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Pragmatism and the Group Theory of Politics*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

David G. Smith
Affiliation:
Swarthmore College

Extract

Pragmatism and the group theory of politics are closely related both historically and philosophically; and both have a continuing importance for contemporary political science. Yet these two intellectual traditions have seldom been related in a systematic fashion. This failure to examine both the tree and the branch—the parent tradition of pragmatism and its offshoot, group theory—has foreshortened and distorted theoretical perspective. In this article I have tried to amend this situation by relating the two traditions, setting both in a larger historical and theoretical perspective, and examining their common philosophical suppositions.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1964

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References

1 Truman mentions the debt of group theory to pragmatism. See Truman, David B., The Governmental Process (New York, 1951), p. 14Google Scholar. The relations of these two traditions are also discussed in Crick, Bernard, The American Science of Politics (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1959), pp. 9194Google Scholar, and by Gilbert, Charles E., “Operative Doctrines of Representation,” this Review, Vol. 57 (1963), pp. 604618Google Scholar. For an early and important discussion of pragmatism and politics, see Elliott, William Y., The Pragmatic Revolt in Politics (New York 1928)Google Scholar. Bibliographies of recent discussions of group theory can be found in Rothman, Stanley, “Systematic Political Theory,” this Review, Vol. 54 (1960), p. 15Google Scholar, and Loveday, Peter and Campbell, Ian, Groups in Theory and Practice (Sydney, 1962)Google Scholar.

2 Bentley, Arthur F., The Process of Government (Chicago, 1908), p. 154Google Scholar; Dewey, John, The Public and Its Problems (New York, 1927), p. 8Google Scholar.

3 Homans, George C., The Human Group (New York, 1950), p. 12Google Scholar.

4 Dewey, op. cit., p. 131.

5 Ibid., p. 177.

6 Bentley, op. cit., p. 177; Follett, Mary Parker, Creative Experience (London, 1924), p. 209Google Scholar; also, cf. Laski, Harold J., “Sovereignty of the State,” in Studies in the Problem of Sovereignty (London, 1916)Google Scholar.

7 Bentley, op. cit., p. 204; Dewey, op. cit., pp. 20–22; Follett, op. cit., p. 85.

8 Truman, op. cit., pp. 33, 34.

9 Dewey, op. cit., p. 27.

10 Bentley, op. cit., p. 272.

11 Dewey, op. cit., pp. 31, 67; Follett, op. cit., pp. 202, 274.

12 Truman, op. cit., pp. 159, 512–514; Latham, Earl, “The Group Basis of Politics: Notes for a Theory,” this Review, Vol. 46 (1951), pp. 390, 391Google Scholar.

13 Bentley, op. cit., pp. 258, 259, and 288; Dewey, op. cit., p. 27; Follett, op. cit., p. 209; Truman, op. cit., pp. 505 et seq. Cf. also, Herring, E. Pendleton, The Politics of Democracy (New York, 1940)Google Scholar and Griffith, Ernest S., The American System of Government (New York, 1954)Google Scholar.

* The term “public” is used rather than “group” because it was Dewey's language; it is also a less generic term and relates the discussion more closely to political issues.

14 Dewey, op. cit., p. 12 and ch. I. passim; Truman, op. cit., ch. 2.

15 Dewey, op. cit., pp. 208, 209; Follett, op. cit., pp. 202, 206; Homans, op. cit., and Katz, Elihu, “The Two-Step Flow of Communication: An Up-To-Date Report on a Hypothesis,” Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 21 (1957), p. 61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Dewey, op. cit., p. 16; Follett, op. cit., p. 202.

17 The concept of “thought organization” is borrowed from Graham Wallas.

18 For a discussion of this point see Parsons, Talcott, Structure and Power in Modern Society (Glencoe, 1960), esp. chs. 1, 2. 8Google Scholar.

19 Note here the treatment by group theorists of leadership as an “affair of the group,” discerning, articulating, and promoting the attitudes and interests the group shares. (Truman, op. cit., 190; Bentley, op. cit., p. 223).

20 On the concept of alternate resources see Dahl, Robert A., Who Governs? (New Haven, 1961)Google Scholar esp. Bk. IV, and “The Analysis of Influence in Local Communities” in Adrian, C. R., ed., Social Science and Community Action (Ann Arbor, 1960)Google Scholar.

21 Dewey, op. cit., pp. 133–137; Follett, op. cit., p. 242. Pluralists such as Laski also spoke of “group competing against group in a ceaseless striving for progressive expansion.”

22 Dewey, op. cit., pp. 147–155.

23 Truman, op. cit., pp. 596 ff. Truman uses the term “morbific politics” to describe the pathology of the group process.

24 Including not only the administrator's “dis-economies” and “externalities” but political difficulties as well.

25 See, for example, Block, William J., The Separation of the Farm Bureau and The Extension Service (Urbana, 1960)Google Scholar; Hardman, Joel and Neufeld, Maurice, The House of Labor (New York, 1951)Google Scholar; The American Medical Association: Power, Purpose, and Politics in Organized Medicine,” Yale Law Journal, Vol. 63 (1954), p. 938Google Scholar; Willcox, A. W., “Hospitals and the Corporate Practice of Medicine,” Cornell Law Quarterly, Vol. 45 (1960), p. 432Google Scholar.

26 Truman, op. cit., p. 535.

27 About 50 per cent of the population has no other formal membership than the church. Of the remainder, the largest part belong additionally only to a trade union, a farmers' organization or a fraternal lodge. Only a small percentage (and that about the same as those who would be classified as leaders in one capacity or another) belong to four or more organizations. For a citation of the relevant literature, see Rothman, loc. cit., pp. 22–23.

28 Cf. Key's discussion of the “restraining dikes” that serve to moderate populist and syndicalist opinion in the American polity. Key, V. O. Jr., Public Opinion and American Democracy (New York, 1960), esp. ch. 21Google Scholar.

29 Stouffer, Samuel A., Communism, Conformity, and Civil Liberties (New York, 1955)Google Scholar.

30 Cf. Form, W. H. and Miller, D. C., Industry, Labor, and Community (New York 1960)Google Scholar.

31 354 U. S. 298 (1957).

32 Dewey, op. cit., pp. 27, 30–32, 47, 177, 207–208; Follett, op. cit., pp. 28, 206.

33 For example, in capital budgeting. Cf. Brown, W. H. Jr., and Gilbert, C. E., Planning Municipal Investment: A Case Study of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1961), esp. ch. 9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 Block, op. cit.; Brunner, and Yang, , Rural America and the Extension Service (New York, 1949)Google Scholar; Parks, W. R., Soil Conservation Districts in Action (Ames, 1952)Google Scholar; Maass, Arthur, Muddy Waters (Cambridge, 1951), esp. chs. 4, 5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also the “marasmus” controversy on the independent regulatory commissions: Huntington, Samuel, “The Marasmus of the I.C.C.,” Yale Law Journal, Vol. 61 (1952), p. 467CrossRefGoogle Scholar; C. Morgan, “A Critique of ‘The Marasmus of the I.C.C.’” Ibid., Vol. 62 (1953), p. 171.

35 Compare for instance the behavior of different committees in the House and Senate such as the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency and the House Committee on Labor and Education.

36 Long, Norton E., “Public Policy and Administration: The Goals of Rationality and Responsibility,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 14 (1954), p. 28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 For this insight, I am indebted to Charles E. Gilbert. See his The Framework of Administrative Responsibility,” Journal of Politics, Vol. 21 (1959), p. 373CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 “Process” is central to the pragmatist description of politics, as it is to group theory. Indeed, Bentley, Follett, and Dewey have had a great deal to do with directing the attention of political scientists toward the “process” and away from organization, rules, procedure, and competence. The difficulty with the word “process” is that it tends to include, unless used carefully, not only the idea of a sequence of activities but also (1) the procedures applied to the process; and (2) the grounds upon which we know what we are doing. People sometimes say that law or science are “processes.” Often it is useful to study them simply as activities. On the other hand, law for instance can also be regarded as (1) a collection of tested doctrines and rules; or (2) the criteria by which some things are called law and others are not. Thus, we have our casebooks. Also, there are officers who, by some rules and criteria, separate “judge-questions” from “jury-questions,” and other officers who say that the court of first instance declared, but what they declared is not law.

39 Schattschneider has made this point forcefully. See The Semi-Sovereign People (New York, 1960)Google Scholar.

40 Cf. Dahl, Robert A. and Lindblom, Charles E., Polities, Economics, and Welfare (New York, 1953), chs. 3, 4Google Scholar.

41 The conception of the politician as entrepreneur has, of course, a long history in political theory, from Weber and Schumpeter down to Robert A. Dahl.

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