Pluralists neglect the interests and actions of government, namely they do not recognize the will and ability of government to control policy-making in order to fulfill its own interests and goals. Pluralists believe power of groups depends on the level of their resources. However, Smith (1990) pointed out that the influence of pressure groups derives not so much from their resources but from the organization of government. This means whether a pressure group can exercise influence on policy-making mainly depends on the government, not the resources they have. So when it comes to the subsidy policy adopted by Chinese government, we can see that although agriculture has stronger interest groups than industry, it obtains a much lower level of support than industry. The best interpretation for this fact maybe lie in the goal of government to develop economy first, not the relative strength of interest groups.
Furthermore, pluralists believe that groups have significant amount of power, so they are determinant in the policy-making process (Dahl 1958:465). However, because of the existence of institutionalized relationship between government and interests, some groups are prevented from having access to the policy process although they are well resourced and organized. Recent years, the regulation of temporary resident certificate in big cities of China has excluded the group of non-local residents since the initiating stage of the policy. This is because of institutionalized relationship between government and interest groups that consciously excludes the other interests. So Hall (1986:19) emphasize the necessity to analyze the institutional relationships in policy-making process which combine the components of the state and structure its relations.
Recently, pluralism has developed into two new forms to response the above criticism. One is called reformed pluralism and the other one is neo-pluralism. Reformed pluralism concedes that access to political agenda is not always open. They accept that government-interest relations are often institutionalized to reduce conflicts and make producing policy easy, excluding certain groups and forming policy community (Smith 1990). A policy community is an institutionalized form of pressure group-government relationship that favors certain interests (Hill 1997:72). So reformed pluralism is an advance by recognizing the existence of institutionalized relationship. However pluralists contradict themselves by emphasizing the tendency of policy community to disintegrate into issue networks because of outside groups keen to break into the community and the existence of countervailing power and interests within the community (Smith 1990:314). Issue network means there is no domination, the political arena is fairly open for interests (Hill 1997:72). So pluralists retrogress to the traditional pluralism. They deem consultation as a way for outside groups to break into the community. Although there may be consultation with many groups, the powerful actors within the community can discard those unfavorable opinions, making consultation cosmetic, so consultation cannot be equal to influence (Gais 1984:168). Dunleavy (1981) pointed out that their degradation is because they ignore the ideology that maintains the community and the structural nature of the relationship.
The neo-pluralism was mainly Lindblom’s notion that business has extra resources, making it privileged in the political arena (Lindblom 1977:175). He argues that business can use its privileged position to prevent issues threatening its interests from entering the decision making process. Lindblom accepts the power of business, the lack of pluralism in certain areas. So Lindblom set a better platform for pluralism and reformed it. However, neo-pluralism still has drawbacks. King (1985:257) argues that if business is so powerful, why it has to form trade unions to represent its interest. Recent years, business has spent a lot of money on environmental issues, which imposes a big burden on business. In 2004, Japan increased its import tax on U.S. beef, which harmed the interest of importers in Japan. The main problem with neo-pluralism is that it overemphasizes the role of business interest. It cannot explain the policies made by government that harm the business. So, it also fails to envisage the role of the state. Vogel argues (1983, cited in Smith 1990:318):
‘Business depends on government to protect and safeguard their property right, to create and maintain a sound currency, to assert and protect their interests in the world economy, to enforce reasonable regulations, not to tax them excessively, etc’
Although pluralism was revised, it still cannot overcome its weakness—overestimating the role and strength of interest groups and neglecting the interests and goals of government.
Wrong methodology
Dahl defined power in the decision making process as when A gets B to choose policy X when B would otherwise have chosen policy B. Base on his empirical study of New Haven, Dahl believes the right method to examine the power structure in policy-making is to focus on key decisions and actual behaviors. Careful study of these decisions is a necessity before accurately describing the distribution of power (Hill 1997:37-38). However, just after giving out his method, Dahl was under attack. Bachrach and Baratz (1962:948) argue that power does not simply involve examining concrete decisions. Power is also exercised when A devotes his energies to creating and sustaining prevailing values and institutional practices that limit the scope of the political process to issues that are relatively harmless to A. They indicate that Dahl forget the second face of power—mobilization of bias (Bachrach and Baratz1970: 43) which means the dominating norms, precedents, myths, institutions and procedures that operate to suppress unfavorable conflicts and prevent them from entering the political process. The second face of power operates through a process that Bachrach and Baratz (1975:900) defined as non-decision making that uses means such as force to prevent issues that challenge the existing values from entering the political process. They suggest the importance of analyzing what does not happen and why does not happen, since they are an integral part of examining the power structure.
In pluralist view, in the advent of an issue, different interests sit together discussing, negotiating and comprising to form a consensus. However this consensus to what extent reflects the general acceptance of values in society is disputable, as powerful interests often use non-decision making usually to keep counterviews out of political agenda. There are some grievances that are killed before they enter the decision-making. An example is the white terrorization of civil rights workers in the southern America (Hill 1997:39). This example proved the existence of non-decision making and how it functions.
In practice, only analyzing the actual decision cannot reflect what really happen and how the second face of power exercises in political arena to maintain the status quo.
The opposite of pluralism
The best way to refute pluralism is to prove the existence of ruling class. Although pluralists accept that some interests are privileged, they never accept the existence of ruling class. However, in some cases we must admit the existence of ruling class, Such as Chile, in 1973, the army leaders took over the government, forming the military government. Since 1973 military government has dominated policy-making process and eliminated rival interests. And the same situation can be found in Libya. As governments in Chile and Libya both control the army, a crucial resource that contributes to power, they control the whole political process and rule the society.
These two cases prove the existence of ruling class and that in some circumstances, a resource that contributes to power can privilege over all others, which directly fly in the face of pluralism. So in countries such as Chile and Libya, pluralism does not apply at all.
Conclusion
Judging from the above discussion, we can see that pluralism is a defective theory. Although pluralism may be possible to explain some policy-making, it is only in a limited scope—some ordinary issues that are innocuous to powerful interests. In most cases it is hopelessly naïve.
Firstly, it overestimates the role and strength of pressure groups and does not give enough emphasis on the decisive force, interests and goals of the state, in the political arena. In reality, almost all kinds of interests have suffered from the policies implemented by the government. The role played by government indicates that power and influence of pressure groups often come from the government not their resources. Although some pressure groups have the same resources, their influences on policy making may vary a lot due to their relationships with the government.
Secondly, they examine the policy-making from a wrong perspective, using a defective method. They only focus on actual decisions and actors involved, but forget to explore why some are excluded. It only covers a part of the real political arena; it cannot capture certain areas where non-decision making exists. As pluralists have a narrow conception of observable power, they cannot examine the mobilization of bias, through non-decision making, many issues that challenge the existing values and norms are excluded from the policy-making process. In reality, the power structure tends to be much more sophisticated than pluralists conceived.
Thirdly, there are certain areas such as Chile and Libya where pluralism cannot apply at all. In these countries, military group is the dominant interest, no other interests can challenge it, and all the rivals are excluded from the policy-making process.
In addition, as pluralism’s characterization of western theory, it probably cannot apply to eastern countries such as China, Korea whose culture, history and ideology are completely different from western countries.
Bibliography
Bachrach, P. & M.S. Baratz (1962) ‘Two Faces of Power’, American Political Science Review, 56, pp641-51
Bachrach, P. & M.S. Baratz (1970) Power and Poverty New York: Oxford University Press
Bachrach, P & M.S. Baratz (1975) ‘Power and Its Two Faces Revisited: A Reply to Geoffrey Debnam’ American Political Science Review, 69, pp900-904
Dahl, R. (1958) ‘Critique of the Ruling Elite Model’ American Political Science Review, 52, pp463-469
Dahl, R. (1978) ‘Pluralism Revisited’ Comparative Politics, pp191-203
Dunleavy, P. (1981) ‘Professions and Policy Change: Notes Towards A Model of Ideological Corporatism’ Public Administration Bulletin, 36, pp3-16
Gais T., Peterson M. & Walker J, (1984) ‘Interest Groups, Iron Triangles and Representative Institutions in American National Government’, British Journal of Political Studies, 14, pp166 – 177.
Gaventa, J. (1980) Power and Powerlessness Oxford: Clearendon Press
Hall, P. (1986) Governing the Economy Oxford: Polity Press
Hewitt, C.J. (1974) Elites and power in British Society, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
Hill, Michael J. (1997) The Policy Process in the Modern State, Harvester Wheatsheaf: Prentice Hall
Jordan, G. (1990) ‘The Pluralism of Pluralism: An Anti-theory?’ Political Studies XXXXVIII, pp286-301
King, R. (1985) ‘Urban Politics and Markets’, British Journal of Political Science, 15, pp257
Lindbolm, C. (1968), The Policy Making Process, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs
Lindblom, C. (1977) Politics and Markets New York: Basic Books
Martin J. Smith (1990) ‘Pluralism, Reformed Pluralism and Neo-pluralism: the Role of Pressure Groups in Policy-Making’ Political Studies, XXXXVIII, pp302 – 322
Manley J. F (1983) ‘Neo-Pluralism: A Class Analysis of Pluralism Ⅰand Pluralism Ⅱ’, The American Political Science Review, 77, pp368-383
Richardson J.J & A. G Jordan (1979) Governing Under Pressure Oxford: Martin Robertson
Saunders, P. (1975) ‘They Make the Rules’, Policy and Politics, 4, pp31-58
Vogel, D (1983) ‘The Power of Business in America: A Reappraisal’ British Journal of Political Science, 13,No.1 pp19-43
Case study: an analysis of temporary resident certificate
In China, everyone has a birth certificate when he was born, and when he reaches 16 years old, the government will issue him an identity card, which has his basic information—gender, date of birth, place of birth, address, and an identity number. In 1984, many big cities introduced a new identification for non-local residents—temporary resident certificate, which has almost the same information as identity card but issued by other city’s government. If people want to work in other cities, they must have the temporary resident certificate. When people apply for a temporary resident certificate, they have to go to Police, Department of Labor and Ministry of Personnel to get authorized. A temporary resident certificate usually cost about 10 pounds and it has to be renewed every year. In addition, non-local residents have to pay about 15 pounds administrative fees every year. The temporary resident certificate only gives people the right to live and work in that city, when people want to buy houses or send their children to school, they still have to pay extra fees.
Now we will examine the feasibility of pluralism by analyzing this case.
To begin with, the classical pluralists think power is widely dispersed and various resources are available to allow the expression of grievances to the government. They deny the fact that some groups are excluded from the policy-making process for a long period. The above example proved this notion to be completely wrong. Taking Beijing for example, there are 4 million non-local residents, many of them are rich and have high social position, prescriptively they are a strong pressure group, however, they are excluded from the policy process from the initiating stage of this policy. The decision makers never consider the interest of non-local residents. This policy is made by Police, Department of Labor, and Ministry of Personnel. The only thing they did was designing the details of the policy, as they take this policy for granted, there is no need to discuss with other groups. They formed a very close policy community that excluded all other interests. In this case, the grievances of non-local residents never gain an access to the policy-making process, the government made the policy-making autonomous of non-local residents and other groups such as companies who have non-local employees, in order to reduce conflicts and make producing policy easy. This case indicates that the access is not as accessible as pluralists suppose. In practice, all kinds of groups can be excluded from policy-making process, the role of pressure groups are mainly decided by the government not their resources.
20 years has past, there is no evidence that this community will disintegrate into issue network as reformed pluralists suppose, and instead it is becoming more and more stable. The decision makers are legitimized government agencies, they have structuralized power and they have a mutual goal that is to obtain revenue and control floating population. This ideology and the structural nature of the relationship make them cooperate closely and exclude other interests. They set the ‘rules of the game’ as they allot income equally, forming a tacit agreement whose function is to not compete with each other. This institutionalized relationship between government, Police, Department of Labor and Ministry of Personnel makes access for other groups very difficult. And there is no countervailing power between them as pluralists mentioned. This is because they have the same interests and there is a high degree of dependency between them. Department of Labor and Ministry of Personnel provide information of non-local residents, Police ensure the enforcement of the regulation and the government guarantees legitimacy of their actions. So this community is closed with limited members and shared values. This case shows that pluralists exaggerate the ease of a policy community to disintegrate into issue network and the ability of pressure groups to break into a policy community.
Furthermore, the Whitehall pluralism has not appeared till now. This policy was made in these three departments without reference to the council committee and other departments. In this policy process, the policy makers only consulted some experts who share the same value with them. In fact, other departments cannot and do not intend to exercise influence on this policy, as police is a very powerful department in Chinese society, other departments need its support to enforce their own policies. Even if other departments suggest some alternatives to them, they will not adopt the alternatives if theses suggestions are not in line with their interests and goals. So the existence of Whitehall pluralism advocated by pluralists is quite questionable.
Finally, if we interpret this case using the pluralist method of analyzing actual decisions, we would make a big mistake, as there is a latent interest conflict from non-local residents that cannot become a matter that calls for decision. They see the lack of conflict as a general acceptance among the whole population. The temporary residents certificate has been implemented for 20 years, there is no expression of grievances that has been on the decision-making agenda. As if non-local residents and other interests have compromised with the government and they have reached an agreement. However, we should explore what really happened behind this hypothetic agreement. First, people who dare to challenge this regulation such as not applying for the certificate were arrested and had to pay penalty to be free. This is a good example of non-decision making, which pluralists turn a blind eye to. The government uses non-decision making to suppress this unfavorable issue to enter the decision-making process. Second, we should mention another way in which power exercises, namely, anticipated reaction. In this case, non-local residents anticipate that the police would arrest and fine them, if they do not have the temporary resident certificate. So this case demonstrates that pluralist method for analyzing policy is inadequate and the existence of unobservable power.
In conclusion, we can see that the main principles of pluralism cannot apply to this case. In this case, the decision makers do amend the policy incrementally, but the only actors are themselves, ‘partisan mutual adjustment’ never happens. Although we cannot refute the whole pluralist theory by this case, at least it demonstrates that pluralism has a big limitation on interpreting how policy is made.
(Wordcount:3265 not including bibliography)
