The Semi-Sovereign Pressure Groups: A Critique of Current Theory and an Alternative Typology

The Journal of Politics

Volumn 40, Issue 1, 1978, Pages 134-161

  Hayes, Michael T ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84976040975     PISSN: 00223816     EISSN: 14682508     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2129979     Document Type: Article

References (101)

1. Raymond A. Bauer, Ithiel de Sola Pool, and Lewis Anthony Dexter, American Business and Public Policy (2nd ed., Chicago: Aldine-Atherton, 1972).
2. Bauer, Pool, and Dexter, 456-457. Dexter, in particular, has written extensively concerning the tendency for theories to become fashionable within academic disciplines and, in the process, to gain widespread currency as something approaching caricatures of the more sophisticated, and cautious, formulations of their originators. Thus, even as American Business and Public Policy was advanced as a counter to the simplistic, but fashionable, pressure group model of politics, the authors fully recognized the possibility that their alternative conception might in time become fashionable in caricature. In this regard, Dexter has stressed the need for what he termed “countervailing intellectual power,” roughly translated as an admonition to treat any conventional wisdom with a healthy skepticism. See his “On the Use and Abuse of Social Science by Practitioners,” The American Behavioral Scientist, 19 (November 1965), 25-29, and
3. The Sociology and Politics of Congress (Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1969), Chapter IX
4. “Models and Comparisons in the Study of Congress,” 179-183, and Chapter X
5. “Toward an Evaluation of Analogies for Interpreting and Studying the Congress: An Effort at Historical and Anthropological Explanation,” 184-210.
6. See Leroy N. Rieselbach, Congressional Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973), 204. A particularly telling illustration is provided by
7. Randall B. Ripley, Congress: Process and Policy (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1975), Chapter 8
8. “Congress, Interest Groups, and Constituents,” 201-223. In an effort to present a more balanced view, Ripley advances a variety of conditions for interest group influence (210-212): unity (or lack thereof) of the groups seeking the benefits, visibility of the issue, presence or absence of sympathetic ears in key congressional. or executive branch positions, etc. While his conditions are all very appealing, to the point of being almost commonsensical, what is most significant about them is their virtually complete lack of footnote references. Coming from so thorough a scholar of the legislative process as Ripley, this suggests that there is nowhere in the existing literature any systematic attempt to specify the conditions for group influence.
9. E. E. Schattschneider, Politics, Pressures, and the Tariff (New York: Atherton, 1935), 135-136.
10. Stanley S. Surrey, “How Special Tax Provisions Get Enacted,” in Public Policies and their Politics, ed. Randall B. Ripley (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1966), 51-60, and
11. Bruce Ian Oppenheimer, Oil and the Congressional Process (Lexington: D. C. Heath, Lexington Books, 1974). This book originally appeared as
12. “The Effects of Policy Variation on Interest Group Behavior in the Congressional Process: The Oil Industry in Two Domestic Issues” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1973). All page references herein will refer to the dissertation.
13. For an early work on the subject, see Samuel P. Huntington, “Clientelism: A Study in Administrative Politics” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1950). More recently, see
14. J. Leiper Freeman, The Political Process: Executive-Legislative Committee Relations (2nd ed.; New York: Random House, 1965), and
15. Francis E. Rourke, Bureaucracy, Politics, and Public Policy (2nd ed.; Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1976), especially Chapter 3
16. “The Mobilization of Political Support,” 42-80.
17. Theodore J. Lowi, “American Business, Public Policy, Case Studies, and Political Theory,” World Politics, 16 (July 1964), 677-715.
18. For a fuller discussion of the weaknesses of Lowi's typology, see Michael T. Hayes, “An Economic Theory of Interest Groups and Public Policy” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1977), especially Chapter 3
19. “Does Policy Area Make a Difference?” 38-73.
20. For a thorough review of these efforts, see Hayes, 38-53, and
21. Lewis A. Froman, Jr., “The Categorization of Policy Contents,” in Political Science and Public Policy, ed. Austin Ranney (Chicago: Markham, 1968), 41-52. My own typology most closely resembles two efforts by Robert Salisbury: “The Analysis of Public Policy: A Search for Theories and Roles,” also in Ranney, 151175, and (with
22. John P. Heinz), “A Theory of Policy Analysis and Some Preliminary Applications,” in Policy Analysis in Political Science, ed. Ira Sharkansky (Chicago: Markham, 1970), 39-59. For Lowi's own subsequent efforts to expand his original typology, see his
23. “Decision Making vs. Policy-Making: Toward an Antidote for Technocracy,” Public Administration Review, 30 (May/June 1970), 314-325, and
24. “Four Systems of Policy, Politics, and Choice,” Public Administration Review, 32 (July/August 1972), 298-310. While Lowi does introduce a fourth policy area into this new typology, it is no more clearly defined than the others, and he is explicitly content in defining those to rely on footnote references to his original work. For a particularly insightful recent application of Lowi's typology, see
25. Randall B. Ripley and Grace A. Franklin, Congress, the Bureaucracy, and Public Policy (Homewood, 111.: Dorsey Press, 1976). Ripley and Franklin modify Lowi's original categories somewhat, but they do not really go beyond the cataloguing of attributes that characterized Lowi's effort. For an application of Lowi's typology to the comparative context, see
26. T. Alexander Smith, “Toward a Comparative Theory of the Policy Process,” Comparative Politics, 1 (July 1969), 498-515.
27. Bauer, Pool, and Dexter, 460-461.
28. Bauer, Pool, and Dexter, 324.
29. David B. Truman, The Governmental Process (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1951), 511-513.
30. Mancur Olson, Jr., The Logic of Collective Action (New York: Schocken Books, 1970).
31. Robert Salisbury, “An Exchange Theory of Interest Groups,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, 13 (February 1969), 1-32.
32. Bauer, Pool, and Dexter, 211 and 221.
33. Schattschneider, Pressures, 114-115.
34. John W. Kingdon, Congressmen's Voting Decisions (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), 142.
35. Robert L. Ross, “Dimensions and Patterns of Relations Among Interest Groups at the Congressional Level of Government” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Michigan State University, 1962), 281. See also Ross's
36. “Relations Among National Interest Groups,” Journal of Politics, 32 (February 1970), 96-114.
37. Ross, “Dimensions,” 285-286.
38. Bauer, Pool, and Dexter, 426-427.
39. Bauer, Pool, and Dexter, 455.
40. Salisbury and Heinz, 47-48.
41. Salisbury and Heinz, 48.
42. Salisbury explicitly rejected such a formulation in his original typology (“The Analysis of Public Policy,” 158-159), on the grounds that even most redistributive policies are actually formulated in non-zero-sum games. While Salisbury is absolutely correct on this point, as will be made clear later in this essay, the zero-sum vs. non-zero-sum distinction nonethless offers advantages over Salisbury's own formulation, insofar as it addresses itself explicitly to the fundamental importance of opposition.
43. Salisbury and Heinz, 43.
44. Theodore J. Lowi, The End of Liberalism (New York: W. W. Norton, and Co., Inc., 1969), and
45. The Politics of Disorder (New York: Basic Books, 1971).
46. Lowi, Liberalism, especially Chapter 5, “Liberal Jurisprudence: Policy Without Law,” 125-156.
47. Lowi, Disorder, 59.
48. Murray Edelman, The Symbolic Uses of Politics (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1964), 141. See also his Politics as
49. Symbolic Action (Chicago: Markham, 1971).
50. Bauer, Pool, and Dexter, especially Chapter 9, “The Roots of Conviction -Self-Interest and Ideology,” 127-153.
51. Grant McConnell, Private Power and American Democracy (New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 1970), especially Chapter 8
52. “Self-Regulation: The Politics of Business,” 246-297.
53. George J. Stigler, “The Theory of Economic Regulation,” The Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science, 2 (Spring 1971), 3-21.
54. Merle Fainsod, Lincoln Gordon, and Joseph C. Palamountain, Jr., Government and the American Economy (New York: W. W. Norton, Inc., 1959 ed.), 427-528. See also
55. McConnell, Private Power, 246-297.
56. David R. Mayhew, Congress: The Electoral Connection (New Haven: Yale, 1974), 53-59.
57. Surrey, “Special Tax Provisions,” op. cit.
58. Arthur A. Maass, “Congress and Water Resources,” American Political Science Review, 44 (September 1950), 576-593.
59. John Ferejohn, Pork Barrel Politics: Rivers and Harbors Legislation, 1947-68 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974).
60. Mayhew, 111-116.
61. Peter Bachrach and Morton S. Baratz, Power and Poverty: Theory and Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970).
62. See, for example, the exchanges between Bachrach and Baratz and Geoffrey Debnam in American Political Science Review, 69 (September 1975), 889-907.
63. Matthew A. Crenson, The Un-Politics of Air Pollution (Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1971).
64. Oppenheimer, op. cit.
65. Mark V. Nadel, The Politics of Consumer Protection (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1971), 224.
66. Lowi, Liberalism, Chapter 5, “Liberal Jurisprudence: Policy Without Law,” 125-156, and
67. Edelman, Symbolic Uses, Chapter 2
68. “Symbols and Political Quiescence,” 22-43. Instances in which industries actively seek regulation and, in the absence of opposition, obtain governmentally sanctioned authority to set their own prices through “rate boards,” might better be classified as examples of self-regulation.
69. Morris P. Fiorina, Representatives, Roll Calls, and Constituencies (Lexington: D. C. Heath, Lexington Books, 1975).
70. Fiorina, 44-66.
71. Fiorina, 69-87.
72. It is extremely rare for more than ten percent of all incumbents seeking reelection to Congress to lose in any given year. See Ripley, Congress: Process and Policy, 193-195.
73. Edelman, Symbolic Uses, 22-25.
74. Oppenheimer, 251-255.
75. Francis Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, Regulating the Poor (New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 1971). See also
76. Richard A. Cloward and Francis Fox Piven, “The Professional Bureaucracies: Benefit Systems as Influence Systems,” in their The Politics of Turmoil (New York: Random House, 1974), 7-27.
77. Cloward and Piven, “Benefit Systems,” 13-14.
78. Piven and Cloward, Regulating the Poor, especially Chapter 1
79. “Relief, Labor, and Civil Disorder: An Overview,” 3-44, and Chapter 9
80. “The Great Society and Relief: Federal Intervention,” 248-284.
81. On this point, see Kenneth Boulding, “The Many Failures of Success,” Saturday Review, November 23, 1968, 29-31. See also
82. Daniel P. Moynihan, The Politics of a Guaranteed Income (New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 1973), 302-327, as well as his
83. “The Crises in Welfare,” reprinted in his Coping (New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 1975), 134-166.
84. Roger Noll, Reforming Regulation (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 1971), 47-52.
85. Charles E. Lindblom, “The Science of Muddling Through,” Public Administration Review, 19 (Spring 1959), 79-88, and
86. The Intelligence of Democracy (New York: Free Press, 1965).
87. Edwin Witte, The Development of the Social Security Act (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1963); and
88. Theodore R. Marmor, The Politics of Medicare (Chicago: Aldine, 1973).
89. Marmor, 15-16.
90. Moynihan, Politics of a Guaranteed Income, 152-160 and 302-345.
91. Fainsod, Gordon, and Palamountain, 525-543.
92. E. E. Schattschneider, The Semi-Sovereign People (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1960), especially Chapter I
93. “The Contagiousness of Conflict,” 1-19.
94. Sidney Verba and Norman H. Nie, Participation in America (New York: Harper and Row, 1972).
95. Oppenheimer, 247-308.
96. Edelman, Symbolic Uses, 152-171.
97. Olson, Logic, passim.
98. Ripley and Franklin, 92-93.
99. Schattschneider, Pressures, 288-289.
100. Schattschneider, Semi-Sovereign People, especially 47-61.
101. Schattschneider, Semi-Sovereign People, 56-57.