Comment: On Issues and Nonissues in the Study of Power

Abstract

This essay attempts to be at once a comment on some of the many significant points raised in Professor Wolfinger's article and a statement of a perspective on the issue of the “nonissue” in community power analysis. It is not, however, intended as another salvo in the “elitist-pluralist controversy.”The dispute between “elitists,” “pluralists,” “neo-elitists,” “neopluralists?” et al. has been much with us. A number of valuable ideas regarding approaches and methods for power analysis have, of course, emerged from the debate, especially in its earlier stages. With them, however, seems to have come a conspicuous friction which, I believe, increasingly impedes research. The main problem, as it strikes this noncombatant, is that each side has been reluctant to grant much to the other, while the language has been painfully polemical at times. To one who has learned from both camps and wants to advance the assault on persistent problems rather than on each other, the quarrel has become unfortunate. Debating points often obfuscate truly important issues for power analysis.

Does Economic Inequality Depress Electoral Participation? Testing the Schattschneider Hypothesis

“…Unfortunately the intervening variable is, as a practical matter, unobservable: an issue may be absent from politics because it has been crowded out by debates among wealthier citizens or because it is simply a matter of consensus (Wolfinger 1971;Debnam 1975). 2 One might assume that particular issues, such as the extent of redistribution, are objectively of great import to all citizens and conclude that, to the degree these issues do not appear among the cleavages that structure politics, they are being suppressed (Frey 1971(Frey , p. 1096(Frey -1097. But any such assumption, even regarding redistribution, would be open to challenge as being ideologically rather than empirically grounded (Polsby 1963, p. 22-23).…”

Power Resources Approach vs. Action and Conflict: On Causal and Intentional Explanations in the Study of Power

“…As is well-known they introduced the concepts "nonissues" and "non-decision-making" to refer to such processes neglected in the behavioral tradition. However, these critics remained close to the behavioral tradition in conceptualizing power as behavior tied to manifest conflict (Bachrach and Baratz 1962Baratz , 1963Baratz , 1970 cf also Frey 1971).4 The neo-elitist approach thus largely remained limited to the causal mode of explanation, while extending the explanans-the exercise of power-to include also less easily observable behavior.…”

Linkage Models, Issues, and Community Politics

“…See Wolfinger (1971) and Frei (1971) for a detailed discussion of the problems involved in analyzing "nondecisions "…”