Socio-Economic StructureVs. Political Democracy

SOCIO-ECONOMIC STRUCTURE vs. POLITICAL DEMOCRACY
The Case ofthe United States

K. RANGA RAO
Lecturer in Sociology, Andhra University, Waltair

The United States of America is considered the first successful modern democratic country in the world. Tocqueville praised the country for its democracy, local self-government and voluntary associations. The constitution with its separation of powers and declaration of freedom of speech and association for each citizen strongly advocates the establishment of a democratic and pluralistic society. However, of late, Some thinkers, mainly sociologists, voiced concern about the growth of ‘power elite’ and ‘monolithic power structure’ in the country. Notable among them G. Wright Mills declared that the U. S. A. as a whole is ruled only by a small ‘power elite’. He wrote: “America is now in considerable part more a formal political democracy than a democratic social structure, and even the formal Political mechanisms are weak. The long-time trend of business and government to become more intricately and deeply involved with each other has, in this epoch, reached a point of explicitness not before evident.” ¹

Floyd Hunter pointed out that the nucleus of top Power structure of the U. S. A. constitutes not more than three hundred people at most and that there are only about a hundred ‘number-one’ men who can be considered the top echelon of power. ² Lipset writes that the “percentage of the potential electorate voting in national American elections is now considerably below what it was in 1896, when 80 per cent of those eligible went to the polls. From a low in 1920 of 49 per cent, in more recent elections the figure has oscillated around 60 per cent. As the political scientist V. O. Key, Jr. points out, this is considerably lower than the participation in other major democracies like Great Britain, Holland and Norway. ³

Besides such studies at the national level, studies of community leadership and decision-making throw more light on the functioning of democracy at the community level. A number of sociologists, political scientists and also economists are taking more and more interest in such studies with the basic belief that the development and maintenance of democratic institutions at the national level rests upon viable democratic patterns at the local community level. Social workers too began to take interest in such studies in view of the fact that much of community organisation, its success or failure, is linked up with the nature of the community power structure.

It was Floyd Hunter’s study of a Southern Regional City that made a tremendous impact in this field even though long before him the Lynds ⁴ have reported that leadership and influence in Middletown were virtually vested in only one large business family. Hunter found in the Regional City a very limited number of businessmen who weilded a great deal of influence over a number of community issues and problems.⁵ A major breakthrough then came with Dahl’s study of New Haven.⁶ Dahl mainly tried to analyse whether or not the same set of people influenced decisions in various fields of the community. In his study Dahl employed the method of ‘event’ or ‘issue’ analysis as against the ‘reputational’ approach of Hunter. His analysis of important decisions revealed the fact that political leaders also played important roles in certain spheres of community life and that the business leaders had no monopoly as such. Since Dahl thus found little overlap between the leaders he concluded that New Haven represented a pluralistic society unlike the monolithic power structure of Hunter’s Regional City. However, it is pertinent to note that Dahl came to the conclusion as he did in spite of the fact that he found only a few leaders at the top and there was very limited participation in elections or in voluntary organisations on the part of the public at large.

In their subsequent studies the researchers adopted both reputational and decisional approaches. These later studies also made refinements in their analyses of leadership patterns. Freeman and his colleagues analysed as many as 39 decisions and concluded that: “If Syracuse ever was a monolithic community, it is very far from that today. But it is equally far from what high school civics texts portray as a local democracy with an active and effective citizenry.” ⁷ Bonjean ⁸ found visible, concealed and symbolic leaders in a North Carolina city. Similarly, Freeman and his colleagues classified leaders into institutional leaders, effectors, and activists. Such analyses undoubtedly explain more in detail about the characteristics and ground ofthe community leaders but do not basically differ in their views as to the very nature of the community leadership.

Robert Presthus, a political scientist, systematically compared two communities so as to find out the extent of pluralistic characteristics in each. He employed both the methods of ‘reputation’ and’ decisions’, and found them together useful in the analysis of community power structure. To him the indexes of pluralism were: group membership, individual participation, and organisational participation. His conclusions are highly instructive. He wrote: “Our findings in Edgewood generally support earlier research of sociologists who found a tendency toward eliticism in community power structures which were usually dominated by economic elites. In Riverview, the decision structure remains highly concentrated, but political leaders play the major role. Regarding the restriction of active participation to the few, the more recent findings of political scientists are quite similar.” ⁹ Commenting upon the assumptions made and conclusions arrived at by Dahl and other political scientists, Presthus wrote: “…..historical emphasis upon individualism and a rough equality of bargaining power among groups has been subjugated to the assumption that pluralism exists if specialisation and competition characterize groups of leaders who constitute some one-half of 1 per cent of the community. Certainly this definition meets prevailing conditions of group organization and political access but it seems to omit some of the conditions and normative by-products traditionally associated with pluralism.” ¹⁰ Antonio and Form wrote very succinctly: “Pluralism emerges in the American community (only) when the business-professional groups are successfully challenged by the working class and ethnic groups. Until that occurs, much of what may pass as pluralism may be nothing but a struggle for status among business-professional factions...” ¹¹

The above analysis thus supports the sociological thesis that: “A social structure is, itself, a structure of power...though liberal capitalism has theoretically rested upon individuals, it has factually rested upon classes of like-circumstanced individuals–the classes being erected fundamentally on economic interest and power; and it has been the fact that this social structure of classes has been primarily economic–despite the avowed democratic equality in the social structure and democratic professions of the political institutions.” ¹²

¹ C. Wright Mills: A. Kornhauser (Ed): Problems of Power in American Democracy, Wayne State University Press. 1959. p. 162.
² Bell et al., Public Leadership, Chandler PublishingCompany. 1961. p. 15
³ Lipset, S. M.: Political Man, Anchor Books. 1960. p. 185
⁴ Lynd and Lynd: Middle Town in Transition, New York, Harcourt Brace. 1937.
⁵ Hunter, F.: Community Power Structure, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press.
⁶ Dahl, R. A.: Who Governs, New Hayen, Yale University Press. 1961.
⁷ Freeman, L. C. et al: Metropolitan Decision Making. Syracuse University Press. 1962. p. 27
⁸ Bonjean, C. M: Community Leadership: A case study and conceptual refinement. American Journal of Sociology. May 1963.
⁹ Presthus, R: Men at the Top. Oxford University Press. 1964. p. 430.
¹⁰ Presthus, R: Men at the Top. Oxford University Press. 1964. p. 430
¹¹ Antonio and Form: Influentials in two Border Cities. University of Notre Dame Press. 1965. p. 231.
¹² Lynd, R. C. in Kornhauser (ed), cited. P. 23-24