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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 August 2014
In an exchange of perennial delight to the Holmesian, the pauky Sherlock, pitting wits against a government detective, condescends to remark on the unusualness of the usual:
“Is there any point to which you would draw my attention?”
“To the curious incident of the dog in the night time.”
“The dog did nothing in the night time.”
“That was the curious incident.”
And in asymptotic fashion, the student of politics, intrigued by the burgeoning literature of community power now emerging from the hands of sociologists, searches for the contributions that these writings can make to the study of local government. The political scientist readily discovers that this literature is approaching metaphorical indeterminacy: like an expanding universe, it threatens to outrun his gaze. It contains the substance of competing conceptual schemes, the power elite vs. the pluralism of power. It offers comparative studies, both domestic and cross-cultural, and studies built upon historical dimensions. It even possesses studies designed to torture original hypotheses by invoking the test of predictability. And yet, in reviewing this freshet of publication, the political scientist finds himself asking whether there is, for his discipline, anything unusual in this outpouring.
As he reads, he finds underscored and “discovered” many of the propositions that are stock to his own lumber room: he learns that there is often discontinuity between the real and the nominal holders of political power; and that social values can affect the utilization of that power.
1 Useful bibliographic guides to this literature are to be found in Rossi, Peter, “Community Decision Making,” Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 1 (1956), pp. 415–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rossi, , “Power and Community Structure,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, Vol. 4 (1960), pp. 390–401 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Wolfinger, Raymond, “Reputation and Reality in the Study of ‘Community Power,’” American Sociological Review, Vol. 25 (1960), pp. 636–644 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Rossi, “Community Decision Making,” op. cit., surveys the general patterns of community studies and the various forms of community power studies.
3 A recent appreciation of Booth is to be found in Young, Pauline, Scientific Social Surveys and Research, 3d ed. (1956), pp. 9–14.Google Scholar
4 Robert, S. and Lynd, Helen, Middletown (1929)Google Scholar and Middletown in Transition (1937).
5 Whyte, William F., Street Corner Society (1943)Google Scholar, esp. ch. 6.
6 As major research areas for sociology, the literatures of ecology and stratification are more than extensive. Of special pertinence to this essay are: Hatt, Paul and Reiss, Albert Jr., Cities and Society (1957)Google Scholar, esp. parts IV–VI; Broom, Leonard, “Social Differentiation and Stratification,” in Merton, Robert et al., Sociology Today (1959)Google Scholar; Blackwell, Gordon, “Community Analysis,” in Young, R. (ed.), Approaches to the Study of Politics (1958)Google Scholar; Bendix, R. and Lipset, S. M. (eds.), Class, Status, and Power (1953)Google Scholar, esp. sections II, III, V; Lipset, S. M. and Bendix, R., Social Mobility in Industrial Society (1959)Google Scholar; Warner, W. Lloyd (ed.), Democracy in Jonesville (1949)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Warner, W. L. and Lunt, P. S., The Status System of a Modern Community (1947)Google Scholar; and an enlightening exchange in the American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 64 (1958), pp. 132–146 Google Scholar; 146 ff. by O. D. Duncan and L. F. Schnore, “Cultural, Behavioral and Ecological Perspectives in the Study of Social Organization,” and “Comment” by Peter Rossi.
7 Hunter, Floyd, Community Power Structure (1953)Google Scholar.
8 For example, the Lynds, op. cit., and West, James, Plainville, USA (1945)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 Of special interest is the excellent study by Meyerson, M. and Banfield, Edward, Politics, Planning, and The Public Interest (1955)Google Scholar, dealing with the choice of public housing sites in Chicago.
10 The most celebrated is probably C. W. Mills, The Power Elite. Also, his “The Middle Classes in Middle Sized Cities,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 11 (1946), pp. 520–529 Google Scholar.
11 Hillery, G. A., “Definitions of Community: Areas of Agreement,” Rural Sociology, Vol. 20 (1955), pp. 111–123 Google Scholar.
12 See Sjoberg, Gideon, “Operationalism and Social Research,” in Gross, L. (ed.), Symposium on Sociological Theory (1959)Google Scholar. Sjoberg offers an insightful analysis of the development of the operationalist concept, from its first formulations by Bridgman to its present day use.
13 This point is also made by Peter Rossi, “Power and Community Structure,” op. cit.
14 Hollingshead, August, Elmtown's Youth (1949)Google Scholar.
15 Vidich, Arthur and Bensman, Joseph, Small Town in Mass Society (Anchor Edition, 1960)Google Scholar. Of special interest to political science is the blending of categories from Keynesian theory with a general theory of the psychology of social classes, to provide thereby a basis for examining the political structure of the town and consequent political action. Among the dimensions of this action are the consequences of a small-town outlook for upstate-do wnstate political rivalry; and the development of psychological jurisdictions that supersede the legal.
16 See the incisive critique of Hunter, by Jones, Victor and Kaufman, Herbert, “The Mystery of Power,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 19 (1954), pp. 205–212 Google Scholar.
17 Hunter, op. cit., p. 2; see also his further analysis of his concepts and method, “Studying Association and Organization Structures,” in R. Young (ed.), op. cit.
18 For a critique of three recent writers who define power see Hyneman, Charles S., The Study of Politics (1959)Google Scholar, ch. 8; and for an examination of political consequences entailed in various definitions of power see Spitz, David, Democracy and the Challenge of Power (1958)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
18a More precisely, Hunter's pyramid is a coalition (or fusion) of leaders of several more specialized pyramids or “crowds”: economic, civic, etc.
19 See the informative and delightfully written critique of metropolitan analysis by Long, Norton, “The Local Community as an Ecology of Games,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 64 (1958), pp. 251–261 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Long is especially pithy when he sees community power studies, with their representations of a power elite, as satisfying man's urge for a demonic universe, in which worlds are made right by devils being in heaven's obverse. Robert Dahl has also attacked the general concept of a power elite; but his target is more Mills' than Hunter's; for Mills' elite is akin to the metaphysical ghosts that haunt both Bentley and T. D. Weldon, with no corporeal manifestations to be identified and measured in the manner required by the strictures of systematic social science. Dahl, Robert, “A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model,” this Review, Vol. 52 (June, 1958), pp. 463–469 Google Scholar. Dahl also transfers much of this same criticism to Hunter's later attempt to apply to the national “community” the methods that he developed for the study of local government. See Journal of Politics, Vol. 22 (Feb. 1960), pp. 148–153 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
20 Cf. the Report of the Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (G.P.O., 1955); also, Maas, Arthur (ed.), Area and Power (1959)Google Scholar. Especially pertinent in the Maas volume is the view of an areal distribution of power corresponding to the value systems of a society. Cf. the theory of the nationalization of American politics by Schattschneider, E. E., “United States: The Functional Approach to Party Government,” in Neumann, S. (ed.), Modern Political Parties (1956)Google Scholar.
21 “Three Problems in the Analysis of Community Power,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 24 (1959), pp. 796–803 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Polsby, , “How to Study Power: The Pluralist Alternative,” Journal of Politics, Vol. 22 (August, 1960), pp. 474–484 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Polsby and Wolfinger (op. cit.) are perhaps the most prolific and persuasive of Hunter's critics. The tightness of their argument is buttressed by their participation in the power study of New Haven undertaken under the direction of Robert Dahl. For a preview of the range of questions being asked about power leadership see Dahl, , “Business and Politics: A Critical Appraisal of Political Science,” this Review, Vol. 53 (March, 1959), pp. 1–34 Google Scholar.
22 Hunter's refusal (in the interest of methodological clarity) to utilize related theoretical schemes makes for a barrenness and lack of serendipity that, happily, is disappearing from the work of a few of his followers. Thus the reader finds Hunter moving down Lewin's road but then refusing to exploit the possibilities inherent in such concepts as “field” (“Life Space”) cognitive structuring; and reference-group behavior. See Lewin, Kurt, Field Theory in Social Science (1951)Google Scholar; Lewin, , Resolving Social Conflicts (1948)Google Scholar; Festinger, Leon and Katz, Daniel, Research Methods in the Behavioral Sciences (1953)Google Scholar, esp. Part I. A very lucid overview of Lewin's several contributions is Deutsch, Morton, “Field Theory in Social Psychology,” in Lindzey, Gardner (ed.), Handbook of Social Psychology, Vol. I Google Scholar.
22a See, for example, James March's formulation of closed and open loop systems, “An Introduction to the Theory and Measurement of Influence,” this Review, Vol. 49 (June, 1955), pp. 431–451 Google Scholar and, of course, the writings of Lasswell, Harold, in particular Power and Society (1950) (with Kaplan, Abraham)Google Scholar, esp. chs. 4–7.
22b On apercus of politics, Wolfinger, op. cit., makes a telling point: that reputation for power is wed to the perceptive abilities of respondents and that man's perceptive vision is notoriously weak. The point, of course, is reinforced by a considerable body of psychological literature, especially that dealing with cognition: it being subject to distortion by the value structure of the perceiver and of the group whose norms he shares. Cf. Festinger, Leon, When Prophecy Fails (1956)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and footnote 22, above.
23 See Hare, Paul et al., Small Groups (1955)Google Scholar, esp., Part III, “The Group as a System of Social Interaction”; Thibaut, John and Kelley, Harold, The Social Psychology of Groups (1959), esp. Part II.Google Scholar; T. M. Newcomb, “Communicative Behavior,” in R. Young (ed.), op. cit.; J. W. and M. W. Riley, “Mass Communication and the Social Structure,” in Robert Merton et al., Sociology Today, op. cit.
24 See Lerner, Daniel, Evidence and Inference (1959)Google Scholar, esp. the Introduction by Lerner.
25 On the political sociology of “unanticipated consequences” see Selznick, Philip, TVA and the Grass Roots (1949)Google Scholar.
26 “The Role of Economic Determinants in Community Power,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 23 (1958), pp. 3–9 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
27 Berle, Adolph and Means, Gardner, The Modern Corporation and Private Property (1932)Google Scholar; Whyte, William F., The Organization Man (1956)Google Scholar. Cf. Brady, Robert, Business as a System of Power (1943)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Somewhat out of the discourse of political science, but far more significant for suggesting theoretical congruence is the relationship of Schulze's study to the theory of structural dedifferentiation that lies within the larger frame of functional analysis. See Alvin Gouldner, “Reciprocity and Autonomy in Functional Theory,” in L. Gross, op. cit.
28 “Industry and Community Power Structure: A Comparative Study of an American and an English City,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 23 (1958), pp. 9–15 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and “Decision-Making Cliques in Community Power Structures: A Comparative Study of an American and an English City,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 64 (1958), pp. 299–310 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The political scientist may incline toward restiveness here, for these studies omit several of the bricks and wattles of political analysis. For example, the possible relationship between the British (unitary) system of government and the activities of town government is overlooked. More sensitive to the dimension of power-centralization is a study of a Mexican town, Klapp, O. and Padgett, V., “Power Structure and Decision Making in a Mexican Border City,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 65 (1960), pp. 400–406 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A special concern for the effects of values on the power structure is also found in a comparative study of an American and a Mexican city by Form, William and D'Antonio, William, “Integration and Cleavage among Community Influentials in Two Border Cities,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 24 (1959), pp. 804–814 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
29 Miller, op. cit. This layering is akin to what Peter Rossi describes as a caucus type of power structure; see his Power and Community Structure, op. cit.
30 This judgment of the centrality of functional analysis comes from several sources, for example, Gideon Sjoberg in an illuminating study: The Preindustrial City (1960). Pertinent to the present essay are chapters 5, 7, 8, dealing with social class, economic structure, and political structure.
31 This, and a considerable range of problems significant to political science, are explored in S. M. Lipset, “Political Sociology,” in Merton, op. cit. For Parsons directly on the problems of political science, see his essays: “Some Highlights of the General Theory of Action,” in R. Young (ed.) op. cit.; and “‘Voting’ and the Equilibrium of the American Political System,” in Burdick, Eugene and Broadbeck, Arthur (eds.), American Voting Behavior (1959)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also, Mitchell, William, “The Polity and Society: A Structural-Functional Analysis,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, Vol. II (Nov. 1958), pp. 403–420 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
32 See Hanson, Robert C., “Predicting a Community Decision: A Test of the Miller-Form Theory,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 24 (1959), pp. 662–671 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
33 The problem of finding examinable indexes (or manifestations) of social processes becomes increasingly important to the social sciences as they move from a study of institutions whose empirical referents are closer at hand, and thus more “concrete,” to patterns of behavior whose empirical referent is increasingly abstracted. (For example, as sociology has moved from a study of family, church, etc. to problems such as stratification; and as political science has moved from what Leiserson describes as a reification of the state to the processes of politics. Leiserson, Avery, Parties and Politics (1958)Google Scholar, esp. chs. 1–3.)
The physical sciences have a long tradition of epiphenomenal examination, as James Conant demonstrates in several of his historical studies of science. See, for example, his reconstruction of Pascal's attempt to demonstrate by hypotheticodeduction that air has weight: If air has weight, it will be less heavy above the earth than close to it; if it is less heavy above, then it ought not to move a column of mercury on a mountain as high as it moves the barometric column at sealevel. And so on, down the chain of extrapolations, until the now celebrated experiment in which a tube of mercury is carried to the top of the Puy de Dome. Conant, James B., On Understanding Science (Mentor, Ed., 1958), pp. 41–73 Google Scholar; Modern Science and Modern Man (1952). Also see Reichenbach, Hans, The Rise of Scientific Philosophy (1951)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Hanson, N. R., Patterns of Scientific Discovery (1958)Google Scholar.
Lest the method of the extrapolated hypotheses be discounted for use in political science, it might be noted here that much of the success of V. O. Key's demonstration of ideological, historical and other relationships within southern politics proceeds by use (sub silentio) of this method. The chain of extrapolations is especially strong in chapter 3. See Key, V. O., Southern Politics (1950)Google Scholar.
34 Hunter, Floyd, et al., Community Organization: Action and Inaction (1956)Google Scholar. The quotation, directed as a criticism of Hunter, is from Nelson Polsby, “Three Problems in the Analysis of Community Power,” op. cit., p. 803.
35 Form and D'Antonio, op. cit.; Miller, op. cit.
36 Form and D'Antonio, op. cit., suggest the possibility that the “shape” of the power structure may be a response to the value structure of the community. (See note 39, below) And with this suggestion, the game is once again afoot. Can the power profiles of specific studies be checked against the “style” of community life? Hunter's regional city is set in a section of the country where hierarchy is traditional; so too, his study of New England. Texas, with its oil and cattle baron traditions, is consonant with our check list; but Pacific city is not. Etc.
37 Schulze, op. cit.
38 Barth, E. T. A. and Abu-Laban, B., “Power Structure and the Negro Subcommunity,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 24 (1959), pp. 69–76 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Klapp and Padgett, op. cit.
39 Form and D'Antonio, op. cit., and Miller, op. cit. Also, Klapp and Padgett, op. cit. These studies, dealing with English, Mexican and American communities, reinforce the proposition that such pyramidal aspects of American power structures (as do exist) reflect the American business ideology and pattern of political decentralization; while the nationalization of political life in Mexico and England, plus a lesser concern for the business ethic there are integrated with non-economic power structures.
40 The problems of distortion and scope are perennial and persistent. They have probably been most fully fought over in historical explanation, especially since the advent of Ranke's historicism. When, for example, the conceptual scheme utilizes Weberian “ideal types” the attendant problem becomes that of determining to what degree the types are concrete and to what degree analytic. See the treatment of this problem by Don Martindale, “Sociological Theory and the Ideal Type,” in Gross, op. cit. Cf. the discussion of concrete and analytic structures in Richard Snyder, “A Decision-Making Approach to the Study of Political Phenomena,” in R. Young, op. cit. When the conceptual scheme is no more than a metaphor, these problems are not more easily disposed of: they are merely brought more readily to the forefront of discussion. See the informative introduction to Brinton, Crane, The Anatomy of Revolution (Vintage, ed., 1952)Google Scholar. Cf. the “styles” of history laid out in Meyerhoff, Hans, The Philosophy of History in Our Time (1959)Google Scholar. Perhaps the most aphoristic statement of the problem, however, is contained in the evocation and caveat of Pollock and Maitland: “Such is the unity of all history that anyone who endeavors to tell a piece of it must feel that his first sentence tears a seamless web ….” On the place of the conceptual scheme in political science see Van Dyke, Vernon, Political Science: A Philosophical Analysis (1960)Google Scholar, chs. 6, 9.
41 On testing of epiphenomena, see footnote 33, above, and its related text.
42 See note 21, above, and Polsby's references to the attempt of the Dahl study to encompass the fullest possible range of significant variables.
43 Processing the same data through competing conceptual schemes is, surprisingly, a rare operation in political science. A highly interesting example is Roland Young's two books on Congress. The first is a relatively unstructured description; the second, an attempt to examine Congress through the lenses of systems analysis and equilibrium processes. Young, Roland, This is Congress (1946)Google Scholar; and The American Congress (1958).
44 The controlling reference is Karl Mannheim's concept of the sociology of knowledge as found, mainly, in Ideology and Utopia (Harvest, ed., 1936)Google Scholar. See also Madge, John, The Tools of Social Science (1953)Google Scholar, esp. ch. 1; and Hook, Sidney, “Naturalism and First Principles,” in Hook, Sidney (ed.), American Philosphers at Work Google Scholar. Mannheim's central concerns are the social processes. Using the perspectives of quantum mechanics and Cambridge philosophy, Norwood Hanson, op. cit., presents a lucid examination of developmental validation for the physical sciences. See especially his chapter V on the validation of the theories of Newtonian mechanics. For an anthropologist's view of this matter see White, Leslie, The Science of Culture (1949)Google Scholar, esp. chs. 1 and 5.
44a Hunter's original study, in fact, contains data that constitute corroborating evidence for his power structure. The study, for example, treats the disposition of political issues; the relationship of status to power; and further builds an anecdotal chain that reinforces basic conclusions. Admittedly, neither Hunter nor many of his followers exploit the full possibilities of such data; but it also must be said that they are in the presence of a mode of verification that, while traditional to the social sciences, demands the most careful use of inference. This mode of verification, familiar to historians and lawyers as the “weight of evidence,” has severe limitations; but it does occupy an honorable place in the broad spectrum of verification. It is separated in degree, but not absolutely, from such methods as the laboratory experiment (cell design) and concomitant variation. And essentially, this separation is marked by the degree of probability that binds the association of factors being examined—with the highest probability generally assigned to association emerging from cell design verification. Thus, it may be possible for a sympathetic critic to re-work Hunter (and some of his followers), attempting to bolster his “sociometrics” with the evidence that lies within his more general community description.
45 On the problems of extending the map of political knowledge see Lasswell, Harold, “Strategies of Inquiry: The Rational Use of Observation,” in Lerner, Daniel, ed.; The Human Meaning of the Social Sciences (1959)Google Scholar.
46 See the trenchant essay by Lazersfeld, Paul in Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 13 (1949)Google Scholar.
47 Robert Merton, “Notes on Problem Finding in Sociology,” in Sociology Today, op. cit., pp. xv–xvi.
48 See the argument in MacIver, Robert, Social Causation (1942)Google Scholar. On physical science's abandonment of questions framed as “why,” see Andrade, E. N., An Approach to Modern Physics (1957)Google Scholar; cf. the chapter on causality in Hanson, op. cit.
49 See Cohen, Morris, A Preface to Logic (1956)Google Scholar, esp. chs. 6–8.
50 The literature on functional analysis is extensive. An originating exposition is Merton, Robert, “Manifest and Latent Functions,” in his Social Theory and Social Structure (1949)Google Scholar. See also the essay by Alvin Gouldner, op. cit.; and the treatment given in Becker, Howard and Boskoff, Alvin (eds.), Modern Sociological Theory (1957)Google Scholar. Related theories are systems analysis and equilibrium analysis. Two especially useful essays are: Miller, James G., “A General Theory for Behavioral Science,” American Psychologist, Vol. 10 (1955)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Easton, David, “An Approach to the Analysis of Political Systems,” World Politics, Vol. 9 (1957), pp. 383–400 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
For critical comments on functionalism see Carl Hempel, “The Logic of Functional Analysis,” in Gross, op. cit., and Davis, Kingsley, “The Myth of Functional Analysis,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 24 (1959), pp. 757–772 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
Of special pertinence to political science is the potential of functional analysis for offering a mode of verification for relationships that are not quantifiable. Talcott Parsons goes so far as to suggest that functional analysis may stand as a substitute for the mathematics that makes possible “simultaneous dynamic analysis of several variables in a complex system.” See his Essays in Sociological Theory (1949), ch. 2.
51 Cf. Mill's method of difference, and (by way of example) the suggestion that party differences in England and the French Third Republic are to be accounted for by the instrument of dissolution in England (and not in France). See Mill, J. S., A System of Logic (1842)Google Scholar; and the glosses to be found in Greenwood, Ernest, Experimental Sociology (1945), especially ch. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hatt, Paul and Goode, William, Methods in Social Research (1952)Google Scholar, chs. 6 and 7.
52 For example, Fred Riggs' useful attempt to proceed to analysis by way of Weber's ideal types, “Agraria and Industria—Toward a Typology of Comparative Administration,” in Siffin, William (ed.), Toward the Comparative Study of Public Administration (1957)Google Scholar; and Apter's, David “boxfilling” structural-functional analysis, “A Comparative Method for the Study of Politics,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 64 (1958), pp. 221–237 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The enlightening essays of Gabriel Almond are especially pertinent here. See for example, “Comparative Political Systems,” Journal of Politics, Vol. 18 (1956), pp. 391–409 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A recent textbook using a form of functional analysis is Beer, Samuel, Ulam, Adam, et al., Patterns of Government (1958)Google Scholar.
Richly suggestive is the comparative method used by anthropological linguists who can play a kind of “twenty questions” game designed to identify certain basic linguistic characteristics; and then, on the basis of known correspondences (“patterns of structural associations”) can usually explain (i.e., predict) the remaining language features with considerable accuracy. See a description of this comparative method by Kluckhohn, Clyde, “Common Humanity and Diverse Cultures,” in Lerner, Daniel, The Human Meaning of the Social Sciences (1959)Google Scholar; also, Brown, Roger, Words and Things (1960)Google Scholar.
To suggest still another theoretical congruence: to develop power-structure syndromes by utilizing comparative perspectives would also create certain interesting parallels with theories of art form (and styles) developed by art historians. See, for example, Panofsky, Erwin, Meaning in the Visual Arts (1957)Google Scholar, esp. ch. 2.
53 Political scientists striving for reductionsim would not consider a unit of government as molecular. Their concerns for the “atoms” of politics lead them to conceptual frameworks such as power, decision-making, and group bases. On parsimony in general see Braithwaite, R. B., Scientific Explanation (1953), p. 67 Google Scholar.
54 On retroduction, see Hanson, op. cit., pp. 85ff.
55 Cf. William Goode and Paul Hatt, op. cit., p. 12: “Since theory summarizes the known facts and predicts facts which have not yet been observed, it must also point to areas which have not yet been explored … the simple fact of prediction suggests where to test our knowledge.”
56 J. Leiper Freeman builds an interesting typology of party systems in “Local Party Systems: Theoretical Considerations and a Case Analysis,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 64 (1958), pp. 282–289 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. His basic dimensions are stability and cohesion.
57 Peter Rossi, “Power and Community Structure,” op. cit.
Another and highly interesting typological series is developed by Barth, E. T. A. and Johnson, S. D., “Community Power and a Typology of Social Issues,” Social Forces, Vol. 38 (1957), pp. 29–33 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This typology, growing out of a pilot study, employs five dimensions of social issues: uniqueness, saliency to political leaders, saliency to publics, possibilities for effective action, cosmopolitan qualities of the issue.
58 See Mansfield, Harvey C., “Research in Public Administration,” in Waldo, Dwight (ed.), The Research Function of University Bureaus and Institutes for Government-Relaled Research (1960), p. 20 Google Scholar. Cf. Hanson, op. cit., ch. 3, for a physicist's view; and Murphy, Gardner, Human Potentialities (1958)Google Scholar, Part III, for a psychologist's view of “The Yen to Discovery.”
59 In addition to the by-now familiar studies themselves, there are several excellent summaries and analyses: Peter Rossi, “Four Landmarks in Voting Research,” in Burdick and Broadbeck, op. cit.; S. M. Lipset, P. Lazarsfeld, et al., “The Psychology of Voting: Analysis of Political Behavior,” in Gardner Lindzey, op. cit., Vol. II; Rossiter, Clinton, Politics and Parties in America (1960)Google Scholar.
60 See Lane, Robert, Political Life: Why People Get Involved in Politics (1960)Google Scholar; Hyman, Herbert, Political Socialization (1959)Google Scholar and the essays, largely of psychological dimension, in Burdick and Broadbeck, op. cit. For an outrageously witty, and vice versa, review by an anti-positivist, see the essay by Berns, Walter in the Midwest Journal of Political Science, Vol. 3 (August 1957)Google Scholar. Stimulating essays on the directions being taken by those who are now emptying residual categories are to be found in Waldo, op. cit., especially the articles by Peter Odegard, Avery Leiserson, and Frank Pinner. See also the latest voting study by Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip et al., The American Voter (1960)Google Scholar; and some cautionary advice by Key, V. O., “The Politically Relevant in Surveys,” Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 24 (Spring, 1960), pp. 54–61 Google Scholar.
61 See, for example, Lasswell's, Harold presidential address, “The Political Science of Science,” this Review, Vol. 50 (Dec. 1956), pp. 961–977 Google Scholar; and Lasswell, Harold and Lerner, Daniel (eds.), The Policy Sciences (1951)Google Scholar. Cf. Millikan, Max, “Inquiry and Policy: The Relation of Knowledge to Action,” in Lerner, Daniel (ed.), The Human Meaning of the Social Sciences (1959)Google Scholar.
62 Popper, Karl, The Open Society and its Enemies (1952), Vol. II, pp. 96 ffGoogle Scholar. For another generalized model, see Lasswell, Harold, “Technic of Decision Seminars,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, Vol. 14 (Aug. 1960), pp. 213–236 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
63 Collingwood, R. G., The Idea of History (Galaxy, ed., 1956), pp. 266 ffGoogle Scholar. Collingwood writes a delightful pastiche of the detective story, using it to suggest that historical evidence is akin to the detective's evidence; and that answers to historical questioning proceed by asking “a new question every time” (p. 273).
That proper questioning is a requisite of proper knowledge is explored more fully by the logical positivists and their related schools; see, for example, A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic (Dover ed.) and Ayer, , The Problem of Knowledge (1956)Google Scholar.
64 It is suggested that these questions will be answered most fully through the manipulative typologies described above. They will also get partial and highly useful answers simply from the amassing of the evidence that pertains to them. This conclusion is, in fact, buttressed by a reading of three recent and stimulating publications: Lee, Eugene, The Politics of Nonpartisanship (1960)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Salisbury, Robert, “St. Louis Politics: Relationships Among Interests, Parties and Governmental Structure,” Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 13 (June, 1960), pp. 498–507 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Wood, Robert, Suburbia (1959)Google Scholar. Wood's study helps document the range of relationships between integrated power structures and community social integration; Lee's study suggests some of the relationships between non-partisan elections and upper-class political domination; and Salisbury helps document the relationship between power structure and a particular institutional structure (city-county quasi-consolidation).
65 The language employed in the text above is deliberately traditional. To speak of the introduction of a manager system as “working” change is seemingly to turn one's back upon prior strictures against assuming an easy chain of causation. More precise language would require some statement to the effect that a change in one institution may reveal some concomitant changes in other institutions, changes that are associated with a network of intervening variables. But the problem raised here is only partially that of language: to “banish” causality from discourse is not to hide from the fact that changes do take place, i.e., that a system is thrown out of equilibrium. Nor does this banishment dissolve the fact that in a situation of change, certain factors are more proximate to the change than are others. The problem, for the social scientist who would also be policy advisor, is: (a) to work with the recognition that any mechanistic view of change requires a mode of proof that is impossibly rigorous; but (b) to make such reasonable inferences from his patterns of association as will satisfy the needs of social action. In the familiar example of infinite regression John Doe shoots Mary Roe. What shall be identified as the “cause” of her death: A ruptured spleen? A wad of lead? A pervious skin? A gun? or John Doe's trigger finger? Etc. A political scientist who votes to hang the finger might, at very least, find future demand for his services considerably diminished.
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