Unit 1- Classical Group Theory- American Pluralism Flashcards
Classical pluralism is:
The theory that a multitude of groups, not the people as a whole, govern the state.
They influence the making and administrations of laws and policies.
Players in classical pluralism:
- unions
- trade and professional associations
- environmentalists
- civil rights activists
- business and financial special interests groups
- formal and informal coalitions of like-minded citizens
The majority of the population:
Act only as an audience.
Politics and decision making are located mostly in the framework of government, but that many non-governmental groups use their resources to exert influence.
Central question of pluralism:
How power balances itself
A polyarchy:
A situation of open competition for electoral support within a significant part of the adult population—ensures competition of group interests and relative equality.
Is direct democracy workable? Even desirable?
Some pluralists believe that direct democracy is not only unworkable; it is not even necessarily desirable. Besides the logistical problems of having every citizen meet at one time to decide policies, political issues require continuous and expert attention, which the average citizen does not have.
Robert Dahl, a noted pluralist, said:
Politics is a sideshow in the great circus of life.
Some pluralists take it even further..
They worry that the common person lacks the virtues —reason, intelligence, patience— for self-government and that direct democracy leads to anarchy and the loss of freedom.
Nor do pluralists think that representative democracy works as well in practice as in theory. Voting is important, to be sure. But citizens in modern democracies vote for representatives, not for specific policy alternatives.
A candidate’s election cannot always be interpreted as an endorsement of a particular course of action.
Example: President Reagan
Politicians frequently win office with only a “plurality” of the votes–that is, they receive more votes than their opponents–but not with a majority of the total eligible electorate.
President Reagan, for example, received approximately 51 percent of the ballots cast in 1980, but his total constituted only about a quarter of the votes of all potential voters, since only 55 percent of those eligible to participate actually went to the polls.
A first choice among candidates..
is not necessarily the same as the first choice among policies.
The pluralist view of power:
- power is not a physical entity
- it flows from a variety of different sources
- power is not an identifiable property that humans possess in fixed amounts.
Potential vs actual power
Actual power means the ability to compel someone to do something; potential power refers to the possibility of turning resources into actual power.
Example potential vs actual power:
For example, cash, one of many resources, is only a stack of bills until it is put to work.
A millionaire may or may not be politically influential; it all depends on what the wealth is spent for (trips to the Bahamas or trips to Washington).
A particular resource like money cannot automatically be equated with power because the resource can be used skillfully or clumsily, fully or partially, or not at all.
Three major principles of the pluralist school:
- Resources, and hence potential power, are widely spread throughout society;
- At least some resources are available to nearly everyone; and
- At any time the amount of potential power exceeds the amount of actual power.
If actual power = potential power:
If potential power were equal to actual power, all resources would be fully deployed, leaving no room for new or emerging groups to challenge the status quo.
This would lead to stagnation and the risk of oligarchy, where a few dominant groups consolidate power. By ensuring that potential power always exceeds actual power, the system remains open to change, fosters inclusion, and encourages moderation and compromise among competing groups.
This dynamic prevents the entrenchment of power and promotes a healthy pluralistic society.
The scope of power:
Finally, and perhaps most important, no one is all-powerful.
An individual or group that is influential in one realm may be weak in another. Large military contractors certainly throw their weight around on defense matters, but how much sway do they have on agricultural or health policies?
A measure of power, therefore, is its scope, or the range of areas where it is successfully applied.
Pluralists believe that with few exceptions power holders in western countries usually have a relatively limited scope of influence.
First characteristic of pluralism:
Perhaps the key characteristic of governments, according to pluralists, is that they are dominated not by a single elite but rather by a multiplicity of relatively small groups, some of which are well organized and funded, some of which are not.
Although a few are larger and more influential than the others, the scope of their power, far from being universal, is restricted to relatively narrow areas such as defense, agriculture, or banking.
Second character of pluralism:
A second characteristic is that the groups are politically autonomous, or independent.
They have the right and freedom to do business in the political marketplace. How well they fare depends not on the indulgence of a higher authority but on their own skill in rallying political resources.
Because a diverse society like ours contains so many potential factions, political autonomy guarantees constant, widespread, and spirited competition among these organizations.
Third characteristic of pluralism:
Third, inter-group competition leads to countervailing influence: The power of one group tends to cancel that of another so that a rough equilibrium results.
Group memberships overlap as well. Members of one association, in other words, might belong to another, even competing, group. Overlapping memberships reduce the intensity of conflicts because loyalties are often spread among many organizations.
Fourth characteristic of pluralism:
A fourth characteristic is the openness of the system. It is open in two senses. First, most organizations are seldom if ever completely shut off from the outside. They continuously recruit new members from all walks of life. Second, the availability of unused resources constantly encourages the formation of new groups.
Stimulated by threats to their interests or sensitized to injustices, or for whatever reason, individuals frequently unite for political action.
In the process groups mine untapped resources.
Fifth characteristic of pluralism:
The endless quest by groups and office seekers for public support.
Even though the masses do not govern directly, their opinions are a resource that can be used by one organization against another. In a country where the belief in popular control of government is so deeply ingrained, people feel compelled to sell their causes to the public, and are frequently judged winners or losers by their standings in the polls.
This lie in the widely shared belief that a group with popular backing has an important advantage over one that lacks it, even if the masses do not actually take part in decision making.
The sixth characteristic of pluralism:
The final characteristic of pluralism is consensus on the “rules of the game.” Consensus, or widespread agreement, among political activists and leaders on democratic principles and values holds the system together.
These people accept regular and open elections, the right to vote, majority rule, political equality, free speech, the right to assemble, and the other rules that make peaceful and orderly politics possible. They tolerate differences of opinion. And, of utmost significance, they abide by the outcomes of elections.
Classical empirical theories of pluralism:
- Robert Dahl insisted that a constitutional-cumsocietal pluralism replaces rather than counters the sovereignty of the people or the majority of the people in a majoritarian democracy.
- Instead of a single center there must be multiple centers of power, none wholly sovereign. Although the only legitimate sovereign in the perspective of American pluralism is the people, even the people ought never to be an absolute sovereign; consequently, no part of the people such as a majority, ought to be absolute sovereign.
Benefits of a polyarchy:
- diversity in public governance reduces the workload of the national government
- it prevents conflicts
- providing numerous semi-autonomous centers of power reinforces the principles of balanced authority and political pluralism;
- creates opportunities for learning and practicing democracy.
Dahl (1961) showed that no one could effectively monopolize political power in a pluralist society of groups free from political control. Decision-making turned out to be shared instead among different groups and individuals in competition with each other.
