Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T00:58:00.254Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Interest Groups and Theories of Power in America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Andrew S. McFarland
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Three models of interest groups, power and political process in America are contrasted: (1) the Truman-Dahl-Lindblom pluralism of the 1960s; (2) the unfinished plural elitism of the 1970s, a theory emphasizing special-interest capture of policy systems whose most influential exponent is Lowi; (3) the ‘triadic’ model of process set forth by Wilson in The Politics of Regulation. The triadic model assumes the normality in policy systems of organized economic producers being challenged by the countervailing power of other organized interests, while state agencies act autonomously. It is argued that the triadic model is the most advanced of the three, although it still needs development. Eighteen illustrative propositions are presented in terms of triadic power. These include relationships among interest groups and state autonomy, ‘high polities’ and routine politics, and types of coalitions in policy systems. Other propositions describe links to possible cycles between triadic power and plural elitism, to corporatist decision-making, and to the ‘resource mobilization’ theory of social movements.

Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , April 1987 , pp. 129 - 147
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Dahl, Robert A., Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956)Google Scholar, and Who Govens? (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961).Google Scholar

2 Truman, David B., The Governmental Process (New York: Knopf, 1951).Google Scholar

3 Braybrooke, David and Lindblom, Charles E., A Strategy of Decision (New York: The Free Press, 1963).Google Scholar

4 Banfield, Edward C., Political Influence (New York: The Free Press, 1961)Google Scholar; Polsby, Nelson W., Congress and the Presidency (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1964)Google Scholar; Wildavsky, Aaron B., The Politics of the Budgetary Process, 1st edn (Boston: Little, Brown, 1964).Google Scholar

5 Granisci, Antonio, Prison Notebooks (New York: International Publishers, 1971)Google Scholar; Miliband, Ralph. The State in Capitalist Society (New York: Basic Books, 1968)Google Scholar; Poulantzas, Nicos, Political Power and Social Classes (London: New Left Books and Sheed and Ward, 1973).Google Scholar

6 Lowi, Theodore M. Jr., The End of Liberalism, rev. edn (New York: Norton, 1979), original edition pub. in 1969Google Scholar; Olson, Mancur Jr., The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965)Google Scholar; Schattschneider, E. E., The Semisovereign People (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1960)Google Scholar; McConnell, Grant, Private Power and American Democracy (New York: Knopf, 1966).Google Scholar

7 Roettger, Walter B., ‘Strata and Stability: Reputations of American Political Scientists’, PS, 11 (Winter 1978), p. 9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Lindblom, Charles E., Politics and Markets (New York: Basic Books, 1977).Google Scholar

9 Prewitt, Kenneth and Stone, Alan, The Ruling Elites (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), p. 124.Google Scholar

10 Responsible political parties is a theme in The Semisovereign People and other works by Schallschneiden juridical democracy is the prescription to enhance governing by general rules put forth by Lowi, in The End of LiberalismGoogle Scholar; while at the end of Private Power and American Democracy McConnell calls for an active presidency and Supreme Court and for strong political parties at the national level of government.

11 See Lowi, , The End of LiberalismGoogle Scholar; Olson, , The Logic of Collective ActionGoogle Scholar; Schattschneider, , The Semisorereign PeopleGoogle Scholar; and McConnell, , Private Power and American Democracy, as cited aboveGoogle Scholar. Also see Edelman, Murray, The Symbolic Uses of Politics (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1964)Google Scholar, Bernstein, Marver. Regulating Business by Independent Commission (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1955)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Fiorina, Morris P., Congress: Keystone of the Washington Establishment (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977)Google Scholar. Proposition 10 is derived from Lowi, Theodore M. Jr., ‘American Business. Public Policy, Case Studies and Political Theory’, World Politics, XVI (1964), 677–715CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Proposition 11 is derived from McConnell, Grant, The Decline of Agrarian Democracy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1953)Google Scholar; McConnell, , Private Power and American DemocracyGoogle Scholar; Lowi, , The End of LiberalismGoogle Scholar; and Cater, Douglass, Power in Washington (New York: Random House. 1964)Google Scholar. Bernstein, , Regulating BusinessGoogle Scholar; Edelman, , The Symbolic UsesGoogle Scholar; McConnell, , Private PowerGoogle Scholar; and Lowi, Theodore M. Jr., At the Pleasure of the Mayor (New York: The Free Press, 1964) are sources for Proposition 12.Google Scholar

12 Lowi, , ‘American Business, Public Policy’.Google Scholar

13 Lowi, . ‘American Business, Public Policy’Google Scholar. On incrementalism, see Lowi, , The End of Liberalism, pp. 211, 236.Google Scholar

14 Lowi, , The End of Liberalism, Chap. 4.Google Scholar

15 See Ackerman, Bruce A. and Hassler, William T., Clean Coal/Dirty Air (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981)Google Scholar; Wilson, James Q., The Politics of Regulation (New York: Basic Books, 1980), pp. 386–7.Google Scholar

16 Schlozman, Kay Lehman and Tierney, John T., Organized Interests and American Democracy (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), pp. 74–82Google Scholar; Walker, Jack L., ‘The Origins and Maintenance of Interest Groups in America’, American Political Science Review, LXXVII (1983), 390–406CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gais, Thomas L., Peterson, Mark A., and Walker, Jack L., ‘Interest Groups, Iron Triangles, and Representative Institutions in American National Government’, British Journal of Political Science, XIV (1984), 161–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 See Nordlinger, Eric A., On the Autonomy of the Democratic State (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981)Google Scholar; Krasner, Stephen D., ‘Approaches to the State: Alternative Conceptions and Historical Dynamics’, Comparative Politics, XVI (1984), 223–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Skowronek, Stephen, Building a New American State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Wilson, , The Politics of Regulation, Chap. 10.Google Scholar

20 Heclo, Hugh, ‘Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment’, in King, Anthony, ed., The New American Political System (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1978), 87–124.Google Scholar

21 Dahl, , Who Governs?, p. 5.Google Scholar

22 Dahl, . Who Governa?, p. 6.Google Scholar

23 Krasner, , ‘Approaches to the State,’ pp. 227–8.Google Scholar

24 Dahl, , Who Governs?, Chaps. 10, 15–17Google Scholar. Cf. Katzenstein, Peter J., Small States in World Markets (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985), Chap. 3.Google Scholar

25 See Braybrooke, and Lindblom, , A Strategy of DecisionGoogle Scholar; also see Lindblom, , ‘The Science of “Muddling Through”’, Public Administration Review, XIX (1959), 79–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar; The Intelligence of Democracy (New York: Macmillan, 1965).Google Scholar

26 This, of course, is no longer true in Lindblom's later book, Politics and Markets.

21 Wildavsky, , The Politics of the Budgetary ProcessGoogle Scholar. By now this book has appeared in four editions, each edition distinguished from its predecessor by a revision of the introduction and by a new chapter at the end of the book. This is significant, because later editions of this book reflect a much more pessimistic appraisal of the effectiveness of the American budgetary process than was stated in the first edition.

20 Wildavsky, , The Politics of the Budgetary Process, pp. 47–62Google Scholar; Fenno, Richard F. Jr., ‘The House Appropriations Committee as a Political System: The Problem of Integration’, American Political Science Review, LVI (1962), 310–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 Wildavsky, Aaron, How to Limit Government Spending (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980).Google Scholar

30 Stigler, George J., The Citizen and the State: Essays on Regulation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975)Google Scholar; Wildavsky, , How to Limit Government SpendingGoogle Scholar; Niskanen, William A., Bureaucracy and Representative Government (Chicago: Aldine-Atherton, 1971).Google Scholar

31 Moore, Barrington Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Boston: Beacon, 1967)Google Scholar; Huntington, Samuel P., Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968).Google Scholar

32 Wilson, , The Politics of Regulation, Chaps. 1–9.Google Scholar

33 Wilson, , The Politics of Regulation, pp. 364–72.Google Scholar

34 Wilson, , The Politics of Regulation, Chaps. 5, 7.Google Scholar

35 See also McFarland, Andrew S., ‘Groups Without Government: The Politics of Mediation’, in Cigler, Allan J. and Loomis, Burdett A., eds. Interest Group Politics, 2nd edn (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1986), pp. 289–302.Google Scholar

36 Propositions 1, 2 and 3 are derived from Wilson, , The Politics of Regulation, Chap. 10Google Scholar. For Proposition 3, see also Peterson, Paul E., Rabe, Barry G., and Wong, Kenneth K., When Federalism Works (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1986)Google Scholar. For Proposition 5, see Selznick, Philip, Leadership in Administration (New York: Harper & Row, 1957)Google Scholar and Redford, Emmette S., Democracy in the Administrative State (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), Chap. 5Google Scholar; Ripley, Randall B. and Franklin, Grace A., Congress, the Bureaucracy, and Public Policy, 3rd edn (Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey Press, 1984), Chap. 1Google Scholar. Proposition 8: Moe, Terry M., ‘Control and Feedback in Economic Regulation: The Case of the NLRB’, American Political Science Review, LXXIX (1985), 1094–116CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Proposition 10: Derthick, Martha and Quirk, Paul J., The Politics of Deregulation (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1985)Google Scholar; Proposition 13: McCarthy, John D. and Zald, Mayer N., ‘Resource Mobilization and Social Movements’, American Journal of Sociology, LXXXII (1977), 1212–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Proposition 14: Heclo, , ‘Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment’Google Scholar; Proposition 16: Schmitter, Philippe C., ‘Still the Century of Corporatism?’ Review of Politics, XXXVI (1974), 85–131CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stein, Katzen. Small States in World MarketsGoogle Scholar; Proposition 18: Walker, , ‘The Origins and Maintenance of Interest Groups in America’Google Scholar; Rourke, Francis E., Bureaucracy, Politics and Public Policy, 3rd edn (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, 1984), pp. 48–66.Google Scholar

37 Kaufman, Herbert, The Forest Ranger (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1960), p. 226.Google Scholar

38 Wilson, , The Politics of Deregulation, pp. 389–90.Google Scholar

39 Fritschler, A. Lee, Smoking and Politics, 3rd edn (Englewood Cliffs. NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1983).Google Scholar

40 Culhane, Paul J., Public Lands Politics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1981)Google Scholar; Clarke, Jeanne Nienaber and McCool, Daniel, Staking Out the Terrain: Power Differentials Among Natural Resource Management Agencies (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1985), 107–22Google Scholar; Miller, Tim R., ‘Changes in the Utility of the Subsystem Model for Public Policy Analysis: The Status of Water Policy Making in the US’, prepared for delivery at the 1985 annual meeting of the American Political Science AssociationGoogle Scholar; Davis, Charles and Davis, Sandra, ‘Analyzing the Public Lands Subsystem’, prepared for delivery at the 1986 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association.Google Scholar

41 Skowronek, , Building a New American State.Google Scholar

42 McFarland, Andrew S., ‘Public Interest Lobbies Versus Minority Faction’, in Cigler, Allan J. and Loomis, Burden A., eds, Interest Group Politics, 1st edn (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1983), pp. 324–53.Google Scholar

43 McCarthy, and Zald, , ‘Resource Mobilization and Social Movements’.Google Scholar

44 McAdam, Doug, Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1939–1970 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982)Google Scholar; Klein, Ethel, Gender Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

45 Heclo, , ‘Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment’, p. 105.Google Scholar

46 McFarland, Andrew S., Public Interest Lobbies: Decision Making on Energy (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1976), pp. 6–12Google Scholar, and Common Cause (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1984), pp. 40–3.Google Scholar

47 Walker, , ‘The Origins and Maintenance of Interest Groups in America’.Google Scholar