Complementar Easton1950

Harold Lasswell; Policy Scientist for a Democratic Society
Author(s): David Easton

Source: The Journal of Politics, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Aug., 1950), pp. 450-477
Published by: University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Southern Political Science
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HAROLD LASSWELL; POLICY SCIENTIST FOR A
DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY
DAvI EASTON
Tke University of Chicago
In recent years the social sciences have come under attack from
an increasing number of directions. Laymen have been perennially
sceptical of their utility. In fact the social sciences have made so
little impact on the public that to label oneself a political scientist,
sociologist, or anthropologist to all but a small segment of the
population is to invite further questions for clarification of meaning.
Numerous philosophers, on the other hand, have increasingly in-
gi5tcdthatanenduring
systemof generalizations,
comparable
to those
that prevail in the physical or biological sciences, will never be dis-
covered and accordinglya science of man can never really exist. What
is new in the nature of the attack today is that many who are
themselves social scientists and their patrons, the foundations upon
whose largesse the social sciences to a considerable degree depend,
have begun if not to doubt, at least to question, whether the social
sciences can measure up to commonly held expectations.
Two questions pressing upon the social sciences have played a
significant part in bringing about this self-scrutiny. The first is
simple in its formulation but vexing in its solution. Can the social
sciences pass beyond the relativism of the Weberian tradition?1 Can
they say whether the goals of a democratic society are superior to
those of dictatorial communism? To this question the social scientist
has of course traditionally replied that the testing of the relative
merits of ends lies beyond his competence.2 For him the desire of
each man is a datum with which the social scientist must work. And
while he has tolerated the notion that perhaps other disciplines, such
as philosophy, might be able to suggest a universal system of values,
1Leo Strauss, On Tyranny (New York: Political Science Classics, 1948);
Karl Mannheim,Ideology and Utopia (New York: Harcourt,Brace and Com-
pany, Inc., 1936); A. Brecht, "Beyond Relativismin Political Theory,"Ameri-
can Political ScienceReview, 41 (June, 1947), 470-88.
'Cf. Vilfredo Pareto, The Mind and Society (New York: Harcourt, Brace
and Company, 1935), I, para. 1-114; Edward A. Shils and Henry A. Finch
(eds.), Max Weber on Methodology of the Social Sciences (Glencoe, Illinois:
The Free Prpess 194A0)
L450 1
1950] HAROLD LASSWELL; POLICY SCIENTIST 451
he has been secretly satisfied that this is a fruitless expenditure of

human energies. A quick perusal of the works of Harold Lasswell
might easily leave the impression that his own conception of the an-
swer to such a question agrees with this tradition. But a careful
examination brings to light an emerging difference.
The second question is a derivative of the first. Even if ultimate
goals lie beyond the margins of social science, what can the social
scientist tell society about the kind of public policy it ought to adopt
for the attainment of its goals? This question is directed primarily
to the political scientist, since he is concerned with the relation be-
tween the use and distributionof power in the formulationand execu-
tion of social policy. It can be extended equally well to all the social
sciences. Given known goals as a datum, can the political scientist
offer reliable advice concerning the means that ought to be used to
achieve these ends? By reliable advice I mean here advice that
possesses a higher degree of truth-probability than the uncommon
common sense of the statesman. In the writing of Lasswell a two-
fold answer appears: the first part suggests a new conceptual frame-
work for the clarification of policy issues; the second part offers a
suggestion concerning the most profitable mode of using the high-
probability generalizationsso obtained. Since the second part merits
separate extended treatment, I shall not deal with it here.
In the hope of shedding further light on these questions, the pur-
pose of this paper is to evaluate the way in which Lasswell as a
political scientist has been grappling with them.
I. A SCIENTIFIC TEST OF VALUES
As will be developed at a later point, Lasswell has passed through

two phases in his thinking about values in relation to a democratic
community. In the first phase he was reluctant as a social scientist
to state that he preferred one political system or set of goals to an-
other.3 In the second phase, on the contrary,he believes passionately
that the social sciences are doomed to sterility unless they accept the
contemporarychallenge and say something about our ultimate social
objectives.4 The question I wish to pose here is whether Lasswell
'Harold D. Lasswell, Politics; Who Gets What, When, How (New York:
McGraw-HillBook Company,Inc., 1936), p. 3.
'Lasswell,DemocracyThroughPublic Opinion(Menasha,Wisconsin:George
Banta PublishingCompany, 1941), p. 32.
452 THE JOURNALoF POLITICS [Vol. 12
believes that social science offers a way of knowing what these goals
ought to be. A quick reading of Lasswell's works seems to suggest
the customary negative answer. There is, however, evidence which
hints that if in the future Lasswell were to develop his thinking
along one path already visible, an affirmative answer might not be
ruled out.
Of one conclusion Lasswell is and always was certain. Political
philosophy with its rational methods has no better claim to the ca-
pacity to set our goals than has social science. A value, argues Lass-
well in the accepted tradition, is simply an object of desire.5 As such,
he suggests, to ask which value is in itself preferable leads to a non-
sense question. Each person (or group) expresses his preferences in
accordance with his own personal and cultural experiences and
believes that they are superior. But even though Lasswell denies
to philosophy any greater competence on this score than social
science, he does not relegate philosophical thought to the scrap heap
of useless intellectual effort. He sees considerable historical utility
in "derivational thinking" as he calls it.s It was and is a survival
factor for the democratic faith. By reaffirming the basic traditions
and tenets of the West it has contributedto the survival of that faith.
Men need constantly to be remindedof the ideals by which they live.
Its function is psychological rather than logical. Derivational
thinking helps to "mitigate the consequences of human insecurity in
our unstable world."7 Furthermore,in Lasswell's view, by helping
clarify and spread the faith of the West, philosophy acts as an ideo-
logical or propaganda instrument for strengthening the non-rational
consensus so essential to the survival of a group. It functions, there-
fore, as a myth-builder and purveyor of ideas. Aside from recogniz-
ing these two rather minor merits Lasswell confesses that he has
"little interest in derivational thinking, which consists in substituting
one set of self-selected ambiguities for another, and demonstrating
that the least ambiguous can be logically derived from the most
ambiguous."8
5Lasswell, The Analysis of Political Behaviour; An Empirical Approach

(New York: Oxford University Press, 1948), pp. 36-37.
'Lasswell, Power and Personality (New York: W. W. Norton and Company,
Inc., 1948), pp. 202-03; cf. Lasswell, The Analysis of Political Behaviour, op.
cit., p. 134.
7Lasswell, Democracy Through Public Opinion, op. cit., p. 19.
8Lasswell, Power and Personality, op. cit., pp. 202 ff.
1950] HAROLD LASSWELL;
POLICYSCIENTIST 453
For thus denying to philosophy what he also seems to withhold

from social scienc?, Lasswell is frequently upbraided by philosophers
for his ingenuousnessor naivete. Such philosophical scolding seems,
however, to be somewhat superfluous. It repeats the well-worn argu-
ments that have long divided many philosophical schools from the
social scientists and adds little new to the resolution of the tenacious
problem of the nature of values. But if Lasswell cannot be accused
of any greater "naivete" than his fellow social scientists, he can at
least be charged with a failure to identify clearly the trends of his
own thinking. Without such clarification, impeccable communica-
tion and awarenessof the full implications of his own thought elude
us.
It is apparent in Lasswell's writings, almost from his initial work
in the application of psychoanalysis to politics, that he is a scholar
divided against himself. The traditional social scientist in him
fights for the positivistic conception of values as objects of desire;
the emerging social scientist of the future, in a sense, make state-
ments that lead in the direction of a scientific validation of values.
The futurist seems to be defending the thesis that social science can
indicate whether, for example, the ultimate goals embodied in the
western tradition are superior to those of fascism or of dictatorial
communism.
It is only in passing, and even then at a tangent, that Lasswell
touches on the question but the tendencies in his thinking are clear.
Men, he states repeatedly, are possessed of a "fundamental craving
for self-respect,"9 an unrelenting drive for deference which is re-
vealed in psychoanalysis. "Democracy is subject to the funda-
mental laws of human behavior. . ."10 And when the institutions
and prevailing culture frustrate the gratification of this basic need, a
crisis of self-respect or destructiveness ensues, a condition which
threatens our world today. Social tensions will disappear when
necessary material and psychological adjustments permit the full
expression of this need. The status of this craving for respect in
Lasswell's thought is shrouded in a cloud of doubt. At times it ap-
pears that this drive is culturally conditioned, a product only of our
civilization:"1 at other times. Lasswell seems to feel that it has
'Lasswell, Democracy Through Public Opinion, op. cit., p. 176.
?Lasswell, Power and Personality, op. cit., p. 126.
"Lasswell, The Analysis of Political Behaviour, op. cit., pp. 67-68 and
454 THE JOURNAL OF POLITICS LVol.12
become so much a part of western man that it is virtually ineradica-

ble and can be treated as a historical constant; and finally, at still
other times, he leaves the distinct impression that the drive is part
of basic non-cultural human nature, true for all times and places.'2
It is the frequency with which this last opinion appears that raises
it to an emerging trend in his thought. If his conclusion is true
which is doubtful - and if psychoanalysis can discern, in addition to
known biological facts, certain other elements in human nature com-
mon to all mankind - which is not impossible- then Lasswell has
indeed taken a small -step in the direction of a scientific system of
values.
Lasswell does seem to be taking this step. Recent studies by
Kardiner, Linton, and others suggest that it grows naturally out of
the personality-cultureorientation of modern psycho-anthropology.'3
These current investigations begin to lend color to the belief that in
underlying basic personality types in each civilization may perhaps be
found certain elements common to all men. This search for basic
drives revives a tradition even older than Weberian positivism. Max
Weber had finally banished from the realm of social sciences any at-
tempt at the validation of values and had left the problem to the
philosophers with the hint that it may well lie beyond their com-
petence as well. Weber himself had here broken with a tradition that
recurred constantly in European thought, at least from the time of
Hobbes. Utilitarianism (stemming basically from Hobbes), Comte-
ist positivism, and Marxism, to mention only a few of the broadest
and more generally accepted movements, each in its own way sought
to arrive at a scientific statement of what human goals must be and
therefore of what they ought to be, if the word "ought" was to be
given empirical reference. Through the psychoanalytic-culturecon-
text, in one strand of his reasoning at least, Lasswell seems unwit-
tingly to be joining forces with a re-emergingtrend to seek out the
incontrovertible impulses of a universal human nature.
Democracy Through Public Opinion, op. cit., p. 167.

"In addition to the examples of such remarks already cited see The Analy-
sis of Political Behaviour, op. cit., p. 19.
"Abram Kardiner, The Individual and His Society (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1939); Kardiner, Ralph Linton, et al., The Psychological
Frontiers of Society (New York: Columbia University Press, 1945); Bronislaw
Malinowski, A Scientific Theory of Culture and other Essays (Chapel Hill:
The University of North Carolina Press, 1944).
1950] HAROLDLASSWELL;POLICYSCIENTIST 455
In essence, this attempt to remarry science and philosophy

through the bond of human nature is symptomatic of the pressure to
which social scientists are subjected today to solve the crucial prob-
lem of the relativism of values. By training, social scientists have
refused to pass beyond relativism; by necessity, they are seeking to
do so, perhaps because men seek to escape the insecurity of indeter-
minate goals. Some justification for this revival of a task to which
thousands of man-hoursof energy were applied in the past is the fact
that with each new level of development in the knowledge of human
behaviorwe can expect a fresh effort to be made to offer an empirical
solutibn to the philosophicalproblem.14 Tolerance from the philoso-
phers while the social scientists seek for a solution would seem to lie
in the best of the European tradition. Ridicule and dogmatic insist-
ence upon the irrefutablecorrectnessof their own claims would place
the philosophers today with the persecutors of Galileo.
II. A SCIENTIFICTHEORYor DEMOCRACY
The unobtrusive but undeniable trend in Lasswell's thinking

leaves its impress on his theory of democracy. The social sciences
must concern themselves with the preservation of democracy. This
is the major premise of Lasswell's impassioned plea for the con-
scious organization of the sciences of democracy. But what is de-
mocracy?
Here again the philosophersmight well heap ridicule on Lasswell.
He speaks in terms of one kind of democracy,the democraticsociety,
rather than accepting as a fact that conceptions of the nature of de-
mocracy have varied historically and will continue to do so. To the
political philosopherthe significant problemhere is the elaborationof
cogent, rational argumentson behalf of one as against another choice.
Lasswell appears intolerant. He permits only one interpretation of
the nature of democracy. For him, the "ends of democracy are per-
manent"although "the means must fit the needs and opportunitiesof
the hour."'I5 In a sentence Lasswell sums up his views: democracy
is justice pursuedby majority rule. Justice is respect for the dignity
of man.'6 And society acknowledgesand respects this dignity when
14Cf. F. S. C. Northrup,The Logic of the Sciencesand the Humanitks (New
York: The Macmillan Company, 1947).
lcIbid., p. 7; Power anzdPersonality, op. cit., p. 107; The Analysis of Politi-
456 THE JOURNALOF POLITICS [Vol. 12
it recognizes the "capacity of every person to contribute to the com-

mon life."'7 The democratic society is "a commonwealthof mutual
deference."'8 This goal can be attained only through the rule of
a just majority.
If Lasswell truly traced his whole genealogy through the Weberian
line, he could never have been justified in thus insisting that his
own commonwealthis the true one. This insistence would have sig-
nified neglect of the vast historical and conceptual differences in the
practice and theory of democracy. Once the social scientist admits
the purely conditioned character of all values, then there is no sound
basis for preferring one kind to another except on the ground that
one's emotional response happens to differ from that of others. If
Lasswell had argued his case on rational philosophical grounds, at-
tempting to prove its superiority to other conceptions of democ-
racy, his insistence upon his commonwealth of deference would be
understandable. But as it is, his monist views on democracy seem
to conflict with his permissive relativism.
One way out of this apparent dilemma lies in trying to demon-
strate that Lasswell's neglect of other theories of democracy flows,
as one might suspect, from his consistent indifference and hostility to
rational, philosophical persuasion. This line of attack must be re-
jected. It seeks to explain Lasswell's monistic view of democracy on
the lowest level. It implies first, that Lasswell refused to expend the
necessary energy to inform himself of the history of political
philosophy and to justify his own theories in the light of the problems
raised in this history. And second, it neglects a primary rule of criti-
cal analysis. When interpretingthe fundamental ideas of an author,
one must search always for the element of consistency or unity in
the thought so that what at first looks like an apparent weakness
may in the end prove to be entirely compatiblewith the whole context.
Application of this rule in the present case dissipates the apparent
confusion. At first glance, Lasswell's monistic theory of democracy
may appear to conflict with his Weberian relativism, but on recon-
sideration it is evident that the theory flows consistently from his
scientific outlook on values. Once the goals are given as basic im-
pulses, then, if one is to be consistent, only a limited range of proxi-
cal Behaviour, op. cit., p. 2.

"Lasswell, Democracy Through Public Opinion, op. cit., p. 14.
"Lasswell, The Analysis of Political Behaviour, op. cit., p. 2.
mate ends and institutional arrangementscan satisfy these needs most

effectively. Under the circumstancesof a fully developed science of
society, it might become possible to say that one particular kind of
political organizationis preferable to another, preference here mean-
ing simply that it is the most suitable institutional means discernible
at that level of knowledgeand probability reasoning.
In concrete terms, once Lasswell had established that an irrepres-
sible craving for deference moves men to action, then there was no
alternative but to define democracy in such a way that it was an
end-in-view upon the realization of which the gratification of this
universal impulse must depend. The best kind of social order is one
that satisfies this need and the inquiry as to whether this impulse
ought to be met can be answeredonly in the affirmative if the impulse
is really as universalas Lasswell often argues it is. A negative answer
would have little effect since by flying in the face of reality it would
be incapable of implementation.
Lasswell does not lend himself wholeheartedly to this interpreta-
tion, as I have indicated. He does recognize many other motiva-
tions19 and, as previously indicated, he vacillates between a relativist,
Weberian approachand a scientific attempt to validate values. But
once we recognize that his writings display an emerging tendency to
ascribe basic impulses to all human beings, then the reason for his
apparent dogmatism concerning democracy is no longer in doubt.
His views may be subject to criticism but they do not legitimately
arise from philosophy. Lasswell is here deliberately stepping outside
the realm of philosophy. The criticism might, however, come from
social scientists. They might legitimately accuse Lasswell of neglect-
ing such facts as the following: first, that there is no basic universal
human nature or at least that a hypothesis to that effect has little
evidence as yet to support it; or second, that the basic impulses are
not those that Lasswell spells out; or third, even if Lasswell's descrip-
tion of underlyinghuman nature is highly probable, there is no satis-
factory way of tracing out the intricate relations between the primi-
tive impluses and the highly complicated kind of social organization
necessary for their realization in an industrializedcommunity.
I must make clear again that I do not suggest to this point that
Lasswell would necessarily subscribe to my interpretation of his
theory of values and its relation to democracy. I am only urging that
"See Lasswell, Power and Personality, op. cit., Appendix.
458 THE JOURNAL OF POLITICS [Vol. 12
the real meaning of a political writing is not always apparent at the

first and most obvious level of interpretation.20 One has to dig
below the surface to discover those tendencies of meaning within a
theory which are hostile -to the common and accepted thoughtways
of the age. Nonconformance for the artist-and the social scientist
is an artist first and a scientist only second21-is as difficult as it is
for the active revolutionary. But the artist differs from the latter
in his ability to appear to conform, even to himself, and yet in
reality to be expressing a tendency that leads to the threshold of a
new theory. The artist feels the future pressing upon him. The
historic task of his critic is to disentangle the future trends from the
apparent ambiguities or shortcomings in the present assertions. In
concealed, tangential form Lasswell points to the need for the social
scientist to return to an apparently discreditedpast in order to assess
once again the possibilities of transcendingthe insecuritiesof relativis-
tic values for the greater certainty of a science of values. To deny
the possibility of such a task reflects not the actual fruitlessness of
the endeavor but simply a state of mind of the speaker. In one
sense, to attempt it and to fail like his predecessors from the 17th
to the 19th centuries will be as valuable to the social scientist as to
have succeeded. In the eyes of the social scientist, what may augur
well for him is the greater quantity and higher level of knowledge
from which he can now operate as compared to the past.
III. POLITICS AS A PURE SCIENCE
Lasswell declares himself in favor of democracy as defined.

Whether this avowal of his political faith is substantiated on purely
moral, psychological, or scientific grounds matters little for the rest
of this discussion. It is the following point that now assumes signi-
ficance. Granted the need to preserve a democratic political order,
how can the political scientist go about studying political phenomena
to assure the adoption of the proper public policy for this end?
The posing of the question in this way is a recent innovation in
20For the position of the artist under a non-liberal political order see the
searching article by Leo Strauss, "Persecution and the Art of Writing," Social
Research, 8 (November, 1941), 488-504.
"The easily neglected relation between artistic imagination and social science
is developed with exceptional clarity in Robert Redfield, "The Art of Social
Science," The American Journal of Sociology, LIV (November, 1948), 181-190.
Lasswell's writings. At an earlier stage in his development he would

have protested at using this question as a guide for a social scientist.
He would have insisted that social science can concern itself only
with the truth about political behavior and the truth can be objec-
tively apprehendedwithout the need for the research worker to de-
clare his political faith. A detailed analysis of the difference between
these two phases in Lasswell's development dramatically shows the
importancefor factual researchinto social policy of the frame of refer-
ence with which a social scientist approacheshis tasks. It will show
that if one is genuinely concerned with the formulation of policy
for the deepening and preservation of a democratic way of life, it is
crucial to specify the nature of one's operating principles and their
value assumptions. The kind of knowledge that results, its relevance
for the problems confronting society today, are critically interrelated
with the implications of the conceptual framework with which one
approachesthe study of human behavior.
In this respect there are two distinctly different phases in
Lasswell's development. The first phase extended approximately
from 1934 to 1940 in so far as its boundaries can be detected in his
writings.22 In this period he was concernedsolely with the develop-
ment of a purely scientific, objective science of politics. Adhering to
the Weberian tradition, he maintained that values lay beyond the
margin of the social scientist qua scientist. In this view the task of
the political scientist consisted solely in discovering valid, universal
generalizations. Amorality was the password. But with the out-
break of the second World War his thinking enters into a new phase.
Lasswell's altered outlook reflects the urgent pressure to which social
scientists have been subjected as a result of war and its legacy of
polarized international conflict. Just as the military sciences mar-
shalled their skills for the defense of the United States, so the social
scientists have lived under the continuingpressureto clarify and mar-
shal the contributionsthat their disciplines can make to the perpetua-
tion and strengtheningof a democraticorder. As a spokesman for the
22I. Elitist Amoral Phase -World Politics and Personal Insecurity (New
York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1935); Politics, Who Gets What,
When, How, op. cit.; with Dorothy Blumenstock, World Revolutionary Propa-
ganda (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1939). II. Decisional Moral Phase
- Democracy Through Public Opinion, op. cit.; World Politics Faces Economics
(New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1945); Power and Personality,
op. cit.
social sciences Lasswell has insisted upon the need to convert them
into policy sciences. The policy sciences, by his definition, consist
of all those fields of knowledge, art, philosophy, literature, and social
science which can contribute either data or skills for the perpetuation
of democraticsociety.
Will it be necessary to introduce any changes in the approach to
the study of politics if political science is to be convertedinto a policy
science? This is the key question for Lasswell in his second phase.
To all appearances the answer ought to be in the negative. Since
science-searches for the empirical truth, presumably it matters little
for what purpose scientific theories might be used. But in actual
practice it is now axiomatic that one cannot discover the whole truth
in one lifetime and that that part of the truth which one seeks is in
significant measure related to the assumptions and orienting frame-
work with which one approaches an empirical study. Although this
proposition has become a commonplacein the social sciences the full
weight of its implications for empirical research is not always fully
understood. An examination of the conceptual frameworksused by
Lasswell in each of his two phases will point the dangers in the ex-
hortation, still often heard, that the social scientist should shun the
dark alleys of political valuation.
To anticipate my conclusion, this discussion will reveal that, in
political science at least, an attempt to understand behavior in the
light of the needs of a democratic community compelled Lasswell to
seek out a new frame of referencewithin which to structure his data.
In yielding to the need to revise his original formulationof the nature
of politics, Lasswell thereby aids in the development of a systematic
theory of political science which may have profound implications for
the immediate usefulness of political generalizations. It offers a new
route by which to attempt to bring theories about political behavior
to bear on practical urgent issues of policy. Unfortunately the nature
of Lasswell's contribution to policy science has been clouded by his
own apparent reluctance to indicate clearly the change that has taken
place in his general framework. Without this clarification the true
measure of his contribution may escape detection. My immedi-
ate task is, therefore, to establish precisely the nature of this
change.23
"3Forthe differencebetween a generalframework,theory, and conceptssee

Talcott Parsons,The Structureof Social Action (New York: McGraw-HillBook
The fissure that appears in Lasswell's thought stems from his

adoption at first and unobtrusive rejection at a later time of the
elitist framework. The implications of this transfer in conceptual
allegiance require clarification if only because Lasswell's elitist ap-
proach exerted a powerful attraction for many political scientists and
continues to do so. In many disguised forms it has penetrated into
each of the subspecialties of the field. The Lasswellian approach
represents more than a passing fancy in political science. As will
become evident later, it has helped to open new and tantalizing
avenues of research. By insisting upon attention to the actor in
political situations rather than to the institutional shell, Lasswell
has helped to humanize politics. He has, furthermore,demonstrated
a meaningful way of merging the growing bodies of knowledge from
other social sciencees, such as psychology, anthropology, and psy-
chiatry, with the study of political behavior. And to those who have
questioned the need for the existence of political science as an area of
researchseparate from sociology it has offered a new vindication that
politics has its unique subject matter which can be treated with
scientific procedures no less rigorous than those found in its sister
social sciences.
Lasswell's first attempt to construct a broad frameworkto orient
the study of politics stands in a strong though secondary European
tradition. He describes the core of political science not as the study
of the state - which would be tantamount to explaining one un-
known in terms of another- but as the understandingof power. As
a frameworkthat points,the way to empirical research, the mere de-
scription of politics as power proves totally unsatisfactory. The con-
cept is vague, undifferentiated,and by itself elusive. In the meaning
that Lasswell gives to the concept of power, and in the social group
in which he locates it, lies its significance for the first phase of his
development. He shows here his immediate ties with the elitist
theory elaborated by Vilfredo Pareto.24
In the first period, the elements of Lasswell's view of power as a
Company, Inc., 1937), chap. 1; and his Essays in Sociological Theory (Glencoe,
Illinois: The Free Press, 1949); Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social
Structure (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1949), chap. II.
"Developed in Pareto, The Mind and Society, op. cit., para. 245-257, 1143,
2026-59, 2221, 2289-2328, 2477-2612; and in Introduction aux Systimes Social-
istes (Paris: 1926). The latter, least read of Pareto's works, is really the most
fruitful for understanding his political analyses.
462 THE JOURNALOF POLITICS . [Vol. 12
frame of orientation can be briefly stated. It adopts Pareto's views

with some modifications and improvements. Politics is the study of
the distribution of values, among which power, deference,and income
may be taken as representative.25 Since the distribution of values
must depend upon the influence of a person or group in society, poli-
tics must be concerned with influence and the influential. And since
the few membersof any community at a given time have the greatest
influence, "a diagram of the pattern of distribution of any value
resemblesa pyramid. The few who get the most of any value are the
elite; the rest are the rank and file."26 Accordingly, in concentrat-
ing on power the task of the political scientist is to understand the
nature of the elite, that is, its skills, class origin, subjective attitude,
and personality traits; and the instruments such as goods, practices,
violence, and symbols that it uses for arriving at and surviving in the
seat of power. By a process of interpretation politics is thus re-
duced to the study of the elite as expressed in the following sum-
marizing equation: politics = the study of changing value hierarchy
= influence and influential = elite or few.
Underlying this conception of politics and the locus of power one
assumption protrudes with sharp clarity. It is that democracy or
majority rule can never be achieved if this is understoodto mean that
effective power or control rests with the many. Where power lies in
the hands of the few it cannot at the same time be in the hands of the
many. And since Lasswell's theory is true for all times and places,
then democratic government as usually understood disappears as an
organizational reality. By adopting the elitist framework Lasswell
was thereby committing himself to its implication with regard to a
democratic theory of power.
The attitude towards democracy that pervades the elitist frame-
work reflects more than the response of any one individual to his ex-
periences. Nevertheless it can be most easily understood by turning
for a moment to one individual, Pareto, who is the fountainhead of
modern elitism. It is no accident of course that the elitist phase in
Lasswell's writings, extending from about 1934 to 1940, coincides
with the publication, rise, and swift decline in popularity in the
25Brieflyset forth in WorldPolitics and PersonalInsecurity,op. cit., pp. 3-4;
in World Revolutionary Propaganda,op. cit., pp. 9-10; fully elaborated in
Politics, Who Gets What, When,How, op. cit.
"6Lasswell,Politics, Who Gets What, When, How, op. cit., p. 3; cf. Pareto,
The Mind and Society, op. cit., para. 2026-2034.
1950] HAROLD LASSWELL;
POLICYSCIENTIST 463
United States of Pareto's English edition of Mind and Society.

Pareto's theory of the elite met two needs: it was a "scientific"
challenge to Marxism and it offered a rational explanation to the
frustratedeconomicliberal when the economicmillenniumof classical
writers failed to materialize. Recognition of these origins of elitism
will help to explain why as a general framework calculated to pro-
mote the preservationof a democratic-orderit was doomed to failure.
Pareto developed the elitist frameworkin Europe at a time when
Marxist socialism had begun to emerge as the single greatest doc-
trinal threat to liberalism. The antagonists of socialism sorely needed
a doctrine that would help underminean appealing part of the Marx-
ist faith, the vision of the coming classless society, with common
ownership of means of production. Elitism was admirably adapted
to prove the impossibility of the attainment of such a utopia.27 The
elitists were directly maintaining that ruling classes, or elites as they
were euphoniously called, must persist under any form of social
organizationbecause of the very nature of the way in which power is
distributed. When, after the Russian revolution, a dictatorial bu-
reaucracyspread its hold over the country, the elitist thesis seemed to
have been confirmedby the validity of its prediction. Socialism did
not eradicate rulers. During the 30's, when Marxist socialism
reached the height of its popularity in the United States, the likeli-
hood of this doctrine appealing to intellectuals as a reply to Marxism
requires no elaboration.28
But in discerning its negative source the anti-democraticbias in
the theory is still not fully exposed. Elitism maintains that not only
will socialism fail to wipe out the rule of man by man, but even de-
mocracy itself conceals the same relationship. From the point of
view of the radical democrat the elitists were claiming too much.
But there was a good reason in Pareto's own social attitude why he
should extend what in some social classes might have been an ac-
ceptable critique of socialism to a universal law including even de-
"7This theme is the burden of the argument of Pareto, Introduction aux
Systemes Socialistes, op cit. See also Arthur Livingston (ed.), Gaetano Mosca,
The Ruling Class (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1939);
James Burnham, The Machiavellians; Defenders of Freedom (New York: The
John Day Company, Inc., 1943).; F. Borkenau, Pareto (London: 1936).
"8Cf. Politics, Who Gets, What, When, How, op. cit., pp. 233-34 and
World Politics and Personal Insecurity, op. cit., pp. 266-67 where Lasswell con-
sciously adopts elitist principles of analysis as an alternative to quasi-Marxist
class analysis.
464 THE JOURNAL OF POLITICS [Vol. 12
mocracy. Pareto's point of departure was always economic theory.

As an economist he had never given up the hope of attaining a form
of political organization that would permit the realization of the
ideal of economic liberalism, the free competitive society ruled by the
invisible hand. Yet militarism, international competition, and do-
mestic demand for social legislation pressed upon the politicians in
France and Italy the necessity to redistributenational income through
measures of taxation, tariff, and other legislation. In Pareto's eyes,
this intervention in the two countries that he considered to be his
native lands was the end of the free economy. With the promised
millennium disappearing before his eyes at the hands of the politic-
ians, Pareto turned on the latter with the most devastating weapon in
his armory, his power of "scientific" analysis. With his "science" he
was able to "prove"that his faults lay with the very nature of politics,
the kind of people who run the country. Democracy is a sham. It
consists simply of differing elites struggling for power and using the
masses to achieve their own ends. The crux of the political is the
elite. Examine their composition and methods of control and you
will understand the true nature of political organization.
Thus from his hostility towards Marxist socialism and towards
democracy itself, as he knew it, Pareto was driven to conclude that
the real governorsin society are the few. In the light of this primary
evaluation, derived from emotional responses rather than from ob-
jective analysis, he sought out the elements in society with which to
confirm his predilections. The age in Europe was receptive to an
elitist interpretation. Men were seeking an answer to social problems
that would meet Marxism on stronger grounds than that of liberal
democracy. The latter tended to keep itself aloof from empirical
analysis and to stress the goals rather than the facts. When on a
small scale the European environmentduplicated itself in the United
States during the 30's, one need be little surprisedthat Pareto'selitism
proved acceptable as a useful anti-Marxist analytical tool.
The acceptance of the elitist frameworkcould not help but com-
mit Lasswell to the presuppositionsnurtured in Europeansoil: that a
society governed by a majority is impossible and consequently that
democratic goals of self-government are simply myths useful to a
ruling class in its efforts to perpetuate itself. These assumptionsdid
not emerge clearly in Lasswell's work largely because his interests
lay in the direction of discovering the nature of those who exercise
1950] HAROLD
LASSWELL;
POLICYSCIENTIST 465
power near the governmental level rather than in directly trying to

evaluate the possibilities of attaining a democratic order. In addi-
tion, he sought to understand the ways in which the various instru-
ments of power were wielded, with particular attention to the use of
propagandaor symbols. The latter interest, which was and continues
to be his first love in politics,29 explains to some extent why the elitist
frameworkshould initially appeal to him. It offered him a broader
framework within which to give deeper meaning to the study of
propagandaas one instrument of power.
Hospitality for the elitist conceptual framework was forthcom-
ing from another direction. No sooner had psychoanalysis led to a
profound transformation in psychology than Lasswell was pointing
the way in the United States to its systematic use for the under-
standing of political behavior. For this lead in humanizing politics,
students of the field must be deeply indebted to Lasswell. Yet the
psychoanalytic approach is not uncongenial to the elitist concepts.
If one cannot say that they make comfortablebedfellows, at the very
least immersionin the outlook and techniquesof psychoanalysis could
do little to impede absorption of the elitist view.
In this aspect the valuational overtones of psychoanalysis are
crucial.30 The practicing psychoanalyst may assert that his in-
terest in the patient extends only to the point of so restructuringhis
personality that he is able to see the true reality. In effect, how-
ever, the psychoanalyst cannot but help suggest the desirable orienta-
tion within the reality. Whatever his objective intentions may be,
there is little likelihood that the psychoanalyst is able to avoid in-
jecting himself into the analytic situation to such an extent that the
patient is restructured in terms of the analyst's system of values.
Psychoanalysis is manipulative in the direction of the manipulator's
goals. Power in that situation rests with the analyst who indeed,
during the initial stages, encourages the dependence of the patient
upon him.
When extracted from the individual matrix and applied to society
as a whole, the normative implications coincide with the descriptive
findings of elitism. Where it is desirable that the aims of person-
29Lasswell's doctoral dissertationwas titled Propaganda Techniquein the
World War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1927).
30See a perceptivepaper by Carl Rogers of the University of Chicago on
"DivergentTrends in Methods of ImprovingAdjustment,"address to confer-
ence on Ways to Mental Health, Harvard University, July 22, 1948.
ality adjustment be set by the few psychoanalysts, it becomes a fact

in elitism that the few dominate the many. Like any infection which
in itself is not harmful but exposes the body to other malignant dis-
eases, the psychoanalytic approach, in spite of its positive value for
personal mental health, nevertheless prepares the mind for accepting
the elitist model in which the few dominate over the many.
Seldom have the presuppositionsembodiedin a conceptual frame-
work helped to produce such obvious neglect not only of a true per-
ception of political relations but also of sound logic. Its influence on
the course of logic sharply reveals the inflexible mold which a frame-
work imposes on research. In adopting the central parts of Pareto's
elitist model, and reinforcing its implications, in a sense, through
psychoanalysis, Lasswell glossed over the intrinsic flaws in the reason-
ing upon which it depended.
As the fundamental axiom of his analysis, Pareto had adopted
the view that power is by nature distributed through society in the
form of a pyramid.3' Lasswell did not reject this principle. Pareto
demonstratedthat when people are distributed from the point of view
of any ability they naturally fall into the shape of a pyramid. At
the top are those who exercise the specific ability best and they are
always the few. At the bottom will be found the less competent
many. The individuals can be so arranged that they will form a
hierarchy with the few best at the top. On the apparent truth of
this reasoning,Pareto then went on to say not only that the capacity
to gain power will be distributed among individuals in the form of a
pyramid but that in the real distribution of the total quantity of
power, the few will have more than the many. If the same reasoning
had been used about stealing, an example which Pareto himself cites,
then from the fact that the thieving capacity is distributed in the
form of a pyramid, the clearly invalid conclusion would have to be
drawn that the greater part of the loot is necessarily obtained by the
few best thieves. Of course, in contemporarysociety the few thieves
at the top may quite easily accumulate the greater part of stolen
wealth. But in the last analysis it is a question for factual investiga-
tion as to how much of the loot they actually do get. Similarly where
actual supremacy lies, that is, who has the greatest power at any
time, is a matter for empiricalresearch. The mere fact that a few are
better Dower-gettersdoes not necessarily mean that a greater total
8"Pareto,Introductionaux Systimes Socidistes, op cit., pp. 25-28.
quantity of power rests in their hands. What is lacking for an exact

determination of the locus of power is a criterion for measuring it
even roughly, at least something more exact than a mere analogy
with pyramids.32
Having accepted the unsupportable Paretan assumption of the
pyramid, Lasswell was compelled to assume that the influential must
always be a minority. He was now caught within Pareto's intel-
lectual web. Irresistibly he was led to orient his research in the
direction not of determining how to establish indices for the dis-
covery of the locus of power - this is part of his later model - but
of investigating the composition, arrival, and survival of the elite.
The study of power and the dissection of elites become coterminous,
a result foreshadowedon the elitist franmework.
This analysis should not be taken to suggest that in his personal
but unrevealed convictions during this first phase Lasswell was
necessarily antagonistic to the democratic ideal of popular rule.
My argument urges rather that during this period the social views
which underlay his adopted framework of research must discourage
him, if consistent, from realistically maintaining that the people
either tould or ought to control their leaders. In the case of
Pareto, his prior dislike of democracy and its ideals led him to seek
out scientific justification for showing its impossibility; in the case of
Lasswell, as long as he was consistent, the adoption of the same
frameworkcommitted him to similar conclusions no matter what his
personal unwillingness to accept them might have been. This
accounts in large part for the misgivings held by scholars during the
30's over the implications of Lasswell's elitism for practical affairs.
To this day these misgivings have left a lingering residue of suspicion
in the minds of not a few of his critics.
To some extent undoubtedly Lasswell's explicit indifference, qua
social scientist, to the goal of preserving a democratic social order
contributed its share to the neglect of the true meaning of elitism.
In the positivist tradition Lasswell held firmly to the conviction that
qua social scientist he ought not to express preferences concerning
social goals. The task of social science was to uncover the broadest
and most probable generalization about the use and distribution of
political power. Whether any social scientist can truly remain
32EdwardShils, PresentState of AmericanSociology (Glencoe,Illinois: The
Free Press, 1948) points up this lack of precise knowledge.
amoral, that is, whether a "pure" political science can ever be a

reality is a question that the sociology of knowledge is in the process
of answering. But the alleged complete moral indifference helped to
conceal from Lasswell himself the meaning for his theoretical
frameworkof the social values underlying it in its Europeanorigin.
IV. POLITICS AS A POLICY SCIENCE
As late as 1939 Lasswell seems to have been using the elitist

model in his research, but somewhere between that date and the
publication of Democracy Tkrough Public Opinion as far as can be
inferred from the printed material- intimate personal knowledge of
Lasswell's development might conceivably lead to more accurate
dating of the shift - his approach to the study of politics under-
went radical changes, one of them obvious and the other less per-
ceptible. The apparent change occurred in his conception of the
place of values in scientific research. The social scientist need no
longer abjure values. Rather it became his duty to indicate the goals
of society so that he might advise on the proper public policy for
their achievement. Morality became an aid rather than a hindrance
to research. 'The aim of democratic society, Lasswell declares, is the
pursuit of justice through majority rule. Here for the first time
he proclaimed and elaborated his political faith; all science, social,
biological, medical, and even perhaps physical, must, now be re-
oriented to shed light on problems of social policy in a democratic
order. The change in the underlying social goals is immediately re-
flected in the schema that he adopts in his empirical research. My
view here is not that as a result of the second World War he was
suddenly converted to a belief in democracy. It simply suggests
that even though he believed as ardently in this doctrine in the
earlier period, the frameworkhe chose for his investigations derived
from and implied a vastly different set of assumptions about the
nature and possibility of democracy.
The value-perspectives from which Lasswell now consciously be-
gins to examine the political process becomes visible through un-
obtrusive, cumulative changes in his former general framework.They
lead him to revise his'central theme about the locus of power. In
place of his insistent attention to the arrival, survival, and composi-
tion of the elite, his interest now shifts to the parts of the political
process that might make it possible for the people to challenge and
limit the power of the bureaucracy. To meet the needs of em-

pirical research into this new problem, he turns to different instru-
ments of analysis, the concepts of decision and decision-makers. Al-
though it is still too early to offer anything but an extremely tenta-
tive prediction, the serious and intensive use of this concept in politi-
cal science may well herald far-reaching changes in the history of
political research.
An examination of the decisional frameworkwill reveal, in addi-
tion to its numerous intrinsic merits, a bond with the underlying
avowed democratic faith.33 I do not imply that there is a direct
cause-effect relation between belief in democracy and the devel-
opment of a more fruitful research schema. It is rather that cer-
tain types of frameworks,such as that of the elite, limit the range
of vision of the research worker and blind him to certain obvious
facts. Without release from these bonds, large parts of reality must
escape the scientist. Release comes not through the simple play of
the imagination on the possible relationship of facts, but through
the immersionin different value assumptions.
The choice of the decision-making concept appears almost as a
chance offspring from the elitist frameworkbut no sooner is it born
than it unconscionably devours it parent. All parts of the elitist
equation formally remain the same. Politics is concerned with the
changing value hierarchy which leads to an examination of power
and the powerful. But in the light of Lasswell's freshly asserted de-
sire to democratizepower he is clearly repelled by the thought of con-
fining politics to the study of the elite. It becomes contradictory to
seek to preserve and extend democracy while at the same time insist-
ing that power lies in the hands of a few. Consistency demanded that
if he did not conceive of all power.as remaining in the hands of the
people, at least he must assume that the popular share in power was
or could be considerable.34 In other words, the shift in the locus of
3There is no objective reason why the decisionalframeworkcould not be
part of a value system hostile to democracy. But see footnote 41.
"4"Ademocraticgovernmentcan be defined in terms of shared power.
What are the limits within which sharingmay vary in a governmentor in a
society that is entitled to be called 'democratic'? With respect to power,
we may stipulate that a democraticgovernmentauthorizes majority partici-
pation in the making of importantdecisions. The majority may expressitself
directly (direct legislation) or indirectly (elected officials). The majority
must participateactively (a large majority- let us specify a two-thirdsmajor-
ity -must qualify to vote and take part in elections). The overwhelming
power demanded new analytical tools. What would be a fruitful

way for discovering the extent to which popular participation in
power is possible or has been realized? Lasswell seized upon the
decision-makingprocess as the focal point for intensive factual study.
"Power . . . means participation in the making of important deci-
sions."35 "To demonstrate power, then, is to maintain the practice
of general participationin the making of influential decisions."36 "It
is evident that we cannot properly decide whether democratic gov-
ernment prevails in a given nation until we have examined the nature
of the process by which the most influential decisions are made."37
This slight shift in the focus of attention from the group who
wield power to the function of making policy or decisions seems like
a minor change. In reality it signals not only the movement of the
underlying assumptions about the nature of democracy but also a
radical change in the character of relevant research. The decision-
making concept draws much of its value from the fact that it offers
an operational definition of power. As long as politics was defined
as in part the study of power relations, the democrat frowned on the
idea and treated it with deep suspicion. To some extent his distrust
was justified. It arose from the fact that power, being so poorly
defined, was generally interpreted to mean largely the study of in-
struments of control. This limited interpretation of the nature and
scope of powerwas not calculated to breed confidencein the approach.
It manifestly viewed the power relationship as a one-way dominating
process rather than as a reciprocal,two-way relation varying in time
and place.38 The understandingof power was therefore left by de-
fault primarily to the insights of the philosopher or the uncontrolled
speculations of the social scientist. Nevertheless considerable initial
progress had been made in the way of insights even with this limited
majority must be free of intimidation. Moreover,they must have confidence

in their capacity to exert effective control over decisions,whether or not they
vote on any given occasion." Lasswell, The Analysis of Political Behaviour, op.
cit., p. 8.
351bid., p. 68.
36Ibid., p. 18.
38Lasswellseems to recognizethis today in his most recentwork, Harold D.
Lasswell,N. Leites and Associates,Languageof Politics (New York: George
W. Stewart, Publisher,Inc., 1949), p. 29. See also in this regard my review
of the new edition of R. Michels, Political Parties, American Journal of Socio-
logy, 55 (1949), 310-11.
approach. But there has been almost total absence of generaliza-

tions confirmableby anyone trained in using the methods of rigorous
social science.
With the emergenceof the decision-makingapproach there opens
up a new path for a rigorous search after verifiable generalizations
about political behavior. In the first place, an operationaldefinition
of power can now be approached. Power, Lasswell states, is an influ-
ential decision, that is, a decision which involves severe sanctions or
deprivations.39 From this relatiyely simple starting point numerous
new researchproblems mushroom forth, a sampling of which can be
mentioned here by way of illustration.40 Old data too can now be
profitably organizedwithin a new context. At the institutional level
such questions as these present themselves for investigation: what are
governmental decisions and who makes them; what are the indices
of popular participation in decision-making; and how can the share
of the people be increased. At the personal level the following are
some of the problems that beg for careful study: what factors mold
decisions of individuals in such a way that they give up their loyalty
to a group or agency or nation; what are the elements that shape the
nature of the policy-maker'sdecision, a question which would require
considerationof the data available on the influences of such elements
as pressure groups, the administration itself, the personal qualities
of the policy-maker,his social role, his social roots, the cultural frame
of reference within which he operates, his access to intelligence, the
effect of different personality types on decisions, and so on indefinite-
ly. A suggestive agenda of the elements in power situations that may
lend themselves to rigorous scientific study appears in the appendix
to Power and Personality, even though the strained, mannered style,
unfortunately so typical of a considerable part of Lasswell's work,
hampers a ready comprehensionof its meaning.
In addition to the merit of delineating the meaning of power in
more exact and empirically relevant terms, the decisional framework
has the advantage of greater breadth or comprehensiveness when
compared to the elitist conception of power. The elitist schema
opened up avenues of research only into the problem of the way in
which bureaucracy,in its most general sense, dominates society. The
S9Lasswell, Power and Personality, op. cit., pp. 15-16; Language of Politics,
op. cit., p. 18.
'"Lasswell, The Analysis of Political Behaviour, op. cit., pp. 37-42 is sugges-
tive in this respect.
472 THE JOURNALOP POLITICS [ Vol. 12
crucial importance of examining methods of control cannot be gain-

said, but through the very narrownessof the whole elitist outlook it
led the investigator to neglect other significant areas, significant once
the assumptionis made that the locus of power may be in the people.
Now, however, with the gradual inclusion into the frameworkof the
decision as a term of reference,Lasswell can inquire into the question
not only of the way in which power is exercised, but whether and in
what ways the people can control their rulers. Technically if we
ignore the value assumptions involved, both the concepts of the elite
and the decision could be used as complementarydevices to unravel
the whole political process. But in practice, since the decisional
frameworkdoes the work of the elitist plus considerably more, it is
understandablewhy elitism should slowly evaporate from Lasswell's
writings.
I am not particularly concernedhere with the origin of the deci-
sional concept.4' Like all distinct changes in the direction of thought,
no one person is solely responsible or the only inventor. Budding
concepts emerge out of an intellectual soil which a whole generation
has assiduously cultivated. The term has been prevalent in economics
for generations and occurs frequently today in the writings of stu-
dents in industrial sociology, communications,planning, and related
subjects. Nevertheless it appears that as early as 1941 Lasswell was
sufficiently impressed with its usefulness to nourish its development
for the study of politics.
Lasswell does not plan to give up his elitist terminology,however,
without a valiant internal struggle. It is understandable and for-
givable that a writer should attempt to establish the total coherence
of his thought, but in Lasswell's case this effort promises little chance
for success. Not only does the decisional concept surpass his elitism
in usefulness; it has made elitism completely unnecessary as a bed-
fellow. This is apparent from the unconvincing attempt which
Lasswell has recently made to demonstrate the compatibility of his
'"See an intensive analysis of the use of the decisionalapproach,applied
in this case to the area of public administration,in the extremely suggestive
work of HerbertAlexanderSimon,AdministrativeBehavior (New York: Mac-
millan Company, 1947). The decisionalconcept also appearsin the work of
certain Germanpolitical theorists in the twenties. It would be a matter for
careful investigationto determinethe eextentto which the currentapproachto
decision-makingresemblesthis earliertheory. Since the latter was subsequently
used to bolster the Nazi regime, any similarity would have to be taken into
account in a final evaluationof this concept.
1950] HAROLD
LASSWELL;
POLICYSCIENTIST 473
old and his new assumptions.

The theory of the elite implied the permanent exclusion of the
people from an effective share in power. As Lasswell clearly indi-
cated, in "communitieswhich share Western Europeancivilization the
few, called here the elite, are more influential than the many, the
mass. Lord Bryce said that governmentwas always government by
the few, whether in the name of the one, the few, or the many."42
This was in 1936. But by 1948 Lord Bryce is used to lend credence to
Lasswell's new view that power is not inevitably concentrated in the
hands of the few. Lasswell seems now in process of scrapping the
elitist framework,but instead of clearly revealing the non-democratic
underpinningsof this schema, he unsuccessfully attempts to reconcile
elitism with democratic assumptions. The elite is now redefined as
the masses out of which the leaders are drawn. The point is so
fundamental to an understanding of the depth of the change in
Lasswell's original frame of reference that it merits a rather long
quotation.
To meet our definitionof democracy,leadersmust be drawn from the

communityat large, rather than from a few social strata. The term
"elite" is used in descriptivepolitical science to designate the social
formation from which leaders are recruited. In nondemocraciesthe
elite is limited. It is composed,perhaps,of a few landholdingfami-
lies, or the familiesof the main merchants,manufacturersand bankers.
The elite may be restrictedto the families of the chief party officials,
or governmentofficials,or officersin the armedservices (includingthe
political police). Democraticleadershipis selected from a broad base
and remainsdependentupon the active supportof the entire communi-
ty. With few exceptionsevery adult is eligible to have as much of a
hand with the decision-makingprocessas he wants and for which he
is successfulin winning the assent of his fellow citizens. There is no
monopolyof power in a rulingcaste when such conditionsprevail,and
the whole communityis a seedbed from which rulers and governors
come. The elite of democracy("the rulingclass") is society-wide.
The distinctionbetween leadersand the elite enables us to avoid
the confusionthat often arises when someone points out t.hat govern-
ment is always governmentby the few, whether carried out in the
name of the few or the one or the many. James Bryce made the point
in these words:
In all assembliesand groups and organizedbodies of men,
from a nation down to a committeeof a club, directionand
decisionsrest in the hands of a small percentage,less and less
in proportionto the largerand largersize of the body, till in
a great populationit becomesan infinitesimallysmall propor-
'"Lasswell,Politics, Who Gets What, When,How, op. cit., p. 235.
474 OF POLITICS
THE JOURNAL [Vol. 12
tion of the whole number. This is and always has been true
of all forms of government, though in different degrees.43
The proposition is true when it is understood to mean that "gov-
ernment is always government by a few leaders." It is false if it is
construed to nean that "government is always government by a highly
restricted elite," and that democracy is by definition impossible. In
a modern large-scale society the leaders to exert an enormous impact
on war and peace and major questions of domestic policy. But democ-
racy is not extinguished unless a community-wide basis of selection
and responsibility is done away with.44
Thus the definition of the elite is so broadened as to destroy its

original meaning. The pyramidal structure of the distribution of
power, upon which its original validity was defended, now topples.
Power can be distributed among the many equally well. Since in a
democracy the people have the largest share of power, by a process
of interpretation they, rather than the few, are now the elite. The
few are now relabelled the leaders interacting with the people. The
terms of the power equation are scarcely recognizable: in the first
phase, there were the few elite and the many of the mass; today in
his second phase, we have the few leaders and numerous elite.45
Unless we assume that in 1941 the United States, at least, experi-
enced a tremendous shift in power from the few to the many, the
revision is simply a device for discarding old baggage. In thus at-
tempting to define away a basic concept of a previous era, Lasswell
stands in a good tradition. Rousseau too disencumberedhimself of
the concept of social contract by defining it away. Whereas earlier
contracts had usually been conceived as limitations on the sovereign
power, Rousseau used it as a device to create an unlimited sovereign.
But the respectability of the tradition does not validate the logic
of the reasoning.
The fact that Lasswell has here changed his conceptual approach
fundamentally does not imply that the findings from his earlier re-
search in terms of the elite are now invalidated. The findings simply
require recasting to mesh with the new set of gears. Instead of speak-
ing now of the characteristics, composition, or methods of an elite,
Lasswell can now simply talk of the characteristics and instruments
"8James Bryce, Modern Democracies (New York: The Macmillan Com-
pany, 1921), II, 542.
"Lasswell, Power and Personality, op. cit., pp. 109-10; cf. also The Analysis
of Political Behaviour, op. cit., p. 158, footnote, with discussion of power in
Power and Personality, op. cit., p. 10.
"Lasswell, Power and Personality, op. cit., pp. 9 and 148.
of power in the hands of the decision-makers. Whether decision-

makers narrowlyconceived as the bureaucratsor whether, after 1941,
decision-makers broadly defined as effectively acting masses have
more power is purely a factual question. If he so wished, Lasswell
could continue to assimilate into his discussions the elite as redefined,
labelling either the mass or the rulers as elites depending upon where
researchindicated effective power to lie. But its gradual elimination
from his terminologyseems to indicate at least a subconsciousfeeling
that when so broadly defined the term begins to lose its analytic
utility and may even lead, because of its traditional associations and
assumptions, to confusion and misunderstanding.
It would be doing political science a considerable service if the
term were discarded entirely for descriptive purposes. It may con-
tinue to have some utility when used normatively to identify a de-
sirable or undesirablekind of leadership.46 But if used in any other
sense, it has been given so many diverse meanings in both private
conversation and published research that it sows more confusion
than clarity.
In summary, then, Lasswell's revised conception of the role of
values in social research led to a correspondingrevision of the basic
structure in terms of which he sought to examine political behavior.
The lesson seems to be that each social science ought to re-examine
the value premises upon which its empirical research rests. For the
purposes of increasing the measure in which the social sciences can
contribute to the development of social policy in favor of democratic
society, it is not only necessary to work out carefully the goals of
democracy,but it is essential to ask questions that will give us knowl-
edge immediately relevant to those goals. Much of the knowledge
in the social sciences lacks this urgent relevance. The scientific in-
formation accumulated by Lasswell in his first phase is a good case
in point. The knowledge of the first phase was of course not un-
important, but it was less important and had less meaning because
of the limited frameworkof which it was a product.
The transformation in Lasswell's frame of reference transcends
in its significance the personal meaning it may have for him alone
or even the importance it may have for contributing to a new ap-
proach to the empirical study of political power. It contains a moral
"For variety of meaningsof elite see Francis G. Wilson, "The Elite in Re-
cent Political Thought,"Joseph S. Roucek (ed.), Twentieth Century Political
Thought (New York: PhilosophicalLibrary, Inc., 1946).
for all of the social sciences. It suggests, first, that there must be
greater awareness of the role that conceptual principles play in re-
search. This importancehas been emphasized on many occasions47
but there is still no evidence that it has sunk deep into the conscious-
ness of political science or even of the other social sciences. Too
little attention is still being devoted to the matrix within which re-
search takes place. An awareness of the nature of one's principles
of orientation is essential as the first step.
This analysis of Lasswell indicates, secondly, that now, in a period
when, in the act of becoming genuinely social, social scientists begin
to acknowledge their obligation to think in terms of goals, they must
recognize a hard fact. If a social discipline is to contribute to the
understandingof social policy it is not enough that it confine itself
to the search for the "pure" truth. So long as the plain truth was
the objective, values-could and did creep in through the back door
even though they appeared to have been suppressed. Long ago Karl
Mannheim made this clear. But this study of Lasswell points to a
further fact. The assumptionsof a framework,unavowed or explicit,
may so compel research in one direction that the theories and facts
discovered may not be revelant to the more urgent purposes of so-
ciety. If the survival of society were guaranteedunder any eventuali-
ties, then the social sciences could afford to tolerate researchthat was
indifferent to the frameworkwithin which it was cast. But when the
threat of self-destructionhangs over the world, the urgency of social
problems demands a reconsiderationof the link between the concep-
tual framework in each social science and the utility of the results
of that science for the attainment, preservation, and extension of
goals upon which men have agreed.
In the writings of Lasswell there is adumbratedthe most extreme
claim that social science can make. The suggestion appears that to
convert political science to a policy science, a discipline contributing
to the solution of social problems, new referential principles are re-
quired; there appears in embryo the further claim that even the goals
upon which social policy must be based can be established with the
procedures of a fully developed science of man. It is clear that in
Lasswell there is a recurrenceof a historic tendency towards a closed
scientific system in which the prospect is held out that all the issues
'7Most recently in Shils, Present State of Amercan Sociology, op. cit.; see
also footnote 23.
1950] HAROLD POLICYSCIENTIST
LASSWELL; 477
vital to man can be tentatively entertained and, as the occasion per-

mits, answeredwithin the scope of science. The claim is broad and
perhaps arrogantand premature,but it has a history in the last three
centuries that cannot be ignored. It is a challenge to the social
sciences that they cannot avoid or escape.

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Harold Lasswell; Policy Scientist for a Democratic Society

Author(s): David Easton

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he has been secretly satisfied that this is a fruitless expenditure of

I. A SCIENTIFIC TEST OF VALUES

As will be developed at a later point, Lasswell has passed through

5Lasswell, The Analysis of Political Behaviour; An Empirical Approach

For thus denying to philosophy what he also seems to withhold

become so much a part of western man that it is virtually ineradica-

Democracy Through Public Opinion, op. cit., p. 167.

In essence, this attempt to remarry science and philosophy

The unobtrusive but undeniable trend in Lasswell's thinking

it recognizes the "capacity of every person to contribute to the com-

cal Behaviour, op. cit., p. 2.

mate ends and institutional arrangementscan satisfy these needs most

the real meaning of a political writing is not always apparent at the

III. POLITICS AS A PURE SCIENCE

Lasswell declares himself in favor of democracy as defined.

Lasswell's writings. At an earlier stage in his development he would

"3Forthe differencebetween a generalframework,theory, and conceptssee

The fissure that appears in Lasswell's thought stems from his

frame of orientation can be briefly stated. It adopts Pareto's views

United States of Pareto's English edition of Mind and Society.

mocracy. Pareto's point of departure was always economic theory.

power near the governmental level rather than in directly trying to

ality adjustment be set by the few psychoanalysts, it becomes a fact

quantity of power rests in their hands. What is lacking for an exact

amoral, that is, whether a "pure" political science can ever be a

IV. POLITICS AS A POLICY SCIENCE

As late as 1939 Lasswell seems to have been using the elitist

limit the power of the bureaucracy. To meet the needs of em-

power demanded new analytical tools. What would be a fruitful

majority must be free of intimidation. Moreover,they must have confidence

approach. But there has been almost total absence of generaliza-

crucial importance of examining methods of control cannot be gain-

old and his new assumptions.

To meet our definitionof democracy,leadersmust be drawn from the

Thus the definition of the elite is so broadened as to destroy its

of power in the hands of the decision-makers. Whether decision-

vital to man can be tentatively entertained and, as the occasion per-

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