In “Who Governs?” 1961, Dahl makes an empirical study of his local city in New Haven, (then converted these into assumptions at a national level), and managed to conceptualise power in terms of “decision making”. He concluded, “those who have power are those who either make or break decisions”. As Lukes declares “[The] one-dimensional, view of power involves a focus on behaviour in the making of decisions over key or important issues as involving actual, observable conflict.” He condemned the pluralist concept as “ ‘Power is totally embodied and fully reflected in “concrete decisions” or in activity bearing directly upon their making’.” Dahl argued, empirically, that the decision-making process in New Haven involved a variety of interest groups, all attempting to influence political decision-making.
It must be pointed out that Dahl was deeply opposed to the fact that power was held in the elite. In his empirical study of New Haven, Dahl couldn’t gather “enough to suggest that a socio-economic elite [had] some kind some kind of covert monopoly of power.” He took the top fifty decision-makers and found “less than half of them [where] ENs and SNs”(Economic notables and Social Notables respectively). Finally the “evidence [suggested] a spread rather than a concentration of power”. Goodwin raises a thought provoking issue by proclaiming, “the advantage of pluralist over elitist theory is that it suggests that the political system is all-inclusive, and operates on the basis of consensus”. This ensures that everyone’s interests are taken into account and therefore everyone attains satisfaction.
Elitism “connotes exclusiveness in combination with special skills or resources; not every minority or interest group can be described as an elite”. Classical elitists include Mosca and Pareto, who saw rule by elite groups inevitable. Whilst Pareto saw political power in terms of a rule by elite groups because of their members superior intelligence, education, cunning and so forth, Mosca argued that elite groups ruled politically because of their superior organisational ability. In this latter respect, elites came to power because of their superior internal organisation; they took power in the face of the disorganisation of other elites, the general mass of the population. Both writers saw the general (politically disorganised) mass of the population as being controlled through manipulation, propaganda and the like to serve the interests of powerful elites.
More recent elitists include Bachrach and Baratz, who criticise the pluralist account of power as being one-dimensional and too simplistic:
“it [pluralism] ‘unduly emphasises the importance of initiating, deciding and vetoing’ and, as a result, takes ‘no account of the fact that power may be, and often is, exercised by confining the scope of decision-making to relatively “safe” issues!” .
So Bachrach and Baratz came up with what they called a second-dimension of power which “involves examining both decision-making and nondecision-making”. This two-dimensional view of power underpins the crucial importance of identifying “potential issues which nondecision-making prevents from being actual”. It is thus concerned with the determination and composition of the political agenda. A good contemporary example of this type of power being exercised was in when the British government gave the British people a chance to have their say if they wanted Europe to be part of the EEC, now EU, in the form of a referendum. What the Government neglected to mention was that when they had joined the EEC some few years earlier the signed deal was “perpetual”. Even if Britain had voted against the EEC in the referendum there was still nothing that the Government could have done, (if they would choose to do something at all…). As it turned out the results favoured the joining of the EEC. This perfect example depicts the elitist concept that individuals or groups are able to exercise power be preventing those who take a decision by limiting the amount of decisions they are allowed to take.
However the two-dimensional view of power involves some conceptual complications. Firstly, Bachrach and Baratz define “a non-decision [as] ‘a decision that results in suppression or thwarting of a latent or manifest challenge to the values or interests of the decision-maker’ ”. A decision, and hence a non-decision as defined above, is necessarily a conscious undertaking. Hence, Bachrach and Baratz's proposed method of identifying non- decisions leaves unspecified a crucial step in the explanation of the exercise of second-dimensional power. Their technique for empirical application of the concept consists firstly in the study of the actual decision-making process within the political arena and the resultant outcomes. Goodwin also finds faults in the elitist theory, highlighting the fact that in a modern democracy “although the political leadership itself constitutes an elite which develops special interests [that] are not typical of the people it represents.”
In Marxist ideology power is held in a relatively small minority of people in a capitalist society, notably what Marx calls the Bourgeoisie. When Marx talks about a ruling class, he determines social classes by economic status. This power is used by the ruling class to further their economic status and consequently their power, and the expense of the powerless, notably what Marx refers to as the Proletariat or the working class. So the ultimate source of power in a Marxist society is the ownership and control of means of economic production. This leads to a central theme of Marxism; the common ownership of productive wealth. If you control the production and distribution of something that everyone needs, this becomes a source of power that can be translated into political power. It is believed that a common ownership of production would create a class who share the same basic structural position and therefore, they have an interest in ensuring their position is maintained. It stands to follow that as a result the Marxist view of the state is that it upholds the demands of a Bourgeoisie class, and as a result Marxism is all for the eventual abolishment of the state.
For Marxists power does not begin and end with the power to make decisions, it is far more complicated. Marxists see power being used in three-dimensions, with the last a Lukesian theory. It is the ability to shape and manipulate desires of different social groups. This power is only exerted when there are conflicting interests between social classes. As Lukes eloquently puts it:
The three-dimensional view of power offers “the prospect of a serious sociological and not merely personalised explanation of how political systems prevent demands from becoming political issues or even from being made”.
The view of “false-consciousness” of power has been criticised by Alan Bradshaw, as Lukes employs the tem to indicate “exercises of power involving a lack of decision”, and by implication, “the unconscious may only apply to a lack of decision”. However he later discusses “the unconscious[ness] in power exercises with reference both to inactivity and activity”. It becomes apparent that Lukes uses one term of “unconscious” to attack the two-dimensional writers, “before moving to another level of definition in order to admit the possibility of unconscious activity into the argument”.
In conclusion the pluralist, elitist and Marxist theories of the state argue about the way in which power is measured. The pluralist concept of power seems to be the simplest in the way it is merely measured by observing or “behavioural” analysis in decision-making. However, the pluralist concept portrays the most democratic account of the state, indicating the spread of decision making in society. The Elitist theory seems to build on this on-dimensional account of power and also includes the power of nondecision-making. However, as elite groups make the decision-making, and subsequent nondecision-making process, this leads the State being slightly less democratic as particular views of the elite are taken into account, as opposed to the whole “general masses”. Finally Marxists view power in a third-dimension and this includes the ability to shape and manipulate desires, a matter of “false-consciousness”. Marxists are completely opposed to the State, as they believe the State only operates for the benefit of the Bourgeoisie.
Bibliography
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