The New American Political (Dis)Order
The New American Political (Dis)Order
An essay by Robert A. Dahl. Introduction by Austin Ranney and responses by Richard M. Abrams, David W. Brady, Patrick Chamorel, and Jack Citrin, 102pp, Book #3539, $10.95
In this important new book, Robert A. Dahl, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Yale, and one of the twentieth century's leading theorists of democracy, argues that the basic structure of the American political system has changed so much in recent years that it has become a truly new order. The new order has two main features:
(1) Power to make binding political decisions is more fragmented as a consequence of the proliferation and increasing power of special interest groups and declining concern for the public interest, the increasing dominance of the media's presentation of politics as conflicts among individuals rather than groups, and the debilitation of such traditional integrating institutions as the political parties and the presidency.
(2) Direct communication between citizens and leaders has increased without a corresponding development of institutions for ensuring representativeness and deliberation. As parties, the presidency, and other intermediating institutions grow weaker, election campaigns and policymaking are increasingly dominated by direct communication devices—radio and television talk shows and televised “town meetings.”
The new order is more plebiscitary, less representative, and less deliberative. It is so much more fragmented and self-defeating that it seems incapable of shaping the coherent and effective policies the nation so badly needs.
What can be done? Dahl sees promise in “the potentialities of selecting random samples of citizens to engage in (possibly televised) meetings in which they deliberate at some length on important political issues and arrive at recommendations.” But, in the end, Dahl the scholar overrides Dahl the reformer, pointing out that political scientists presently lack the theory and evidence to justify any confident prediction that the nation would be better (or worse) off under any particular institutional change up to and including the establishment of a parliamentary regime.