巴拉兹Two Faces of Power

Two Faces of Power Author(s): Peter Bachrach and Morton S. Baratz Source: The American Political Science Review, Vol. 56, No. 4 (Dec., 1962), pp. 947-952 Published by: American Political Science Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1952796 Accessed: 15/12/2008 14:17 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=apsa. 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Its elusiveness is drainal iWally demonstrated by the regularity of disagrne(-int as to the locus of community power ) Atweeii the sociologists and the political seGentis ts. Sociologically oriented researchers hlave censistenftly found that power is highly centralize(l, wlhile scholars trained in political sceitcle aoave just as regularly concluded that in th( i 5 o nmn unities power is widely diffused.2 IPre.,winhl y, this explains why the latter group styl(e i iself "pluralist," its counterpart "eli- tist."' TI tel sefenis no room for doubt that the sharply (liergent findings of the two groups are the l).(lu(t, nlot of slicer coincidence, but of fundaeiintal differencess in both their under- lying, (nsiunmnptions and research methodology. The political scientists have contended that these (lilfeilenXes in findings can be explained by the fault' approach and presuppositions of the sociolo-ists. We contend in this paper that the pluralils themselves have not grasped the whole truth of the matter; that while their criticisms of the, elitists are sound, they, like the elitists. utilize an approach and assumptions T J1ii-4 I)mper is an outgrowth of a seminar in Prol.ke1ias of Power in Contemporary Society, conlducd Jointly 1)y the authors for graduate stuidents :md undergraduate majors in political scielce .111(1 ecoli omics. 2 (-o1r 1' (', for example, the sociological studies of llovd 1 nlut er, Community Power Structure (CbhIcl I Till, 1953); Roland Pellegrini and C~Tarlc.b 11. Coai~tes, "Absentee-Owned Corpora- tion, ci; (Cownautity Power Structure," Amer- icon Joirnal, of Sociology, Vol. 61 (March 1956), pp. 418) 19; auud Robert 0. Schulze, "Economic D)ontiiui; iias and Community Power Structure," AI OriclC Sociological Review, Vol. 23 (February 1958), 1ql. 3-9; with political science studies of Wallaec S. Say re and Herbert Kaufman, Govern- inq1 N' l7orlk (Cit y (New York, 1960); Robert A. 1-)btl, lio Gorcrns? (New Haven, 1961); and ?Norton) i. Long and George Belknap, "A Re- s0.+1)1 'Cl g o~n OlLeadership and Decision- Ma Lding ini Metrop)olitan Areas" (New York, Gove rn)inw ital Akffairs Institute, 1956). See also elsot \\W. Polsby, "How to Study Community Power: -1Jle IPluralist Alternative," Journal of Politic., Vel. 22> (August, 1960), pp. 474-84. which predetermine their conclusions. Our argument is cast within the frame of our central thesis: that there are two faces of power, nei- ther of which the sociologists see and only one of which the political scientists see. I Against the elitist approach to power several criticisms may be, and have been levelled.3 One has to do with its basic premise that in every human institution there is an ordered system of power, a "power structure" which is an integral part and the mirror image of the organization's stratification. This postulate the pluralists emphatically-and, to our mind, correctly- reject, on the ground that nothing categorical can be assumed about power in any community.... If anything, there seems to be an unspoken notion among pluralist re- searchers that at bottom nobody dominates in a town, so that their first question is not likely to be, "Who runs this community?," but rather, "Does anyone at all run this community?" The first query is somewhat like, "Have you stopped beat- ing your wife?," in that virtually any response short of total unwillingness to answer will supply the researchers with a "power elite" along the lines presupposed by the stratification theory.4 Equally objectionable to the pluralists-and to us-is the sociologists' hypothesis that the power structure tends to be stable over time. Pluralists hold that power may be tied to issues, and issues can be fleeting or persistent, pro- voking coalitions among interested groups and citizens, ranging in their duration from momen- tary to semi-permanent.... To presume that the set of coalitions which exists in the community at any given time is a timelessly stable aspect of social structure is to introduce systematic inaccu- racies into one's description of social reality.5 A third criticism of the elitist model is that it wrongly equates reputed with actual power: If a man's major life work is banking, the pluralist presumes he will spend his time at the bank, and not in manipulating community decisions. This presumption holds until the banker's activities and participations indicate otherwise.... If we I See especially N. W. Polsby, op. cit., p. 475f. 4 Ibid., pp. 476. 5 Ibid., pp. 478-79. 947 9418 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW presume- that, the banker is "really" engaged in runnirir tlhe, community, there is practically no way of (lis cortirmning this notion, even if it is tot: dly errlonleous. On the other hand, it is easy to sI)ot tl banker who really does run community afitirs v1 hen wve presume he does not, because his activities will make this fact apparent.6 T'his is not an exhaustive bill of particulars; there aro flaws other than these in the sociologi- cal m1) el and methodology7-including some which: the pluralists themselves have not notice(l. But to go into this would not materi- all" sr ye our current purposes. Suffice it sim- ply to observe that whatever the merits of their own alpproachi to power, the pluralists have eff ctix e ly exposed the main weaknesses of the elitist model. As tire foregoing quotations make clear, the pluralists concentrate their attention, not upon the sources of power, but its exercise. Power to them means "participation in decision-mak- ing"I end call be analyzed only after "careful examination of a series of concrete decisions."9 As a re sult, the pluralist researcher is uninter- este(l inl the reputedly powerful. His concerns instend- are to (a) select for study a number of "keyr' as opposed to "routine" political de- cisionrfs, (b) identify the people who took an active plart in the decision-making process, (c) obtatini a full account of their actual behavior while the policy conflict was being resolved, and (4) determinee and analyze the specific out- come of the (conflict. Tho advantages of this approach, relative to the elitist alternative, need no further exposi- tion. 'Flie same may not be said, however, about its olefe(cts-two of which seem to us to be of furrd:rrreistal importance. One is that the model takes no account of the fact that power may be, and often is, exercised by confining the scope of decissIon-making to relatively "safe" issues. The other is that the model provides no objective c 'te ri for distinguishing between "important" and "unimportant" issues arising in the politi- cal arena. 6 Jbid., pp. 480-81. 7 S(e(e especially Robert A. Dahl, "A Critique of the l>.Itiling-Elite Model," this REVIEW, Vol. 52 (Jun'1 1958), pp. 463-69; and Lawrence J. R. IIers(,n, "In the Footsteps of Community Poewr," this REVIEW, Vol. 55 (December 1961), pp. 81 7-31. 8 This definition originated with Harold D. Lassw(vll and Abraham Kaplan, Power and Society (New l1aven, 1950), p. 75. 9 Robert A. Dahl, "A Critique of the Ruling- Elite loodel," loc. cit., p. 466. II There is no gainsaying that an analysis grounded entirely upon what is specific and visible to the outside observer is more "scien- tific" than one based upon pure speculation. To put it another way, If we can get our social life stated in terms of activity, and of nothing else, we have not indeed succeeded in measuring it, but we have at least reached a foundation upon which a coherent sys- tem of measurements can be built up.... We shall cease to be blocked by the intervention of unmeasurable elements, which claim to be them- selves the real causes of all that is happening, and which by their spook-like arbitrariness make im- possible any progress toward dependable know- ledge.'" The question is, however, how can one be cer- tain in any given situation that the "unmeasur- able elements" are inconsequential, are not of decisive importance? Cast in slightly different terms, can a sound concept of power be predi- cated on the assumption that power is totally embodied and fully reflected in "concrete de- cisions" or in activity bearing directly upon their making? We think not. Of course power is exercised when A participates in the making of decisions that affect B. But power is also exercised when A devotes his energies to creating or reinforcing social and political values and institutional practices that limit the scope of the political process to public consideration of only those issues which are comparatively innocuous to A. To the extent that A succeeds in doing this, B is prevented, for all practical purposes, from bringing to the fore any issues that might in their resolution be seriously detrimental to A's set of preferences." 10 Arthur Bentley, The Process of Government (Chicago, 1908), p. 202, quoted in Polsby, op. cit., p. 481n. 11 As is perhaps self-evident, there are similar- ities in both faces of power. In each, A participates in decisions and thereby adversely affects B. But there is an important difference between the two: in the one case, A openly participates; in the other, he participates only in the sense that he works to sustain those values and rules of procedure that help him keep certain issues out of the public do- main. True enough, participation of the second kind may at times be overt; that is the case, for instance, in cloture fights in the Congress. But the point is that it need not be. In fact, when the maneuver is most successfully executed, it neither involves nor can be identified with decisions arrived at on specific issues. TWO FACES OF POWER 949 Situations of this kind are common. Con- sider, folr example, the case-surely not un- faili ,r to this audience-of the discontented faculty ienrner in an academic institution header1 by a tradition-bound executive. Ag- grievc(l about a long-standing policy around w-hiceh a strong vested interest has developed, the prof lessor resolves in the privacy of his office to lauweh an attack upon the policy at the next faculty meeting. But, when the moment of truth is at hand, he sits frozen in silence. Why? Arnon, the mnany possible reasons, one or more of thes( could have been of crucial importance: (a) the professor was fearful that his intended action would be interpreted as an expression of his disloyalty to the institution; or (b) he de- cide(d that, given the beliefs and attitudes of his collea~nies on the faculty, he would almost certainliv constitute on this issue a minority of one; or (c) he concluded that, given the nature of the 1law-making process in the institution, his propwsed remedies would be pigeonholed per- maleiftly. But whatever the case, the central point to 1)e made is the same: to the extent that a person or group-consciously or uncon- sciotisv- creates or reinforces barriers to the public airing of policy conflicts, that person or group lias power. Or, as Professor Schatt- schnei(10r has so admirably put it: All forn' of political organization have a bias in favor of the exploitation of some kinds of conflict ald til suppression of others because organization is the 11,?b/ilizatlon of bias. Some issues are organ- iz(dcl iiln Y politics while others are organized out.'2 Is sil( h bias not relevant to the study of power.? Should not the student be continuously alert to its possible existence in the human institution that he studies, and be ever pre- pare(( to exalnine the forces which brought it into )efillg an(i sustain it? Can he safely ignore the possibility, for instance, that an individual or gro(ip in a community participates more vigoroisly in supporting the nondecision- mahiIn process than in participating in actual decisions within the process? Stated differently, can the researcher overlook the chance that some person or association could limit decision- makin~r to relatively non-controversial matters, by infliiencing community values and political pro(ediu res an(l rituals, notwithstanding that there ale in the community serious but latent power conflicts?"3 To do so is, in our judgment, 12 E. I'. ShelAttschneider, The Semi-Sovereign People (New York, 1960), p. 71. 13 J):lat part Flly concedes this point when he observes (".A Critique of the Ruling-Elite Model," p). US - 69) that "one could argue that even in a to overlook the less apparent, but nonetheless extremely important, face of power. III In his critique of the "ruling-elite model," Professor Dahl argues that "the hypothesis of the existence of a ruling elite can be strictly tested only if . .. It] here is a fair sample of cases involving key political decisions in which the preferences of the hypothetical ruling elite run counter to those of any other likely group that might be suggested."'4 With this assertion we have two complaints. One we have already discussed, viz., in erroneously assuming that power is solely reflected in concrete decisions, Dahl thereby excludes the possibility that in the community in question there is a group capable of preventing contests from arising on issues of importance to it. Beyond that, how- ever, by ignoring -the less apparent face of power Dahl and those who accept his pluralist approach are unable adequately to differentiate between a "key" and a "routine" political decision. Nelson Polsby, for example, proposes that "by pre-selecting as issues for study those which are generally agreed to be significant, pluralist researchers can test stratification theory."'5 He is silent, however, on how the researcher is to determine what issues are "gen- erally agreed to be significant," and on how the researcher is to appraise the reliability of the agreement. In fact, Polsby is guilty here of the same fault he himself has found with elitist methodology: by presupposing that in any community there are significant issues in the political arena, he takes for granted the very question which is in doubt. He accepts as issues what are reputed to be issues. As a result, his findings are fore-ordained. For even if there is no "truly" significant issue in the community society like ours a ruling elite might be so influ- ential over ideas, attitudes, and opinions that a kind of false consensus will exist-not the phony consensus of a terroristic totalitarian dictatorship but the manipulated and superficially self-imposed adherence to the norms and goals of the elite by broad sections of a community. . . . This objec- tion points to the need to be circumspect in inter- preting the evidence." But that he largely misses our point is clear from the succeeding sentence: "Yet here, too, it seems to me that the hypothesis cannot be satisfactorily confirmed without some- thing equivalent to the test I have proposed," and that is "by an examination of a series of con- crete cases where key decisons are made... . 14Op. cit., p. 466. 15 Op. cit., p. 478. 950 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW under -tu(Ay, there is every likelihood that Polsbv or any like-minded researcher) will find one or some and, after careful study, reach the appropriate pluralistic conclusions.'6 Dall's definition of "key political issues" in his essayN, on tihe ruling-elite model is open to the same ('i iti(isrn. He states that it is "a necessary although possibly not a sufficient condition that the [koy] issue should involve actual disagree- n-meit in preferences among two or more giolis.'7 In our view, this is an inadequate cleatriatecrization of a "key political issue," simply 1)ecause groups can have disagreements in prel'Ct'erClices on unimportant as well as on importalnt issues. Elite preferences which bord r on the indifferent are certainly not SifhifiC iNt in determiningg whether a monolithic or pIol litlic distribution of power prevails in a giV(eI (Immilnity. Using Dahl's definition of `keX apolitical issues," the researcher would h zove little( difficulty in finding such in practi- *ally :ny (conimlunity; and it would not be sur- prismi, tfli(n if he ultimately concluded that oev(rX ilt the community was widely diffused. 'I'lc (listinction between important and u ni rn X i( Xtant issues, we believe, cannot be made illt(i!-2