PSCSimEx3

Blake Thompson Political Science Capstone SimEx 3 September 9th, 2015

Who’s Running America: The Obama Reign, Eighth Edition Chapter Summaries

Preface:The preface, as with most intellectual literature, sets out to briefly explain what

the text will be concerned with. Dye explains that the book is about our nation’s institutional elite, and the roles they play in policy-planning/making. It attempts to set forth an oligarchic model of national policy-making, in which corporations and wealthy businessmen establish foundations that in turn fund policy-planning organizations that feed policy recommendations to the mass media, the White House, congressional committees, and the courts. Dye does this using the current administration as a working example, using real people and their experiences to chronicle how current institutional elites use their power to influence the policy agenda.

Chapter 1: Elitism in a DemocracyDye claims that elites in American society are inevitable because there cannot be

large institutions without great power being concentrated within the hands of the few at the top of these institutions. He says that power is not an attribute of the individual, but an attribute of social organizations, and that elites are the individuals who occupy the power roles in these organizations. He also describes the pluralist view of power, and that is that power is defined as active participation in decision-making. He divides institutional elites into sectors:

Corporate: formal positions of authority in the nation’s 100 largest organizations ranked by total revenue.

Financial: individuals who control the nation’s largest banks and Wall Street investment firms

Insurance: presidents and directors of the nation’s fifteen largest insurance companies

Mass Media: owners of the major television networks (ABC, NBC, FOX, CNN, NYT, WP), and the nation’s five leading media conglomerates.

Politics: top lobbying firms and include their senior partners; ‘fat cat’ political contributors (drawn from the ranks of billionaires, corporate executives, and Hollywood Heavyweights.

Law: senior partners of large and influential New York and Washington law firms

Education: 62 colleges and universities with endowment funds totaling $1 billion or more and who are consistently ranked among the nation’s most prestigious colleges and universities. Dye does not include public universities. Presidents and trustees.

Foundations: fifty foundations with over $1 billion in assets. Presidents and trustees.


Civic and cultural organizations: (CivOrg: Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Committee on Economic Development, Business Roundtable, the Brookings Institution, the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the Center for American Progress) (CultOrg: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

Governmental: President, VP, senior White House advisors, and secretaries of all executive departments

Congress: House and Senate majority and minority leaders and party whips, as well as all congressional committee chairpersons

Supreme Court: all nine justices

Dye estimates in total that there are 4,102 total elite positions in the system.

Chapter 2: The Corporate DirectorsIn the formal, legal sense, the board of directors ‘controls’ the modern

corporation. There are inside directors who are also top management officers in the corporation. They usually dominate corporate decision-making. Then there are outside directors, who serve on the board but have no direct part in managing the corporation and usually defer judgment to the inside directors. Power here rests in about 1,500 officers and directors of the nation’s 100 largest nonfinancial institutions. These individuals decide major policy questions, choose people to carry out those decisions, and even select their own replacements.

Chapter 3: The Money EliteAmerica’s financial assets are heavily concentrated in the nation’s largest banks,

insurance companies, and investment firms. 20 banks out of more than 14,000 serving the nation control over half of the banking assets in the country. It chronicles the economic failure of 2008 and the Obama administration’s reaction to it. The chapter includes examples such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, The Wall Street Bailout, TARP, GM Bankruptcy, and the federal responses to these problems.

Chapter 4: The Media MogulsThe mass media sets the agenda for public discussion. It is also important to note

that younger generations rely more heavily on the Internet than on any other source of news. It outlines the concentration of media power in leading television networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN), the nation’s leading influential newspapers (WP, NYT, WST), and the broad-circulation news magazines (TIME). He also discusses media merges, or conglomerates (Time Warner, General Electric, Walt Disney, etc). He says that they were created so that the industry could spread across multiple media mediums – television, film, print, music, and the Internet. He describes a condition he calls ‘television


malaise’, which describes the public’s distrust, cynicism, and disaffection from public affairs due to negative reporting on American life. Dye claims that the media elite is the most liberal segment of the nation’s elite. He also claims that the Internet has diluted the power of traditional media. Dye briefly explains that the entertainment industry plays an important role in socializing the masses, in terms of how they should live and what values they should hold.

Chapter 5: The Governing CirclesDye claims that governmental power is even more concentrated than corporate

and financial power. All gov’t expenditure now accounts for about 37% of GDP, and federal expenditures account for nearly two-thirds of all government expenditure. He says that while a significant number of top political leaders have inherited wealth and power, most have climbed the ladder from relative obscurity to political success. It then sets out to explain the governmental power structure:

Key gov’t executives must be recruited from industry, finance, law, universities, or the bureaucracy itself.

Congress seldom initiates programs, more it responds to the proposals from the President, the executive departments, influential interest groups, and the mass media. Power here is concentrated in the House and Senate leadership, the chairperson, and the ranking minority members of the standing committees.

Supreme Court is the most elite branch of government. Its nine members are appointed, serve life terms, and can void the acts of popularly elected presidents and Congresses.

Dye claims that the ‘military-industrial complex’ is exaggerated. He says that national defense spending has plummeted since the end of the Cold War, and claims that military leaders have been recruited to elite positions only after popular, victorious wars.

Chapter 6: The Civic EstablishmentThe civic establishment refers to the nation’s leading law firms, ‘fat cat’ political

contributors, influential power brokers, major foundations, and prestigious and well-endowed private universities. Dye states that money drives American politics. He then explains the different parts of civic establishment:

Superlawyers are the senior partners of the nation’s best-known law firms in New York and Washington. They exercise power as legal representatives of the nation’s largest corporations.

‘Fixers’ is what Dye calls the conglomerate of lobbyists, agents, and lawyers in Washington. Washington’s most influential lobbying firms tend to employ former top governmental elites to ‘open doors’ in the nation’s capital.

Power of the nation’s largest foundations rests in their ability to channel corporate and personal wealth into the policy-making process. They do this by providing


financial support and direction for university research and the activities of policy-oriented civic associations.

The universities that enjoy the highest academic reputations typically have the largest endowments. A small number of private prestigious universities graduate a majority of the top leadership of the nation.

Chapter 7: How Institutional Elites Make Public PolicyThis chapter was probably the most important one in the book, and coincidentally

enough also the longest. Dye sets out his research, theories, and claims for how the nation’s elite affects national policy formation. He starts off by stating that the role of parties, interest groups, and constituents in shaping the decision-making behavior of proximate policy-makers is the final phase of a much more complex structure of national policy formation. Dye’s oligarchic model of policy-making attempts to trace elite interaction in determining the direction of national policy. Dye says that proximate policy-makers only act after the agenda for policy-making have been set and the direction of said policy decided. He defines the role of proximate policy-makers as one of implementing through law the policies that have been formulated by a network of elite-financed and elite-directed policy-planning groups, organizations, and universities. He backs up these claims by stating that the initial resources for research, study, planning, and formulation of policy come from donations of corporate and personal wealth. These resources are then funneled into foundations, universities, and policy-planning groups. The donors typically sit on the governing boards of these institutions to help decide how their money will be spent. The policy-planning groups (CFR, Trilateral Commission, Business Roundtable, Brookings Institution, AEI, Heritage Foundation, and CAP) all play a role in bringing together elite individuals at the top of corporate and government worlds, foundations, law firms, and the mass media in order to reach a decision about policy direction.

Chapter 8: The Structure Of Institutional PowerIn this chapter Dye explores whether America’s elite structure is hierarchical,

meaning it has a single group of individuals recruited primarily through business and finance at the top, or whether it is polyarchial, meaning it has separate institutional elites functioning in separate sectors of society and recruited from a variety of backgrounds. He says that elites are drawn disproportionately from among the well-educated, older, affluent, white, male, upper and middle-class populations. Also noting that there is still considerable upward mobility in American society. He then explains various demographics about the elites. He claims that while great power is institutionalized in public organizations, the nation’s largest companies still compete for power and influence. The largest of which being Koch Industries, the Bechtel Corporation, and the Trump Organization. Dye says that most elites started life in the middle-class. Only 30% of total institutional elites are from the upper-class in social origin.


Chapter 9: Institutional Elites in AmericaThis chapter is basically a summary of the book, more or less Dye’s ‘results and

conclusions’ chapter. Dye states that his findings do not fit neatly into either a hierarchical elitist model of power or a polyarchial pluralist model. Instead he finds evidence of both in the nation’s institutional elite structure. The size of the nation’s elite is about 4,000 individuals. 90% of institutional elites are specialists, with the remaining 10% as interlockers. Less than 10% inherited their power; the vast majority climbed the ladder. Most governmental elites came from relatively obscure positions. There are many ways to the top and many places to recruit elites from. There is no ‘one channel’ to the top. Institutional power is globalizing. Top corporate management is more limited in its power today than in the past due to complex demands that have brought with them more oversight. Over 50% of top corporate and financial leaders, and 50% of government leaders, are alumni of just 12 private prestigious universities. 20% of the elite attended Harvard at some point. It also discusses women and African-Americans in elite positions. The central role of policy planning groups is to bring together people at the top of the corporate and financial worlds, universities, foundations, mass media, and the government in order to reach a consensus on national issues and to develop policy recommendations. Dye reviews his oligarchic model of national policy-making, He says that while Obama’s election did change personnel at the top of government, that it did nothing to bring significant change to the backgrounds of the people who run the country. He then discusses the inside and outside views of national policy-making models.

Critical Evaluation of Dye’s Who’s Running America? The Obama Reign


Dye’s Who’s Running America? The Obama Reign describes an oligarchic model

of national policy-making, in which corporations and wealthy businessmen establish

foundations that in turn fund policy-planning organizations that feed policy

recommendations to the mass media, the White House, congressional committees, and

the courts. He states that the role of parties, interest groups, and constituents in shaping

the decision-making behavior of proximate policy-makers is the final phase of a much

more complex structure of national policy formation. Dye’s oligarchic model of policy-

making attempts to trace elite interaction in determining the direction of national policy.

He says that proximate policy-makers only act after the agenda for policy-making have

been set and the direction of said policy decided. He defines the role of proximate

policy-makers as one of implementing through law the policies that have been formulated

by a network of elite-financed and elite-directed policy-planning groups, organizations,

and universities. He backs up these claims by stating that the initial resources for

research, study, planning, and formulation of policy come from donations of corporate

and personal wealth. Dye believes that the policy-planning groups’ main role is bringing

together elite individuals at the top of corporate and government worlds, foundations, law

firms, and the mass media in order to reach a decision about policy direction. Finally

Dye explores whether America’s power elite structure is hierarchical or whether it is

polyarchial. He comes to the conclusion that it does not fit neatly into either a

hierarchical elitist model of power or a polyarchial pluralist model. Instead he finds

evidence of both in the nation’s institutional elite structure.

I would tend to agree with a lot of what Dye claims. Most of my education

surrounding policy-planning and policy-making has been concerned with the actual


government processes associated with the two, with elites briefly being mentioned as

contributors to the process. However, as Dye stated, that is only the final phase of a

much more complex structure of national policy formation. He accepts that elitism is

inevitable, and attempts to encompass the entire policy-planning and proposal process

through a sensible oligarchic model that depicts power in our nation’s institutional elite,

and the roles they play in policy-planning/making. Again, I would agree. Elitism is a

byproduct of capitalism, and in my own opinion, I don’t think it is possible to mutually

separate the two. It is foolish to ignore the massive influence and implication that our

nation’s institutional elite plays in policy-creation, and Dye did an excellent job of

describing these individuals, their backgrounds, and their roles in the process as a whole

as well as where their power derives from and what they do within their respective social

organizations. For me, it was certainly an eye-opening read on the vast and complex

relationship between our nation’s elite-financed and elite-directed policy-planning

groups, organizations, universities with nation’s the governing circle. I had always

assumed that they were interconnected, but the ways in which they interacted were lost to

me. Dye does a good job at encompassing the interaction in a current and working model

so that it is easier to understand how the current administration operates, instead of

applying his theories to an older and in many cases more distant explanation of the

oligarchic role of elitism in national policy-planning and policy-making.

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