How do Americans view
American politics? Do they see it as a
process by which politicians put into effect the wishes of the American
people? Or do they see it as a process
by which politicians put into effect the wishes of well-heeled organizations
like global corporations, highly esteemed professional groups, or well-aligned
labor groups that push for a given policy.
Political science literature does not side unequivocally with one of these
positions or the other.
One thing is sure:
organized political advocacy beats-out unorganized efforts every
time. This writer years ago was
introduced to the work of E. E. Schattschneider and his book, The
Semi-Sovereign People: A Realist’s View
of Democracy in America.[1] In that book, that political scientist
offered a model or overview of American politics. The model describes what the political arena
looks like when a “rich” political actor faces a “not so rich” political
actor.
To
be rich in this context means an actor has a significant amount of money, control
of votes, and/or expertise – these are listed here in their relative amounts of
power or “richness;” i.e., money seems to be the most “powerful” asset. In general, according to the Schattschneider
model, each type of actor – rich or not rich – strategizes.
Rich
actors attempt to limit participants in a contest over whether an authoritative
decision is made one way or another. Of
course, they want a favorable decision, one that advances their interests. Not so rich actors, understanding their
relative weakness, seek out others to join the fight. Why should these other actors join? This is negotiated among the not so rich, but
generally the deal has a reciprocal element – “next time you need help, we will
help if you help us now.”
These
alliances can lead to long standing relationships in which this mutual help
becomes characteristic of various national and even international political/economic
confrontations. For example, organized
labor has long supported civil rights groups and vice versa. But one would be surprised if US Steel would
be found helping General Motors or the car industry, in general, in their labor
negotiations.
Why? Because these rich actors don’t need the help
and therefore, they do not need to form agreements that add to their
obligations or possibly share information that a rich actor wants to remain
private. This form of information can be
corporate market strategies, technological information, or any proprietary information
a corporation wishes to keep secret.
To
the degree Schattschneider got that right, one can glean what goes into one of
the above options that states politics is a game organizations exclusively play. If so, this view of politics represents
organizations energetically going at it.
But what of the other option, the one that sees politics as just an
expression of what people want? Here a
different dynamic can be detected.
Actually,
the term dynamic is a bit too energetic.
When one looks how typical Americans interact with the political process
– those aimed at influencing public policy – one sees mostly inaction. Why? Paul
Burnstein writes:
[Regular citizens] aren’t likely to
create organizations because of the collective action problem … [O]rganizations
attempting to affect policy seek a collective good that will benefit every
member. Because everyone will benefit, whether or not they have done anything
to win the collective good, it is rational for everyone to let others do the
necessary work. The result will be
little or no collective action. The same
argument holds for individuals: why try
to influence policy when letting others do the work will produce the same
benefit?[2]
This is a form of the
“free rider” problem and it unfortunately characterizes most Americans and
their level of involvement.
So, if most citizens don’t express or otherwise provide
input, then a system cannot reflect what they want. Now, one needs to add more context to this
general description. Most Americans are
unaware of what most policy debates are and if they know of a contested issue,
they don’t know enough of its pertinent factors. So, does that mean they have no voice in the
political arena?
One thing they do know is whether policies in general are
helping them or not. They know how their
welfare is doing – is it getting better or not?
And history shows, they are not shy about voting in accordance to what
they perceive the system is doing. They
have certain targets to vote for or against, such as the President, their representative
in Congress, their senators, their governor, their mayor, even their city
council member. But as one goes down
this list, from national to local, the likelihood of a citizen voting
diminishes.
Consequently, politicians who hold office want the populous
to be happy so that they do not start looking for which “bum” to throw out of
office. And Burnstein suggests that
across the board globally, and that goes for systems not nearly as democratic
as the American system, the public holds a long-term control over policy.
Yes,
such controls might not be evident in the give and take of everyday politics
and governance, but over the long haul, it does provide a controlling factor –
things can’t get too out of hand before the populous start voting, start
marching, start writing, or even start participating in disruptive
politics. This is not good for anyone
and surely not for targeted politicians.
[1] E. E. Schattschneider, The Semi-Sovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy in America
(New York, NY: Hole, Rinehart and
Winston, 1960).
[2] Paul
Burnstein, American Public Opinion,
Advocacy, and Policy in Congress: What
the Public Wants and What It Gets, (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2014), location
206 (Kindle edition). This quote was
cited in a previous posting. See Robert
Gutierrez, “An Involved Life,” Gravitas:
A Voice for Civics – a blog.
Posted October 18, 2016.
No comments:
Post a Comment