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Power in New Haven: A Reassessment of ‘Who Governs?’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Peter Morriss
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Extract

One of the issues that has dominated American political science in the last twenty years has been the debate between those who assert that America is ruled by an elite, and those who believe that the pluralist model is a more accurate description. Robert Dahl, who is the most influential of the pluralists, has attacked ‘elitists’ on two fronts: negatively, he has argued that they misperceive the nature of power and are sloppy in their criteria for determining a ruling elite; positively, in Who Governs?,he has attempted to apply his own conceptualization of power to an American community and thus give empirical backing to the pluralist model.

Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 2 , Issue 4 , October 1972 , pp. 457 - 465
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

1 Dahl, R. A., ‘The Concept of Power’, Behavioral Science, II (1957), 201–15.Google Scholar

2 Dahl, R. A., ‘A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model’, American Political Science Review, LII (1958), 463–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Dahl, R. A., Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961).Google Scholar

4 See, for example, Bachrach, P. and Baratz, M., ‘Two Faces of Power’, American Political Secience Review, LVI (1962), 947–52.CrossRefGoogle ScholarBachrach, P. and Baratz, M., ‘Decisions and Nondecisions: An Analytical Framework’, American Political Science Review, LVII (1968), 129–37Google Scholar. Nagel, J. H., ‘Some Questions About the Concept in the Notion of Power’, Behavioral Science, XIII (1968), 129–37.CrossRefGoogle ScholarRiker, W. H., ‘Some Ambigiguities in the Notion of Power’, American Political Science Review, LVIII (1964), 341–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarWrong, D. H., ‘Some Problems defining Social Power’, American Journal of Socoology, LXXIII (1967–8), 673–81.Google Scholar For a view similar to Dahl’s seePolsby, N. W., ‘How to Study Community Power: The Pluralist Alternative’, Journal of Politics, XXII (1960), 474–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Dahl, , ‘The Concept of Power’, p. 202.Google Scholar

6 Dahl, , ‘The Concept of Power’, pp. 209–14.Google Scholar

7 Dahl, , ‘The Concept of Power’, p. 212.Google Scholar

8 Dahl, , Who Governs?, p. 66.Google Scholar

9 Whilst Dahl does not say what he means by ‘vetoes’, I understand it to mean that one person, or at least a minority, successfully prevents a measure being passed. Although somebody who vetoes a policy is undoubtedly powerful, I would have thought that the counterpart of successfully initiating a policy is successfully initiating opposition to it. But perhaps that is what Dahl meant.

10 For example, Sidney Silverman's bill abolishing hanging was heading for failure until the government rearranged the order of business to ensure that it passed. Sidney Silverman was an energetic MP, but he did not have the power to get his bill through on his own; he had to have government support.

11 Dahl, , Who Governs?, p. 333.Google Scholar

12 Although he conceded that sometimes in research ‘comparable’ decisions could be considered together, criteria for comparability depending on the subject-matter of the research. See Dahl, , ‘The Concept of Power’, pp. 205–9.Google Scholar

13 Dahl, , Who Governs?, p. 64.Google Scholar

14 Dahl almost totally ignores Negroes in Who Governs?. He does bring them in sometimes, as when he writes that ‘like other groups in the community, from Negroes on Dixwell Avenue to teachers in the public schools, sometimes the Notables have their way and sometimes they do not’ (Who Governs?, p. 75). A critic, after quoting this, comments ‘it does not appear, however, that any decision-maker in the years 1950–7 was a Negro’ (Burtenshaw, C. T., ‘The Political Theory of Pluralist Democracy’, Western Political Quarterly, XXI (1968), 579–80).Google Scholar Most of the important issues that came to a head in the early sixties were concerned with the treatment of Negroes — for example, busing, and a dispute about integrating housing estates (Miller, W. L., The Fifteenth Ward and the Great Society (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966)).Google Scholar That the Negroes themselves felt left out is demonstrated by the severe riots in the summer of 1968. Riots are not usually part of a pluralist model.

15 Dahl, , Who Governs?, Chap, 10, particularly pp. 136–7.Google Scholar

16 Dahl, , Who Governs?, pp. 70–1.Google Scholar

17 This term was first coined by Friedrich, C. J. in Constitutional Government and Politics (New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1937), pp. 16–18.Google Scholar

18 Dahl does not define pluralism in any one place, but drops hints widely throughout his writings: see Dahl, R. A., Pluralist Democracy in the United States: Conflict and Consent (Chicago: McNally, 1967) passim, particularly pp. 24, 105, 168, 325–7, 374–9Google Scholar; Dahl, Who Governs?, passim, particularly pp. 169, 228, 283, 305; Dahl, R. A., ‘The Analysis of Influence in Local Communities’, in Adrian, C. R., ed., Social Science and Community Action (East Lansing: Institute for Community Development and Services, Michigan State University, 1961), pp. 33–42.Google ScholarDahl, R. A., ‘Equality and Power in American Society’, in D’antonio, W. V. and Ehrlich, H. J., eds., Power and Democracy in America (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1961), pp. 78, 89Google Scholar; Dahl, R. A., A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Pre 1956), Chaps. 4 and 5.Google Scholar

19 Dahl, , ‘The Concept of Power’, p. 204Google Scholar; Dahl, , ‘A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model’, p. 469.Google Scholar Cf. Nagel, , ‘Some Questions About the Concept of Power’, p. 103Google Scholar; Wrong, , ‘Some Problems Defining Social Power’, p. 679.Google Scholar

20 Dahl, , Who Governs?, p. 130.Google Scholar

21 Dahl, , Who Governs?, p. 131.Google Scholar

22 Dahl, , Who Governs?, p. 137.Google Scholar

23 Dahl, , Who Governs?, p. 138.Google Scholar See also Miller, , The Fifteenth Ward, p. 150Google Scholar, where he says that at the mid-sixties the redevelopment of the city centre looked like being a failure until ‘Lee persuaded Macy’s to open a branch in New Haven. I remember one of Lee’s administrators seemed to be holding his breath through the days of negotiations; “If we hadn’t got Macy’s it would have been just awful,” he admitted with a sigh of relief when it was over’.

24 Dahl, , Who Governs?, pp. 137–8.Google Scholar

25 Dahl, , Who Governs?, p. 131.Google Scholar On p. 71 Dahl gives the total as twenty-four.

26 Dahl, , Who Governs?, p. 133.Google Scholar

27 Dahl, , Who Governs?, p. 117.Google Scholar

28 And in practice the Act encouraged redevelopment for business or expensive housing because ‘in the long run, the profit motive somehow operates as the undesignated but effective legislator while the public obligation is pushed under the rug’ (Abrams, C., The City is the Frontier (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), p. 84Google Scholar). See also Chaps. 5 and 6 for the workings of the Housing Acts, and pp. 122 and 166–7 for the effect of urban renewal on New Haven.

29 Dahl, , Who Governs?, passim, for example pp. 100–1, 115, 165Google Scholar; also Dahl, , Pluralist Democracy in the United States, passim and pp. 105, 130, 376Google Scholar; and Dahl, , ‘Equality and Power in American Society’, pp. 78–9.Google Scholar

30 Dahl, Who Governs?, particularly Chap. 4.

31 Wolfinger, R. E., ‘The Development and Persistence of Ethnic Voting’, American Political Science Review, LIX (1965), 896–908.CrossRefGoogle Scholar