe too democratic, while GeorgeMason, who refused to sign the

What Is Political Power?

To enter the United States, foreigners must nowproduce a photograph and fingerprints.

legitimacy Politiauthority conferrelaw or by a state onational constitut

Governments Greatest Achievements: A Top Ten List

Based on a survey of 450 history and political science

professors and an analysis of over 500 public

statutes, here is one list of the governments top ten

post-1950 achievements.

10. Promoted financial security in retirement

9. Reduced the federal budget deficit

8. Increased access to health care for older

Americans

7. Strengthened the nations highway system

6. Ensured safe food and drinking water

5. Reduced workplace discrimination

4. Reduced disease

3. Promoted equal access to public accommodat

2. Expanded the right to vote

1. Rebuilt Europe after World War II

As you read this book and study American gov

ment, ponder what might be on the top ten lis

the first quarter of the twenty-first century.

Source:Adapted from Paul C. Light, Governments Greatest Achieve

of the Past Half Century, Reform Watch Brief #2, Brookings Instit

Washington, D.C., November 2000. Reprinted by permission of the B

ings Institution.


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Constitution, worried that it was not democratic

enough. Today, however, almost everyone believes thatdemocratic government is the onlyproper kind. Most people believethat American government is dem-ocratic; some believe that otherinstitutions of public lifeschools,universities, corporations, tradeunions, churchesshould also berun on democratic principles if theyare to be legitimate; and some insistthat promoting democracy abroadought to be a primary purpose of

U.S. foreign policy.Whether democracy is the best

way of governing all institutionsand whether promoting democracyeither has been or ought to be amajor objective of U.S. foreign pol-

icy are both worthwhile questions. The former ques-tion goes beyond the scope of this book, but we willtouch upon the latter question later in the text.

What Is Democracy?

Democracy is a word with at least two differentmeanings. First, the term democracy is used to de-scribe those regimes that come as close as possible toAristotles definitionthe rule of the many.1 A gov-ernment is democratic if all, or most, of its citizensparticipate directly in either holding office or makingpolicy. This is often called direct or participatorydemocracy. In Aristotles timeGreece in the fourthcentury B.C.such a government was possible.The Greek city-state, or polis, was quite small, andwithin it citizenship was extended to all free adultmale property holders. (Slaves, women, minors, and

those without property were excluded from partici-pation in government.) In more recent times the NewEngland town meeting approximates the Aristotelianideal. In such a meeting the adult citizens of a com-munity gather once or twice a year to vote directly onall major issues and expenditures of the town. Astowns have become larger and issues more compli-cated, many town governments have abandoned thepure town meeting in favor of either the representa-tive town meeting (in which a large number ofelected representatives, perhaps two or three hun-dred, meet to vote on town affairs) or representative

government (in which a small number of elected citycouncilors make decisions).

The second definition of democracy is the princi-ple of governance of most nations that are calleddemocratic. It was most concisely stated by the econ-omist Joseph Schumpeter: The democratic methodis that institutional arrangement for arriving at polit-ical decisions in which individuals [that is, leaders]acquire the power to decide by means of a competi-tive struggle for the peoples vote.2 Sometimes thismethod is called, approvingly, representative democ-racy; at other times it is referred to, disapprovingly,as

the elitist theory of democracy. It is justified by oneor both of two arguments: First, it is impractical, ow-ing to limits of time, information, energy, interest,and expertise, for the people to decide on publicpolicy, but it is not impractical to expect them tomake reasonable choices among competing leader-


An Iraqi woman shows her purple finger indicatingthat she has voted in 2005, that countrys first freeelection in half a century.

democracy Therule of the many.

direct orparticipatorydemocracyAgovernment in whichall or most citizensparticipate directly.

representativedemocracyA

government in whichleaders makedecisions by winninga competitivestruggle for thepopular vote.


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ship groups. Second, some people (including, as weshall see in the next chapter, many of the Framers ofthe Constitution) believe that direct democracy islikely to lead to bad decisions, because people oftendecide large issues on the basis of fleeting passionsand in response to popular demagogues. This con-cern about direct democracy persists today, as can beseen from the statements of leaders who do not like

what voters have decided.For example,in 2000 votersin Michigan overwhelmingly rejected a referendumthat would have increased public funding for privateschools. Politicians who opposed the defeated refer-endum spoke approvingly of the will of the people,but politicians who favored it spoke disdainfully ofmass misunderstanding.

Is RepresentativeDemocracy Best?Whenever the word democracyis used alone in thisbook, it will have the meaning Schumpeter gave it. Aswe discuss in the next chapter, the men who wrote theConstitution did not use the word democracyin thatdocument. They wrote instead of a republican form

of government, but by that they meant what we callrepresentative democracy. Whenever we refer tothat form of democracy involving the direct partici-pation of all or most citizens, we shall use the term di-rectorparticipatorydemocracy.

For representative government to work, there must,of course, be an opportunity for genuine leadership

Is Representative Democracy Best?

Can a Democracy Fight a War Against Terrorists?

On September 11, 2001, a date that will forevermore

be referred to as 9/11, war came to the United States

when terrorists crashed four hijacked airliners, filled

with passengers, into the two towers of the World

Trade Center in New York City, into the Pentagon in

Washington, D.C., and into some empty land in Penn-

sylvania. About three thousand people were killed.

How can a democratic nation respond to a war

waged, not by an enemy nation, but by a loose col-

lection of terrorists with cells in many parts of the

world? Americas new war against terrorism is much

more difficult to fight than the one against Nazi Ger-

many and the Japanese warlords in 1941.

How can we reorganize the military so that it can

respond swiftly and effectively against small targets? Is it constitutional to try captured terrorists in mili-

tary tribunals?

How much new law enforcement authority should

be given to police and investigative agencies?

Should America invade nations that support ter-

rorists?

In the years ahead, these questions will raise pro-

found challenges for American democracy.Americans felt powerfully connected to their fellocitizens in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.


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competition. This requires in turn that individualsand parties be able to run for office, that communica-tion (through speeches or the press, and in meetings)be free, and that the voters perceive that a meaningfulchoice exists. Many questions still remain to be an-swered. For instance: How many offices should beelective and how many appointive? How many candi-

dates or parties can exist before the choices becomehopelessly confused? Where will the money comefrom to finance electoral campaigns? There is morethan one answer to such questions. In some Europeandemocracies, for example, very few officesoften justthose in the national or local legislatureare elective,and much of the money for campaigning for theseoffices comes from the government. In the UnitedStates many officesexecutive and judicial as well aslegislativeare elective, and most of the money thecandidates use for campaigning comes from indus-try, labor unions, and private individuals.

Some people have argued that the virtues of director participatory democracy can and should be re-claimed even in a modern, complex society. This canbe done either by allowing individual neighborhoodsin big cities to govern themselves (community con-trol) or by requiring those affected by some govern-ment program to participate in its formulation(citizen participation). In many states a measure ofdirect democracy exists when voters can decide onreferendum issuesthat is, policy choices that ap-pear on the ballot. The proponents of direct democ-racy defend it as the only way to ensure that the will

of the peopleprevails.The Framers of the Constitution did not think

that the will of the people was synonymous withthe common interest or the public good. Theystrongly favored representative democracy over di-rect democracy. They believed that government shouldmediate, not mirror, popular views, and that electedofficials should represent, not register,majority senti-ments. They supposed that most citizens did not havethe time, information, interest, and expertise to makereasonable choices among competing policy positions.They suspected that even highly educated people could

be manipulated by demagogic leaders who played ontheir fears and prejudices. They granted that repre-sentative democracy often proceeds slowly and pre-vents sweeping changes in policy, but they cautionedthat a government capable of doing great good quicklyalso can do great harm quickly. They agreed that ma-

jority opinion should figure in the enactment ofmany or most government policies, but they insistedthat the protection of civil rights and civil libertiesthe right to a fair trial; the freedom of speech, press,and religion; or the right to vote itselfought neverto hinge on a popular vote. Above all, they embracedrepresentative democracy because they saw it as a way

of minimizing the chances that power would beabused either by a tyrannical popular majority or byself-serving officeholders.

Clearly, the Framers of the Constitution thoughtthat representative democracy was best, but were theyright? Any answer must address two related questions:first, even if the Framers assumptions about directdemocracy being impractical and likely to lead to baddecisions were correct for their time, are they equallycorrect in ours?; and, second, should American polit-ical history be read more nearly to justify or to jetti-son the Framers faith that representative democracy

would help to protect minority rights and preventpoliticians from using public offices for private gains?

The first question asks whether people today havemore time, information, energy, interest, and exper-tise, to gather together for collective decision mak-ing than they did when the Constitution was adopted.

This question is a bit tricky. For instance, peopletoday do have unprecedented access to informationabout everything including government. Lone indi-viduals, grassroots groups, and lobbying organiza-tions all now use that information in ways that plainlyaffect politics. One measure: in the mid-1990s, Con-

gress still received nearly four times more postal orsnailmail than electronic or e-mail; but, today, each

year Congress receives ten times more e-mail(roughly 200 million messages) than regular mail,and about five times more mail of all kinds than it did

just a decade or so ago.3

However, has direct, high-tech political networkingbrought America any closer to direct democracy or in-creased the citizenrys engagement in or satisfactionwith government? Not really. Most people, especially

young adults, still do not consume much politicalnews, whether via the Internet, television, or newspa-

pers. Nor, as we will see in Chapter 8, are most peoplevery active in political affairs. Many lawmakers of-fices use spam filters to block messages that comefrom outside their states or districts, and they pay lit-tle attention to computer-generated mass mailings,print or electronic.4 As was true in the pre-Internet



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era, today few citizens feel close to government orhave great confidence in its leaders.

How Is Political PowerDistributed?

The second question asks how political power has ac-tually been distributed in Americas representativedemocracy. Scholars differ in their interpretations ofthe American political experience. Where some see asteady march of democracy, others see no such thing;where some emphasize how voting and other rightshave been steadily expanded, others stress how theywere denied to so many for so long, and so forth.Short of attempting to reconcile these competing his-torical interpretations, let us step back now for a mo-ment to our definition of representative democracyand four competing views about how political power

has been distributed in America.Representative democracy is defined as any system

of government in which leaders are authorized to makedecisionsand thereby to wield political powerbywinning a competitive struggle for the popular vote.It is obvious then that very different sets of hands cancontrol political power, depending on what kinds ofpeople can become leaders,how the struggle for votesis carried on, how much freedom to act is given tothose who win the struggle, and what other sorts ofinfluence (besides the desire for popular approval)affect the leaders actions.

In some cases the leaders will be so sharply con-strained by what most people want that the actions ofofficeholders will follow the preferences of citizensvery closely. We shall call such cases examples ofma-joritarian politics. In this case elected officials are thedelegates of the people, acting as the people (or a ma-

jority of them) would act were the matter put to apopular vote. The issues handled in a majoritarianfashion can be only those that are sufficiently impor-tant to command the attention of most citizens, suf-ficiently clear to elicit an informed opinion fromcitizens, and sufficiently feasible to address so that

what citizens want done can in fact be done.When circumstances do not permit majoritarian

decision-making, then some group of officials willhave to act without knowing (and perhaps withoutcaring) exactly what people want. Indeed, even on is-sues that do evoke a clear opinion from a majority of

citizens, the shaping of the details of a policy will re-flect the views of those people who are sufficientlymotivated to go to the trouble of becoming activeparticipants in policy-making. These active partici-pants usually will be a small, and probably an unrep-resentative, minority. Thus the actual distribution ofpolitical power, even in a democracy, will depend im-

portantly on the composition of the political eliteswho are actually involved in the struggles over policy.By elite we mean an identifiable group of personswho possess a disproportionate share of some valuedresourcein this case, political power.

There are at least four different schools of thoughtabout political elites and how power has actuallybeen distributed in Americas representative democ-racy:Marxist, power elite, bureaucratic, andpluralist.The German philosopher Karl Marx (18181883)was the founder of modern socialist thought. Thereare many variants of Marxist ideology. Essentially,

however, the Marxist viewis that government, even ifdemocratic in form, is merely a reflection of underly-ing economic forces.5 Marxists hold that in modernsocieties, two economic classes contend for powercapitalists (business owners or the bourgeoise) andworkers (laborers or the proletariat). Whichever classdominates the economy also controls the government,which is, they reckon, nothing more than a piece ofmachinery designed to express and give legal effect tounderlying class interests. In the United States, Marx-ists maintain,capitalists (especially big businessandtodays multinational corporations headquartered

in America) have generally domi-nated the economy and hence thegovernment.

A second theory, closely relatedto the first,was started by C. WrightMills, a famous mid-twentieth-century American sociologist. Tohim, a coalition of three groupscorporate leaders, top military of-ficers, and a handful of electedofficialsdominates politics andgovernment.6 Today, some add to

Millss triumvirate major commu-nications media chiefs, top laborunion officials, the heads of vari-ous special-interest groups, andothers. But the essential powerelite view is the same: American

How Is Political Power Distributed?

elite Persons whpossess adisproportionateshare of some valresource, like moor power.

Marxist view Vthat the governmis dominated bycapitalists.

power elite view

View that thegovernment isdominated by a ftop leaders, mostwhom are outsidgovernment.


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democracy is actually dominated by a few top leaders,most of whom are outside of government and enjoygreat advantages in wealth, status, or organizationalposition.

The third theory was shaped by the Germanscholar, Max Weber (18641920), a founder of soci-ology. To Weber, the dominant social and political

reality of modern times was that all institutions, gov-ernmental and nongovernmental, have fallen underthe control of large bureaucracies whose expertiseand competence are essential to the management ofcontemporary affairs.7 Capitalists or workers maycome to power (as in the Marxist view), or coalitionsof well-positioned elites may dominate governmentand the legislative process (as in the power elite view),but the government they create and the laws they en-act will be dominated in either case by bureaucratswho staff and operate the government on a daily ba-sis. This bureaucratic view suggests that power is

mainly in the hands, not of American democracyselected representatives, but in those of its appointedofficials, career government workers who, thoughthey may be virtually invisible to most average citizens

and unknown to most elites, none-theless exercise vast power by de-ciding how to translate public lawsinto administrative actions. In thisview, government bureaucrats donot merely implement public poli-cies, they effectively make them assuits their own ideas and interests.

Fourth is the pluralist view. Ithas no single intellectual parent,but it has many followers in con-temporary political science and in

journalism.Pluralists acknowledge that big businesses,cozy elites, or career bureaucrats may dominate onsome issues, but stress that political resources, such asmoney, prestige, expertise, organizational position,and access to the mass media, are so widely scatteredin American society that no single elite has anythinglike a monopoly on them.8 Furthermore, pluralistspoint out, in America, there are so many governmen-

tal institutions in which power may be exercisedcity,state, and federal governments and, within these, theoffices of mayors, managers, legislators, governors,presidents, judges, bureaucratsthat no single group,even if it had many political resources, could domi-nate most, or even much, of the political process. In-stead, many policies are the outcome of a complex

pattern of political haggling, innumerable compro-mises, and shifting alliances. What government doesis affected to varying degrees not only by competinggroups of elites inside or outside government but bymass public opinion as well.

Pluralists do not go so far as to argue that politicalresources are distributed equallythat would be

tantamount to saying that all decisions are made on amajoritarian basis. But pluralists do maintain thatpolitical resources nonetheless remain sufficiently di-vided among such different kinds of elites (businesspeople, politicians, union leaders, journalists, bu-reaucrats, professors, environmentalists, lawyers, andwhomever else) that all, or almost all, relevant interestshave a chance to affect the outcome of decisions. Notonly are the elites divided; they are also responsive totheir followers interests, and thus they provide repre-sentation to almost all citizens affected by a policy.

Is Democracy Driven bySelf-Interest?Of the four views of how political power has beendistributed in the United States, the pluralist viewdoes the most to reassure one that America has been,and continues to be,a democracy in more than nameonly. But the pluralist view, not less than the otherthree, may lead some people to the cynical conclusionthat, whichever view is correct, politics is a self-seekingenterprise in which everybody is out for personal

gain. Though there is surely plenty of self-interestamong political elites (at least as much as there isamong college or high school students!), it does notnecessarily follow that the resulting policies will bewholly self-serving. Nor does it follow that democ-racy itself is driven mainly or solely by peoples basermotives or selfish desires.

For one thing, a policy may be good or bad inde-pendent of the motives of the person who decided it,

just as a product sold on the market may be useful oruseless regardless of the profit-seeking or wage-seekingmotives of those who produced it. For another thing,

the self-interest of individuals is often an incompleteguide to their actions. People must frequently choosebetween two courses of action, neither of which hasan obvious payoff to them. We caution against thecynical explanation of politics that Americans seemespecially prone to adopt. Alexis de Tocqueville, theFrench author of a perceptive account of American


bureaucratic viewView that thegovernment isdominated byappointed officials.

pluralist view Thebelief that

competition amongall affected interestsshapes public policy.


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life and politics in the early nineteenth century, no-ticed this trait among us.

Americans . . . are fond of explaining almost allthe actions of their lives by the principle of self-interest rightly understood. In this respect Ithink they frequently fail to do themselves jus-tice; for in the United States as well as elsewherepeople are sometimes seen to give way to thosedisinterested and spontaneous impulses thatare natural to man; but the Americans seldomadmit that they yield to emotions of this kind;they are more anxious to do honor to their phi-losophy than to themselves.9

The belief that people will usually act on the basisof their self-interest, narrowly defined, is a theory tobe tested, not an assumption to be made. Sometimes,as happened in New York City on September 11,2001, elected officials, government workers, and aver-

age citizens behave in ways that plainly transcendpersonal or professional self-interest. There arecountless other far less dramatic but still telling ex-amples of people acting publicly in ways that seemanything but self-interested. To understand why peo-ple behave as they do, it is not enough to know theirincomes or their jobs; one must also know somethingabout their attitudes, their allies, and the temper ofthe times. In short, political preferences cannot in-variably be predicted simply by knowing economicor organizational position.

Yet another reason to resist interpreting American

democracy as if it were always and everywhere drivenby narrowly self-interested individuals and groupsis that many of the most important political hap-penings in U.S. historythe revolutionary movementof the 1770s and 1780s, the battle for civil rights in the1950s and 1960s, to name just twowere led againstlong odds by people who risked much knowing thatthey might not succeed and suspecting that, even ifthey did succeed, generations might pass before theirefforts truly benefited anyone. As we shall see, self-interest figures mightily in politics, but so do ideasabout the common good and public-spirited behavior.

What Explains PoliticalChange?When we see American democracy from the per-spective of the past, we will find it hard to accept asgenerally true any simple interpretation of politics.

Economic interests, powerful elites, entrenched bu-

reaucrats, competing pressure groups, and morallyimpassioned individuals have all played a part inshaping our government and its policies. But thegreat shifts in the character of our governmentits size, scope, institutional arrangements,and the di-rection of its policieshave reflected complex andsometimes sudden changes in elite or mass beliefsabout what government is supposed to do.

In the 1920s it was widely assumed that the federalgovernment would play a small role in our lives.From the 1930s through the 1970s it was generallybelieved that the federal government would try to

solve whatever social or economic problem existed.From 1981 through 1988 the administration of RonaldReagan sought to reverse that assumption and to cutback on the taxes Washington levied, the money itspent, and the regulations it imposed. It is clear thatno simple theory of politics is likely to explain boththe growth of federal power after 1932 and the effortto cut back on that power starting in 1981. Every stu-dent of politics sooner or later learns that the hardestthings to explain are usually the most important ones.

Take the case of foreign affairs. During certain pe-riods in our history we have taken an active interest

in the outside worldat the time the nation wasfounded, when France and England seemed to have itin their power to determine whether or not Americawould survive as a nation; in the 1840s, when wesought to expand the nation into areas where Mexicoand Canada had claims; in the late 1890s, when manyleaders believed we had an obligation to acquire anoverseas empire in the Caribbean and the Pacific; and

What Explains Political Change?

People leave their homes after Hurricane Katrina hitNew Orleans in August 2005.


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in the period from the 1940s to the 1960s, when weopenly accepted the role of the worlds police officer.At other times America has looked inward, spurningopportunities for expansion and virtually ignoringevents that in other periods would have been a causefor war, or at least mobilization. Today, America seemsto be looking outward once again, spurred, on the

one side,by unprecedented terrorist attacks against thecountry and, on the other side, by historic opportu-nities to make new friends with old foreign foes.

Deep-seated beliefs,major economic developments,and widely shared (or competing) opinions aboutwhat constitutes the dominant political problem ofthe time shape the nature of day-to-day political con-flict. What this means is that, in any broad historicalor comparative perspective, politics is not just aboutwho gets what, though that is part of the story. Itis about how people, or elites claiming to speak forpeople, define the public interest. Lest one think that

such definitions are mere window dressing, signify-ing nothing of importance, bear in mind that on oc-casion men and women have been prepared to fightand die for one definition or another. Suppose youhad been alive in 1861. Do you think you would haveviewed slavery as a matter of gains and losses, costsand benefits, winners and losers? Some people did.Or do you think you would have been willing to fightto abolish or preserve it? Many others did just that.The differences in these ways of thinking about suchan issue are at least as important as how institutionsare organized or elections conducted.

The Nature of PoliticsIdeally, political scientists ought to be able to giveclear answers, amply supported by evidence, to thequestions we have posed about American democracy,starting with who governs? In reality they can (atbest) give partial, contingent, and controversial an-swers. The reason is to be found in the nature of oursubject. Unlike economists, who assume that peoplehave more or less stable preferences and can compare

ways of satisfying those preferences by looking at therelative prices of various goods and services, politicalscientists are interested in how preferences are formed,especially for those kinds of services, such as nationaldefense or pollution control, that cannot be evalu-ated chiefly in terms of monetary costs.

Understanding preferences is vital to understand-ing power. Who did what in government is not hard

to find out,but who wielded powerthat is,who madea difference in the outcome and for what reasonismuch harder to discover. Power is a word that con-

jures up images of deals,bribes, power plays,and arm-twisting. In fact, most power exists because of sharedunderstanding, common friendships, communal or or-ganizational loyalties, and different degrees of pres-

tige. These are hard to identify and almost impossibleto quantify.

Nor can the distribution of political power be in-ferred simply by knowing what laws are on the booksor what administrative actions have been taken. Theenactment of a consumer protection law does notmean that consumers are powerful, any more thanthe absence of such a law means that corporations arepowerful. The passage of such a law could reflect anaroused public opinion, the lobbying of a small groupclaiming to speak for consumers, the ambitions of asenator, or the intrigues of one business firm seeking

to gain a competitive advantage over another. A closeanalysis of what the law entails and how it was passedand administered is necessary before much of any-thing can be said.

This book will avoid sweeping claims that we havean imperialpresidency (or an impotent one), an ob-structionistCongress (or an innovative one), or cap-turedregulatory agencies. Such labels do an injusticeto the different roles that presidents, members ofCongress, and administrators play in different kindsof issues and in different historical periods.

The view taken in this book is that judgments about

institutions and interests can be made only after onehas seen how they behave on a variety of importantissues or potential issues, such as economic policy,the regulation of business, social welfare, civil rightsand liberties,and foreign and military affairs.The poli-cies adopted or blocked,the groups heeded or ignored,the values embraced or rejectedthese constitute theraw material out of which one can fashion an answerto the central questions we have asked: Who governs?and To what ends?

The way in which our institutions of governmenthandle social welfare, for example, differs from the

way other democratic nations handle it, and it differsas well from the way our own institutions once treatedit. The description of our institutions in Part III willtherefore include not only an account of how theywork today but also a brief historical background ontheir workings and a comparison with similar insti-tutions in other countries. There is a tendency to as-sume that how we do things today is the only way



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WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

M E M O R A N D U M

To: Governor Steve Finore

From: Edward Heron, chief policy adviser

Subject: Initiative RepealYou have supported several successful initiatives(life imprisonment for thrice-convicted violentfelons, property tax limits), but you have neverpublicly stated a view on the initiative itself, andthe repeal proposal will probably surface duringtomorrows press briefing.

Arguments for a ban:

1. Ours is a representative, not a direct, democracy in which voters elect leaders and

elected leaders make policy decisions subject to review by the courts.

2. Voters are often neither rational nor respectful of constitutional rights. For

example, many people demand both lower taxes and more government services,

and polls find that most voters would prohibit people with certain views from

speaking and deprive all persons accused of a violent crime from getting out on

bail while awaiting trial.

3. Over the past 100 years about 800 statewide ballot initiatives have been passed in

24 states. Rather than giving power to the people, special-interest groups have

spent billions of dollars manipulating voters to pass initiatives that enrich or

benefit them, not the public at large.

Arguments against a ban:

1. When elected officials fail to respond to persistent public majorities favoring

tougher crime measures, lower property taxes, and other popular concerns, direct

democracy via the initiative is legitimate, and the courts can still review the law.2. More Americans than ever have college degrees and easy access to information

about public affairs. Studies find that most average citizens are able to figure out

which candidates, parties, or advocacy groups come closest to supporting their

own economic interests and personal values.

3. All told, the 24 states that passed 35 laws by initiative also passed more than

14,000 laws by the regular legislative process (out of more than 70,000 bills they

considered). Studies find that special-interest groups are severely limited in their

ability to pass new laws by initiative, while citizens groups with broad-based

public support are behind most initiatives that pass.

Your decision:

Favor ban Oppose ban

The Nature of Politics

LegalandPolicyExpertsCalfora

BanonBallotInitiativesDecember11 SACRAMENTO, CAAreportreleasedyesterdayandsignedbymorethan100andpublicpolicyprofessors statewideurgesthatthestatescstitutionbeamendedtobanlegislationbyinitiative.Theintiveallowsstatevoterstoplacelegislativemeasuresdirectlytheballotbygettingenoughsignatures.Theinitiativehastodisastrouspolicydecisionsontaxes, crime, andotherissuthereportdeclared. . .


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they could possibly be done. In fact, there are otherways to operate a government based on some meas-ure of popular rule. History, tradition, and beliefweigh heavily on all that we do.

Although political change is not always accompa-nied by changes in public laws, the policy process isarguably one of the best barometers of changes in

who governs. In Chapter 15, we offer a way of classi-fying and explaining the politics of different policy is-sues. The model we present there has been developed,refined, and tested over more than two decades (longerthan most of our readers have been alive!). Our ownstudents and others have valued it mainly because,they have found, it helps to answer such questionsabout who governs: How do political issues get on thepublic agenda in the first place? How, for example,did sexual harassment,which was hardly ever discussedor debated by Congress, burst onto the public agenda?Once on the agenda, how does the politics of issues

like income security for older Americansfor exam-ple, the politics of Social Security, a program thathas been on the federal books since 1935 (see Chap-ter 19)change over time? And if, today, one cares

about expanding civil liberties (see Chapter 5) orprotecting civil rights (see Chapter 6), what politicalobstacles and opportunities are you likely to face,andwhat role are public opinion,organized interest groups,the media, the courts, political parties, and other in-stitutions likely to play in frustrating or fostering yourparticular policy preferences, whatever they might be?

Peek ahead, if you wish, to the books policy chap-ters, but understand that the place to begin a searchfor how power is distributed in national politics andwhat purposes that power serves is with the foundingof the federal government in 1787: the ConstitutionalConvention and the events leading up to it. Thoughthe decisions of that time were not made by philoso-phers or professors, the practical men who madethem had a philosophic and professorial cast ofmind, and thus they left behind a fairly explicit ac-count of what values they sought to protect and whatarrangements they thought ought to be made for the

allocation of political power.


S U M M A R Y

There are two major questions about politics: Whogoverns? To what ends? This book focuses mainly onanswering the first.

Four answers have traditionally been given to thequestion of who governs.

The Marxistthose who control the economicsystem will control the political one.

The elitista few top leaders, not all of themdrawn from business, make the key decisionswithout reference to popular desires.

The bureaucraticappointed civil servants runthings.

Thepluralistcompetition among affected inter-ests shapes public policy.

To choose among these theories or to devise newones requires more than describing governmental in-stitutions and processes. In addition one must exam-ine the kinds of issues that do (or do not) get takenup by the political system and how that system re-solves them.

The distinction between different types of democ-racies is important. The Framers of the Constitutionintended that America be a representative democracyin which the power to make decisions is determinedby means of a free and competitive struggle for thecitizens votes.

RECONSIDERING WHO GOVERNS?

1. How is political power actually distributed inAmerica?

Some believe that political power in America ismonopolized by wealthy business leaders, by

other powerful elites, or by entrenched govern-ment bureaucrats. Others believe that politicalresources such as money, prestige, expertise, or-ganizational position, and access to the mass me-


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Summary

dia are so widely dispersed in American society,and the governmental institutions and offices inwhich power may be exercised so numerous andvaried, that no single group truly has all or mostpolitical power. In this view, political power inAmerica is distributed more or less widely. Noone, however, argues that political resources are

distributed equally in America.2. What explains major political change?

The great shifts in the character of Americangovernmentits size, scope, institutional ar-rangements, and the direction of its policieshave reflected complex and sometimes suddenchanges in elite or mass beliefs about what gov-

ernment is supposed to do. For instance, beforeFranklin Roosevelts New Deal, most leaders andcitizens did not automatically look to the federalgovernment to improve the economy, and manydoubted that Washington had any legitimate roleto play in managing economic affairs.Today, how-ever, leaders in both political parties assume that

Washington must help reduce unemployment,create jobs, and otherwise actively manage thecountrys economy. The federal government nowhas policies on street crime, the environment,homeland security, and many other issues thatwere not on the federal agenda a half-century (or,in the case of homeland security, a mere half-decade) ago.

RECONSIDERING TO WHAT ENDS?

1. What value or values matter most in Americandemocracy?

The Framers of the Constitution had their vision ofAmerican democracy and favored certain values,but neither they nor the Constitution specify whatvalues matter most or how best to make trade-offsamong or between competing political ends.

2. Are trade-offs among political purposes in-evitable?

Yes. For instance, the government cannot spendmore on health care without spending less on

something else we may also desirecollege loans,police patrols, or toxic waste cleanups. Nor can it

maximize one value or purpose (say respecting therights of persons suspected or accused of terroristacts) without minimizing others (like liberty andassociated legal rights). And, even if everyoneagreed that the same one valuesay libertywassupreme, we could not all exercise it at the sametime or to the fullest or just as we pleased withoutall losing it in the bargain: if everybody is at lib-erty to shout simultaneously, nobody is at libertyto be heard individually. We often cannot havemore of some things we desire without having lessof other things we desire, too. That is as true inpolitics and government, and as true for Ameri-can democracy, as it is in other parts of life.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Banfield, Edward C. Political Influence. New York: Free Press, 1961.A method of analyzing politicsin this case, in the city ofChicagocomparable to the approach adopted in this book.

Crick, Bernard, The American Science of Politics. London: Rout-ledge & Kegan Paul, 1959. A critical review of the methods ofstudying government and politics.

Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The Manifesto of the Commu-nist Party. In The Marx-Engels Reader, 2d ed., edited byRobert C. Tucker. New York: Norton, 1978, 469500. The clas-sic statement of the Marxist view of history and politics.Should be read in conjunction with Engels, Socialism:Utopian and Scientific, in the same collection, 683717.

Mills, C. Wright. The Power Elite. New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1956. An argument that self-serving elites dominateAmerican politics.

Schumpeter, Joseph A. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. 3ded. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1950, chs. 2023. A lucidstatement of the theory of representative democracy and how

it differs from participatory democracy.Truman, David B. The Governmental Process. 2d ed. New York:

Knopf, 1971. A pluralist interpretation of American politics.Weber, Max. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Translated and

edited by H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills.London: Routledge &Kegan Paul, 1948,ch. 8. A theory of bureaucracy and its power.

Documents

Chapter 01 - The Study of American Government