3 - Connolly, William E. - Political Science and Ideology-Routledge (2017)

POLITICAL
SCIENCE&
IDEOLOGY
POLITICAL
SCIENCE&
IDEOLOGY
William E. Connolly
I~ ~~o~!~!n~~;up
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 1967 by Transaction Publishers
Published 2017 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © 1967 by Atherton Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or

utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and
are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2006047491
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Connolly, William E.
Political science and ideology / William E. Connolly.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-202-30851-0 (alk. paper)
1. Knowledge, Sociology of. 2. Ideology. 3. Political science. I. Title.
BD175.C6 2006
320.01—dc22 2006047491
ISBN 13: 978-0-202-30851-7 (pbk)

Preface
Political scientists, in recent years, have paid re-
markably little attention to the ideological aspects of
their own research. This lack of attention suggests that
they believe the ideological dimension has been largely
eliminated from contemporary inquiry or, at least, that
the progressive development of a science of politics
promises to render that dimension obsolete in the fore-
seeable future.
I contend in this study that the ideological dimen-
sion retains central significance in contemporary
political inquiry. Regardless of one's confidence or
pessimism concerning the prospects for a future
science of politics, the role of ideology in political
analysis should receive serious intellectual attention
today. The study itself represents one effort to expose
v1 I Preface
and cope with the problem of ideology in political
inquiry.
I am heavily indebted to several people who have
contributed to this study. To my former mentor and
present colleague James Meisel I am especially grate-
ful. He has provided the stimulus for many of the ideas
developed here and, of equal importance, has given me
needed encouragement and support at every stage of
this project. Arnold Kaufman also worked with me
continually on this study; his pervasive impact on my
thinking is only imperfectly expressed in the following
pages. M. Kent Jennings, Roy Pierce, and David
Kettler all read the entire manuscript and offered help-
ful comments and suggestions, many of which were
incorporated in the final draft. It is a pleasure to ac-
knowledge an intellectual debt to each of these men.
A final note of thanks is due to Miss Sue Pender-
grass, who typed major portions of the manuscript, and
to Miss Alyce Strickland, who helped arrange the index
and competently handled many other procedural de-
tails.
Contents
Preface I vii
1 The Problem of Ideology I1
2 The Ideological Context of Power Analysis I 13
Conceptual Decisions 14
THE CONCEPT OF POWER
Power and American Politics 21

THE ELITIST THEORY
THE PLURALIST THEORY
Operational Tests 31
THE METHOD OF FORMAL POSITION
THE METHOD OF REPUTATION
PARTICIPATION IN ISSUE RESOLUTIONS
Power Analysis and Ideology 48
3 The Sociology of Knowledge I 55

The Sociology of Knowledge as Empirical Theory 56
MARXIST ORIGINS
SOCIAL DETERMINATION OF IDEAS
IDEOLOGY AND UTOPIA
THE INTELLECTUAL STRATUM
The Sociology of Knowledge and Epistemology 69

The Sociology of Knowledge: Critique 75
SOCIAL DETERMINATION OF IDEAS
IDEOLOGY AND UTOPIA
THE INTELLECTUAL STRATUM
THE IDEAL OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE
Karl Mannheim: An Appraisal 88
4 The Concept of the Perspective I 91

Social Life and Mental Activity 93
LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT
THE GENERALIZED OTHER
The Perspective and Political Ideology 103

The Perspective and Higher Level Commitments 108
The Importance of the Perspective 114
5 Toward Responsible Ideology j 117

The Notion of Responsibility 118
Ideology as a Social Responsibility 121
THE CASE FOR IDEOLOGICAL INVOLVEMENT
RESPONSIBILITIES TO OPPOSING IDEOLOGIES
IDEOLOGIES AND THE POLITICAL SCIENTIST:
RECAPITULATION
Responsible Ideology I 37
PERSPECTIVAL SELF-CLARIFICATION
POLITICAL INTERPRETATION
PROPOSALS FOR ACTION
Conclusion 152
Notes I 157
Bibliography I 169
Index I 175
I I The Problem
of Ideology
When citizens, collectively or individually, as
official agents or as private actors, make decisions hav-
ing widespread public consequences, we hope that
these decisions will be based on serious deliberation
rather than upol). thoughtless impulse, compulsive need,
or careless guess. If a decision is in fact made after de-
liberation, an important component of the agent's con-
siderations will have been his interpretation of the
social and political environment.
Yet however deliberative he seeks to be, it is very
likely that he will encounter in that environment many
problematic situations which demand decision but in
which information about key factors is unavailable or
rests upon reasoned belief and conjecture rather than
2 I POLITICAL SCIENCE AND IDEOLOGY
upon established knowledge. Decisions of public conse-

quence are often required in situations of relative un-
certainty, and this is when the problem of ideology be-
comes most severe and therefore most urgently de-
mands serious intellectual confrontation.
As the term is here employed, an ideology is not
itself a set of moral commitments or political ideals
which are employed to judge events good or bad in the
light of their consequences, although one's values do
influence his selection of problems and they are psycho-
logically linked to his ideological beliefs. Rather, in
this study an ideology is an integrated set of beliefs
about the social and political environment. It purports
to tell us how the system is organized, which desired
goals can be promoted, what agencies and channels
can most effectively be employed to forward the goals
in the given setting, and what the required action will
cost various groups in the short and long run in terms
of status, power, happiness, wealth, and so on. Diverg-
ing ideologies, of course, carry contrasting implications
for political action. Hence the tasks of choosing among
competing ideologies and of constructing a viable
ideology become problems of major import for the
careful student of politics.
If an ideology concerns itself with significant
questions, then invariably it contains assumptions and
beliefs which have not been reliably tested but are in
some degree "accepted on faith." Thus, in situations
of limited knowledge, ideologies fill the void of un-
certainty with beliefs designed to direct and guide
political activity.
Ideologies are essential to responsible decision-
making in these conditions of limited empirical control.
Yet in such conditions the ideological beliefs of the
agent tend to reflect his predispositions to believe; he
3 I The Problem of Ideology
tends to construe the environment in ways that support
the values, aspirations, and interests he brings to the
empirical situation. In this sense, ideologies are "value-
impregnated" systems of social and political belief. Im-
portant beliefs which cannot be tested in the given
situation by well-designed empirical procedures are
"tested" instead by ascertaining their degree of con-
gruence with beliefs and values to which the adherents
are already deeply committed. An ideology assimilates
information in ways that preserve its basic integrity; it
consists of a system of mutually reinforcing beliefs
which appear plausible when viewed from within.
Herein resides the problem of ideology: A system
of accepted political beliefs, often needed to orient
political activity in problematic situations, also tends
to be organized in ways which protect the higher level
commitments of its supporters. In situations of limited
empirical control it often becomes exceedingly difficult
to ascertain whether the accepted ideology is effectively
describing and explaining the political environment or
whether its explanatory power is severely impaired by
its tendency to obscure relevant but potentially dis-
concerting aspects of the environment from the con-
sciousness of its supporters. A distorting ideology is
unfortunate, for, once chosen, an ideology shapes and
conditions the political behavior of its adherents.
Our broad purpose is to confront the problem of
ideology in contemporary political inquiry. We are not
primarily concerned with ideologies generated and
supported by special interest groups in the society, al-
though these overlapping and competing ideologies are
relevant to our problem. Rather we consider the prob-
lem of ideology as it is expressed in the work of those
whose training and location render them potentially
best equipped to cope with the problem; accordingly,
4 POLITICAL SCIENCE AND IDEOLOGY
we focus on the work of representative political scien-

tists.* And we do not direct our attention primarily
to those political interpretations with which we are in
disagreement or to those which are known to be dis-
torted because they have been definitively falsified by
empirical tests. Our focus is the problem of ideology as
it arises in the work of those political scientists who
confront problematic situations which are not presently
amenable to rigorous testing procedures at key points.
The problem of ideology is confronted at bedrock level
when we recognize that it is a problem for the political
scientist as well as for the ordinary citizen, when we
admit that our own political interpretations, as well as
those of our opponents, contain ideological elements.
There are, we believe, limits to the problem of
ideology, limits at least which can be postulated by
those who are guided by a scientific ideal of political
inquiry. Certain lines of argument are typically ad-
vanced by those who claim that political inquiry is in-
herently subjective or ideological, and it might be
helpful to indicate some of those lines of argument
which will not be advanced here. There will be no
argument resting on the claim that human actions are
essentially "free" and thus not in principle subject to
rigorous, lawful explanation. The thesis of determinism
is here accepted as a postulate of scientific inquiry.
There will be no claim that the dignity of man is neces-
sarily threatened by even attempting to explain human
behavior lawfully. Finally, there will be no explicit or
implicit attempt to undermine the value of controlled
empirical inquiry so as to replace it with a "higher"
means of understanding-such as "intuition."
* We make no distinctions between, for example, political
sociologists and political scientists. All investigators who study
typically "political" problems and who are committed to check
their conclusions against available empirical evidence are here
called political scientists.
5 The Problem of Ideology
We accept, in short, the scientific ideal of political
inquiry. But that ideal itself has many variants and is
subject to competing interpretations. No complete
theory of what scientific knowledge is or should be can
be developed here. But because certain of the issues
raised in this study impinge on that larger question, we
will briefly formulate our conception of the ideal aims
and methods proper to social science.
1. The nomothetic ideal of establishing general
laws of political behavior which can be applied to con-
crete situations is here accepted over the ideographic
ideal of understanding each event and cultural com-
plex in all its uniqueness. That is, the long-range aim
of political inquiry ought to be to formulate systemati-
cally related universal laws of politics which, when re-
lated to certain specified antecedent conditions, can
predict behavior. A second-level ideal is to develop
probability laws which can, given a large enough num-
ber of cases, predict the frequency with which a given
event will occur in a series of similar situations.
A deductive-nomological explanation is based on

laws which express unexceptional uniformities; such
laws are of strictly universal form, of which the fol-
lowing is a simple example: "In every case x, without
exception, when the (more or less complex) condi-
tions A are satisfied, an event or state of affairs of
kind B comes about," . . . In an inductive-proba-
bilistic explanation, on the other hand, at least some
of the relevant laws are not of strictly universal, but
of statistical character. The simplest statements of
this type have the form: "the statistical probability
(i.e., roughly the long-run relative frequency) for the
occurrence of an event of kind B under conditions of
kind A is r." 1
A third-level aim, falling outside the nomothetic view

as generally conceived, is the "investigation of those

regularities and interconnections, those principia
media, which do not operate in every society but which
define the particular character of a certain social pat-
tern. "2 The principia media can be viewed as incipient
universal or probability laws not yet formulated as
such because of practical inabilities to specify all of the
conditions necessary for their operation.*
It is not here denied that the factors of cultural
relativity, the irreversibility of social change, the self-
fulfilling and denying effects of inquiry, and practical
difficulties in gaining needed information inhibit efforts
to achieve the nomothetic ideal of explanation. Nor is
it claimed that significant universal laws have yet been
established in the social sciences. But it is possible to
formulate them and, in principle, to test them. 4
2. Scientific explanation should aim at the predic-
tion and control of behavior as an ideal of inquiry
rather than merely at the development of an "appre-
ciative understanding" of the processes studied. Pre-
diction is conditional and can be based on the observed
correlations between events or upon explanation of the
relations of dependence between events. Control re-
quires the identification of strategic points at which
the introduction of new forces will change behavior
patterns in predictable ways. Such a view of science
does not require one to disparage the aesthetic attrac-
tiveness of certain scientific theories; nor does it imply
that it is easy in practice to exclude factors of aesthetic
appreciation and normative appeal from one's judg-
* Thus the form of these laws would be: In culture I, given

conditions A, B, C, result x comes about. But this "law" does not
hold in other cultural settings because factors D, E, etc., which
also contribute to x in this setting, have not been fully recognized
and isolated. Factors A, B, C are indicators of x in one environ-
ment, not in another. 3
ment of the utility of a scientific theory. It does imply
that one cannot appeal to aesthetic qualities as a means
of justifying or criticizing scientific knowledge claims. 5
3. Finally, and related to the first two points, the
method of V erstehen is not here accepted as a proper
means of validating scientific knowledge. The doctrine
of V erstehen holds that the researcher's task is to
understand the culture examined from within, to cap-
ture the meanings and connections in life felt and ex-
perienced by the participants themselves. Since, it is
asserted, human behavior is controlled by the concepts
guiding it, and since the rules governing the use of con-
cepts such as "prayer" and "crime" are relative to the
cultural setting within which they develop, the primary
task of the social researcher is to immerse himself in
this world of meanings and to discover how activity is
experienced by the participants, how the connections
between events are viewed from within. Once this task
has been completed, the researcher's explanatory pur-
poses have been achieved.
It is true that immersing himself in the culture he
is studying does seem to be a preliminary task of the
researcher, and that valuable hypotheses might be sug-
gested from this experience. But if the postulated aim
of inquiry is not merely to achieve an "appreciative
understanding" of a culture but to formulate laws
which promote prediction and control, then from our
point of view the method of V erstehen alone is de-
ficient. If explanation is to be considered a guide to
action rather than as an end in itself, it must aim at dis-
covering what causes the behavior patterns under in-
vestigation rather than merely what the participants
experience as cause, motive, or rationale. Furthermore,
the method of V erstehen does not provide adequate
means of adjudicating differences in interpretation.
8 POLITiCAL SCIENCE AND IDEOLOGY
There are no impersonal measures available which can

establish my "appreciative understanding" as clearly
superior to yours. 6
The above skeletal formulation of the scientific
ideals of knowledge should not be interpreted to mean
that we consider political inquiry which does not clearly
attain these high ideals to be illegitimate or useless.
On the contrary, we recognize that there are vast areas
of political inquiry in which universal or statistical
laws are not firmly established-where hypotheses,
when accepted as true, depend as much upon the
plausibility or reasonableness of certain untested as-
sumptions as they do upon the observational tests de-
vised to establish their validity or invalidity. In these
situations, given the powerful technical and practical
obstacles to the approximation of scientific ideals exist-
ing in the political sphere, the scholar interested in
coping with significant problem areas which demand
immediate attention should be guided by the "classical"
standards of intellectual craftsmanship. 1
The classical tradition of inquiry operates in
roughly the following way. The scholar, coming to a
situation with a set of accepted beliefs, hopes, fears,
and values, experiences a felt problem, a tension be-
tween what is expected or desired and what is actually
experienced to be the case. He is faced with a "prob-
lematic situation." The scholar then, building from the
perspective he brings to the situation, develops a set of
concepts and hypotheses aimed at resolving the prob-
lematic situation in some acceptable manner. His
theory is typically developed and tested in the follow-
ing two ways:
First, certain "pivotal" hypotheses are generated.
A "pivotal" hypothesis is one of "those features of the
idea elaborated which seem to promise the most in-
ferences of revelance to the elaboration." 8 Operational
9 The Problem of Ideology
tests are then devised which will be taken as evidence
for and against these pivotal hypotheses. But the
"test" of a given hypothesis actually tests only certain
aspects of it; it is taken as a test of the full hypothesis
( and those others linked to it) only because certain
explicit or implicit assumptions-impractical or impos-
sible to test in the given context-are accepted as
plausible from the vantage point of the perspective
brought to the inquiry.*
Second, the theory is tested by acting upon it and
evaluating its utility in resolving felt problematic situa-
tions. The resolution may require an adjustment of
beliefs and expectations to the situation ( the "conserva-
tive" response) or concerted action at strategic points
to alter the environment so as to remove the condi-
tions behind the felt problem ( the "activist" response).
In any case, the criterion of success, on this second
test, is the extent to which the new orientation over the
long run promotes a felt resolution or alleviation of the
tensions, doubts, and confusions which were the initial
problem. Put another way, on the basis of our adjusted
perspective of assumptions and partially tested beliefs
we predict what messages we will receive from the en-
vironment if we act in certain ways. If our action does
* Thus, to take an implausible example for purposes of ex-
position, hypothesis A holds that Negroes are congenitally less in-
telligent than whites. The "key" operational test devised is to survey
the occupational levels of a random sample of Negroes and whites
to see what levels of achievement each group has attained. If
certain untested assumptions are accepted ( e.g., "the occupational
levels specified are a good index of intelligence level"; "the main
criterion for selection to those positions is technical competence";
"there are no significant differences in opportunities between whites
and Negroes to obtain training in the needed skills" etc.), then
the test can be taken as a reliable index of the truth or falsity of
hypothesis A. The pattern of hypothesis-testing in contemporary
political inquiry, we shall assert, is often similar to the example
cited. The major difference is that the assumptions underlying the
hypothesis-test relationship are usually more seductive; members
of the profession generally feel them to be well grounded or
reasonable.
produce the expected messages our perspective is re-

inforced and the problem is alleviated; if not, we adjust
our orientation further or we remain confused. Such
a procedure reeks of "vulgar" pragmatism and has
many apparent weaknesses: doctrines such as astrology
and racism might be reinforced by such a test if they
"work" in some sense when applied in action; further-
more, the most stable outlook might be the one that is
immune to possible refuting messages. Recognition of
such problems in this primitive method of testing beliefs
is, of course, responsible for efforts to establish more
rigorous testing procedures. We have not supported
this method as an ideal, but as an acceptable and neces-
sary procedure to follow when important questions
must be answered in conditions of limited empirical
control. Certainly many of the conclusions accepted in
daily life and in numerous areas of social and political
inquiry have been tested by this method or something
like it. For example, the Freudian theory is tested
largely by its effectiveness in therapy, as that effective-
ness is evaluated by therapist and patient. By investi-
gating the internal consistency of the theory, by con-
fronting it as outside critics with uncomfortable facts,
by admitting to ourselves that some of our research
conclusions rest on just this kind of test ( and thereby
making ourselves more amenable to criticism), we can
promote some degree of rigor into this primitive proc-
ess of belief testing. 9
In any case, the classic approach is justified when
felt problems demand formulation and when practical
and technical obstacles prevent adequate testing of the
interpretive response at some or all significant points.
In these situations such an approach is useful in orient-
ing action to the problem area; it provides coherence
and some degree of reality testing to proposals for
public action.
With this background, the framework and prin-
cipal contentions of this study may now be anticipated.
Our primary objective is to clarify the general problem
of ideology by focusing on its manifestations in one
area of political inquiry. We thus examine compara-
tively the "pluralist" and "power elite" interpretations
of political power in American society, principally as
those competing interpretations have been developed
by Robert Dahl and C. Wright Mills respectively. The
two interpretations are reconstructed as ideologies; in
each case an effort is made to identify cherished beliefs
and values which underpin the accepted interpretation
and to isolate particular conceptual decisions and
operational procedures which have combined to push
the outcomes of inquiry in one direction or the other.
Our contentions: neither of these interpretations has
been brought to definitive test; each interpretation ap-
pears plausible from within the context of untested as-
sumptions accepted by its adherents; each interpreta-
tion functions to justify the positions and actions of
some social groupings while implying criticism for
other groups and programs.
Next, the attempts by Karl Mannheim to expose
and confront the problem of ideology are examined.
Mannheim, more than any other twentieth-century
scholar, made a sustained intellectual effort to cope
with the ideological dimension of political inquiry. The
study's debt to Mannheim is large, but there are several
points at which our conclusions diverge from his. First,
his definitions of "ideology" and "utopia" are deemed
deficient and are amended. Second, we suggest that
his conception of the social responsibilities of the "in-
tellectual stratum," while valuable in many respects,
requires extensive revision. Finally, while we agree
with Mannheim that the sociology of knowledge carries
important implications for the organization of political
inquiry, it does not, as he (usually) supposed, neces-

sarily undermine the ideal of scientific knowledge.
Mannheim's suggestive, but undeveloped, concept
of the "perspective" is elaborated and its role in the
construction and examination of ideologies is explored.
The concept "responsibility" is also defined, and it is
then argued that political scientists have a clear social
responsibility to develop and critically examine ideolo-
gies relevant to contemporary political activity. In the
concluding chapter, an exploratory search is launched
for procedures by which political scientists can engage
in ideological inquiry in responsible ways. The purpose
is not to eliminate the ideological elements in political
inquiry-for that is deemed impractical in the present
context and undesirable in general-but to find ways
of bringing the ideological dimension under conscious
control.
The unifying purpose of this study, as originally
conceived, was to expose more clearly the ideological
dimension which pervades political inquiry today. But
as that dimension was tapped, a second even more
tangled problem has emerged: How can the careful
student of politics most effectively cope with the ideo-
logical aspects of his own inquiries without defaulting
in his obligation to make those inquiries relevant to the
needs of his society? As noted above, the latter prob-
lem receives much attention in the final two chapters
where a few tentative suggestions are advanced in the
hope of helping investigators to face the problem.
If in this study the ideological dimension has been
exposed fairly and clearly, then, just as clearly, much
more work remains. A persistent, collective effort is
needed to ascertain what possible combinations of
skills and attitudes can help the social scientist to cope
responsibly with his own problem of ideology.
2 I The Ideological Context
of Power Analysis
The end of ideology, we contend, has not yet ar-
rived in political inquiry. Ideological elements are still
prevalent in the broad-range political interpretations
advanced today. A few political investigators are
acutely aware of the ideological elements in their in-
terpretations; however, many others suggest or imply
that they have overcome the problem of ideology. In
this chapter we examine the elitist-pluralist debate over
the structure of political power in American society in
order to support the contention that the problem of
ideology remains pervasive and deep-rooted.
Our purpose is not to debunk or to refute either
of the interpretations considered; rather, we try to un-
cover those beliefs and values that underpin the con-
flicting interpretations, to reveal some of the strategic

decisions made by both "schools" which tend to pre-
judge the outcomes of inquiry, and to show that neither
of the interpretations has yet been adequately tested.
Both interpretations function as ideologies. Both ap-
pear plausible to selected segments of society. And
both can be defended if certain untested-and in prac-
tice relatively untestable-assumptions are accepted.
The discussion will move from the general to the
specific, and the principal claims made will be clarified
through an analysis of recent attempts to define and
operationalize the central political concept "power."
Conceptual Decisions
In political inquiry, research is commonly

oriented around questions of public power: How are
the "troubles" of individuals and groups translated-
or not translated-into public issues? How are the
issues resolved and decisions with widespread public
effects reached? What are the effects of these decisions
and how are they distributed among the population-
who benefits and who suffers? How do the process
and the result compare to certain ideals of political
life? In order to cope with such questions it is neces-
sary to develop a conceptual apparatus with which to
classify the phenomena and to establish relationships
between the abstracted classifications.
Although numerous variations have developed
within them, two broad conceptual frameworks have
historically competed for the honor of serving as the
organizing framework for political inquiry. We label
these approaches respectively as the consensus-integra-
tion model and the conflict-coercion model. 1
The traditional debate has been over which model
15 I The Ideological Context of Power Analysis
is in general most applicable to political decision-mak-
ing. Today most students agree that different societies
vary in their degree of convergence with either model,
and further, that different aspects of the decision-mak-
ing processes within a society will vary in the same
respect. There are "two faces of society," then, but
there is far from universal agreement over which face
predominates in contemporary industrial societies.
In both cases, advocates of one theory accuse
those advocating the other of ideological distortion.
Thus some conflict theorists claim that the consensus
approach fails to distinguish the legitimation of power
as expressed in the dominant rhetoric of the day from
the actual hard facts of coercive power. And, it is held,
this confusion comes easily to the consensus theorists,
for they are prone to celebrate the status quo while
ostensibly describing and explaining it. Their explana-
tions are ideological distortions which function to blur
over and preserve from criticism the hard facts of
coercion and manipulation. 2
The conflict theorists, on the other hand, are
accused of projecting the frustrations of the thwarted
Right or Left onto the social scene; they construe the
smoothly functioning system to be held together by
repression and constraint rather than show it to be so.
They are motivated by either a strong reformist zeal or
a hard-boiled cynicism or both, and their apparent de-
scription functions as a critical expose of contemporary
society. 3
It is indeed true that political inquiry operates
within an ideological context in two senses. In the first
sense, the interpretations given of the political process
serve, when considered in conjunction with accepted
values, to legitimize and/or to criticize the activities of
groups in and around that process, to affect the self-
image of these same groups and the images others have
of them. For example, the Parsonian conception of

power structures is flattering to the image of those who
hold high economic, social, and political positions in
American society. For, in keeping with American
ideals, they are viewed as representatives of all ele-
ments in the society; they link and apply collectively
generated values and beliefs to concrete problems. The
Mills' interpretation creates an unflattering image of
the same leaders. Progressively becoming integrated
into a "power elite," they dominate more than they
represent; they operate by means of manipulation and
coercion rather than by authority and persuasion. The
Parsonian view clearly functions to preserve public
satisfaction with the· status quo; the Mills' interpreta-
tion tends to make the identified elite uneasy and other
segments of society discontent.
Second, explicit or implicit ideological intent can
be seen to lie behind the various interpretations. Each
investigator, corning to political inquiry with an outlook
shared by some segments of society, overlapping with
others, and opposed by still others, is predisposed to
describe and explain in certain ways. Thus Mills brings
to inquiry a profound dissatisfaction generated by the
great gap he sees between what is possible for Ameri-
can society and what is actuality. To close the gap he
must identify the forces promoting maintenance of the
status quo and must reveal the negative consequences
of this condition; he must then enunciate a program of
action and identify an agency through which to imple-
ment the program. And, to oversimplify, the theory
constructed locates a shared sense of malaise in the
"mass society," locates the source of this condition in
the "power elite," and points to the remaining oppor-
tunities of a strategically located group-the intellec-
tuals-to translate the possible into reality by holding
17 The Ideological Context of Power Analysis
the power elite responsible for "events as decisions."*
We can, then, detect an ideological flavor to the
conceptual decisions and interpretive results in at
least some areas of empirical political inquiry. But are
we yet able to devise and employ impersonal tests to
resolve the differences in interpretation which emerge?
Or is the attempted resolution itself tinged with in-
terpretive perceptions and assumptions which serve
to develop and protect those basic commitments we
bring to inquiry? In an attempt to cope with this ques-
tion more clearly and within the context of contempo-
rary political inquiry, we will analyze the concept of
power as defined, employed, and operationalized by
representative proponents of the "elitist" and "plural-
ist" theories of power in American society. t
THE CONCEPT OF POWER I We must, first of all,

distinguish between terminological disputes and con-
ceptual disputes. A dispute is terminological when it
is over what name should be applied to a given con-
cept; it is conceptual when there is disagreement over
which extensions a given term refers to and/or over
which of the identified extensions are most basic to the
concept. The term "religion," for example, refers to a
plurality of conditions which must occur before the
concept applies: belief in divine beings, a sacred creed,
ritual acts, a divinely sanctioned code, and so on. The
* "It is with this problem of agency in mind that I have been

studying for several years now, the cultural apparatus, the intellec-
tuals-as a possible, immediate, radical agency of change." 4
t We follow Mannheim's example here: "We will begin
with the fact that the same word or concept in most cases, means
different things when used by differently situated persons . . .";
and "even in the formulation of concepts, the angle of vision is
guided by the observer's interests . . . ; every concept combines
within itself only that which, in the light of the investigator's
interests, it is essential to grasp and to incorporate."5
term would be a center of a conceptual dispute, and

has been, if there were disagreement over which condi-
tions to include or to exclude as part of the concept-
whether, for example, a divinely sanctioned code is to
be included as part of the concept. It would also be the
center of a conceptual dispute if there were disagree-
ment over which of the included features is most basic
or essential to the concept-for example, whether or
not belief in divine beings is to be considered as the
defining characteristic of religion.
The dispute in political inquiry over "power" is
clearly a conceptual dispute surrounding the proper
usage of the term. An observer might suggest that the
dispute be circumvented by applying a different term
to each of the overlapping concepts now covered by
the term "power" and then deciding which concepts
are applicable to given political situations. But such a
suggestion misses a central problem. The conceptual
dispute exists because we have found no adequate
means of deciding which concepts best fit the decision-
making process in contemporary politics. Since it is
generally agreed that central to political inquiry are the
identification and explanation of "power" relations, the
various definitions of the term "power" represent at-
tempts to identify those aspects of the political process
that are in some sense central, crucial, or primary to its
operation. In political inquiry, as in other areas of
social science, "semantical differences are usually a
symptom of differences which reach into the core of
the matter. " 6
Let us now briefly review representative defini-
tions of power advanced in contemporary political
inquiry:
Power is the production of intended effects. 7

Power is a special case of the exercise of influence;
it is the process of affecting policies of others with
the help of ( actual or threatened) severe deprivations
for non-conformity with the policies intended. 8
My intuitive idea of power, then, is something like

this: A has power over B to the extent that he can
get B to do something that B would not otherwise
do. 9
By the powerful we mean, of course, those who are
able to realize their will, even if others resist it. 10
Power we may define as the realistic capacity of a

system-unit to actualize its "interests" ( attain goals,
prevent undesired interference, command respect,
control possessions, etc.) within the context of sys-
tem interaction and in this sense to exert influence
on processes in the system. 11
All of these definitions have certain broad features

in common. Each focuses on a relationship in which
actors (individuals or groups) A and B interact in
such a way as to promote a given form of behavior.
Each position, when spelled out, recognizes that in
structural relationships of power some of the actors
regularly take more initiative in influencing outcomes
on a specified scope of activities than do others; a situa-
tion of differential initiative in producing outcomes is
visualized.
But within this very loose framework of agree-
ment the several definitions and applications of the
concept "power" emphasize different aspects and
imply varying interpretations of the relationships typi-
cally established between actors A and B in promoting
outcomes. Two "ideal types" can be discerned; they
emerge respectively from the conflict and consensus
models brought to political inquiry.
In type I, a zero-sum concept of power is ad-
vanced. 12 That is, power is conceived as a scarce value,

and if A's power increases in a given context, B's will
decrease proportionately. The underlying relationship
is one of socially generated or biologically rooted con-
flict. To promote order and to resolve the underlying
conflicts a condition approaching a dominance-sub-
missive relationship is established; the bidder controls
the actions of the complier in order to promote pur-
poses of its own choosing. Ideas, goals, decisions, and
means of implementation flow, in large degree, from
bidder to complier. The means employed by the bidder
to gain assent are of two general types-coercion and
manipulation. In domination by coercion A's purposes
may or not be known to B. A employs severe sanctions
or the clearly implied threat of severe sanctions to gain
B's compliance. In domination by manipulation A's
true purposes are unknown to B. A gains B's response
-either an active response or a passive acceptance of
A's behavior-by conditioning, propaganda, and
through the control of information and the range of
interpretations available to B on relevant matters.
In type II, power is viewed as the "collective
product of society-as the sum total of cooperation
minus what obstructs it." 13 It is not considered a scarce
commodity, nor is it something which by definition one
individual or group employs for its own special in-
terests. Rather, power is seen as the ability to achieve
collective goals; and, normally, the collective goals
emerge from the common value system which is itself
a collective product of society. The value system, col-
lectively generated and providing the context for all
activity, is "the most general directional commitment
of persons to action in a social system. " 14 Power rela-
tions, according to this view, are typically reciprocal
relationships in which ideas and general goals are com-
municated upward, downward, and horizontally, but in
which there is a differential responsibility for articulat-
ing concrete objectives compatible with these general
goals and for energizing individuals to promote these
objectives. The situation is thus typically one of leader-
ship rather than domination. Decisions are reached
and implemented by appeal to a felt obligation to pro-
mote common goals-the method of authority-and by
bargaining between units as each attempts to maximize
its self-interest as that interest is defined and limited
within the context of common values. Coercion is
sometimes employed or threatened, but generally this
method itself is socially legitimated by the fact that the
general "public," committed to the common value
system, views the action as necessary to the protection
or attainment of common goals.
These two "types" of power may be placed at
extreme ends of a power continuum. No contemporary
theorist operates at either extreme end. Rather, each
adopts a stance somewhere between the two extremes,
compounding both "types" but in unequal portions.15
Power and American Politics
With this preliminary outline of the divergent

ways in which power is conceived and, briefly, of some
of the genetic factors that lie behind these formulations,
we can now turn to a consideration of efforts to apply
these concepts to the empirical world; we shall be
especially concerned with efforts to find empirical tests
that can indicate which conceptual scheme is most
applicable to contemporary American politics. Three
interrelated questions will be considered: ( 1) How is
public power distributed? (2) What "types" of power
relationships are operating? ( 3) How necessary or

unnecessary are the given distribution and the types
of relationship identified?
Two competing interpretations of power will be
considered: the "elitist" theory developed by C.
Wright Mills at the national level and by Floyd Hunter
at the community level; and the "pluralist" theory de-
veloped by Robert Dahl at the national and community
levels. 16 We will not fully develop these interpretations,
but will deal with each position only insofar as neces-
sary to uncover main lines of agreement and conten-
tion.
THE ELITIST THEORY I When identifying holders

of power, according to Mills, it is important to study
not only how concrete decisions are made and what
groups are involved in their resolution, but also how
the issues are formulated and who formulates the
issues ( or who fails to formulate "potential" issues).
The bias of the decision-making machinery must be
considered when we ask: who governs?
Power has to do with whatever decisions men make

about the arrangements under which they live, and
about the events which make up the history of their
times. Events that are beyond human decision do
happen; social arrangements do change without
benefit of explicit decision. But insofar as decisions
are made, the problem of who is involved in making
them is the basic problem of power. Insofar as they
could be made but are not, the problem becomes
who fails to make them? 11
In the United States today the "key" public prob-

lems-those with the most widespread and deep-seated
public ramifications-are the overlapping areas of war
and peace and of economic production and distribu-
tion. In these areas a newly emerging "power elite"
can be discerned; it consists of the "corporate chief-
tains," the "political directorate," and the "warlords."
Presiding respectively over the economic, political, and
military bureaucracies, these men are increasingly co-
ordinating their activities, so that together they shape
the "key" decisions of today. But "decisions" in what
sense? Mills' basic claim, it seems clear, is that the
power elite sets the framework within which alternative
policies can be formulated and debated. Within the
very general and loose framework of common social
values and goals there is a broad range of viable ( that
is, workable in the sense of not being self-defeating)
policy alternatives which would prove congenial to
wide segments of the American public were they to be
considered openly and free of prejudice ( that is, not
labeled immediately as "Socialist," "Communist," or
"Utopian" before receiving a public hearing) in the
political arena. But they are not. They are not because
the power elite, for a variety of overlapping reasons,
has propagated the philosophy of "crackpot realism"
at the level of foreign policy and the orientation of the
"doctrinaire capitalists" in the area of economic policy.
And these ideologies limit the framework within which
it is permissible to formulate responses to the problems
of economic stability, wealth distribution, organization
of productive processes, foreign aid, military policy,
and Soviet-American relations.*
* Mills is at times unclear concerning just what his main
claims are, but I believe the above interpretation does not distort
his basic position. Consider such statements as these: "The great
range and variety of life in America does not include a great range
and variety of political statements, much less of political alterna-
tives." . . . "there is no demand and no dissent, and no opposition
to the monstrous decisions that are being made without deep or
widespread debate, in fact with no debate at all." "It should not
be supposed that such few and small publics as still exist, or even
the American masses, share the conservative mood of the intellec-
tuals."18
The middle levels of power are in drift and stale-

mate. Labor, farm, educational, and religious leaders
press within the established context for piecemeal ad-
vantages. Within the Congressional arena elected
representatives attempt to balance and adjust these
parochial issues insofar as possible. But the "funda-
mental issues never come to any point of decision
before Congress."19
At the lower levels a mass society is emerging.
There is a dearth of "free and independent organiza-
tions" which "truly connect the lower and middle
levels of society with the top levels of decision." 20 In-
dividuals and groups at the bottom are in a state of
drift and quiet malaise, for they possess neither the
broad structural perspective nor the organizational
means needed to translate their personal troubles into
social issues.
Floyd Hunter, at the community level, has de-
veloped a theory of the elite which is similar in struc-
ture to Mills'. Regional City is governed by an elite of
approximately forty white leaders operating from their
posts of responsibility in commerce, finance, and indus-
try. 21
THE PLURALIST THEORY I There is no "power

elite" in America, the pluralists assert; nor does the
"classical" democratic image of politics, in which de-
cision-making is controlled by the majority, fit the
American situation. 22
There are numerous bases for political power in
American society-wealth, social status and prestige,
official position in public and private hierarchies, vot-
ing power. And while these resources are distributed
unequally, the inequalities are not cumulative. No one
segment of society, in whatever way the "segments" are
sliced, has monopoly control over all of these political
resources; most groups have advantages in one or
more of these areas. 23
The American system is one in which minorities
rule. Important public decisions are not made behind
the scenes in American society; they are made openly
in the political arenas of Congress, the Presidency, and
the courts. The electoral system encourages the de-
velopment of a two-party system, and the two parties,
competing for electoral support, are forced to be re-
sponsive to the shifting coalitions of voters. Because
the "in" party's coalition is always threatened by at-
tempts of the "out" party to create new issues that will
shift the voter coalitions in the latter's favor, both
parties must continually strive to increase their support
among major social and sectional groupings in the
country. The result is a broad range of "minorities
whose preferences must be taken into account by
leaders in making policy choices." 24
The political system of the United States is a
hybrid that rather closely approximates the ideal of a
polyarchy, and in the system there is a "high proba-
bility that an active and legitimate group in the popula-
tion can make itself heard effectively at some crucial
stage in the process of decision." 25 To be heard is to
have political officials seriously consider your problem
or proposal; in a polyarchy this is normal because re-
fusal to respond will result in the loss of electoral sup-
port. The notion of active and legitimate groups needs
further clarification. A group is inactive if:
by free choice, violence, intimidation, or law, the

normal American system does not necessarily pro-
vide it with a checkpoint anywhere in the process.
By "legitimate" I mean those whose activity is ac-
cepted as right and proper by a preponderant portion
of the active. 20
Dahl, then, like Mills, recognizes that inactive

and illegitimate groups cannot effectively formulate
public issues. He differs in his assumption that the
range of issues actually formulated by the active and
legitimate groups roughly approximates the potential
range of issues. With a few exceptions-the suppres-
sion of Communists and formerly of Negroes-there
are no significant barriers to issue formation in the
United States.
The decision-making process is "markedly de-
centralized." "Decisions are made by endless bargain-
ing; perhaps in no other national political system in
the world is bargaining so basic a component of the
political process." 21 Observation of issue resolution in
the political arenas, then, shows decision-making to be
a decentralized, fragmented, bargaining process which
involves numerous competing and overlapping minori-
ties. But, in another and more basic sense, the system
is governed by majority rule; a value consensus, emerg-
ing from the "grass roots," envelops, constrains, and
directs the political process.
In this sense the majority (at least of the politically

active) nearly always "rules" in a polyarchical sys-
tem. . . . In a sense what we ordinarily describe as
democratic "politics" is merely the "chaff." Prior to
politics, beneath it, enveloping it, restricting it, condi-
tioning it, is the underlying consensus on policy that
usually exists in the society among a predominant
portion of the politically active members. Without
such a consensus no democratic system would survive
the endless irritations and frustrations of elections
and party competition. With such a consensus the
disputes over policy alternatives are nearly always
disputes over a set of alternatives that have already
been winnowed down to those within the broad area
of basic agreement. 28
And in the community of New Haven a similar
pattern of pluralism is found. Politics is carried on
within the framework of a value consensus. The
Economic Notables, identified by Hunter as the de-
cision-making elite in Regional City, function in New
Haven as merely one "group" ( albeit sometimes in-
ternally divided) among many others with comparable
influence.
The fact is that the Economic Notables operate

within that vague political consensus, the prevailing
consensus of beliefs, to which all the major groups
in the community subscribe. 29
The elitists and pluralists do agree on some

issues: ( 1 ) The "classical" image of democracy does
not fit the American scene. The ordinary citizen
participates minimally in the decision-making process;
his political life is marked by indifference and apathy.
(2) The Constitution is not a prime source of order or
policy formation in the United States. Rather, the
social structure determines the shape and configuration
of American politics. ( 3) \Vithin the formal political
arenas the Presidency is seen to be the key decision-
making office; Congress has become a secondary
power. There is, it must be added, a difference in the
degree to which the authors see this tendency devel-
oping. Mills, as we have seen, includes the Presidency
as a member of the power elite, albeit a junior mem-
ber; whereas Dahl believes that "It is the President
who is the policy maker, the creator of legislation, the
self-appointed spokesman for the national majority." 30
( 4) The dominant value and belief system limits the
types of groups that can be organized, constrains the
range of issues that will be raised in the political
arena, controls the extent to which alternatives con-
sidered within each issue area will deviate from the

status quo, and defines the possible procedures by
which the public issues can legitimately be resolved.
Agreeing that issue formulation and resolution
represent the "clash and clang" (Mills) and the
"chaff" (Dahl) of politics, both theorists see a con-
sensus surrounding and constraining these processes.
The nerve of their disagreement lies in their varying
interpretations of what lies behind the "chaff": ( 1 )
Dahl sees the consensus as a collective product of
society; it pushes up from below and surrounds the
political process. Mills sees the consensus as primarily
the product of the elite. The consensual framework is
wrapped in a rhetoric to which the mass is responsive
and which consoles and deadens them. But the actual
framework within which issues are formulated and re-
solved is propagated primarily by the elite, and that
framework functions to preserve its privileges of status,
wealth, power, and comfort. ( 2) Both agree that some
latent or potential issues are not formulated-or at
least not carefully "heard" in the political arenas-
because of forces rendering some groups inactive and
some issues illegitimate. Dahl apparently does not be-
lieve that this condition seriously skews the power
structure in any definite direction; it merely produces
power inequalities. "In American politics, as in all
other societies, control over decisions is unevenly dis-
tributed; neither individuals nor groups are political
equals." 31 Mills, on the other hand, sees the suppres-
sion of potential groups and issues as an extremely im-
portant factor which preserves the power elite from
criticism and control.
The disagreements of Dahl and Mills are rooted
in a variable weighting of forces that both see operat-
ing to some degree. Building on these disagreements,
the analysis of the two authors must move in different
directions. Dahl emphasizes the study of the formal
decision-making process, for this is where he believes
those power relationships basic to the American system
can be observed. Mills focuses on the non-decision
process; he attempts to discover who is responsible for
submerging potential issues and why "troubles"* are
often not formulated as issues.
Their variable weighting of factors is reflected in
the differing ways in which each employs the concept
"power." Dahl tends to use the concept to mean the
ability to gain intended results, and he is not especially
concerned with the psychological consequences of the
relationship for the parties concerned. Furthermore, he
considers it an act of power in practice only when the
actor successfully initiates or vetoes a proposal. Dahl
is not centrally interested in distinguishing between
types of power; in his analysis, however, he sometimes
distinguishes between authority, coercion, and bargain-
ing.
* Mills' concept of "troubles" has clear affinities to Marx's

concept of alienation. Individuals, Mills claims, have a need to be
involved in decisions which intimately affect their lives; they also
need to develop their potential powers of deliberation in order to
locate the structural causes and possible resolutions of their per-
sonal discontents. When these needs for "freedom" and "reason"
remain unfulfilled, men experience a sense of "troubles." Men
who are merely "gripped by personal troubles" feel a vague sense
of uneasiness but remain unaware of the structural source of their
malaise. Thus, for example, Mills claims that the white-collar
worker has troubles, but he has not yet recognized the routinized
workplace as the true source of his problems. "He is pulled by
forces beyond his control, pulled into movements he does not
understand; he gets into situations in which his is the most help-
less position. The white collar man is . . . the small creature who
is acted upon but does not act." 32 In The Sociological Imagination
Mills further refines the concept "troubles," distinguishing between
a vague sense of malaise and more specific grievances which are
still handled at the personal level. These latter refinements are
not essential for our purposes. The important distinction is be-
tween vague or precise discontents experienced merely as personal
troubles and those discontents which are traced to structural causes
and translated into public issues.
Mills construes as part of the power relationship

both the intended and unintended consequences of the
activity.* He is concerned with both the psychological
and material consequences of the relationship for the
involved actors, suggesting that different types of re-
lationships have different psychological consequences
for the participants. Mills, therefore, distinguishes care-
fully between the types of power he sees operating;
authority, coercion, bargaining, and manipulation are
the types he recognizes. Finally, he construes power as
a condition as well as an act or series of acts. The
ability to initiate, to veto initiated proposals, and to
prevent the initiation of proposals are all components
of the power equation.
Our review of the areas of contention between
Dahl and Mills and of the organization of their re-
spective studies reveals, I believe, that their resulting
analyses are in large part self-fulfilling. In each case
the focal points of analysis ( that is, the political arena
vs. the interrelations of the identified elite) and the
conceptual decisions made seem to foster the interpre-
tation rather than to provide a test of it. An analysis of
the testing operations actually employed by pluralists
and elitists will solidify this appraisal. We will contend
that while each attempts to refute the other's position
and to establish his own, in fact both in large degree
"talk past one another"; moreover, each reinforces his
own position by making favorable assumptions about
key ( and for practical purposes, untestable) aspects
of the system under investigation.
* The distinction is brought out by Adolf Berle: "For ex-
ample, the result intended by Mr. Henry Ford . . . was to pro-
duce cheap automobiles, making profit for him and extending the
undescribed benefits of transportation to the population of the
United States. The unintended effects include change in the entire
structure of American cities and the transportation of American
family life from relative immobility to a mobility whose implica-
tions we do not even yet comprehend." 33
0 perational Tests
However power is defined, the empirical investi-

gator must look for certain indicators of power in test-
ing his hypotheses. And the problem of developing
reliable indicators which link, without serious distor·
tion, the investigator's perception of power relation-
ships to the actual relationships, has proved perplexing
in political inquiry. The indicators developed and em-
ployed to date are quite crude; each indicator tends to
produce results incompatible with the other indicators;
and in each case, it is debatable just what the indicator
indicates. We shall consider three such indicators, for
they constitute the principal tests devised by con-
temporary empiricists to resolve the elitist-pluralist
controversy: the method of attributing power to cer-
tain strategically located positions in public and private
hierarchies; the method of equating power with the
reputation for power; the method of equating power
with effective participation in resolving important is-
sues in the key political arenas.
THE METHOD OF FORMAL Pos1TION I To the

extent that Mills develops an operational test for his
theory, it falls within the category of this method. I
think we can reconstruct his method in the following
way. Certain positions are identified as strategically
located in contemporary society. They are the posi-
tions at the heads of the corporate structures, the mili-
tary establishment, and the executive branch of the
government. These positions are strategic, for the men
in them have vast resources available to employ in
their efforts to propagate their beliefs, to preserve their
way of life, and to translate their desires into socially
binding decisions. They possess high social status in

America, and the dominant American ideology justi-
fies their positions and considers their opinions and
desires to be worthy of careful public attention and
consideration. They have access to unparalleled wealth
and can employ it to further their beliefs and aims.
They profoundly influence the most respectable organs
of mass communication and can thus propagate their
views to a large and passive audience. They ( especially
the military and executive sections) possess privileged
access to information of national import made avail-
able to them by the national intelligence agencies; and
consequently they are often able to filter information
to the public at their own pace, in the desired amounts,
and, to some extent, with the attached interpretations
they wish to propagate. Finally, within their own struc-
tures they are able to make unilateral decisions which
have wide ramifications throughout the whole society.
After establishing the identified positions as stra-
tegic, Mills must then demonstrate that there is a
growing convergence between members of these three
groups. He must show that there is one power elite
rather than three strategic elites competing for power.
Similarities of origin, educational background, club
membership, and ideology are revealed by a variety of
statistical indices. The structural interdependence be-
tween military, economic, and political institutions
and policies is reviewed, and the interchangeability of
positions among the three orders is taken as a further
sign of emerging unification. Finally, Mills offers argu-
ments to show that present foreign and domestic poli-
cies redound to the mutual advantage of these groups,
and they therefore find it increasingly easy to collab-
orate in defending the ''national interest" and preserv-
ing "economic stability."
On the basis of this analysis an emerging power
elite is identified. But even if we grant Mills' evidence
to this point, how can he conclude that the power elite
is an elite of manipulation, that it dominates more than
it represents the lower levels of society? The evidence
he presents does not so far justify an interpretation
drastically divergent from, for instance, Adolf Berle's.
Berle recognizes the power of large corporations, but
emphasizes the competition between these units and
between them and other units, such as the government
and labor; any ties between corporate, government,
and military leaders are manifestations of their com-
mon envelopment in a larger national consensus
which directs and constrains their activities. 34
Several further assumptions or empirical claims
lie behind Mills' analysis. First, Mills assumes that the
"Cold War" (1956) is not objectively necessary. In
other words, within the context of the national interest
avowed by policy makers and supported by the mass
public it is possible to promote policies that would
greatly reduce world tensions. 35 Second, Mills assumes
that broad social and economic reforms are objectively
possible ( that is, if implemented they would not be
self-destructive), and that these reforms would be wel-
comed by vast segments of the population were they to
be presented as viable alternatives rather than as heret-
ical schemes impossible of attainment.* Third, he
believes that structurally caused, and only in part con-
sciously perceived, "troubles" exist among broad seg-
ments of the population and that, as earlier implied, it
is objectively possible to reform the social structure so
as to alleviate the causes of these felt troubles.
* Mills' assumptions and ideals are usually stated negatively;

he satirizes those who have lost, or never had, his vision rather
than concretely developing his own position. 36
Ours is a time of uneasiness and indifference-not

yet formulated in such ways as to permit the work of
reason and the play of sensibility. Instead of troubles
-defined in terms of values and threats-there is
often the misery of vague uneasiness; instead of ex-
plicit issues there is often merely the beat feeling that
all is somehow not right. Neither the values threat-
ened nor whatever threatens them has been stated; in
short they have not been carried to the point of de-
cision. 37
Fourth, and supporting beliefs three and four, Mills is

optimistic about the objective possibilities for human
growth and development. If the environment is struc-
tured in appropriate ways it is possible to increase
greatly the extent to which the human needs and as-
pirations of the mass population are met. Mills, in
short, takes a hopeful view of human nature.
It is true, as psychoanalysts continually point out,

that people do often have "the increasing sense of
being moved by obscure forces within themselves
which they are unable to define." But it is not true,
as Ernest Jones asserted, that "man's chief enemy
and danger is his own unruly nature and the dark
forces pent up within him." On the contrary: man's
chief danger today lies in the unruly forces of con-
temporary society itself, with its alienating methods
of production, its enveloping techniques of political
domination, its international anarchy-in a word, its
pervasive transformation of the very "nature" of man
and the conditions of his life. ~8
Given these empirical claims ( that is, assuming

them to be true for the moment), Mills' analysis be-
comes more plausible. He uses a variety of means to
show the overlapping and interaction of the power
elite; he demonstrates the great power potential at its
disposal. He argues that it is easy for the elite to be-
lieve that the Cold War and the ongoing economic sys-
tem are both necessary and best designed to promote
our national welfare and that there is either no great
psychic suffering in the country, or if so, it is either a
necessary side effect of an efficient system or rooted in
nature or both-because the elite derives the greatest
benefits from action based on those beliefs.
Mills then argues that there are other objective
possibilities to which vast segments of the population
would respond if only they knew about them. But
they cannot know. They cannot know because the
power elite's wealth, command of large bureaucracies,
privileged access to state information, and influence
over the mass media of communication enable it to
label certain proposals for reducing world tension as
"pacifist" or as policies of "appeasement," to accept
some economic and social proposals as "realistic,"
while others become "utopian" or heretical, and to
nourish and support a frame of beliefs favorable to
maintenance of the status quo. The objective effect of
its efforts is manipulative: the elite successfully propa-
gates a set of beliefs favorable to its own self-image
while denying other elements of society the informa-
tion and interpretive framework needed to perceive
what is happening to them ( their "troubles"), what the
sources of their troubles are, and what the range of
viable alternative responses is.
Within the context of these assumptions the inner
conflicts of the power elite are family feuds when
viewed against its larger unity. And when measured
against the range of vaguely felt troubles and of ob-
jectively possible alternatives, the range of issues that
finally reaches the public arena is "winnowed" down
to a narrow set that falls within the definition of reality

espoused by the power elite.*
But what is the scientific status of the assumptions
that undergird Mills' analysis? It is important to note
that these beliefs can be formulated as empirical
claims. They are testable in principle; but they are not
likely, given the present conditions and development
of social inquiry, to be rigorously tested in practice.
First, the beliefs about the direction, intensity, and
viability of Chinese and Soviet intentions implied in
Mills' analysis, and about the presence of widely felt,
vague troubles rooted in the social structure are very
difficult to put to rigorous empirical tests. Few would
claim to have developed reliable empirical tests of
Chinese or Soviet policy intentions; these interpreta-
tions are rather matters of reasoned judgment based on
the interpretation and weighting of available clues.
Similarly, the identification of widespread, personal
"troubles" and their causes is a hazardous empirical
task. Vaguely felt but deep-seated troubles (such as
personal insecurity, anxiety, and helplessness) might
be perceived in one defensible interpretation, not in
another; moreover, the causes of such conditions are a
matter of wide controversy rather than of settled scien-
tific knowledge.
A yet more intractable problem is how the em-
pirical claims about what it is possible to achieve in
the organization of contemporary economic, social,
and international relations can be tested. Inquiry into
relevant aspects of contemporary and historical socie-
* This is an overstatement of Mills' position, but, I believe,

the line of argument and assumptions remains correct. Since Mills
himself consciously overstated his position in order to emphasize
the developing tendencies, it is difficult to specify just how far
along he believes they are at present. In any case, he sees the
power elite not as an accomplished fact but as an emerging condi-
tion, 39
ties can reveal what achievements have been made and
suggest what mistakes to avoid in our present society.
But such inquiries depend on analogies that are in
most instances debatable and, further, they cannot
establish the limits of what is possible. As one social
scientist has succinctly put it: "Positive evidence
proves that a thing can be done; negative evidence, not
that it cannot but that it has not. " 4° Claims about what
can be achieved are best tested by attempting to achieve
them in practice and then ascertaining what conse-
quences emerge; but these efforts are not likely to be
made according to Mills' interpretation.
Thus many of Mills' claims are not readily test-
able, and in those areas of uncertainty Mills has made
assumptions which at once require and support the
power elite hypothesis. Centrally located in an ideology
is a set of empirical claims which are not readily test-
able and which function to preserve from destruction
values and higher level beliefs cherished by the ob-
server. For Mills, the power elite hypothesis protects
beliefs to which he is deeply committed,· it is for him
an acceptable means of explaining why social alterna-
tives that he believes are both objectively attainable
and well designed to promote more satisfying life
conditions for troubled masses have not yet been
formulated seriously as public issues. Without the
power elite hypothesis Mills' cherished belief that large-
scale social reforms are needed, possible, and poten-
tially attractive to vast segments of the population
would be threatened. With that hypothesis his highest
level beliefs remain intact, for he can now hold the
power elite responsible for obstructing the public's
view of possible responses to contemporary problems.
But there is an interdependency of belief operating
here. Mills' cherished beliefs, if accepted, also function
to support the power elite hypothesis; viewed from the
context of these cherished beliefs that hypothesis gains

in credibility. For when the range of alternatives seen
as viable by the power elite is compared to the range of
objectively possible alternatives ignored or rejected as
"unrealistic" by the elite, the group is seen to be united
by a relatively narrow belief system. And when it is
then argued that the narrow belief system of that group
redounds to its own material advantage while inflicting
unnecessary psychic and material hardships on other
segments of society, then the power elite is seen as a
repressive force controlling the scope of issue formation
in society. Rendered plausible only if certain untested
beliefs highly valued by its author are accepted, the
theory of the power elite is an ideological interpreta-
tion of American politics.
There are certain obvious methodological weak-
nesses in the position "test" of power. First, there are
no clear criteria for who shall be included or excluded
as members of the power elite. What standards justify
the inclusion of the Presidency but not of top Congres-
sional leaders, or the inclusion of corporate leaders but
not of certain labor leaders? No clear criteria are of-
fered. 41 Second, the method of positional analysis,
after the interdependence of the identified positions
has been set forth, only establishes a potential for
power; the test itself does not demonstrate that this
potential is actually employed. Mills is forced to offer
reasoned arguments justifying the belief that the poten-
tial for power is actually employed.
But in doing this, Mills supports and protects, but
does not empirically establish, his hypothesis. He has
failed, as Dahl reminds us, to meet a central require-
ment of the empirical method: "that there be clear
criteria according to which the theory could be dis-
proved, "42
THE METHOD OF REPUTATION I The method of

employing the reputation for power as an indicator of
actual power was first followed with care by Floyd
Hunter in his analysis of Regional City (Atlanta,
Georgia). We shall briefly summarize his approach. 43
Hunter's method is to ask certain obvious leaders
in the community-journalists, civic leaders, and so
on-to pick a number of leaders in the areas of busi-
ness, civic service, and government. From this list
several "judges"-men who are deemed knowledge-
able in community affairs-then select individuals who
are the top leaders in each of these three categories.
Other names may be added by the judges. The judges
are from various ethnic and social stations and their
judgments can be checked against the judgment of
others in the community. By this process the list of
leaders is winnowed down until a corps of top leaders
remain. Interviewing techniques are then employed
to ascertain the degree of interaction among the identi-
fied leaders, to detect similarities in outlook, and to
discover their relative participation in resolving com-
munity issues. A control group of individuals of
roughly similar social and economic status is selected
as a basis of comparison on these matters.
The power structure generally found when this
method is employed is quite monolithic: an interlocked
and integrated economic elite, conscious of its position,
is seen as the primary decision-making group in the
community.
The method has been severely criticized. First,
the questions asked are self-fulfilling to some degree.*
* Hunter's primary question: "Place in rank order, one
through ten, ten persons from each list of personnel who, in your
opinion, are the most influential persons in the field designated-
influential from the ooint of view of the ability to lead others." 44
Questions like "who runs things here" already have

built into them the presumption that some group does
run things. Such questions support the zero-sum con-
cept of power over the view of power as a collective
product. 45 Second, the method in its orginal form does
not clearly specify the range of issues over which the
id~ntified leaders have influence. Third, as employed
by Hunter, the method focuses on one stage of the
decision-making process, the early stage of "fixing
priorities," and thus of defining issues-at the expense
of other stages and aspects.
This orientation tends to overlook other phases and

actors in the decision-making process-phases like
initiation, planning, long range conditioning of atti-
tudes, persuasion, bargaining, promotion, and im-
plementation; and actors like civic-staff personnel,
government officials, lay leaders, controllers of mass
media, and episodic participants. 46
Even if these difficulties were cleared up, a more

fundamental weakness of the reputation method is
apparent: a reputation for power is not clearly or
necessarily equivalent to the presence of power. Cer-
tain status groups might have a false reputation for
power. Furthermore, even if the bias of the interview
schedule were corrected, the method of reputation it-
self might still produce the same results on an equally
fallacious basis.
It would not be surpnsmg if random interviewers

were to perceive a single leadership group in any
situation. The assumption that there is always a
finite, often intangible, cause is deeply imbedded in
the thought patterns of our culture, and there is no
reason to doubt that it would be projected into a
situation even if the queries did not themselves preju-
dice the replies. 47
However, if the reputation method is improved so
that is a good indicator of reputation for power on a
specific range of issues, the method might provide a
good indicator of the extent to which other partici-
pants in the decision-making process scale and modify
their goals, demands, and responses in anticipation of
the reputed elite's probable reactions.*
PARTICIPATION IssuE RESOLUTIONS I The

IN
first two methods reviewed have tended to support
some variant of the ruling elite hypothesis. After ob-
serving the outcomes of these two methods, and noting
weaknesses in their design, it became apparent to many
that a more objective test of power was needed-one
that could specify the conditions that would confirm
or disconfirm the tested hypothesis and one that would
not prejudge the outcomes in any direction. For these
purposes Robert Dahl devised the method of participa-
tion. His clear intent is to resolve the dispute between
pluralists and elitists. He defines a ruling elite as a
"minority of individuals whose preferences regularly
prevail in cases of differences in preferences on key
political issues." 4 D And he contends that the investi-
gator must observe the supposed elite in the actual
process of issue resolution in order to test the hypothe-
sis:
But I do not see how anyone can suppose that he has

established the dominance of a specific group in a
community or a nation without basing his analysis on
* The "law of anticipated reactions" refers to the process in

which certain actors predict the probable reactions of strategically
located figures to their desires and then adjust their position before
openly stating it to make it more acceptable to these groups. The
phenomenon, operating largely below the level of publicly ob-
servable behavior, is difficult to measure, yet crucial to consider,
in attempting to measure relative power. 48
the care/ul examination of a series of concrete de-

cisions. 50
Dahl applied the method he devised to the com-

munity of New Haven. The following operations are
involved: ( 1) A series of "important" public issues is
selected for analysis. ( 2) The actors actively involved
in initiating, considering, and resolving the issues are
identified through observation and interview. (3) The
behavior of the actors is quantified in terms of an
operational measure of power.
Thus from the record it was usually possible to de-

termine for each decision which participants had
initiated alternatives that were finally adopted, had
vetoed alternatives initiated by others, or had pro-
posed alternatives that were turned down. These
actions were then tabulated as individual "successes"
or "defeats." The participants with the greatest pro-
portion of successes out of the total number of suc-
cesses were then considered to be most influential. 01
And, as Dahl had previously suspected, the test showed

New Haven to conform quite well to the pluralist
model of power.
The test has some advantages over the others con-
sidered. Rather than assuming that position or reputa-
tion indicates power it provides a means of observing
actors in the actual process of decision-making and of
weighting their relative power in terms of an imper-
sonal, quantitative measure. In that sense the test
pierces through opinion and fa<;ade and gets to the
"facts" of power.
There are certain fundamental weaknesses that
mark the method, however. First, several "important"
issues are selected so as to relate the power of actors
to a definite range or scope of issues. But there are no
clear criteria of what constitutes an "important" issue.
Three issue areas were chosen because they promised
to cut across a wide variety of interests and partici-
pants. These were redevelopment, public education,
and nominations in the two major parties. 52
Were the issues selected because they promised to

be controversial and widely debated? If so, the test
partially prejudices the outcome in favor of pluralism,
for these are exactly the issues on which intergroup
compromise is most likely to develop. Are the im-
portant issues those issues raised in the political arenas
that have the most widespread impact on the popula-
tion? If so, what is a good operational measure of
widespread impact? Furthermore, how is it established
that the decisions with the most widespread impact are
raised and resolved in political arenas rather than,
sometimes or often, in private sectors of the com-
munity? Our criticism does not imply that Dahl con-
sciously selected issues that prejudge the outcomes of
inquiry, nor do we suggest that the issues and arenas
selected necessarily distort the power structure regard-
less of Dahl's intent. We merely contend that, in the
absence of clear, unambiguous criteria of importance,
it is difficult to ascertain just what influence the selec-
tion of issues exerts on the outcomes of inquiry.
Second, the pluralist measure of power does not
operationally test the phenomenon of "anticipated re-
actions" mentioned earlier. Thus, it becomes a matter
of the researcher's judgment concerning the extent to
which this possibly important factor operates in the
initiation and resolution of issues in the political
arenas.
A final, more pervasive, weakness undermines the
reliability of Dahl's test: It fails to test basic, and op-

posing, empirical claims made by the elitists and by the
pluralists. A central area of agreement between elitists
and pluralists, as we have seen, is that social and
political conflicts take place within and are limited by
the prevailing consensus. A central disagreement is
over how that consensus is created and maintained.
The elitists contend that the elite benefits the most
from and provides the most support for the prevailing
belief system. The pluralists view the consensus as
more fully a collective product of society. The elite
hypothesis contends that the elite controls the decision
process-in the sense of winnowing down the scope
and content of considered issues-before and behind
the formal political process. The pluralists contend that
felt "troubles" among the mass population are, for the
most part, formulated and expressed at the public level
and in the political arenas.
But the method of participation investigates only
those issues that have already reached the political
arena. It misses, because it is embedded in pluralist
assumptions, the most basic areas of contention: How
is the prevailing consensus produced and maintained?
Where are the most important decisions made? 53
Dahl offers an initial justification for the assump-
tion that the preferences of citizens in the United States
are not somehow constrained by a power elite. In
"American communities . . . , except in very rare
cases, terror is not so pervasive that the investigator is
barred from discovering the preferences of the citi-
zens. "54 The absence of terror, then, gives us reason-
able assurance that the linkages between troubles,
preferences, and public issues will not be seriously dis-
torted for most segments of society. But again, Dahl's
untested contentions slide past Mills' untested conten-
tions. Mills sees a vague sense of troubles pervading
large segments of the society, troubles not formulated
clearly as grievances or translated into preferences for
public policy. There is mainly, as we saw earlier, "the
beat feeling that all is not quite right," and that feeling
remains vague because the consensus of the day does
not include the perspectives needed to locate the struc-
tural causes of our troubles.
Mills denies Dahl's simple linkages between
troubles, preferences, and public issues, but he does
not contend that terror is the principal means of sup-
pressing potential issues. The power elite's ability to
influence what Karl Mannheim has called the "reality
level" of the mass public on questions of economic pro-
duction and distribution and on foreign policy is suffi-
cient to obstruct and distort these linkages.
Propaganda . . . can be fully appreciated only if

one recognizes its most significant function, namely
the determination of the reality level on which people
are going to discuss and act. . . . By "reality level"
we mean that every society develops a mental climate
in which certain facts and their interrelations are
considered basic and called "real" whereas other
ideas fall below the level of "reasonably acceptable"
statements and are called fantastic, utopian, or un-
realistic. In every society there is a generally ac-
cepted interpretation of reality. 55
Now Dahl is not unaware of these considerations.

It is in fact his method of coping with them which
separates him rather sharply from Mills. He mentions
them as questions worthy of serious study and then
tends to let them slide into the background of his at-
tention. He recognizes the serious difficulties in meas-
uring impersonally the linkages between troubles,
preferences, and political issues. He agrees that one
could argue "that even in a society like ours a ruling
elite might be so influential over ideas, attitudes, and

opinions that a kind of false consensus will exist." 56
And he acknowledges that Mills' argument might pos-
sibly be construed in this way.
But then Dahl fails, because it is so difficult, to
develop and apply operational tests which bear effec-
tively on these central points of contention. While
recognizing the possibility that the relevant linkages
are seriously skewed, and agreeing that in fact some
distortion exists here, Dahl nevertheless assumes that
the cumulative effects of such distortions are not
weighted excessively in favor of one identifiable seg-
ment of society. But what is excessive? Against what
standards and by what means can the bias of the link-
ages between troubles, preferences, and issues be ap-
praised objectively? It is hard to say. In practice Dahl
minimizes the bias; Mills finds it to be a pervasive
force submerging potential issues. Both scholars are
forced to cope with these questions in "impression-
istic," that is, in ideological, ways.
The empirical root of Mills' and Dahl's diverging
interpretations of power lies in their opposing assump-
tions of what "troubles" are developing at the lower
and middle levels of society and of what is the range of
viable public responses to these troubles. Where Mills
contends that the prevailing consensus is in large part
shaped by the power elite and operates to burden wide
segments of society with unformulated and unnecessary
troubles, Dahl views the consensus as more fully a
social product and, apparently, as more adequately
providing a context in which troubles with structural
causes can be translated into public issues. Further-
more, although Dahl has less to say than Mills about
the scope of needed and possible social reforms, his
remarks, when compared to Mills', convey a mood of
complacency. Emphasizing the potential risks a11d
costs of large-scale reform movements, Dahl's fornm-
lations tend to discount the possible effectiveness of
and potential public interest in proposals for significant
social change.*
The disagreements of the two scholars in these
untested areas form the background for their respective
commitments to the participation and position methods
of measuring power. In the context of Dahl's beliefs, it
is easy to assume that the method of observing par-
ticipants in political arenas is a good test of power be-
cause the ranges of felt troubles and of viable alterna-
tive resolutions generally reach the political arenas
where they are articulated and somehow resolved.
Mills, for opposing reasons, would reject the participa-
tion test; it measures the "chaff" of power, not its sub-
stance. The method of positional analysis is superior in
Mills' view, for it focuses on those societal segments
that benefit the most from this unnecessary situation;
and it shows them to have the strategic levers and the
vast resources needed to propagate those beliefs to
which they are committed. Both tests are embedded in
a network of untested assumptions that render them
plausible. Neither test is plausible divorced from those
assumptions.
But, it might be suggested, Mills' interpretation is
"unfavorable" to the American system, and surely he
should provide evidence for this hypothesis before he
can claim it to be true on empirical grounds. It is true,
as Dahl points out, that the burden of proof for an em-
pirical hypothesis "does not rest upon the critics of the
* Note, for example, Dahl's comments on the ideal of po-

litical equality: "Unfortunately, however, solutions to the problem
of political inequality are not as simple as they may have seemed to
many hopeful democrats a century or more ago. . . . I do not
believe that enough people are interested in these changes-which
would generate their own train of uncertainties and impose great
costs to other values we all hold . . . ."";
hypothesis but upon its proponents.":,s But such a re-

quirement is equally valid for a proponent of the
pluralist hypothesis. The burden of proof is upon him,
and until he has established his position at the several
key points mentioned, his hypothesis remains, like
Mills', a relatively untested belief.*
Neither position is empirically established. Em-
ploying the term ideology in our meaningful, but non-
pejorative sense, it is clear that the theory of the power
elite and the theory of pluralism are, at root, both
ideological interpretations of American politics.
Power Analysis and Ideology
The investigator comes to political inquiry predis-

posed to describe and explain the environment in cer-
tain ways; he is equipped with an incipient interpreta-
tion which appears plausible to him and which tends to
receive the support of those reference groups to which
he is linked by ties of origin, conceptual organization,
beliefs, and values. We shall here call this internally
integrated system of the individual his "perspective,"
borrowing the term and much of its meaning from
Karl Mannheim. We will consider the social linkages
and organization of the perspective in Chapter 4. Now
* It is true, from a genetic and ideological viewpoint, that

we put a greater burden of proof on those hypotheses unacceptable
to us than we do on those we want to believe: "The burden of
proof is upon those who assert that things are bad in our society;
it is not the other way around. Unfortunate facts are usually more
difficult to observe and ascertain . . . . The scientist in his struggle
to detect truth will be on his guard against making statements
which are unwarranted. His very urge to objectivity will thus
induce him to picture reality as more pleasant than it is." 59 But
these factors do not put the burden of scientific proof more on
one hypothesis than on the other. Rather they should warn the
investigator against readily accepting as empirically verified those
hypotheses that be wishes to believe in.
we want to elaborate in a preliminary way its role in
political inquiry and, specifically, its role in support-
ing one's propensity to view the structure of American
politics either as a system of power in balance or as a
system of elite rule.
We have characterized an ideology as a set of em-
pirical claims not fully tested, and for practical pur-
poses not fully testable, which functions both to orient
political activity and to preserve from destruction
values and higher level beliefs cherished by its authors
and supporters.
We have suggested that large areas of political
inquiry are today filled by relatively untested ideologies
rather than by empirically corroborated theories. We
have selected the pluralist-elitist debate as a con-
temporary problem area on which to peg our conten-
tions. This debate is pivotal for three reasons: First,
upon resolution of this theoretical controversy hinge
many other decisions in political inquiry-for example,
what arenas to focus on in studying politics and what
conceptual frameworks to employ in these inquiries.
Second, at least some scholars in this problem area
have attempted to devise definitive tests for their
theories, and the claim has been advanced that "our
side" has a workable empirical test which establishes
our position while the "other side" is still immersed in
a distorted, indefensible ideology. This claim requires
critical investigation. Third, the interpretation that one
accepts exerts a strong influence over the political
policies he supports, the arenas to which he brings his
policy preferences, and the means and social agencies
he employs in promoting the desired goals.
In the pluralist-elitist debate, each side makes a set
of strategic decisions which reflect the perspective
brought to inquiry and which in cumulative effect push
the outcomes of inquiry in the preferred direction. The
perspective influences the broad conceptual framework

brought to the problem area ( the zero-sum concept vs.
the collective product concept) . It influences which
aspects of the defined concepts will be emphasized and
which ignored in inquiry (intended vs. unintended ef-
fects, positive vs. negative power, manipulation vs.
authority, and so forth). It influences the interrelated
judgments made about large segments of the system
analyzed that are not, for practical purposes, subject
to rigorous tests ( the effect of "anticipated reactions"
in the power relations; the presence or lack of per-
vasive troubles in the society; the availability of link-
ages between troubles, avowed preferences, public
issues, and their political expression; the degree to
which certain social segments gain a differential and
unnecessary benefit from the prevailing arrangements) .
And finally, the perspective influences the selection of
operational tests employed to check the interpretation
against empirical reality ( the methods of position,
reputation, and participation).
Thus the perspective brought to inquiry exerts a
cumulative impact on the outcomes of inquiry. Each
step looks plausible and reasonable to those whose com-
mitments to higher level beliefs and values are sup-
ported by the result. And thereby, in conditions of
relatively limited empirical control, the emerging in-
terpretation is an ideology supported by certain seg-
ments of society and providing them with needed
orientation for their political activities.
But perhaps our definition of ideology will be chal-
lenged, for it does vary in obvious ways from meanings
given the term by some contemporary scholars. Some
scholars, for example, are prone to call an interpreta-
tion of the political environment an ideology if it
diverges widely from the prevailing interpretations of
the day; non-ideological if it falls within the prevailing
beliefs of the day or if its critical impact is directed
against only selected aspects of the system rather than
the whole structure. Seymour Lipset seems to draw
such a distinction:
The democratic class struggle will continue, but it

will be a fight without ideologies, without red flags,
without May Day parades. . . . The decline of
political ideology in America has affected many in-
tellectuals who . . . must function as critics of
society to fulfill their self-image. 60
But a contrary focus has been provided by others

--Robert Dahl, for example:
Leaders in a political system usually espouse a set

of more or less persistent, integrated doctrines that
purport to explain and justify their leadership in the
system. A set of doctrines of this kind is an
ideology. 61
Our usage captures the root meaning which quali-

fies both justifying and criticizing political interpreta-
tions as ideologies. And further, by focusing on the
structure of the empirical claims presented in ideolo-
gies rather than upon the extent to which those claims
conform to dominant beliefs, we avoid the temptation
to use the concept as a debunking, pejorative device
for condemning interpretations that are repugnant to
us.
Some scholars employ the term "ideology" to
focus on the religious fervor and apocalyptic orienta-
tion of certain political interpretations. Daniel Bell, for
example, first distinguishes between "particular ideolo-
gies" and "total ideologies." Particular ideologies are
advanced by interest groups such as business and

labor and function to justify their interests. Total
ideologies receive Bell's closest attention.
A total ideology is an all-inclusive system of compre-

hensive reality, it is a set of beliefs, infused with pas-
sion, and seeks to transform the whole of a way of
life. . . . Ideology . . . is a secular religion. 62
But what about political interpretations of a

broad nature offered by such scholars as Seymour Lip-
set, Daniel Bell, Robert Dahl, and Adolf Berle? Does
either of Bell's notions apply well to these interpreta-
tions? It seems not. The interpretations of these authors
are too scholarly to fall readily within his category of
particular ideologies, too relaxed and passion free to fit
his notion of total ideologies.
The set of extensions emphasized by Bell and
Lipset in their discussions of ideology focus on those
features that apply to political interpretations they
sharply oppose, but they do not apply well to their own
formulations. In the process of employing the term in
this selective way, the central aspect of the concept that
does apply to their thought is obscured. Thus neither
Bell nor Lipset actually advances a political program
for the radical transformation of society; neither ad-
vances his interpretations with religious passion;
neither offers simple and total solutions to complex
problems. And so, on these criteria, the thought of
neither scholar is really ideological. But the radical
doctrines to which the scholars do apply the concept
ideology are underpinned by controversial assumptions
which function to reinforce beliefs and aspirations
cherished by the adherents. And this feature also ap-
plies to the political interpretations of Bell and Lipset;
they too advance interpretations of the political en-
vironment resting on relatively untested claims which
are self-fulfilling in this sense.
The confusion surrounding the definition of
ideology, we suggest, is largely explained by the desire
of intellectuals of the Left, Center, and Right to apply
the concept to the interpretations of their opponents
and to resist its application to their own interpretations.
The conflicting definitional efforts represent at least in
part competing efforts to ensnare others in the pejora-
tive net while slipping through unscathed oneself. But
underlying the sets of conflicting extensions which
thereby emerge is a common element that fits most
usages of the term, whether applied to interpretations
of the Right, Center, or Left, whether by oneself to
an opposing view or by an adversary to one's own
thought: in each case it is claimed that certain ques-
tionable beliefs serve to reinforce the values and beliefs
of those who advance and support the given interpreta-
tion. The concept is generally applied in this way, but
this feature is not often emphasized in the definition
because it would tend to focus on the applicability of
the concept to one's own political interpretations.*
Our concept of ideology, then, covers the central
elements that are involved when we generally apply the
term to a given political interpretation; but we have
excluded from the core definition certain elements
which may or may not accompany ideologies. Our
* It might be suggested that we apply the term "political

philosophy" to our concept. But that term already has a well-
established meaning. A political philosophy is a set of moral
directives or political ideals which serve to evaluate and to provide
standards for political conduct and organization. One's ideology is
psychologically linked to his political philosophy, and this linkage
is important. But it is well to keep moral preferences and em-
pirical claims analytically distinct. Furthermore, close attention
to the ways in which the concept ideology is employed, as opposed
to its explicit definitions, reveals that our definition exposes a rule
of applicability which has already been operative.
use, we believe, reveals the "ideal" types of conditions

in which ideologies tend to emerge and focuses on im-
portant characteristics of the empirical claims which
develop in these conditions. Thus ideologies develop
when there is a felt social need for ideas and beliefs to
guide political action. The problem of ideology is most
acute when the ideas and beliefs developed to guide
conduct are not readily testable by rigorous empirical
means. An ideology may be rigid and dogmatic or it
may be flexible and relatively open to modification and
adjustment; it may distort the political environment in
important ways or it may represent it well; it may sup-
port an apocalyptic view of society or it may support a
more limited, evolutionary view; it may function to
celebrate the status quo, to criticize it partially, or to
criticize it radically. 63 But if the set of ideas and beliefs
developed in conditions of uncertainty functions to
protect the higher level commitments of its supporters
while assimilating into its basic framework the observed
facts of the problematic situation, then the interpreta-
tion is best described as an ideology.
It is hoped that we have helped to clarify the root
meaning of the concept ideology. The process of clari-
fication has enabled us to identify certain ideological
elements in contemporary political inquiry that might
otherwise have been overlooked. By employing the
concept in a neutral, non-pejorative way we can better
focus on the pervasive and seductive influence exerted
by prior beliefs and commitments on the political
interpretations constructed by us and by our opponents.
3 I The Sociology
of Knowledge
The problem of ideology has not been adequately
faced in contemporary political science. Some political
scientists devote all of their energies to the future
promise of a science of politics; some analyze the
ideologies of contemporary interest groups; others ex-
amine the defunct ideologies offered by such political
programs as "Marxism" and "Fascism." All these
efforts are important. But few political scientists have
systematically attempted to confront the problem of
ideology as it is expressed in their own contemporary
political interpretations.
Karl Mannheim is one scholar who has exten-
sively investigated this problem; he has employed the
concept "ideology" in a non-pejorative way, and he
has sought to understand how and why political

thought tends to be ideological. In this chapter we will
summarize his theory and critically examine those as-
pects of it most relevant to our problem. Here, as in
the chapters following, our considerations will revolve
around one central question: How can the relatively
"detached" scholar, standing outside a narrow "inter-
est-bound" orientation to politics but nevertheless
linked to selected segments of society by ties of origin,
mental structure, and political ideals, best pursue his
inquiry into the larger social and political problems of
the day? Mannheim helps us to understand the social
position of the intellectual in contemporary society,
and he offers suggestions concerning how the intellec-
tual can and should cope with the problem of ideology.
The Sociology of Knowledge as

Empirical Theory
The sociology of knowledge, broadly conceived,

seeks to trace the relationships between social structure
and human mental productions. The mental produc-
tions investigated range from such forms as folklore,
religion, language, and myth to the more rigorously
developed forms such as logic and scientifically vali-
dated hypotheses. The term "knowledge" is consciously
employed to subsume this whole range of mental pro-
ductions, for this area of sociology aims at revealing
genetic and structural affinities binding together these
apparently disparate modes of human thought and ex-
pression.*
* "By constantly taking account of all the various types of
knowledge, ranging from earlier intuitive impressions to controlled
observation, the sociology of knowledge seeks to obtain systematic
comprehension of the relationship between social existence and
thought. " 1
57 j The Sociology of Knowledge
Most contemporary scholars agree that research
into possible empirical relationships between patterns
of human thought and patterns of social existence can
be useful if responsible methods of research are em-
ployed and if "reduction" of the thought forms to their
"social base" does not become a device with which to
debunk interpretations repugnant to the investigator. 2
A few scholars go further. According to them
the insights provided by the sociology of knowledge
compel responsible social scientists to reconsider the
epistemological and methodological foundations of
their disciplines. 3 The work of Karl Mannheim ( 18 92-
1947) has provided a focal point for those considering
the epistemological and methodological implications
of the sociology of knowledge. Poised on the edge of
the "subjectivist dilemma," Mannheim sought to con-
struct an epistemological base for social and political
investigation which would recognize the close relation-
ship between social structure and social thought with-
out undermining the value and significance of the in-
tellectual enterprise itself.
Mannheim's theory can be separated into two
major divisions: an empirical theory of the interrela-
tionships between thought patterns and social patterns
of existence; and a theoretical formulation of the episte-
mological and methodological implications for social
science of those observed relationships. We shall intro-
duce relevant aspects of the empirical theory here, and
then consider the methodological and epistemological
claims.
MARXIST ORIGINS I The sociology of knowledge

rests upon an extension of Marx's concept of ideology.
Mannheim labels the Marxist conception as both
"special" and "particular." It is special because it fails
to apply, at least consistently, the principle of social
determination of ideas to the Marxist theory itself. It

is particular because it fails to recognize that not only
the content of social and political thought, but also its
categories or structural principles of organization and
validation, are the product of interaction between "self"
and social environment. 4
Further, the linkages between social position and
mental production established by Marx are overly
simplified. Class position is not the sole determinant
of ideologies. Other factors-such as the nation,
generation, and racial and ethnic ties-combine with
a variety of structural forces-such as the degree of
social mobility and competition-to provide the social
basis for ideological constellations.
Unless careful attention is paid to highly differen-

tiated social groupings of this sort and to the corre-
sponding differentiations in concepts, categories, and
thought models, i.e., unless the problem of the rela-
tions between super- and substructure is refined, it
would be impossible to demonstrate that correspond-
ing to the wealth of types of knowledge and perspec-
tives which have appeared in the course of history
there are similar differentiations in the substructure
of society."
The simplified connection Marx found between class

position and mental productions is especially limited
when members of the "intellectual stratum" are con-
sidered. The intellectuals form the most important "of
the connecting links between social dynamics and
ideation," yet the Marxist theory does not adequately
reveal how the intellectuals "happen to make their
choices and to join particular groups." 6
The Marxist "particular," "special" theory of
ideology is a device employed to unmask the false-
hoods and illusions of the opponent. Mannheim's re-
59 The Sociology of Knowledge
vised conception is designed to be a tool for revealing
the social basis of all socio-political interpretations.
Mannheim thus adopts a "'general," "total," and
"non-evaluative" conception of ideology as a base
from which he constructs the sociology of knowledge.
The conception is "general" in recognizing that all
social and political ideas-including one's own-are
permeated by the socially rooted values, interests, and
aspirations of the thinker. It is "total" because it holds
that the very categories of thought and norms of
validation are relative to the social situation from which
the thought emerges. It is "non-evaluative" in intent,
for it aims not at unmasking the delusional system of
the opponent, but rather seeks to discover if recognition
of the partiality of all political thought can prepare in-
vestigators of whatever orientation to construct more
responsible and useful political interpretations.
SOCIAL DETERMINATION OF IDEAS I Because it is

difficult to divest the concept "ideology" of its Marxist
connotations, Mannheim drops the term when discuss-
ing the sociology of knowledge ( although it is to be
reintroduced later) and replaces it with the slightly
different concept of the "perspective." In speaking of
the perspective of a thinker, Mannheim refers to the
total W eltanschauung or general outlook which the
thinker brings to empirical investigations. The perspec-
tive represents the subject's "whole mode of conceiving
things as determined by his historical and social set-
ting," and it signifies "the manner in which one views
an object, what one perceives in it, and how one con-
strues it in his thinking."• The perspective thus repre-
sents the internally integrated values, beliefs, and con-
ceptual organization the individual brings to inquiry
rather than the developed political interpretation which
emerges from the confrontation of political environ-
ment by the perspective. Mannheim reserves the terms

"ideology" and "utopia" for representing the forms of
political interpretation which tend to emerge from this
confrontation.
The perspective of a given thinker or group can
be identified in general outline and "reduced" to the
social base from which it has emerged. That is, each
social and political interpretation advanced in any
concrete society can be linked to an identified segment
of society which supports and nourishes the interpreta-
tion. The segment may consist of the whole society, of
a class within the society, or of a certain personality
type the members of which are linked together by ex-
perience and ties other than those of class affiliation.
The process of correlating mental productions with
specified societal segments is called "particularization."
The process of particularization, according to
Mannheim, leads the authors and supporters of a
political interpretation to recognize that their own sub-
jective values and interests have influenced them to
construct the given interpretation, and this realization
can produce "the suspicion that this assertion might
represent merely a partial view." 8 This "suspicion,"
Mannheim suggests, makes it more difficult for the
supporters to represent their view as "Absolute Truth,"
and it promotes a psychological receptivity to oppos-
ing ideas and interpretations on the part of the in-
volved actors.
Mannheim asserts, then, that ideas are socially
determined. "Determination" here does not mean
merely that the involved individuals passively reflect
certain social conditions in their thought patterns.
There are connectives linking "social position" and
"mental productions," but Mannheim does not specify
just what those connectives are. As a result, his theory
of the social determination of ideas becomes rather
vague. He is even unwilling to specify any general
social factors which can serve as predictors in all social
situations of the ideological constellations extant, al-
though he does come close at times to identifying class
as the master criterion. In general, he leaves the link-
ages open, merely asserting that there are significant
linkages which careful empirical inquiry can uncover
in any specific setting.
We leave the meaning of "determination" open, and

only empirical investigation will show us how strict
is the correlation between life-situation and thought
process, or what scope exists for variation in the
correlation. 9
The crucial truth to remember is that "forces aris-

ing out of the living experience" of the thinker in-
fluence the judgments and decisions he makes in the
course of thought production and, therefore, there is
always "a close bond which connects the social process
itself with intellectual developments and the formation
of the mind." 10
Those involved directly in the economic process
are more likely, because of their limited exposure to
divergent points of view and because of the close con-
nection between their daily activities and certain
special political interests, to develop a rather narrow
"interest-bound" interpretation of politics. For ex-
ample, the entrepreneur, the bureaucrat, and the
laborer have definite locations in the productive proc-
ess. Their respective outlooks-not necessarily but
generally-seem to be prescribed for them by the
economic grouping with which they are linked by ties
of communication and by similarities in felt interest.
To oversimplify, the ideas developed by these groups
tend to express in idealized form their relative attain-
ment of, or exclusion from, such cherished goals as

political power, social status, and economic wealth. In
each society there is a differential distribution of these
values; and, Mannheim implies, groupings with ad-
vantages in one area are likely to possess them in
others also. This differential distribution then finds ex-
pression in the ideological constellations that emerge.
IDEOLOGY AND UTOPIA I The concepts "ideol-

ogy" and "utopia" are then introduced by Mannheim
in an attempt to organize systematically the types of
social and political outlook which tend to find expres-
sion in a society at a given time. "Ideology" refers to
those complexes of ideas and interpretations of socio-
political structure that tend to smooth over tensions
and to justify the status quo in the economic, political,
and social spheres. "Utopia" refers to those complexes
of ideas that express dissatisfaction with the status quo
and which look forward to a vision of society that
more nearly meets the idealized needs of the disad-
vantaged elements. Ideologies are the "interest-bound"
interpretations of the "ruling groups," and an interpre-
tation advanced by such a group "obscures the real
conditions of society both to itself and to others and
thereby stabilizes it." Utopias are the "interest-bound"
interpretations of the "oppressed"; their desire to trans-
form the social system makes them "unwittingly see
only those elements in the situation which tend to
negate it. " 11
Whereas the ruling group, as it progresses toward

rationalistic attitudes, gradually converts the sym-
bolic equivalents originally common to the collec-
tivity into instruments which can be consciously
manipulated to support its authority, and so trans-
forms them into a protective covering of ideology,
63 I The Sociology of Knowledge
the masses oftentimes evolve from the same matrix
a utopia which subverts the status quo. 12
Mannheim, then, has attempted to reduce the re-

curring debate between conflict theorists and consensus
theorists to its social foundations. The "oppressed" of
the Left and, by implication, the "dispossessed" of the
Right construct conflict interpretations; the "ruling
groups" construct consensus interpretations. But a note
of caution is needed before these constellations are ac-
cepted as typical of all or most societies: Mannheim's
categories of ideology and utopia are themselves de-
rived from his conflict theory of politics. The concepts
imp]y a theory of the ruling class, and a scholar ac-
cepting "social determinism" and yet adopting a con-
sensus theory of society might systematize the "typical"
ideological constellations of society in a different way.
At any rate, Mannheim qualifies his initial formulation.
The two concepts are to be seen as "ideal types" rather
than as categories within which all concrete groupings
fit. In practice, Mannheim agrees, the mental produc-
tions of most social groupings will contain both ideo-
logical and utopian elements.
THE INTELLECTUAL STRATUM I The life-situa-

tion of some individuals promotes reflection. The out-
look of these individuals is not so completely and auto-
matically prescribed for them by their involvement in
the productive process. For example, members of a
minority group who find themselves in conflict with a
dominant culture often are led to reflect on the ten-
sions between the two cultures. Individuals in a mobile
society who move from one class to another or from
a rural to an urban area are apt to develop a reflective
and detached outlook, at least during the period of
transition. For these individuals, that which was once
seen as absolute is now likely to be seen as partial, as

relative to a particular mode of living. The ideas of
these individuals are still rooted in their life-situations,
but the complexities of their historical development are
reflected in the complex connections that now exist
between their life-situation and their ideation.
The "intelligentsia," or intellectuals, represents a
key social grouping whose special life-situation pro-
motes a type of reflection capable of transcending the
"interest-bound" variety. The opportunities for a mem-
ber of this group to develop and maintain a perspective
that is socially rooted yet not blindly bound to the
narrow interest of one societal segment are relatively
great. Mannheim gives careful consideration to the at-
tributes and functions of this "stratum" in modern non-
totalitarian societies. We shall review his analysis to
see how mental productions at this level can at once
transcend an "interest-bound" orientation yet remain
rooted in the social fabric from which they emerge.
The intellectuals are those who produce ideas and
ideologies; they form the most important connecting
links between "social dynamics" and "ideation" in
society. If a class is a group of individuals who "act
uniformly in accordance with their like interests and
like position in the productive process," then the in-
tellectuals in modern societies clearly do not constitute
a class. 13 In contrast with Scholastics of the medieval
period, contemporary intellectuals come from varied
social backgrounds; they do not function as the offi-
cially designated interpreters of the world; they pro-
duce multiple interpretations of the same reality; and
they hesitate to tie those interpretations to a universal
religion or metaphysic.
Moreover, in contrast to contemporary workers,
entrepreneurs, and bureaucrats, intellectuals stand rela-
tively outside of the economic process; their outlook
is not automatically linked to that favored by any of
these groups. The contemporary life-situation of the
intellectuals, rather, creates a propensity to reject any
stationary or narrow perspective and promotes a self-
conscious appraisal of a broad range of perspectives
available in the society.
One of the most impressive facts about modern life

is that in it, unlike preceding cultures, intellectual
activity is not carried on exclusively by a socially
rigid class, such as a priesthood, but rather by a
social stratum which is to a large degree unattached
to any social class and which is recruited from an
increasingly inclusive area of social life. This socio-
logical fact determines essentially the uniqueness of
the modern mind, which is characteristically not
based upon the authority of a priesthood, which is
not closed and finished, but which is rather dynamic,
elastic, in a constant state of flux, and perpetually
confronted by new problems.14
The intellectuals in modern, democratic societies form

an open and fluid stratum. They do not as a group de-
velop a closely integrated outlook, nor are they able as
a group to define the socio-political world in authori-
tative terms which all members of society are expected
to accept.
And yet the particular life-situation of each par-
ticular intellectual finds expression in his mental pro-
ductions. His social background, the temperament de-
veloped in his early life, his perceived status within his
profession and within the larger society, the extent of
blockage from or access to positions of influence in
the economic and political spheres, the social group-
ings to which he primarily addresses his ideas-these
and other factors intrude upon the direction and con-
tent of his mental productions. For each intellectual
has a history of interaction with others at various

levels-family, friends, his professional colleagues,
social affiliations, the society at large-and from this
history of interaction he builds a set of anticipatory
channels for construing events-a perspective-which
serves as the organizing base for his subsequent
thought.
Intellectuals, like all other individuals, "cogitate
as members of groups and not as solitary beings," 15
but the intellectual's peculiar position in society allows
him more freedom to select the groupings to identify
with and more potential opportunities self-consciously
to consider and reconsider his selection. Put another
way, whereas the social positions of other members of
society largely predetermine what social interests and
values will influence their thought, the individual psy-
chology of an intellectual is a prime determinant of the
reference groups he will consciously or unconsciously
select to serve as his audience, his supporters, and his
respected critics. Whatever group he selects, the selec-
tion will have a pervasive influence on his subsequent
thinking; for he must make his views understandable to
his audience, and he must respond to problems that are
important to them and in ways that are meaningful to
them.
We said the intellectuals form a peculiar grouping
in modern society. The group is not a satellite of a
given class, nor does Mannheim explicitly hold it to be
a closed and exalted ruling class.* In fact he denies
that "the intelligentsia is an exalted stratum above all
* The possibility is not precluded, of course, that Mannheim
implicitly assumes the intellectuals to form a stratum above the
classes; nor is it certain that his empirical interpretation will not
slide into a normative argument suggesting that the intellectuals
ought to become a ruling class. We are here presenting Mann-
heim's explicit arguments and will consider the implications of his
position in our critique.
classes or that it is privy to revelation. " 16 Rather, it is
a loosely woven, fluid stratum inhabiting the interstices
between the classes and made up of members from
diverging class backgrounds. The members of this
stratum do not react to given problems as cohesively as
other groups do, although their common concern for
ideas does provide a basis for interaction within the
stratum. The intellectual's educational training, com-
bined with his distinctive function of interpreting social
and political reality, subjects him to the influence of
opposing forces and competing ideologies in the society
and enables him to experience the contradictions and
possible points of overlap in these diverging points of
view. The presence of other intellectuals who have
similar concerns, and yet who often tend to reach dif-
ferent conclusions, provides him with a loosely inte-
grated forum against which he can check his diagnoses
and prognoses and within which he can discover new
"approaches to the same thing." The potential op-
portunities presented by the intellectual's peculiar
social position should not be underestimated:
But over and above these [class, etc.] affiliations he is

motivated by the fact that his training has equipped
him to face the problems of the day in several per-
spectives and not only in one, as most participants in
the controversies of their time do. We said he is
equipped to envisage the problems of his time in
more than a single perspective, although from case
to case he may act as a partisan and align himself
with a class. His acquired equipment makes him po-
tentially more labile than others. He can more easily
change his point of view and he is less rigidly com-
mitted to one side of the contest, for he is capable
of experiencing concomitantly several conflicting ap-
proaches to the same thing. 17
A member of this relatively open and fluid stratum

is thus faced with an open choice concerning his func-
tional role in society. He can, if he chooses, withdraw
from an active involvement in social and political
questions; he can attach himself to a given class or
political party and articulate the ideology of his chosen
group; or he can choose to remain in his precarious
"unattached" position and devote his intellectual skills
to the task of building a broader ideology which will
encompass and explain the many partial ideologies
extant. The last alternative remains a possibility, for
smce
all points of view emerge out of the same social and

historical current, and since their partiality exists in
the matrix of an emerging whole, it is always possible
to see them in juxtaposition, and their synthesis be-
comes a problem which must continually be reformu-
lated and resolved. 18
Clearly, Mannheim believes the intellectual

should devote his energies to the task of synthesis con-
struction. For the intellectual's very social position
provides him with the resources and vantage points
needed for this task. The intellectual is relatively "de-
tached" from the sources of societal conflict and com-
petition; from his vantage point he can confront the
broad spectrum of interpretations and outlooks exist-
ing in his society. His social position and training ren-
der him potentially more labile than those in other
strata of society, more sensitive to the possible merits
of opposing points of view, more self-conscious about
the relation between his own biases and his resulting
interpretations.
Members of the intellectual stratum, equipped
with these scarce skills and resources, are well situated
to promote the reduction of tensions and cleavages in
society by fostering ideological interpenetration among
opposing groups. If members of this stratum accept as
desirable Mannheim's goal of promoting democratic
consensus, then their possession of needed skills and
resources implies a social responsibility to construct a
synthesis which will help to develop and maintain that
consensus. If they also believe, as Mannheim does,
that democratic "planning" is essential to the very
maintenance of democratic institutions in contempo-
rary societies, then they are obligated to promote
ideological consensus while at the same time identify-
ing structural levers by means of which controlled
social change can be introduced. So goes Mannheim's
argument.
But how are intellectuals to effect an ideological
synthesis? And will the synthesis, once constructed,
represent valid knowledge or will it be merely an
ideological consensus which integrates potentially op-
posed societal segments under a common outlook and
vision? In either case, what criteria enable one to de-
cide which synthesis is the "best"? Mannheim's re-
sponses to these questions are contained in his com-
ments concerning the relations between the sociology
of knowledge and epistemology.
The Sociology of Knowledge

and Epistemology
The task of epistemology is to clarify the origin,

structure, and methods of knowledge formation and,
most importantly, to construct ideal standards of ob-
jectivity and ideal criteria of validation which can
guide investigators as they seek to test their knowledge
claims. Epistemological questions are thus crucial for
intellectuals seeking to construct and appraise political

interpretations. Mannheim contends that the sociology
of knowledge possesses important implications for
epistemology; in fact "a new kind of epistemology is
called for which will reckon with the facts brought to
light by the sociology of knowledge." 19
But Mannheim does not squarely confront the
epistemological question. He makes instead two central
claims: ( 1) The problem of achieving valid knowl-
edge in the political realm is shown by the sociology of
knowledge to be much more severe than many investi-
gators had realized. ( 2) Different standards or norms
of validation arise in different societies and even within
the same society. The divergence of norms of valida-
tion further complicates the difficulties involved in
constructing political interpretations, for if the in-
terpretations are to serve as general guides to action a
formula must be found for "translating the results"
validated by one set of procedures into "those of the
other." A "common denominator" must be found
which will unite the two views, separating the "neces-
sary differences of the views from the arbitrarily con-
ceived and mistaken elements." 20
We agree with Mannheim's first claim and agree
further that different norms of validation are likely to
arise from different social settings. We do not, how-
ever, agree with all of the implications Mannheim
draws from this latter contention. We will consider
these implications in our critique of Mannheim. Here
we need to examine briefly Mannheim's attempt to
construct a "new" standard of objectivity and his efforts
to explicate criteria of validation capable of distin-
guishing valid knowledge claims from error.
Mannheim's new objectivity is called "relational
objectivity." "Relationism, as we use it, states that
every assertion can be relationally formulated."~ 1 Rela-
tional objectivity is to be distinguished from the old
static ideal of objectivity which held that there is one
and only one proper way to view an object and, also,
from the older theory of relativism which held that all
is illusion and that one theory is as true as another.
The theory of relational objectivity, it appears, rests
on the contention that different perspectives contain
within them different canons of validity, these canons
themselves being Jinked to the aims of inquiry accepted
within the perspective. Thus, for example, if investi-
gator A were seeking to understand how the partici-
pants in a given culture themselves interpret the cause,
meaning, and rationale of their behavior, he would be
likely to construct a standard of validity appropriate to
that task. He might immerse himself in the conceptual
system of the culture in an effort to learn the rules
which guide its members' experience of events and
their interpretations of their own behavior. But if in-
vestigator B came to the same environment with the
different purpose of explaining the participants' be-
havior so as to promote its prediction and control, he
would select a different norm of validation to guide
him in separating valid knowledge claims from error.
In other words, the aims of inquiry one accepts are im-
bedded in the perspective he brings to inquiry, and two
investigators studying the same environment with dif-
ferent purposes are likely to bring different canons of
validity to that inquiry. Although their resulting inter-
pretation might differ (although not necessarily, or at
all points), yet each might be objective in relation to
the aims of inquiry selected.
This is a possible meaning of Mannheim's un-
developed theory of "relational objectivity." It may not
correspond with his intentions, but given his rejection
of "classical relativism" and the "older static ideal of

eternal, unperspectivistic truth," it is difficult to think
of another interpretation that would fit his intentions. 22
Ernest Nagel has suggested that the foregoing is in fact
the correct interpretation, and has further pointed out
that if it is, then "it is difficult to see in what way 'rela-
tional objectivity' differs from 'objectivity' without the
qualifying adjective and in the customary sense of the
word." 23 For knowledge claims in all sciences are
formulated in relation to certain aims of inquiry and
in accordance with certain stated procedures for decid-
ing whether the aims have in fact been promoted. Thus
if Mannheim is saying that the aims of inquiry and ap-
propriate norms of validity vary among individuals, he
is not asserting a form of radical subjectivism as has
sometimes been suggested.
If his "relational objectivity" does not mean that
operational procedure is relative to the aims of inquiry,
then it is difficult to see how his relationism diverges
from other forms of relativism unless the distinction
rests on a differentiation of individualistic relativism
from social relativism. According to the first type, each
view would be relative to the individual who formu-
lated it and not subject to correction by external cri-
teria. According to the second, each view would be
relative to the group perspective from which it emerges.
Somehow, within the group perspective, those views
that did not conform to basic premises and beliefs of
the group would be cast aside as error, the others ac-
cepted as true. This sounds like a description Mann-
heim might give of the way beliefs are formed and sup-
ported; it does not sound like an ideal of knowledge he
could accept. We cannot go into further consideration
of the question here; however, our review of Mann-
heim's criteria of validation may shed additional light
on the meaning of his theory of relational objectivity.
Mannheim seeks to formulate criteria of validity
which will promote relational objectivity. Those who
are immersed in the same perspective can employ the
criterion of "unanimity" to separate valid knowledge
from error. But the criterion of "unanimity" is un-
developed. Does it mean that whatever the involved
parties are able to agree upon is to be accepted as
valid or does it merely express the undeveloped belief
that it is possible to formulate viable procedures for
separating truth from error when the involved parties
agree upon the aims of inquiry? Again, it is hard to
tell. But we suspect the latter interpretation is more
correct.
Consider the following hypothetical case. Two in-
vestigators, immersed in the same group perspective,
study the same problem area and emerge with different
conclusions. The conclusions of the first appear accept-
able and plausible to the relevant reference groups;
those of the second are repugnant to the same groups,
but if in fact acted upon they would most effectively
promote the desired control over the environment.
Mannheim's criterion of unanimity is seemingly de-
signed to identify the interpretation which would in
fact promote the desired control over the environment.
For "a theory is wrong if in a given practical situation
it uses concepts and categories which, if taken seri-
ously, would prevent man from adjusting himself at
that historical stage." 24
It seems more likely, then, that Mannheim's
"criterion of unanimity" is not a criterion at all. It
merely affirms his hope that there are in principle pro-
cedures available for separating valid knowledge from
invalid knowledge claims when investigators have
adopted the same aims of inquiry. He has not formu-
lated these procedures, but has merely affirmed that

they could be formulated.
Similar problems arise when we consider his sug-
gestions for deciding how to resolve "interperspectival"
disputes and how to construct the "best" political
interpretation from the various perspectives extant.
The answer: "an effort must be made to find a formula
for translating the results of one into those of the other
and to discover a common denominator for these vary-
ing perspectivistic insights. " 25 Again, Mannheim is
merely affirming the belief that it is possible to find
means of resolving disputes between perspectives. He
offers no concrete suggestions as to how these "com-
mon denominators" are to be established and recog-
nized.
We have given Mannheim's formulation of the
epistemological implications of the sociology knowl-
edge short shrift-because he himself does. He devotes,
for example, only a few pages of Ideology and Utopia
to the question. It is fair to say that while Mannheim
repeatedly asserts that the sociology of knowledge
possesses important implications for epistemology, he
nowhere carefully develops just what those implica-
tions are. His relevant statements are vague and am-
biguous, and perhaps they simply reflect his admitted
indecision on these points:
Only in the process of trial and error will it become
clear which of these bases of interpretation is the
more sound and whether we get farther if, as has
been done hitherto, we take the situationally detached
type of knowledge as our point of departure and treat
the situationally conditioned as secondary and un-
important, or contrariwise, whether we regard the
situationally detached type of knowledge as a
marginal and special case of the situationally condi-
tioned. 26
The Sociology of Knowledge:

Critique
Mannheim's formulation of the problem of

ideology is highly suggestive, and many of the con-
clusions reached in this study are heavily indebted to
him. But our debt can be more clearly specified and
our differences clarified if we critically consider certain
key aspects of his position. Our criticisms will center
around Mannheim's vague discussion of the "connec-
tives" between social life and mental productions, his
definition of the terms "ideology" and "utopia," his
conception of the proper social functions of the intel-
lectual stratum, and his interpretation of the implica-
tions of the sociology of knowledge for the scientific
ideals of political inquiry. These issues will be con-
sidered in turn.
SocIAL DETERMINATION OF IDEAS I Mannheim

has revealed empirical correlations between "social
position" and "mental productions"; his analysis of the
social basis of conservative thought in Germany in the
first half of the nineteenth century is especially insight-
ful on this point. 27 But he has failed to analyze the
mechanisms that connect individual mental produc-
tions to the social process. We see that correlations
exist, and sometimes we see why they are present, but
we do not learn how they arise. As Robert Merton has
pointed out, Mannheim has used many phrases to de-
scribe the connections: some ideas are "in accord with
the needs" of a group, others are linked to society by
"causal determinants," some "grow out of" the social
matrix, and in other cases "it is no accident" that the
given thought form has developed. 28 But the processes
76 j POLITICAL SCIENCE AND IDEOLOGY
by which mental productions are linked to the social

process are never carefully discussed.
In our view, this question is important. The in-
tellectual's ability to render the perspective he brings
to inquiry more self-conscious and his effectiveness in
devising a strategy for overcoming the suspected
limitations and omissions of his own perspective hinge,
at least in part, on his ability to understand how his
perspective has developed and how it is linked to
selected segments of society. We shall deal with the
question of "connectives" and with the organization of
the perspective in Chapter 4; and in Chapter 5 we will
discuss the importance of perspectival self-clarification
for the development of responsible political ideologies.
IDEOLOGY AND UTOPIA I The concepts "ideol-

ogy" and "utopia" are designed, according to Mann-
heim, to focus on the fact that "political thought is
integrally bound up with social life." 29 But the con-
cepts, as he employs them, are not well designed for
that task. This is because ideologies and utopias ob-
scure the real conditions of society; they are distortions
of reality which blur some factors and overemphasize
others.
Mannheim would agree that ideologies are apt to
flourish when there is a social need for integrated be-
liefs to guide action and when there is a practical
inability. to test these beliefs rigorously at key points.
At times he seems to go a step further and to sug-
gest that it is impossible in principle to bring the
empirical beliefs to definitive test. Nevertheless Mann-
heim's concepts of ideology and utopia assume a back-
ground of recognized knowledge against which to
measure the distortion of a given political interpreta-
tion. Before these concepts can be applied to a con-
crete situation, someone must be in possession of
objective knowledge which will enable him to decide
in which direction the political interpretation is dis-
torted. For a distorted view is a distortion of some
reality and we cannot know the scope or direction of
distortion unless we can consider it against a back-
ground of valid knowledge.
Mannheim's concepts are further defined against
the background of a theory of historical evolution
rather than in terms of the subjective dispositions of
the authors and supporters of the political interpreta-
tions. That is, ideologies are said to focus on factors
which actually do maintain the status quo; while
utopias are greatly distorted "because they are already
beyond the present." 30 How, then, do we know whether
a current political interpretation is ideological or
utopian? We do not. The concepts, Mannheim agrees,
are ex post facto. They can only be applied by con-
temporary investigators to past historical epochs, for
only from a historical vantage point can we tell which
interpretations in a given time and place focused on
factors about to be surmounted and replaced ( ideolo-
gies) and which ones focused on factors in the process
of becoming (utopias) . So defined, the concepts of
ideology and utopia cannot be applied by contem-
porary investigators to contemporary political inter-
pretations.
One of Mannheim's central purposes was to help
intellectuals to become more aware of the sources of
their ideas and the socially based interests, values, and
aspirations which their ideas tend to justify. Yet the
concepts "ideology" and "utopia" are not very helpful
in this regard. The difficulty is that the concepts are
developed against an assumed background of valid
knowledge, whereas the problem of ideology arises in
its most acute form in just those conditions where a

sufficient background of validated knowledge is lack-
ing.
The terms need to be defined to fit a context of
uncertainty. Our usage more fully meets this need.
Ideologies are beliefs typically developed in conditions
of empirical uncertainty which function to preserve
higher level beliefs and values from destruction. Those
ideologies that describe and explain present arrange-
ments in critical ways and point to claimed opportuni-
ties for change are related to Mannheim's concept of
utopia; those that justify the status quo roughly corre-
spond to Mannheim's concept of ideology, once the
assumed background of valid knowledge is dropped.
We employ the terms "critical ideology" and "justifying
ideology" to capture the distinction emphasized by
Mannheim.* We do not assume that ideologies are
automatically distorted; that remains an open question
to be decided only when key beliefs can be brought to
definitive test.
This way of construing ideology, we believe,
helps to emphasize the fact that ideologies cannot
usually be measured for distortion by comparing them
to a sphere of established knowledge. Ideologies gener-
ally arise in a context of uncertainty. Or when they do
not, the intellectual problem of ideology is not very
severe in that context. Where the problem is serious,
the intellectual needs a concept that will help him to
recognize and to grapple with the task of formulating
* Of course no description or explanation is by itself a
justification or a criticism. It becomes one or the other only when
considered in conjunction with accepted values. A description
which conflicts with our ideals of what should be and leads us to
react negatively is a "critical ideology"; one which makes the real
world appear close to our ideals and thus encourages us to cele-
brate the status quo is a "justifying ideology." An ideology's "type"
is relative to the value system of the audience which receives it.
This question and related ones ar~ considered in Chapter 4.
and presenting knowledge claims in contexts of un-
certainty.*
THE INTELLECTUAL STRATUM I

Mannheim has,
in our opinion, helped to identify the social location of
the intellectual stratum in modern societies and has
recognized many scarce resources and skills available
to members of this stratum. Building from these em-
pirical claims, he has asserted that the intellectuals have
a clear social responsibility to construct and examine
socio-political interpretations relevant to contemporary
problems. We agree. But Mannheim has not carefully
delimited the range of social functions and preroga-
tives which are justified, and as a result his formula-
tion of the proper role of the intellectuals is open to
various interpretations.
One such interpretation is advanced by Charles
Frankel:
There can be no doubt about the depth of Mann-

heim's aversion to authoritarianism. But, in the end,
his philosophy of history, for all its liberal sympa-
thies . . . is a version of the oldest kind of phi-
losophy of history. It is the kind which assigns to a
Chosen People the task of doing the great work of
history. . . . It lacks the utopian overtones . . .
which have usually gone with Platonism. But at
bottom, it is a return to the ancient Platonic dream
that cities of man will not cease from ill until philos-
ophers are kings. 31
Despite Mannheim's occasional protestations to the

contrary, some interpreters have decided that his theory
* The criticisms we have leveled against Mannheim's con-

cepts of utopia and ideology are not applicable to his concept of
the perspective. That concept is defined within a context of un-
certainty; it is discussed in Chapter 4.
of the intellectuals, when combined with his ideal

of "democratic planning," slides into a justificatory
"theory of a ruling class of social scientists whose task
would be to integrate and reconcile the various clash-
ing interests. " 32
It is true that many of Mannheim's statements do
carry this implication. He says, for example, that
"there will, therefore, in every planned society be a
body somehow similar to the priests, whose task it will
be to watch that certain basic standards are established
and maintained." 33 And this "body of priests," of
course, is to be composed of the leading elements of
the intellectual stratum. Yet, Mannheim was, by pre-
dilection, opposed to the ruling-class doctrine, and
other statements could be marshaled that seem to
qualify the ruling-class interpretation of his position.
We shall not debate the issue here, however, since
it seems clear that Mannheim was ambiguous on this
important point. His tendency to slip into a doctrine of
the ruling class, or at least his ambiguity and vagueness
on the matter, might be attributable to his failure to
distinguish between two levels of responsibility. A per-
son may have responsibilities in the weak sense of be-
ing obligated to offer his services and skills for the
solution of problems, where his proposed solutions can
be accepted or rejected by others. Or, he may have re-
sponsibilities in the strong sense of being obligated to
resolve authoritatively certain problems, where his
proposed solutions carry with them the demand or the
implication that others are obligated to accept and
abide by his conclusions.
We here contend that Mannheim's arguments
effectively support the contention that intellectuals
properly have social responsibilities in the first, "weak"
sense of the term, and we shall attempt to support his
arguments in Chapter 5. But whichever type of re-
sponsibility he in fact believed intellectuals to have,
Mannheim's arguments do not justify investing the in-
tellectual stratum with the second and "stronger" type
of social responsibility.
In fact the sociology of knowledge exposes the
social danger that accompanies any dichotomous or-
ganization of society into the rulers and the ruled.
Mannheim himself points this out. There is, he says, no
Platonic Sphere of Knowledge and Value to which one
group has ready access. There is no automatic identi-
fication between Virtue and Knowledge. There is, on
the contrary, a recognizable social tendency for all
groups in positions of privilege and power to adopt in-
terpretations which, if accepted, tend to promote their
perceived self-interest at the expense of other groups.
The intellectual's present social position carries
with it certain strategic advantages for the construction
of socially useful political interpretations-but these
advantages exist because this "stratum" is relatively
detached from the social conflicts of the day and be-
cause it does not as a group possess a privileged power
position which it will seek to protect through ideation.
It is the intelligentsia's position between the classes and
on the periphery of the power structure combined with
their relative diversity of class background which make
them potentially more flexible and potentially more
able to "nurture and test new ideas," to "protect so-
ciety in an age of the masses from great danger lest the
patterns of propaganda and advertising become models
for cultural planning." 34
All of these advantages, and the potential social
functions they promote, would be lost if this loose,
"unattached stratum" were to become solidified into a
ruling class. Mannheim's own formulation of the in-
tellectuals' position and resources does not support,
but rather undermines, the claim that intellectuals
should become a "body of priests" who authoritatively

define and enforce a unified body of knowledge and
code of virtue. The intellectual stratum, transformed
into an elite of privilege and power, would develop the
same type of "interest-bound" orientation that other
ruling groups have developed.
Mannheim's arguments point to several potential
advantages flowing from the relatively detached social
position of the intellectuals, and a clear social responsi-
bility is derived from these advantages: intellectuals
should construct and criticize ideologies and present
the resultant debates to a wider public audience for
consideration. Mannheim's sociological analysis brings
out a further point which he himself sometimes forgot:
the ability to perform this key social function well
hinges on the intellectual stratum's remaining as a
variegated group, operating on the periphery-rather
than in the center--of power and privilege.
We shall discuss certain social responsibilities of
contemporary intellectuals, especially of political scien-
tists, in Chapter 5. Our discussion will always center
on the first, "weak" sense of social responsibility. Our
claim will be that the training and special resources of
political scientists, combined with their favorable
social location, implies a responsibility to pursue
ideological inquiry in the hope of identifying problems
and promoting their resolution. The factors we identify
will not justify translating this "weak" social responsi-
bility into the stronger one of constructing an ideology
which authoritatively binds and constricts the conduct
of all segments of society.
THE IDEAL OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE I A cen-

tral purpose of Mannheim's study was to clarify the
problem of ideology and then to suggest ways of
rendering ideology construction more responsible. In
raising the problem of ideology he revealed the socia]
bases of disagreements in political interpretations and
recognized many of the practical problems inhibiting
efforts to bring these disagreements to definitive test.
But Mannheim did not clearly specify whether the
factors he singled out render it impossible in principle
to bring strategic political hypotheses to definitive test.
He sometimes implied that the difficulties were ones
of principle rather than ones of practice, but he never
argued the case with care. Since he did not clearly
demarcate the boundaries of the problem of ideology,
his efforts to specify responsible ways of formulating,
testing, and presenting political ideologies were de-
ficient. We shall now develop the above claims.
Mannheim, as we have seen, did not carefully
specify ways by which divergent political hypotheses
can in principle be tested. He sometimes seemed to as-
sume that recognition of the social bases of ideation
carries with it a recognition that definitive tests cannot
be made in the political realm. Statements like". . . it
is easily possible that there are truths or correct in-
tuitions which are accessible to only a certain personal
disposition or to a definite orientation of a certain
group" 3 " seem to imply such a belief. But it is not
really clear whether he meant that certain locations
and dispositions help one to discover hitherto con-
cealed truths which can then be publicly stated and
tested or that both the context of discovery and context
of validation, in certain cases, are essentially private
matters. In his later work he more clearly expresses the
belief that political interpretations are in principle test-
able. At any rate, we shall here ask whether his most
basic insights undermine the belief that political hy-
potheses can in principle be brought to definitive, pub-
lic, and impersonal test.
Mannheim's most basic claim is that the very
norms of validation in social and political inquiry are

social products, and these social products vary in
space and time. C. Wright Mills, in a sympathetic
discussion of Mannheim's theory, develops this point:
There is evidence that the so-called laws of proof

may be merely the conventional abstract rules gov-
erning what are accepted as valid conversational ex-
tensions. What we call illogicality is similar to
immorality in that both are deviations from norms.
We know that such thought ways change. Arguments
which in the discourse of one group or epoch are
accepted as valid, in other times and conversations
are not so received. . . . Problems set by one logic
are with a change in interest, outgrown, not
solved. . . .
There have been and are diverse canons and cri-
teria of validity and truth, and these criteria upon
which the determination of the truthfulness of
propositions at any time depend, are themselves in
their persistence and change legitimately open to
social-historical relativization. Moreover, we have at
hand sociological theories concerning the character
and emergence of certain of these. Criteria, or ob-
servational and verificatory models, are not tran-
scendental. . . . Nor are they part of an a priori, or
innate, equipment of "the mind" conceived to be
intrinsically logical. 86
Many philosophers of science who are most in-

terested in developing procedures for rigorously testing
knowledge claims do not disagree with the view of
logic and laws of proof advanced by Mills and Mann-
heim; they merely disagree with some of the implica-
tions Mannheim and, at least in his earlier work, Mills
draw from this view of logic.
Consider the position of Ernest Nagel. He agrees
that logical principles do not "formulate inherent
necessities of thought," nor do they "express the limit-
ing and necessary structure of all things." 37 Logic,
when viewed broadly, is an attempt to make "explicit
the structure of methods and assumptions employed in
the search for reliable knowledge in all fields of in-
quiry."38 There are various systems of logic and these
systems must be regarded as "alternative proposals for
specifying and for performing inferences." 39 Further,
Nagel does not deny that logical constructions are
social emergents or that a genetic analysis might help
to explain how and why the different systems have
emerged. He does assert, however, that logical dis-
agreements cannot be resolved by "investigating the
causal factors which lead men to adopt those principles
or by a genetic account of inferential habits." 40
How can logical disputes be resolved? Nagel dis-
tinguishes between the theoretical "ends of inquiry"
and the principles of validation which tend to promote
the envisaged ends. It might be true that the ends of
inquiry are in some sense socially determined. Thus, to
overgeneralize, the social critic might be more likely
to accept prediction and control as an end of inquiry
and the conservative to accept the "appreciative under-
standing" of the participants' experience of events as
an end. But once the ends of inquiry have been clearly
demarcated, "justification for a proposed set of regu-
lative principles can be given only in terms of the
adequacy of the proposed changes as means or instru-
ments for attaining the envisaged ends." 41
The sociology of knowledge and the Nagel con-
ception of logic converge at key points. Both reject the
various ontological and transcendental interpretations
of logic. Both agree that social factors are relevant to
the genesis of logical principles and to the ends of in-
quiry accepted. But Nagel then adds that the rules of
logic employed must be functional; they are to be
altered and refined in the process of attempting to pro-

mote the accepted ends of inquiry. According to Nagel,
if two observers agree, for example, to accept predic-
tion and control as the proper goals of inquiry, they
can in principle agree upon those criteria of valida-
tion that will best promote these ends. Thus, for those
who accept the aim of prediction, the general approach
adopted for testing knowledge claims has been to ask
the investigator to specify a set of predicted conse-
quences that would tend to validate his hypotheses
and a set of possible observations that would tend to
invalidate those claims. If a set of predicted conse-
quences cannot be specified, or if the range of con-
sequences covers all conceivable possibilities, the
explanation carries no real predictive power. Similar
procedures can in principle be specified for the aim
of "understanding." It is in principle possible to specify
these procedures but, as Nagel admits, there are nu-
merous practical problems involved even in formulat-
ing the norms of validation appropriate to given ends
of inquiry with precision.
It must be admitted . . . that it is frequently difficult
to exhibit adequate evidence for the superior efficacy
of one type of inferential system over another, es-
pecially when the specific goals of inquiry are them-
selves vague and are conceived in part at least in
esthetic terms. 42
Mannheim, then, has contended on the basis of

his sociological analysis that norms of validation are
relative to social environment and not innate to the
mind. Yet, it is not clear that this claim, even if it is
correct, necessitates scaling down the ideals of scien-
tific knowledge; it has not been established that the
ideal of scientific knowledge is not in principle attain-
able.
87 I The Sociology of Knowk<lgl!
But if the most severe problem of ideology arises
in conditions where competing knowledge claims can-
not in practice be tested, is there any practical utility
in saying that the knowledge claims can in principle be
tested? The answer is yes. The difference between ac-
cepting or rejecting the possibility of achieving objec-
tive knowledge is closely related to the difference
between political interpretations formulated as honest
attempts to discover truth and those that are more or
less consciously presented as the propagandistic ex-
pressions of selected segments of society.
If one holds that the problem of ideology is in
principle unresolvable, he is likely to formulate his
empirical claims loosely and in ways that cannot pos-
sibly be refuted by any test. The tendency of the in-
vestigator to slip into a propagandistic style would be
strong because of the absence of any ideal of knowl-
edge urging him to check more carefully the clarity of
his formulations and the efficacy of his testing pro-
cedures. Accepting no ideal of knowledge as a guiding
standard, the investigator might as a result overlook or
never formulate potentially reliable methods of bring-
ing competing knowledge claims to impersonal test.
If one, on the other hand, recognizes that his per-
sonal commitments tend to influence the empirical
beliefs he develops, and yet asserts that it is possible
in principle to resolve competing empirical claims by
reference to impersonal tests, he will be more likely to
construct knowledge claims in testable ways and be
more apt to seek ways of actually bringing these claims
to test. Adherence to an ideal of scientific knowledge
carries with-it the responsibility to construct, present,
and test knowledge claims in the most rigorous manner
possible under the given circumstances. Furthermore,
adversaries operating in this context are less apt merely
to "debunk" each other's thought by relating it to the
partial interests of special groups; instead they are

more likely to engage in debate and criticism by chid-
ing each other to state the aims of inquiry and relevant
empirical claims more precisely and to specify ade-
quate testing procedures.
In short, those who overstate the problem of
ideology are apt to render the problem more severe
than it has to be. When we recognize that the practical
problem of ideology is severe, but suggest that knowl-
edge claims can in principle be validated or invali-
dated, we are constantly motivated to approach this
ideal and to transcend mere propaganda. Believing
that the problem of ideology is in principle resolvable
promotes the likelihood that we will in practice be
able to bring key aspects of our political interpreta-
tions to definitive test. The contemporary revolution in
political inquiry, still far short of its promise, never-
theless demonstrates the powerful and practical efficacy
of such a belief.
Karl Mannheim: An Appraisal
We have critically reviewed those portions of

Mannheim's sociology of knowledge most relevant to
our problem, but our review and our criticism have
been rendered more difficult by the fact that Mann-
heim's positions on some of the important issues are
formulated in vague and often ambiguous ways. Mann-
heim also tended to shift from one position to another
on the same issue without clearly informing the reader
of his move. Yet perhaps Mannheim's own justification
for these aspects of his work is sufficient:
If there are contradictions and inconsistencies in my

paper this is, I think, not so much due to the fact that
I overlooked them but because I make a point of
developing a theme to its end even if it contradicts
some other statements. I use this method because I
think that in this marginal field of human knowledge
we should not conceal inconsistencies, so to speak
covering up wounds, but our duty is to show the sore
spots in human thinking at its present stage. 43
In our view, Mannheim has made a singular con-
tribution to this "marginal field of knowledge." His
formulations are hard to specify because his work is
more insightful and stimulating than it is systematic
and precise. Yet several aspects of Mannheim's work
that have influenced this study can be pointed out here;
and other influences will become abundantly obvious
in later chapters.
Mannheim persuasively argued that the concepts
and categories one develops are linked to the social
process, and he devised the fruitful concept of the per-
spective to represent the variegated connections be-
tween social environment and ideation. He filled out
this general contention by considering concrete ex-
amples of situations where structural forces, such as
social mobility, economic competition, and democrati-
zation, have shaped the configurations of groups and
their interactions and have influenced the shape and
style of ideological constellations. His analysis of situa-
tions where groups who were apparently engaged in
heavy debate over clearly defined issues were in fact
subtly "talking past one another" has helped to reveal
the need for, and problems surrounding, perspectival
clarification in political inquiry. His master distinction
between those ideologies that tend to justify the status
quo and those that tend to criticize it is still a useful
paradigm for the classification of contemporary po-
litical ideologies. His efforts to show that intellectuals
are relatively well placed to cope with the problem of
ideology are still informative. Finally, the contention

that responsible political inquiry requires the investi-
gator to make an intensive effort to become aware of
the perspective he brings to his inquiry is a key insight
of Mannheim's-one to which we shall give further
support later in this study.
In brief, while others have sought to minimize the
problem of ideology either by avoiding it or by empha-
sizing the future promise of a science of politics as a
way of transcending it, Mannheim has sought to un-
cover some of the "sore spots" in human political
thinking and to find ways of healing the recognized
wounds. He has recognized, and made the most sophis-
ticated efforts to cope with, two basic facts about
political inquiry: ( 1) The formulations of political
scientists are not neutral isolates which merely describe
and explain political events; they are social emergents
which also function as weapons in the political struggle
and as unifying forces in consensus-building. ( 2)
Such political beliefs are often exceedingly difficult to
bring to definitive test. We are still not fully able to
cope with the implications of these two facts, but
Mannheim's efforts will provide fruitful insight and
assistance to any viable approach that is developed.
4 I The Concept of
the Perspective
Ideally, we need a theory of mind that would en-
able us to explain how the social structure exerts an
impact upon the structure and content of mental ac-
tivity. Such a theory would suggest how the perspective
brought to inquiry could be rendered more self-con-
scious and thus brought under more thorough intellec-
tual control. If, as Mannheim has suggested, the
ideology one constructs or adopts somehow reflects his
location in the social system, then the problem of
ideology could be more clearly recognized and con-
fronted if we were more fully able to understand what
mechanisms link the social process to mental produc-
tions.
No attempt is here made to construct a theory of
92 I POLITICAL iiCIENCE AND IDEOLOGY
mind sufficiently sophisticated to cover all the factors

and processes that link mental operations to social
processes. Our discussion is meant to be suggestive
rather than definitive and conclusive, and it omits
many issues that would require consideration if we
proposed to construct a full philosophy of mind. Draw-
ing on formulations advanced by George Herbert
Mead and Karl Mannheim, our purpose is to develop
the concept of the perspective; by focusing on its social
genesis, its internal integration, and the strong tend-
encies and resources available for maintaining its in-
tegrity, we hope to promote recognition of the per-
vasive and seductive influence it exerts on inquiry into
problematic political situations.
It is not especially difficult to elaborate Mann-
heim's concept of the perspective by drawing on con-
cepts and theories developed by G. H. Mead, since the
two authors begin their respective analyses with a re-
markable congruence of philosophical commitment.
Both developed their theories after having gone
through early periods as "Hegelians." Both deny all
variants of "idealism" and affirm the existence of an
orderly external environment which must be somehow
confronted and assimilated if human mental activity
is to be successful. Both label "successful" mental ac-
tivity as that which enables the organism to predict
future events and to gain some control over selected
aspects of the environment. Both view mind function-
ally rather than substantively; that is, mind does not
exist as a "mental substance," but operates as "symbolic
activity" functioning to promote organic "adjustment"
to the environment. Mind, both agree, emerges out of
and functions with reference to the social process,
rather than existing antecedently to and independently
of that process.*
* Mea~ was p.ot aware of Mannheim's work, but Mannheim,
93 The Concept of the Perspective
We will not here question the philosophical base
assumed by the two authors, but will employ concepts
developed from that base in an attempt to clarify the
connections between social existence and ideological
constructions. Recognizing that various ideologies are
differentially supported by various segments of society,
we seek to comprehend more fully the social bases of
the problem of ideology.
Social Life and Mental Activity
"Why is it," Mannheim asks, "that mental proc-

esses are dynamic, have a common drift, and occur in
a directed stream, rather than in a dissociated and
random form ?" 2 He concludes that the "social matrix"
of thought provides it with its continuity and coher-
ence. Public interpretations of reality arise through the
"intermediary of social relationships and processes,"
and the structure of these processes imparts form and
direction to thought patterns.
After reaching this conclusion, however, Mann-
heim does not go on to consider the mechanisms that
connect social patterns and patterns of thought. G. H.
Mead, on the other hand, does: he has identified lan-
guage and role-taking as the principal connecting
mechanisms.
Language provides the basic connective. Lan-
late in his career, recognized the structural similarities between his

theories and those developed by Mead: "It is G. H. Mead's great
merit to have pointed out, like Karl Marx and before him Hegel,
that society with its network of relationships in logic and in fact
precedes the individual and ego-formation . . . , and he was
among those social psychologists who regard the Self as deriving
from the social process in which it is implicated. . . . The hy-
pothesis that the social Self emerges from the patterns of social
interaction and the concept of role taking are great advances in
our language.''1
guage communities develop in particular social con-

texts; each community of language emerges and takes
on specialized form as behavior is coordinated in par-
ticular structural settings, and then the developed vo-
cabulary acts as a system of social control which
directs perceptions and guides interpretations. We
shall briefly outline Mead's concept of the "significant
symbol" and his concept of the "generalized other" in
order to see how language both is shaped by its social
environment and functions to guide interpretations of
that environment. 3
LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT I Let us first distin-

guish between the concepts "want," "desire," and
"need." 4 A want is an object or relationship that is
souglit by an agent ( individual or group) and would
give the agent important satisfaction were it to be
attained. A desire is an object similarly sought, but one
that might or might not provide the expected satisfac-
tion when attained. A need is an object or relationship
that would provide important satisfaction if attained,
but one whose potentially satisfying characteristics
may or may not be known to the agent.
According to Mead, the individual is immersed
in an ongoing web of social activity in which certain
needs arise and in which he, in harmony and conflict
with others, seeks to recognize these needs and to
achieve the important satisfactions they represent. Out
of this process, mind and self emerge. Reflection, in
origin and in basic function, is the process that aims
at recognizing needs, translating them into specific
wants, and promoting the achievement of the wanted
satisfactions. Reflection is a social process; through the
cooperative construction of "significant symbols," com-
plex goals are defined and the way is paved for their
achievement.
95 I The Concept of the Perspective
Any coordinated activity, whether competitive,
coercive, or cooperative, requires the mutual adjust-
ment of the agents involved. In a primitive setting the
"gesture" is the key mechanism of coordination. The
gesture may be vocal, facial, or bodily-like a wave of
the hand. But the gesture has limited powers of com-
munication. It produces a reaction on the part of the
recipient, but the gesturer does not know ahead of
time what the reaction will be, nor does his gesture
clearly isolate those aspects of the environment that
repeatedly carry the same meaning for him and the
recipient.
The more complicated and significant vehicle of
communication is the "significant symbol." A symbol
becomes significant when it is addressed to the self in
the same way that it is addressed to the other, when
each party "responds" to the same gesture in approxi-
mately the same manner.
The vocal gesture becomes a significant symbol when
it has the same effect on the individual making it that
it has on the individual to whom it is addressed or
[who] explicitly responds to it, and thus involves a
reference to the self of the individual making it. 5
The significant symbol promotes effective communica-

tion because it links the participating parties to the
"same" objects in the environment in similar ways.
Mead identifies the meaning of a significant symbol
with the "adjustive response" it calls out in the interact-
ing parties.
The response theories of meaning have been criti-
cized for their lack of clarity and for their relative in-
ability to handle sentences that are not stated in the
imperative form. 6 Apparently, an adequate theory of
meaning has not yet been fully formulated, although
"it has been generally recognized in recent philosophy
that the relation of words and statements to facts is

elusive and can never be stated in any simple and
general terms." 1 But if the meaning of a symbol is
identified broadly as the set of rules which guide its
application to concrete situations, then Mead's discus-
sion of language can be retained for our purposes.
Mead's point is that language does not express
ideas existing antecedently in all minds, nor does it
passively reflect "data" from the objective environ-
ment.* Rather, language is a socially constituted prod-
uct that focuses attention on selected aspects of the
environment in specialized ways; the prevailing uni-
verse of discourse sets a frame for our perceptions of
the problems and possibilities in social life.
A person learns a new language and, as we say, gets

a new soul. He puts himself into the attitude of those
that make use of that language. He cannot read its
literature, cannot converse with those that belong to
that community, without taking on its peculiar atti-
tudes. He becomes in that sense a different individual.
You cannot convey a language as a pure abstraction;
you inevitably in some degree convey also the life
that lies behind it. . . .9
The individual's thinking takes the form of an

"internalized conversation with himself" 10 ; the "con-
versation" is shaped by the set of values, beliefs, and
* "The human animal is an attentive animal, and his atten-

tion may be given to stimuli that are relatively faint. One can pick
out sounds at a distance. Our whole intelligent process seems to lie
in the attention which is selective of certain types of stimuli. Other
stimuli which are bombarding the system are in some fashion
shunted off. . . . Not only do we open the door to certain stimuli
and close it to others, but our attention is an organizing process as
well as a selective process. . . . Here we have the organism acting
upon and determining its environment. • . . The organism goes
out and determines to what it is going to respond and organizes
that world." 8
implicit assumptions selectively internalized by the
individual through the language process. Language
thereby provides the medium for our thoughts. And to
communicate our thoughts we must build from the
community language if we wish to be understood.
Thus the language system, constituting both the
medium for thought and the culturally biased vehicle
for its communication, is the central mechanism link-
ing the social process to mental operations. Social pat-
terns of behavior provide the context out of which a
language system emerges with its focal assumptions
and values-its "reality level"; our perceptions and
thought patterns then come under the control of this
system of language.
THE GENERALIZED OTHER I We mentioned that

the individual has selectively incorporated from his
environment the cognitive structure he then brings to
problematic situations. Mead introduces the concept
of the "generalized other" to represent those segments
of society that provide the conceptual molds and
evaluative schemes selectively internalized by the in-
dividual. Each individual constructs a generalized
other from the social environment and the incorpo-
rated model then channels and directs his thought.
It is in the form of the generalized other that the

social process influences the behavior of the indi-
viduals involved in it and carrying it on, i.e., that the
community exercises control over the conduct of its
individual members; for it is in this form that the
social process or community enters as a determining
factor in the individual's thinking.11
If the generalized other plays such an important

role in reflection, we should attempt to characterize
some of the factors in its formation. We cannot eluci-

date all of the determinants, nor can we easily explain
why certain societal segments are represented in the
generalized other of any single individual while other
segments tend to be omitted. The central value of
Mead's taxonomy of the relations between social proc-
ess and mental patterns is its attempt to recognize the
role played by both the structural forces of society and
by individual psychology in the formation of the
individual's generalized other.
Mead sees the individual's generalized other
emerging as a synthesis of the various "roles" or pat-
terns of conduct he first emulates and then enacts in
his life history; the roles themselves are set by the
various social institutions in which he operates and
develops. The developing individual, operating in these
specific institutional settings, encounters several "sig-
nificant others"-parents, friends, civic leaders, col-
leagues, employers-whose evaluations and cognitive
organization are selectively incorporated by him as he
communicates with them. As he matures, the various
significant others are somehow synthesized into a com-
posite-a generalized other.*
Mead is unfortunately vague about what prin-
ciples guide this synthesis into a generalized other and
about how the principles are derived. Are the prin-
ciples themselves incorporated from the social environ-
* The biographical development of a generalized other as a

composite of significant others can be visualized in the following
way: "My parents are angry when I hit them." "My parents,
teachers, and friends disapprove when I am mean." "Nice people
don't approve of aggressive behavior." "One should not be aggres-
sive." The last step represents the generalized other-in this case
an internalized norm derived from the composite evaluations by
significant others in the individual's experience. The individual's
"reality level" can be viewed as developing in roughly the same
way.
mentor do they represent an invariant aspect of mind?
Mead clearly seems to assume that all aspects of mind
are incorporated from the social environment, but
he does not develop this position carefully. Our pri-
mary concern is how broad social patterns influence
patterns of thought; and whether the generalized other
is in fact fully a social product, as Mead suggests, or
merely a social increment built upon invariant prin-
ciples of the mind, the resultant influence of the social
process on mental activity will be great.
The generalized other is thus constructed against
a background of social patterns of existence. Each
individual is implicated throughout his life history in
various networks of communication. The broad struc-
tural forces at work in the society ( for example, the
extent and direction of social mobility, the division of
labor, the degree of isolation, coercion, and competi-
tion within and between groups) provide each social
grouping with a configuration which affects the form
and content of the communication network developed.
The structural forces help to shape the needs and
wants arising among the associated individuals, and
thereby to influence the language system developed
in the process of coordinating group activity.
Most individuals are led to construct their gen-
eralized other from those segments of society with
which they are in regular contact (family, occupa-
tional group, community, and so on) and with which
they are united by ties of function, need, and want
( for example, class position, ethnic and religious
affiliation, and generation). Even in these cases, how-
ever, the individual's generalized other represents the
social environment in an individualized way. The in-
dividual's personal psychology, developed within the
broad structural setting, guides and focuses his con-
struction of a generalized other from the environment.

He selectively incorporates values, beliefs, and con-
ceptual forms from the social setting within which he
is implicated.
Although Mead does not emphasize the point, it is
compatible with his analysis to assert that some indi-
viduals are led by personal experience to reject those
groupings with which they are "naturally" affiliated.
They develop their generalized other in opposition to
their "natural" groupings by sympathetically immers-
ing themselves in the thought models developed by
opposing segments of society. A key psychological
factor in the formation of the generalized other is the
extent to which the individual feels either securely
anchored and well integrated in his life situation or
threatened, insecure, and estranged. Other things be-
ing equal, the securely anchored individual tends to
construct a generalized other from those segments of
society that are relatively satisfied with the status quo.
The suffering individual, perhaps insecure because of
the conflicting ways in which structural forces have
defined his life situation, is more likely to construct a
generalized other from among those societal segments
who view the socio-political system as repressive and
exploitative.* The extent to which personal psychology
plays a part in the construction of the generalized
other depends partially upon the opportunities avail-
able for the individual to gain exposure to those ideas
* The complicated interplay among social structure, per-
sonality structure, and political orientation cannot, of course, be
summarized adequately in a brief paragraph. Our purpose here is
to indicate how Mead's concept of the generalized other can be
useful in exploring both those individual orientations which merge
fully with the class, status, regional, and generational groupings to
which the individuals belong and those orientations which diverge
in important respects from these "natural" groupings. There are
several interesting empirical inquiries into aspects of this interplay.
The gross generalizations ventured here are, we believe, com-
patible with major claims of the relevant studies listed below, 12
and orientations that most fully strike a responsive
chord in him.
If Mannheim's analysis of the intellectual stratum
is valid, then its social position renders the personal
component involved in the formation of the general-
ized other relatively more signficant than it is for other
groups.
If complete determinism is impractical in any area

of sociology, it is even more so in the approach to a
group of individuals whose primary trait is that they
are adrift and therefore capable of vicarious participa-
tion in a great variety of social movements. 13
"Complete determinism," for Mannheim, seems to

mean a direct causal relationship between social posi-::
tion and mental productions. Employing Mead's terms,
which better express Mannheim's intent, there is no
complete correlation between social position and idea-
tion, but the intellectual, as well as other individuals,
selectively constructs a generalized other from those
aspects of the social environment to which he is ex-
posed. Like other individuals he does not self-con-
sciously ( at least originally) construct a generalized
other, but more or less unconsciously abstracts it from
the social environment. Unlike many other members of
society, however, his social location and functional
role encourage him to orient himself to a broad range
of thought models available in the society. The fluid
structure of his "stratum" and his exposure to a variety
of cognitive styles render it more likely that his per-
sonal disposition will be a prime factor influencing the
modifications and accretions built into his generalized
other during adult years.
Thus the socially attached individual ( to whatever

psychological "type" he may belong) allies himself

with the current which happens to prevail in his par-
ticular social circle; the socially unattached homme
de lettres of whatever psychological type, on the
other hand, generally must clarify his position with
regard to the dominant trend of the time. The out-
come for the individual of this battle between his
own natural disposition, the mental attitude most
appropriate to his social position, and the dominant
trend of the time, undoubtedly will vary from case to
case. . . .14
The social environment, then, does not impress

an identical mental structure on all individuals, nor
does it automatically produce rigidly unified group
perspectives appropriate to each social class. Rather,
the social environment provides the structure within
which networks of communication are developed, and
these patterns are varyingly internalized by the individ-
uals implicated in the system. An individual's "social
position" provides the raw materials from which his
generalized other is developed; the milieu within which
he operates and the structural forces which shape the
patterns of interaction combine to set the stage for the
construction of the generalized other. The generalized
other itself, however, is an individualized product se-
lectively incorporated from those aspects of the social
environment to which the individual is exposed.
We grant that Mead's concept of the generalized
other is rather loosely formulated, and embedded in its
loose construction are several problems that require
recognition and confrontation. It is nevertheless a
suggestive formulation which points to possible means
of more fully understanding the relationships estab-
lished between social existence and "ideation." Its
combined focus on the social genesis of language and
on the assumptions and evaluations built into the vo-
cabularies we adopt helps us to see how the social
process is selectively incorporated into mental patterns
and why the mental structure developed by an indi-
vidual can be linked to various segments of society
without being fully "reducible" to his class location or
to some other master categories of social differentia-
tion. Finally, the concept of the generalized other
directs our attention to the subtle influence exerted on
our socio-political interpretations by those societal seg-
ments to whom we implicitly or explicitly address our
thought and to whom we look for criticism and sup-
port.
The Perspective and Political Ideology
Mead's concept of the generalized other clearly

has essentially the same meaning as Mannheim's con-
cept of the perspective. The perspective is "the model
that is implicitly in the mind of a person when he pro-
ceeds to reflect about an object." 15 We have suggested
that Mead's formulation provides us with a fuller
understanding of the complex relations between the
perspective and the social process. We will henceforth
employ Mannheim's more familiar term to refer to the
developed concept. The perspective is the implicit in-
terpretive scheme the individual brings to inquiry; it
is the culturally rooted lens through which we observe
and with which we interpret our observations. 16 Our
purpose here is to characterize briefly the operation of
the perspective in the construction of political ideolo-
gies; we will focus on its tendency to produce politi-
cal interpretations that fit those preconceived molds
the individual has selectively derived from the social
process.
Political inquiry is initially guided by ordinary
vocabularies derived from the social environment. The

roughly integrated vocabulary one has selectively built
up provides him with an implicit model of the political
environment which he strives to make progressively
more explicit and more precise. This implicit model
serves as the starting point for the investigator's po-
litical reflections and as the personal base against
which available interpretations are checked for their
plausibility and acceptability.
One model may represent the political environ-
ment as an interaction of parts constantly flowing
around and toward a point of equilibrium or balance.
Another implicit model, conversely, may approach the
system as a sharply defined mechanism of cleavage and
tension in which a few key structural forces provide
the system with whatever stability it has and propel it
in given directions. The consensus-integration model
and the conflict-coercion model provide alternative
approaches to the same environment; the individual's
subsequent perceptions and interpretations of politics
are profoundly shaped by the implicit model he has
developed in the personal history of transactions be-
tween "self" and selected segments of society.
After the initial model or perspective has been
defined, the individual progressively elaborates and re-
fines a conceptual apparatus that isolates "key" aspects
of the environment while interpreting observations in
ways which help to preserve the basic contours of the
original model. The need to retain the original model
is probably greater for some individuals than for
others, but, as we shall attempt to establish here, most
of us are more fully constrained by the perspectives we
bring to political inquiry than we are readily willing
to admit to ourselves and others.
Concepts of class, conflict, manipulation, domina-
tion, alienation, and mass are likely to be pivotal in a
vocabulary of dissatisfaction; concepts of stratum,
consensus, persuasion, authority, personal maladjust-
ment, and public are likely to form the corresponding
pivots in a vocabulary of satisfaction. Substantive dis-
putes are also expressed in debates over the proper or
most useful meaning of terms jointly employed by
members of varying "schools." Disputants use terms
like "power," "class," "ideology," or "democracy" to
represent different but overlapping concepts. These
conceptual disputes reflect differences in interpretation
of the political environment which range from differ-
ences in emphasis and nuance to disagreements that
reach to the core. In situations of limited empirical
control the initial disagreements find expression in the
final political interpretations which emerge. Thus
where one investigator would apply the concept
"manipulation" to a given situation of bidding and
compliance, another would view the concept "author-
ity" as most applicable. The disagreement might hinge
on the delicate judgment as to whether the observed
compliance is freely given after the involved agents
have communicated all of the relevant information
(authority) or whether the selective presentation and
interpretation by the bidder omitted sufficient reference
to some matters of importance to the compliers
(manipulation). Although the environment studied
may be complex and the choice of concepts to apply
may depend on difficult judgments, this in no way
implies that the actual distinction between authority
and manipulation is unimportant. Behavior patterns
shaped by relations of manipulation are significantly
different from those of authority even though the two
types may be sometimes difficult for the observers to
disentangle. Or, to give another example, where one
investigator might be prone to interpret a frustrating
life situation as a condition of "alienation" because he
assumes that modifications in the social setting could

alleviate the cause of the observed suffering, another
would label it as "maladjustment" because underlying
his observations of the same situation is the belief that
the root cause of the frustration lies in the personal
psychology of the involved individuals.*
The perspective focuses and guides observation.
Most perspectives are fairly able to cope with the facts
that are recognized and look important from within the
accepted orientation; however, most perspectives fall
short of coping with facts as they are recognized and
rated along a scale of importance by opposing perspec-
tives. This condition makes it difficult to bring oppos-
ing political interpretations to a focal point at which
conflicting claims can be brought to test. Facts which
do not fit well into the accepted perspective are likely
to be considered as mere facts unrelated to the defined
problem area.
Thus, for Dahl, it may be a mere fact that mem-
bers of the corporate, political, and military elites have
achieved broad agreement on a basic foreign policy of
containment because, in his scheme, this agreement
refl,ects a broad societal consensus and it serves as an
effective strategy to promote collectively generated ob-
jectives in the harsh international environment. For
Mills, on the other hand, that same fact is central. It
helps to define the unity of the power elite and to re-
inforce his belief that a narrow and distorted interpreta-
tion of the international situation is being foisted on the
American public via the "cultural apparatus." Or, for
* See, for example, the central claim which underlies Robert
Tucker's critique of the concepts of alienation developed by both
Marx and Feuerbach: "They were both mistaken . . . ; they
failed to grasp the essence of self-alienation. . . . Inherently or
in itself it is a fact of the life of the self, i.e., a spiritual or, as we
say today, psychological fact ..•. No matter how many indi-
viduals may belong to this category, it is always an individual
matter."17
Mills, the claim that opposing interest groups resolve
issue conflicts by compromise and mutual adjustment
in the legislative arena is a real but subsidiary fact,
since he does not believe that the scope of actual issues
raised in Congress even remotely corresponds to the
range of latent troubles and issues. But for Dahl, the
fact of legislative arbitration and adjustment is a
pivotal one; to establish it by impersonal test is to pro-
vide definitive support for the pluralist hypothesis.
Both elitists and pluralists, then, recognize most
of those facts that are presently subject to impersonal
observation and test; they disagree on the placement
and rating of those facts. Their disagreement over rat-
ing and placement is rooted in divergent assumptions
of what is "fact" and what "distortion" in crucial areas
of the environment which cannot readily be brought to
test. Is it a fact that broad segments of the population
are experiencing latent discontents which are not fully
articulated? Is the "beat" movement, or extensive
criminal activity, or alcoholism, or some combination
of these factors a good indicator of the presence of
latent discontent in the society? This is one of the
factual disputes that might, if brought to test, bring
the two interpretations to a showdown. But a definitive
test in this area is at present unlikely; and until there is
such a test, each side is likely to accuse the other of
making ad hoc assumptions which artificially bolster
its case.
The conceptual scheme one employs can operate
at various levels of awareness and precision. At the
highest level, the rules guiding the use of concepts can
be formulated precisely and the empirical indicators
that would justify the application of the concepts to
given situations can be clearly specified. At a lower
level, concepts can be explicitly labeled and applied to
situations with fair consistency, but not all of the im-
108 j POLITICAL SCIENCE AND IDEOLOGY
plicit rules guiding their application can be specified,

nor can one identify clearly isolated indicators suffi-
cient to resolve disputes among investigators who dis-
agree about the applicability of the concepts to a given
situation. Under these imperfect conditions "impres-
sionistic" appraisals of the environment influence the
investigator's decisions to apply some concepts and
omit others. Finally, at the lowest level of awareness,
certain concepts exert an impact on one's perceptions
and interpretations but are not part of the individual's
consciously articulated cognitive equipment. He may
have implicit notions of what is properly part of the
"political," for example, and this underlying concept
will guide his selection and definition of problems in
ways he does not fully recognize. 18
A central problem of political inquiry is that
many of the key concepts employed presently operate
at the second level of awareness and some probably
operate at the third level. Such a situation reduces the
opportunities for clarifying empirical claims and for
bringing the clarified claims to test.
The Perspective and

Higher Level Commitments
The perspective, linked to certain reference

groups in society, orients the investigator to the po-
litical environment in ways that tend to protect high-
level commitments from destruction. We have at-
tempted to illustrate this process in Chapter 2 and
further to exemplify it here. Now we shall elaborate
general procedures by which highly rated commit-
ments of the investigator tend to be protected from
potential or actual threat.
It is true that values are in some sense different
from facts; one can in thought, for example, separate
his perception of an action from his conscious evalua-
tion of it. The action is observed; it is then appraised
as good, bad, or indifferent according to some accepted
standard of value. The analytical distinction between
facts and values is useful to retain, but nevertheless the
psychological connections between our values and our
tendencies to observe and to interpret our observations
in characteristic ways are of obvious importance in
political inquiry.
Our base values and emotional attachments to
various institutions, ways of life, and individuals are
inculcated as we construct the generalized other out of
our social experience. Often tensions arise between our
base values and our emotional commitments as we
confront new facts. Consider the following hypo-
thetical example. An individual includes under his
notion of a "good man" such traits as honesty, fairness,
and sensitivity to the needs of others. Furthermore,
suppose that he has an emotional attachment to the
memory of his grandfather and needs to believe that
his grandfather was a "good man." Then new, not fully
substantiated, factual claims are advanced by respect-
able acquaintances: the grandfather was guilty of em-
bezzling, he cheated at poker, and so on. A tension has
been generated which makes it difficult for the indi-
vidual to assimilate the new claims into his established
value scheme and emotional attachments. He might
pursue any among a number of alternative courses to
resolve the tension. For example, he might redefine his
conception of "good man" so as to retain consistency
between his value scheme and his attitude toward the
grandfather. He might repudiate his old image of the
grandfather even though the emotional strain in doing
so would be great. Or, he might try to retain both his
standard of value and his emotional commitment to
110 J POLITICAL SCIENCE AND IDEOLOGY
the grandfather's memory by denying that the claimed

observations were ever in fact made or by asserting
that the actions observed were interpreted incorrectly.
The point is that in situations of uncertainty a
number of factors enter into the decision-making of
the agent, and the weighting of those factors depends
to a great extent upon the intensity with which the
relevant values and commitments are held. Although
awareness of firmly established new facts can some-
times influence the individual to modify his value
standards and emotional commitments, it is also true,
especially when key factual claims are not fully estab-
lished, that intensely held values and commitments can
profoundly shape the individual's beliefs and interpre-
tations.
A root ingredient in the problem of ideology is
that citizens and scholars seek to protect cherished
values and commitments while confronting the facts
about the political environment. We would understand
the problem of ideology more fully if we could identify
the protective mechanisms commonly employed. In
this spirit two related mechanisms will be discussed
briefly here: the selective slicing and shading of con-
cepts, and privileging cherished hypotheses.
1. Our base values and emotional commitments
are assimilated into the concepts we develop out of the
social process. The concepts we employ to organize
and explain the political environment are sliced and
shaded in ways that allow us to retain commitments
and values already developed. In political inquiry it is
usually the case that the questions to be studied im-
pinge in some way on the commitments of the investi-
gator. In these situations the concepts employed tend to
focus on those features of the environment most favor-
able to the maintenance of the agent's values and
commitments, and the same concepts tend to de-
emphasize, obscure, or ignore factors that might
threaten those commitments.
But the individual does not necessarily or even
usually construct concepts with explicit reference to
his normative commitments, nor does he often con-
sciously experience the force of the value dimension in
structuring his conceptual apparatus. Rather, certain
assumptions and organizing principles appear to be
"natural" or "realistic" from the individual's perspecti-
val vantage point; for they cohere easily with other
dimensions of the perspective, and they tend to be
accepted by the reference groups with which the in-
dividual is identified.
Thus, for example, some scholars tend to con-
ceptualize "domination" as simply control gained by
the use or overt threat of force, while others view
domination in this way and add that another variant of
the same relationship is developed through covert
manipulation. The first concept blurs factors high-
lighted by the second scheme. Or, again, some tend to
limit the concept "power" to the production of intended
effects, while others include the production of un-
intended effects as important. Some openly include the
law of anticipated reactions in their considerations of
power, while others ignore it as a factor. Some define
"class" in ways that accentuate social cleavages, others
in ways that accentuate social harmony. Elements
emphasized and isolated in one conceptual scheme are
blurred or overlooked by another. And, we assert,
operating in the background are the value and emotive
dimensions of the perspective guiding our formulation
of concepts and our efforts to apply them to concrete
situations.
2. In a similar way the perspective operates to
protect highly valued empirical hypotheses generated
from the accepted conceptual scheme. A simple ex-
ample will illustrate one means by which the perspec-

tive can maintain its integrity in the face of observa-
tions that apparently threaten highly rated beliefs.
Suppose that an individual living in the tenth
century believes the earth to be flat, and that this be-
lief, in turn, is integrally related to certain religious
commitments. An opponent, adopting a rival hy-
pothesis, claims that the fact that ships disappear over
the horizon when sailing across the sea supports the
hypothesis that the earth is round, not flat. If the op-
ponent's observations seem undeniable and if further
inquiry reveals that obvious factors such as fog and
distance cannot account for the ships' disappearance,
then the first individual will search for further plausible
ways to support his flat earth hypothesis. Much prima
facie evidence exists in his favor: the earth looks flat
to the common-sense observer; it is difficult to see how
people on the other side can hold on without falling
off, and so forth. He asks his opponent to explain these
problems in his theory and he himself searches for
ways to explain the apparent anomaly pointed out by
his opponent. He privileges the threatened hypothesis.
He might explain the fact that ships disappear when
sailing across the sea by constructing a rival hypothe-
sis: "Light waves are curved in such a way that our
vision of a ship receding into the horizon is only pos-
sible for a certain distance on the flat world." As other
evidence piles up, he will continue to privilege his flat
earth hypothesis until retaining it would threaten other
hypotheses or beliefs to which he is more deeply com-
mitted.
It is not merely that he has constructed an ad hoc
hypothesis to save an obviously defunct belief. In the
given context, where many relevant variables cannot
be tested (for example, how people could hold on to
the other side of a round earth), it seems more plau-
sible from within his accepted framework of workable
beliefs to believe in the curved light hypothesis rather
than to reject the flat earth hypothesis.
A hypothesis may be privileged to protect high-
level commitments or, in a similar way, to bridge the
gap between potentially conflicting commitments. Con-
sider, for example, the investigator who in general
values freedom of speech and assembly except where
it clearly constitutes a serious threat to social order,
but who is unconsciously repelled by the activities of
a particular minority group exercising this right. He
might well seek to bridge the latent conflict by heavily
weighting any evidence which seems to show that the
activities of this group do indeed constitute a threat to
the social order. In a situation where the empirical evi-
dence is not clear-cut, the investigator will tend to
privilege the "threat to order" belief as a means of
suppressing recognition of his own latent value con-
flict.
The procedure of privileging hypotheses need not
be a conscious device to protect threatened commit-
ments. From within the perspective the whole process
looks reasonable enough. The belief that is protected
often looks so plausible that it would appear absurd
to scrap it. Why should one undermine a whole series
of related beliefs merely because one or a few anom-
alies are not presently explained within the accepted
framework?
Thus C. Wright Mills and Robert Dahl, as we
have seen, tend to privilege the elitist and pluralist
hypotheses respectively in order to protect higher level
commitments from destruction. In each case, from
within the perspective brought to inquiry, and given
the range of solid evidence available, all explicit and
implicit assumptions required to sustain the particular
hypothesis seem plausible. The protective moves do
not appear from "within" as ad hoc attempts to save a

threatened belief, but rather as reasonable premises
and adjustments which allow the relevant data to be
subsumed under a sound explanatory scheme.
The Importance of the Perspective
\Ve have introduced, in a brief and rather cursory

way, the concept of the perspective and have sought to
consider those aspects of it that are relevant to political
inquiry. The perspective is a social emergent selectively
derived from structured communication networks. It
operates to organize investigations of the political en-
vironment, but it also operates to promote political
interpretations that support beliefs and values highly
rated by selected segments of society. The perspective
is a social product, and it functions with reference to
selected reference groups whose outlook and temper it
has incorporated into its own organization.
The concept of the perspective requires further
development and elaboration in order to render more
clear the nature of the triadic relationship between the
empirical political environment, selected segments of
society, and self. But a critic might suggest that further
inquiry into the origins, organization, and functional
characteristics of the perspective would be a waste of
time. Ideologies arise because the "distorting" in-
fluences of the perspective are not properly controlled.
The appropriate way to control bias and prejudice is
to ignore the genesis of the perspective and to ignore
investigation of the means by which values, aspirations,
and interests influence our predispositions to interpret
the political environment. Ignoring these "subjective"
factors, we should instead direct our attention to the
real task at hand. The way to control the intrusion of
bias into research conclusions .is to render precise the
rules of application which govern our political con-
cepts and to construct hypotheses that can be brought
to rigorous test. The genesis of an idea is irrelevant to
its validity. Similarly, the genesis of a perspective is
irrelevant to the validity of the political interpretation
which it spawns.
Of course, the critic agrees, the perspective is in
some sense a social emergent: "The simple point is
that all thinking has its physical, psychic and social
determinants, but this in no way implies that human
beings cannot be objective." Furthermore, "we become
objective about the facts by focusing on the facts, not
by focusing on the individuals who are observing
them." 19
We accept this contention; or at least we agree
that awareness of the genesis and organization of the
perspective does not guarantee that our resulting
knowledge claims will be valid. The genesis of an idea
is irrelevant to its validity and we do test the validity
of knowledge claims by confronting them with the
available facts. But our primary concern here is not
with those situations where knowledge claims are
precisely formulated and where they can be brought
to definitive test. We are not concerned here with
those few areas where the intellectual problem of
ideology has been resolved.
There are occasions when we must reach con-
clusions by employing the conceptual apparatus avail-
able in its present state of vagueness and ambiguity.
And in political inquiry these occasions are none too
rare: "What those sticklers for correctness prefer not
to see is that we are living in a changing world and
that language 1s always lagging behind these
changes. " 20
There are occasions when we suspect that the
precisely formulated conceptual apparatus available

omits reference to some aspects of the environment
relevant to our problem. And there are occasions when
conclusions must be reached, although we recognize
that our precisely formulated knowledge claims can-
not be brought to adequate test because of serious
practical difficulties. There are, finally, occasions when
we too easily and hastily assume that our conceptual
apparatus and testing procedures are sufficient to bring
a set of knowledge claims to definitive test.
There are, then, occasions in political inquiry of
recognized uncertainty and of unrecognized haste to
assert the validity of knowledge claims. We contend
that awareness of the genesis and operation of the per-
spective promotes recognition of those contexts in
which empirical tests are partially prejudged by the
perspective brought to inquiry. We contend that aware-
ness of the perspective can help us to develop, hold,
and present our inadequately tested beliefs in respon-
sible ways. (We shall consider factors involved in the
formulation and presentation of responsible political
ideologies in the next chapter.) We do "become ob-
jective about the facts by focusing on the facts," but
we can also become more aware of, and better able to
cope with, problems surrounding our effort to "focus
on the facts" by "focusing on the individuals who are
observing them."
5 I Toward Responsible
Ideology
We have outlined the concept of the perspective
and have claimed that in significant areas of political
inquiry the perspective intrudes into the conclusions
reached. The resulting interpretations, even when
formulated with care and presented with caution, are
best described as ideologies. Our purpose in this chap-
ter is to suggest that one of the prime social responsi-
bilities of the political scientist, and of social scientists
in related areas, is to construct political ideologies de-
signed to aid citizens and decision-makers in formulat-
ing and resolving public problems. In fulfilling this
social responsibility, the political scientist should strive
to meet specified standards of intellectual responsi-
bility.
The Notion of ResponsibiUty
In political life important decision-makers and

ordinary citizens bring a set of beliefs and values, more
or less integrated, to the political situations in which
they must decide to act or decide to remain passive.
The image one has of the political environment,
whether it is a carefully constructed interpretation or a
casually developed outlook, influences the politically
relevant decisions the agent makes. There is, we assert,
an obvious social need to subject these images to
reasoned examination and reconsideration and to con-
struct alternative views when present images seem de-
ficient; there is a need for thoughtfully constructed in-
terpretations of what is going on, what alternatives are
open in the public sphere, and what is desirable in the
present context. Social scientists are favorably located
to perform this function, and we shall argue that their
position implies a clear social responsibility to examine
accepted interpretations and to engage in public debate
over the merits of alternative frameworks.
The "proper" meaning of responsibility is a highly
controversial topic in contemporary philosophy, but
the term will serve our purposes well.* "Responsibility"
* Part of the confusion in discussions of the concept "re-

sponsibility" centers around the many related uses of the term in
ordinary discourse. Thus, for example, a person may ( 1) have
responsibilities in the sense of being expected by others to perform
certain functions; he may (2) have responsibilities in the sense of
being under moral obligation to perform certain needed functions
because he possesses special skills and/or resources appropriate to
those tasks; he may (3) be held responsible in the sense of being
praised or blamed, punished or rewarded, if bis actions do not
conform to certain legal or moral standards; he may ( 4) fulfill his
responsibilities (i.e., 1 and 2) in a responsible way by acting after
morally serious deliberation into the possible consequences of his
actions; he may (5) be responsible for an event in the sense of
119 Toward Responsible Ideology
can be employed as a descriptive term and as a descrip-
tive term with normative import. We shall employ it
in the latter sense. That is, we shall discuss briefly what
it is to be responsible and will then claim that people
ought to expect themselves and be expected by others
to strive to meet these standards.
The root meaning of responsibility is to be de-
liberatively responsive-deliberatively responsive to
the factors influencing one to believe and to act in given
ways, to the possible short- and long-range conse-
quences of those beliefs and actions, and to the rela-
tionships between the actual consequences of action
and the consequences intended.*
To be responsive is to seek awareness of those
factors relevant to action and then to be infiuenced by
this broadened awareness in making future decisions.
The responsive person seeks to transform blind forces
influencing past and present actions into recognized
factors, which he then considers and weighs when
making future decisions; he also seeks to broaden his
awareness of the possible consequences of his actions
and to take these consequences into consideration
when making future decisions. He constantly shuttles
from an analysis of the purposes underlying his actions
to an analysis of the actual effects of his actions, and
he continually seeks to render the purposes behind ac-
tion more fully conscious and morally justified and
the actual consequences of action more fully congruent
with those purposes.
causing it to happen. These distinctions could be more finely
drawn, but our primary concern here is with types (2) and (4).
* My definition of responsibility and many of the considera-
tions which follow are indebted heavily to Arnold Kaufman. He
defines the fully responsible person as "one who is aware that his
actions have implications, makes a reasonable effort to determine
those implications before he acts, and makes his eventual decisions
concerning that action ( or those actions) in a morally serious
way." 1
To be deliberatively responsive is to base one's

decisions on a thorough and reflective appraisal of all
available evidence, to make judgments and decisions
only after a thoughtful weighting of all the foreseeable
moral and material implications of the decision.
The irresponsible person can err in several ways.
He might fail to seek broadened awareness of the
factors behind his own behavior. He might fail to con-
sider carefully the possible consequences of his action
or inaction. He might make every reasonable effort*
to determine the relevant factors, but then fail to adjust
his decisions in the light of this new awareness.
Responsibility, then, is a concept with many inter-
related aspects. One or another of the aspects can be
emphasized by attaching a qualifying adjective to the
basic idea, but the other elements still remain involved
to some degree. The two aspects we wish to focus on
here are: ( 1) social responsibility, which emphasizes
one's deliberative responsiveness to the consequences
of his actions for the welfare of society; and (2) in-
tellectual responsibility, which emphasizes one's de-
liberative responsiveness to the factors influencing de-
cision and to the goal of achieving greater congruence
between the intended consequences and the actual
consequences of mental constructions.
When the notion of responsibility is spelled out
in any detail it becomes obvious that the tasks of
recognizing what one's responsibilities are and of be-
coming more fully responsible are quite complex and
hazardous. Some scholars seem to consider these tasks
as hopelessly complex and not worthy of serious con-
sideration. From our point of view, however, the effort
stands at the very center of the intellectual enterprise.
* "What constitutes reasonable effort cannot be determined
in a general way. It depends. It depends upon the specific circum-
stances of the situation, the importance of the projected action, the
capacities and resources of the actor."2
Despite the difficulties involved, it seems clear to us
that tentative appraisals are both possible and needed
in intellectual life. It is our general claim that an ex-
tensive effort should be made to consider, first, the
central social responsibilities of members of the intel-
lectual "stratum," and second, the means by which
members of this stratum can meet these needed social
functions in responsible ways.
With this background we wish to initiate con-
sideration of the following question: Recognizing that
much of contemporary political inquiry is actually
political ideology, how should the responsible political
scientist react to this situation? The question has two
parts: What are the social responsibilities of the
political scientist in this area? How should he go about
meeting these responsibilities?
Ideology as a Social Responsibility
The ideology one implicitly or explicitly accepts

conditions much of his activity. If one's ideology por-
trays a large gap between the existing situation and
one's vision of the possible and desirable, the resulting
discontent is likely to issue in agitation to close that
gap. If the ideology one accepts portrays a rough con-
vergence between the actual, the possible, and the ac-
cepted ideal, then one's political life is likely to remain
relaxed and quiescent; whatever "troubles" one has are
likely to remain latent or to find expression in extra-
political ways. Furthermore, if the accepted ideology
in fact "fits" the socio-political environment, it can
effectively guide and channel one's actions. If it
seriously distorts the real situation and seriously mis-
reads the real options open, then it is likely to en-
courage action or inaction with pernicious effects.
These brief observations merely underline an obvious

fact which is nonetheless of central importance to the
scholar striving to appraise his social responsibilities:
Ideologies play an important role in political life.
THE CASE FOR IDEOLOGICAL INVOLVEMENT I

Since ideologies shape conduct in such important ways,
one would think that those who spend most of their
lives investigating social and political phenomena
would also assume the difficult but essential task of
examining the adequacy of accepted ideologies and
considering the contemporary relevance of alternative
ideological frameworks. Given the self-evident social
need for carefully formulated ideologies, and given
the special training political scientists and other mem-
bers of the intellectual stratum receive in order to
classify and explain social phenomena effectively, there
does seem to be a prima facie case for explicit
scholarly involvement in ideology. However, the prima
facie case for ideology has not provided a compelling
rationale for many political scientists. While some
political scientists are openly involved in ideological
inquiry today, many others have explicitly denied that
ideological inquiry is among the proper tasks for the
contemporary political scientist, and an even greater
number have defined their research projects in ways
that discourage active ideological involvement.*
* It might be claimed that a contradiction exists here. We
have first argued that much of political science is ideological and
now we assert that many political scientists strive to retreat from
ideology. But the point is that the attempted retreat generally
fails-the claims advanced in much of contemporary inquiry do
rest partially upon untested and self-fulfi1ling assumptions and the
cumulative effect of "non-ideological" studies does influence the
perceptions and judgments of those in active political roles. The fact
of implicit ideology combined with other considerations now to be
advanced provides, we believe, a strong case for explicit ideological
involvement by the political scientist.
123 I Toward Responsible Ideology
The explicit reasons given for withdrawal from
ideology are many and varied. Some scholars point to
the profound risks which accompany social diagnosis
and prognosis. The inevitable subjective factors which
intrude into the results of inquiry, the inability to sub-
mit many of the most important factual claims to
adequate impersonal test, the harmful and perhaps
disastrous social consequences that might be generated
if the accepted diagnosis misses the mark-these are
among the difficulties and dangers cited by many of
those who justify scholarly retreat from ideology.
Judith Shklar, for example, in a remarkable study
of existing ideologies, ends by rejecting ideology. After
exploring attempts of the "romanticists," the "Christian
fatalists," and the modern "radicals" to understand and
to cope with modern social problems, she rejects each
of these efforts because they all "fail to explain the
world they so dislike." But she goes further. She
reaches the "uncomfortable" conclusion that "more
adequate explanations may well be impossible at the
present time." Impressed by the subjective dimension
of political inquiry and the newly recognized risks in
pursuing utopias, she concludes on a defeatist note:
"a reasoned skepticism is consequently the safest atti-
tude for the present." 3
A few scholars continue to take refuge in the
sharp distinction between facts and values first formu-
lated by David Hume and now commonly accepted by
social scientists. The scientist, the argument goes, can
be rigorous in his classification and explanation of
facts, but value decisions are subjective, mushy things
which the scientist as scientist must keep out of his
analysis. Since values are not known by intuition nor
anchored in reason, the scientist apparently need not
be closely concerned with the normative implications
of his own studies. Ideally, he stands as a passive re-

corder of knowledge-not allowed to take any credit
or accept any blame for the use, or lack of use, of his
constructions. He uncovers knowledge; "others" decide
how to use it.
The scientist as scientist can take little credit or re-

sponsibility either for the facts he discovers-for he
did not create them-or for the uses others make of
his discoveries, for he generally is neither permitted
nor specially fitted to make these decisions. They are
controlled by considerations of ethics, economics or
politics and therefore are shaped by the values, fears,
and historical circumstances of the whole society. 4
Similarly, Heinz Eulau asserts that the goal of political

analysis is man. But what kind of man? "Is he a
democratic man? A just man? A power seeking man?
Or is he a man who must be liberated . . . to live a
dignified life? These are philosophical questions better
left to the philosophers." 5
But most modern scholars who withdraw from
ideology advance a third line of argument, a line which
differs in tone but not in its contemporary implications
from the positions sketched above. The political scien-
tist, it is asserted, is ultimately responsible for applying
his knowledge to the needs of society. But there are
weighty reasons for deferring these responsibilities
until some time in the future. The energies of political
scientists, at present, must be devoted to the important
objective of constructing a Science of Politics. Until
that science has been constructed, energies must be
diverted from all other tasks to this grand effort.
Talcott Parsons reflects this attitude well. He
agrees that "it would do some good" if we were to put
the "bulk of our resources . . . into immediately
practical problems, but I have no doubt that it woµld
be at the expense of our greater usefulness to society
in the future." 6
David Easton also sees a defensible logic in di-
verting the skills of the political scientist from social
problem-solving in the present to the construction of a
science for the future.
The application of knowledge is as much a part of

the scientific enterprise as theoretical understanding.
But the understanding and explanation of political
behavior logically precede and provide the basis for
efforts to utilize political knowledge in the solution of
urgent practical problems of society.7
Whether expressed in a mood of despair, of quiet

regret, or of unruffled contentment, the representative
formulations sketched above converge at a common
point: the contemporary political scientist need not,
indeed should not, seriously concern himself with the
problem of making his own efforts closely relevant to
the needs of society.
There are, of course, underlying causes which
help to explain this attitude. They stern in large part
from the bureaucratization of modern academic life:
the dependencies of the scholar as an employee, the
narrowed focus of attention that accompanies academic
specialization, the implicit pressures to refrain from
subjecting existing social and political stereotypes to
searching examination. These pressures and role ex-
pectations have been discussed in detail by Gunnar
Myrdal, Robert Presthus, C. \Vright Mills, and others. 8
Our purpose, however, is not to review the salient
causes of the withdrawal from ideology, but to offer
persuasive reasons for responsible ideological engage-
ment. We believe that the arguments against ideological
involvement are deficient; more compelling reasons
can be given for engagement. We also believe that it

is not futile to advance arguments for engagement in
the present institutional setting. For the existing
academic environment does provide some support for
the traditions of academic freedom and it does offer
the scholar a relatively protected status. The institu-
tional setting, in short, does not press inexorably
against ideological involvement. In this relatively open
atmosphere a reasoned examination of the social re-
sponsibilities of the political scientist might encourage
some to resist and counter those forces that do promote
a retreat from ideology. That, at least, is the premise
which informs the following discussion.
Central to the case against ideology, it is clear,
is the fear that unsubstantiated opinions advanced by
social scientists in situations of uncertainty might
generate pernicious effects for the body politic. The
fear is real. The problem of formulating and acting on
beliefs in conditions of uncertainty does justify con-
cern. But the problem and the fear do not justify the
conclusion that many have leaped to. The fact remains
that decisions with widespread public effects must be
made in situations of uncertainty, and not only social
scientists but all other human beings face the risks that
accompany thought and action in these conditions.
Moreover, the argument against ideology stops too
soon; it does not consider the relative advantages pos-
sessed by political scientists ( and other members of the
intellectual stratum) as they strive to construct viable
interpretations and proposals upon insecure premises.
The man of power, it is sometimes asserted, is
more likely to perceive accurately the real options
open to him, less likely to be misled by side issues or
utopian proposals. It is true that direct involvement in
public policy can sometimes enhance one's ability to
formulate viable interpretations. On the other hand,
the experiences which prepare one for power, the pres-
sures felt while making judgments, the selective ex-
posure to certain points of view, the narrowed time
perspective which accompanies the need to make im-
mediate decisions, the political and ego damage one is
susceptible to if he has to admit error to himself and
others-these factors can encourage decision-makers
to accept defunct interpretations, to misread the alter-
natives available, and to overlook and then rationalize
away the adverse consequences which flow from their
actions or inaction.
In each specific situation it is probably debatable
just what effects the active involvement in power
roles will have on the interpretations produced. But
the debate itself is needed. Sometimes, it seems clear,
involvement in power roles does exert distorting in-
fluences, and in these situations the relatively detached
observer can play a valuable role in bringing im-
portant, even though discomforting, aspects of the
environment to public attention.
The political scientist, unlike public officials and
private citizens of power, is not pressed constantly to
make immediate decisions on a wide variety of fronts;
he can afford to consider the broader trends with care.
It is true that he is often disadvantaged by his lack of
access to privileged information and by his lack of ex-
perience in making decisions "under the gun" with full
awareness that he must accept credit or blame for the
outcome. Yet in the task of constructing and examin-
ing ideologies the political scientist possesses many ad-
vantages. His training fosters critical skills and
relatively refined methodologies which can be invalu-
able assets in making judgments in conditions of un-
certainty. He is relatively immune ( compared to the
laborer, the white collar worker, and the man "of
power") from the pressures generated by the sur-
rounding society to accept established stereotypes with-

out reflection and to formulate grievances and issues
within the context of those stereotypes. His social loca-
tion, as Karl Mannheim pointed out, equips him to
experience "the problems of the day in several per-
spectives and not only one as most participants in the
controversies of their time do"; his "exposure and
easier access to . . . diverse appraisals of the situa-
tion" render him "potentially more labile than others"
and thus better able to explore existing ideologies for
discrepancies, omissions, and inconsistencies. 9 His
ability to assume a broad time perspective enables him
to consider the long-run implications of structural ar-
rangements which might otherwise escape the attention
of harried decision-makers and busy citizens. His
membership in a stratum of relatively diverse back-
grounds and outlooks enables him to submit his in-
terpretations to a variegated, critical audience for
appraisal.
These advantages are helpful to him in the analy-
sis of values as well as of facts. Let us assume without
debate that one's ultimate value commitments are not
known intuitively nor derived from reason nor clearly
anchored in an established metaphysic. There still re-
mains a profound difference between value systems
that are internally inconsistent and casually adopted
and those that are reflectively developed after careful
considerations of coherence and of all their foreseeable
ramifications. We need some individuals who, alert to
newly discovered facts and interpretations, can effec-
tively pinpoint the normative issues which emerge,
who can initiate reflective consideration of the alterna-
tive goals and obligations which might be adopted
under the given conditions.
To say that ultimate value preferences are in
some sense "emotive expressions" is not to establish
] 29 Toward Responsible Ideology
that an unreflective ethical posture is as adequate or
self-fulfil1ing as a thoughtfully constructed one. The
analytical separation of fact and value simply does not
justify the intellectual's escape from ideology. For the
same factors which obligate the intellectual to make
judgments and proposals in cases of factual uncertainty
obligate him to initiate deliberative consideration of
value questions even though he cannot advance his
recommendations with intuitive or metaphysical cer-
tainty.
The responsible person is one who carefully con-
siders the possible social implications of his action or
inaction and adjusts his behavior accordingly. And
political scientists who refuse to contribute their skills
to solving social problems are acting irresponsibly. To
be sure, the context of uncertainty increases the risks
involved, but this does not make the responsibilities
of the political scientist any less. In fact, it increases
his responsibility to apply his best efforts to interpret-
ing a complex, sometimes mysterious, environment.
We have not yet faced the line of argument most
often advanced today for abstaining from ideology.
What response can we give to those who agree that the
political scientist has an ultimate responsibility to
grapple with the problems of society but who contend
that this responsibility must be deferred until a science
of politics has been constructed?
This position has some merit. It points to one
justifiable goal of contemporary political inquiry: to
construct and test theories which, when applied to con-
crete situations by means of impersonal criteria, can
promote the reliable prediction and control of events.
But the intellectual commitment expressed by this
argument is unnecessarily limited; it fails to establish
that there is any strong or necessary conflict between
efforts to construct a science of politics and efforts to
apply existing critical skills and methodologies to con-

temporary problems. What seems more likely, indeed,
is that the two efforts feed into one another when each
is pursued effectively.
Studies of narrow milieux help to improve tech-
nical tools of inquiry and, sometimes, to promote the
partial alleviation of small-scale problems. But inquiry
at this level not only eludes many important social
problems; it also misses many of the structural forces
which shape and explain patterns of behavior. Con-
struction of a science of politics which will in the
future be relevant to significant social needs requires
scholars to work at a suitable level of generality today:
"one that enables us to avoid abandoning our problems
and yet to include the structural forces obviously in-
volved in many details and troubles of human conduct
today." 10
Those who defer responsibility overlook a central
fact: The levels of generality that will be most useful
for problem resolution in the future are precisely those
that are most relevant for the problems of today.
Tentative generalizations developed in order to pro-
duce a future science of politics which will be socially
relevant can also be helpful in performing the same
functions today. If the science of politics we are seek-
ing is truly to be related to large questions of public
policy, then the alleged conflict between science con-
struction for the future and meeting the acknowledged
responsibilities of the present has been greatly over-
stated.
A further protest against present ideological in-
volvement might be voiced: If political scientists pre-
maturely construct broad-scale interpretations based
on insufficient evidence, the respectability of the scien-
tific enterprise itself might be undermined. For, even
though the desirable levels of generality for the present
and the future might be identical, the difference be-
tween present levels of precision and, hopefully, future
levels of precision is profound.
But this objection, too, lacks telling force as a
justification for withdrawal from ideology. The po-
litical scientist can and should make public distinc-
tions between those conclusions that have been well
corroborated by impersonal test and those that must
continue to rest on reflective consideration of a limited
range of evidence. It certainly is true that validated
generalizations do provide a more reliable base for
predicting, warning, and recommending. But these
considerations do not change the fact that when such
reliable laws are either unavailable or irrelevant, there
still remains the social need for carefully formulated
interpretations. Indeed, we must ask those who would
indefinitely defer meeting acknowledged social re-
sponsibilities in the name of future precision just what
level of scientific certainty is necessary. Under exactly
what conditions will the regretted "deferring" stop and
the promised engagement begin? The political scientist
who continues to demand more and more exacting
standards before applying his skills to existing prob-
lems may well be indefinitely evading a social responsi-
bility to which he is only rhetorically committed. If the
standards of certainty are set too high, "even with
more money and exertion spent on research, social
science will, in this complicated and rapidly changing
world, probably always be able to present this same
excuse." 11
Abraham Kaplan points to a fallacy involved in
asserting: "First I will build a science of politics, then
I will meet my social responsibilities."
A scientific approach does not suddenly come into

being at the magical moment when we know
132 POLITICAL SClENCE AND IDEOLOGY
"enough"; such moments never arise. To await them

constitutes what I have called the "ordinal fallacy":
first this, then that . . . , first I will achieve power,
then use it for the public good . . . ; first I will
pursue wealth, then use in in pursuit of happi-
ness . . . ; first I will acquire the knowledge, then
use it as a basis for sound policy. 12
The best preparation for meeting one's social responsi-

bilities is to start meeting them in a cautious, tentative
way.
Finally, it is well to remember that those con-
cerns for stability and justice which convince many
that the political science of the future ought to be
relevant to public problems are the very concerns
which make it imperative to bring present intellectual
resources to bear on contemporary problems. It would
be nice to have well-formulated and tested hypotheses
which could be drawn upon to cope with every prob-
lem; but life and its problems do not wait upon these
perfect conditions. Contemporary problems must be
confronted somehow. If intellectuals default in ad-
vancing interpretations and proposals, they help to
ensure that today's decisions and events are shaped by
unexamined tradition and by unreflective power. To
participate in meeting social problems is not to pro-
duce a panacea. Yet to defer meeting these acknowl-
edged responsibilities until the indefinite future is to
shirk present obligations as well as to weaken efforts to
construct a future, socially relevant science of politics.
RESPONSIBILITIES TO OPPOSING IDEOLOGIES I

Some students of society and politics agree that
ideology construction-given our use of the term-is a
proper responsibility of the contemporary political
scientist. But then some of these scholars unduly re-
strict the range of interpretations that can legitimately
be constructed and considered in the present context.
Rather than focusing their critical skills on the as-
sumptions and commitments of opposing ideologies,
they reject certain of them as obviously irresponsible
because, viewed from the orientation of the criti-
cizing scholar, these ideologies have a faulty struc-
ture and, if acted upon, would produce dangerous and
avoidable consequences for the society. Sidney Hook
displays this tendency. He agrees that the proper "social
function of the American intellectual is to think, and
to act, in such a way that the results of his thought are
brought to bear upon the great issues of our time." 13
But he then constricts the ways by which "the great
issues" can be legitimately considered; he limits ideo-
logical exploration by referring to the specter of Com-
munism.
The task of the intellectual is still . . . to criticize

what needs to be criticized in America, without for-
getting for a moment the total threat which com-
munism poses to the life of the free mind. . . . Most
American intellectuals still do not understand the
theory, practice, and tactics of the Communist move-
ment . . . ; too many are inclined to dismiss the
Communist danger in its total global impact as rela-
tively unimportant. 14
Thus, apparently, critical positions taken by in-

tellectuals such as Herbert Marcuse, C. Wright Mills,
Erich Fromm, and others who diverge from Hook's
analysis of Communism are not simply mistaken in
ways that Hook is willing to elaborate in careful detail;
rather, they are so obviously defunct as to fall outside
the range of responsible inquiry. Hook's procedure is
at issue here-and it does seem to be strange. He starts
by assuming that he knows "what needs to be criti-
cized," and then rejects not simply as wrong, but as
irresponsible, those positions that sharply diverge from

his own. He seems momentarily to forget the un-
certainties out of which his own underlying assump-
tions are generated-the hopes, commitments, and
values that shape his own basic premises. Instead of
carefully examining his adversary's uncertain premises
and pointing out possible weaknesses, he repudiates
their interpretations as irresponsible because their
possible public consequences, as seen from the per-
spective of his uncertain premises, look pernicious.
If generally followed, however, such an approach
would cut both ways. Hook's adversaries, in this game,
can just as well label his interpretations irresponsible
because, seen from their perspectives, his analyses slide
over important problems and in fact promise to pro-
long and deepen those problems. Yet in order to know
just what independent effects an interpretation might
produce in a given situation, one must first know that
situation itself. The latter question, of course, is exactly
the basic point at issue, and it would seem to be the
most useful area to focus on in examining competing
interpretations.
One who refers to the negative consequences he
sees flowing from opposing interpretations has already
implicitly assumed that his audience accepts his own
interpretation as valid. It is justifiable, of course, to
draw out the implications of one's own interpretation
in such a way, but it does seem an unjustifiable vehicle
for demanding silence from critics who already deny
your basic and relatively untested assumptions. Such a
procedure may be effective as propaganda, but it tends
to obfuscate rather than to clarify the basic intellectual
issues.
We do not wish to be facile in our discussion of
the range of ideological constructions that can be
deemed responsible. There are clearly situations in
which the potential social critic himself might hesitate
to state his interpretation publicly because of the pos-
sibility of unleashing undesired consequences. He
might agree that his position rests on very tenuous
footing, that his interpretation might well be in error,
and that the erroneous interpretation if publicly articu-
lated might produce dangerous effects. Yet the decision
to remain silent is still a decision-a decision to pro-
vide passive support to the dominant interpretations
of the day. And it may be that a dissenting interpreta-
tion, even if wrong in important respects, can help to
generate debate and thereby sharpen and improve
political judgment. The very lack of certainty on these
points, we suggest, obligates one to be very hesitant
before asserting that the ideologies of others fall out-
side the range of responsible constructions and, there-
fore, should not be articulated.
IDEOLOGY AND THE POLITICAL SCIENTIST: RE-

CAPITULATION ! Our arguments have been scattered
over several pages and it might be useful now to out-
line the position we have been developing. The activi-
ties of the political scientist carry potential implications
for the larger society's self-understanding and for its
resultant patterns of behavior. Since there is an un-
deniable need for reflective consideration of existing
ideologies, and since the political scientist by training
and social location is at an advantage to do so, one of
his prime responsibilities is to construct and to ex-
amine interpretations of the ongoing socio-political
environment. Arguments marshaled to deny this re-
sponsibility, we contend, do point to difficulties and
dangers in ideology construction but do not adequately
justify the political scientist's withdrawal from ideol-
ogy.
At least some political scientists should devote
a large share of their efforts to ideology, and all

political scientists have a clear responsibility to be
aware of these broad efforts, to ask how their research
can be made relevant to these issues and claims, to
apply their critical skills to the ideologies extant, and
to check the empirical claims of these ideologies
against the reliable knowledge they have accumulated.
When considering the range of alternative ideolo-
gies that can be responsibly formulated by others, we
can seldom justifiably assert that responsible behavior
demands silence on the part of "ideologues" with
whom we sharply disagree. Usually such assertions
prejudge the issues to be debated and foreclose our
careful consideration of opposing orientations. This
does not mean, however, that "everything is permis-
sible" in conditions of uncertainty. There are certain
procedural standards that one should attempt to meet
and that he can reasonably expect all responsible
ideologists to meet. We should expect the ideologist to
consider carefully the possible social consequences of
either remaining silent or articulating his position at
any specific juncture. We should expect him somehow
to confront and assimilate into his interpretation all
the facts that he and others have unearthed about the
problem under consideration. We should expect him,
finally, to develop and articulate his interpretation in
responsible ways. This latter point will receive our full
attention in the last section of this study.
Ideologists who meet these general standards, we
tentatively suggest, meet reasonable standards of re-
sponsible scholarship in situations of uncertainty. The
introduction of more rigid standards, while perhaps
comforting to those of us who find the established
orientations satisfactory, might remove from con-
sideration alternative perspectives which could shed
new light on previously obscured or newly emergent
features of the environment.
Responsible Ideology
It is one thing to claim that political scientists

have a clear social responsibility to construct and ex-
amine ideologies, another to decide how ideologies can
be formulated, presented, and criticized in responsible
ways. The complexities of this latter problem threaten
to overwhelm the scholar, and our proposals here are
offered only as tentative efforts to begin grappling with
the problem. The contentions advanced will build
from our earlier discussion of the general problem of
ideology and of, more specifically, the central role
played by the perspective in ideology.
In the construction and presentation of an
ideology, three broad phases can be discerned: (1)
The investigator recognizes some features about a
situation that make it "problematic"; (2) he strives to
conceptualize the situation so as to identify the locus
of the perceived problem and its causes; and ( 3) he
recommends actions and attitudes that will promote a
resolution of the problem.
The fully responsible ideology is one in which
there is a serious and continuing effort to formulate
publicly all of the factors that infiuence decisions at
each stage of inquiry. In a responsible ideology there
is a serious effort to clarify for self and others the or-
ganization of the perspective brought to inquiry; there
is a publicly developed interpretation of relevant
events and trends at a level of abstraction high enough
to cover the problem area; there is a publicly stated
moral and political stand, in which specific actions are
suggested to resolve ( or adjust to) the identified prob-

lem.
The ideology most effectively escapes the twin
dangers of social irrelevance and unwarranted dog-
matism if it explicitly includes each of these three di-
mensions in its framework. An ideology that focuses
on one or two of these levels at the expense of others is
liable: ( 1 ) to promote an unnecessary withdrawal
from political concerns, ( 2) to obscure some of the
important factors which shape its content, or ( 3) to
render itself impervious to empirical tests and dis-
connected from its potential implications for political
action. 10
1. Self-awareness of the perspective that stands
behind one's perceptions and interpretations without
an attempt to specify the external factors that also im-
pinge upon those interpretations tends to become an
escape into subjectivism. A total focus on the "self"
and its orientation to life, while perhaps expanding
one's appreciation of the perplexities and uncertainties
in decision-making, can become a form of escapism
unless it is matched by efforts to ascertain the adequacy
of the perspective in generating viable diagnoses of the
environment, unless efforts are made to ascertain the
external causes of the satisfactions and discontents ex-
perienced by oneself and others. To say "I am prone to
interpret contemporary politics as a repressive form of
elite domination because such an outlook provides a
needed target for my frustrations and resentment" is
not enough. What, exactly, is the constellation of
power alluded to? What groups and mechanisms pro-
vide it with support? How are my "frustrations" related
to the existing system of power? What observable facts
provide support for the interpretation developed?
2. An analysis of the objective trends and forces
in society without consideration of the underlying per-
spective guiding inquiry into these forces promotes
self-delusion and tends to rigidify the resulting inter-
pretation. It tends to hide from view the personal com-
mitments inevitably involved in one's interpretation of
the available facts, thereby encouraging one to ad-
vance the interpretation with unwarranted dogmatism.
By overlooking the extent to which the gap between
the limited facts available and the beliefs asserted has
been bridged by making self-fulfilling assumptions, it
tends to foreclose critical scrutiny of the interpretation
by self and others.
3. An ideology articulated without explicit pro-
posals for political agitation or political quiescence
tends to promote misunderstanding and to obscure the
relevance of the ideology to the ongoing society.
Modern society is increasingly shaped by political de-
cisions; the ideology constructed in this setting simply
becomes more clear and specific when its concrete im-
plications for political action are enunciated. Advanc-
ing an ideology without specifying a suggested political
stance makes it difficult to check the ideology's utility
by observing its consequences in action. Furthermore,
the omission makes it even more difficult than other-
wise to check the advocate's rhetorical values and be-
liefs against those implied by his actual orientation to
action.
Our purpose in this section is to develop the
above points by considering, in turn, the interrelated
processes and consequences of perspectival self-clari-
fication, political interpretation, and proposals for
action.
PERSPECTIVAL SELF-CLARIFICATION I The per-

spective is an organic system of beliefs and values ex-
pressed in the conceptual organization of the individual
and nourished and supported by those segments of
society with which he is linked by common experience.

Clarification of the perspective involves examination
of the habits of classification which define and limit
one's awareness of the political environment; it in-
volves lifting unconscious valuations and commitments
to the conscious level, where they can be considered
and deliberatively weighed in conjunction with other
recognized values; it involves a continuous examina-
tion of the ways in which beliefs serve to protect cer-
tain values and higher level beliefs from destruction or
to blur from conscious attention implicit value con-
flicts. The privately recognized system is then publicly
acknowledged and thereby opened for critical ex-
amination by others.
The process of perspectival self-clarification is at
best a difficult task and one which is never fully ac-
complished. Conscious valuations are often in conflict
with unconscious valuations, and there is liable to be
a blockage between one set of conscious values and
beliefs and another conflicting set. 16 When it is remem-
bered that one's perspective is often similar to that of
others with whom he is identified, the difficulties of
achieving self-clarification are readily seen. For these
are the very groups to which one naturally turns in
order to check the adequacy of his concepts, the plau-
sibility of his beliefs, and the propriety of his values;
yet since their perspective tends to be similar to one's
own, this procedure constitutes no adequate check.
The barriers against achieving awareness of one's
own perspective, then, are seductive and powerful. But
the effort to overcome them is still needed. The useful-
ness of self-clarification hinges on the fact that con-
scious and unconscious valuations influence the
conceptual organization brought to inquiry and one's
conceptual organization, in turn, limits his ability to
recognize and to assimilate evidence that might pro-
mote modification of previous beliefs and values. The
recognition of those factors that shaped one's habits of
classification and influenced his predispositions for
belief opens up new possibilities for the investigator.
As Mannheim asserts: "Whenever we become aware of
a determinant which has dominated us, we remove it
from the realm of unconscious motivation into that of
the controllable, calculable, and objectified."11 Factors
heretofore unrecognized become part of the conscious
equipment of the investigator, and he begins to ex-
amine his previous beliefs anew and to hold the old
beliefs with more caution.
Thus, for example, the consensus theorist who
recognizes that his personal satisfaction with the status
quo has encouraged him to derive from the social
process a conceptual apparatus that construes the en-
vironment in ways that support and justify the status
quo has opened himself to the possibility of conceptual
revision and modification. He has effected alterations
in the way he holds his present beliefs. Assumptions
heretofore embedded in the perspective are now more
likely to be called to the focus of attention; they now
become tentative beliefs to be advanced with care and
to be subjected to further examination. Assumptions
about the linkages between social "troubles" and issue
formation now become questions to consider. Factors
such as the law of anticipated reactions, the unin-
tended effects of group activity, and the possible
manipulative effects generated by the privileged access
of minorities to the "cultural apparatus" are given a
more explicit recognition in his conceptual system.
In short, the suspicion develops that there might
be other ways of viewing the environment and the con-
sensus theorist begins to seek conceptual revision which
will more adequately allow him to recognize his as-

sumptions and bring them to test. Furthermore, having
recognized linkages between his own values, interests,
and aspirations on the one hand and his beliefs on the
other, he is better able to acknowledge this relation-
ship publicly, thereby enabling others to take his
values and biases into account when considering his
conclusions.
The ideal consequences of perspectival clarifica-
tion are to increase the investigator's recognition of the
personal and subjective factors that influence his pre-
dispositions to believe, to improve the internal con-
sistency of his perspective by allowing him to confront
formerly unconscious beliefs and valuations with con-
scious aspects of his perspective, to render him more
open and receptive to criticism because of the recog-
nition that his own interpretations carry a heavy
personal component, to encourage him to seek con-
ceptual revision that will bring into better focus aspects
of the environment relevant to his inquiries, and to
enable him to make others more aware of the biases
behind the conclusions he presents. The potential im-
plications of this process for the investigator's resulting
ideological constructions are great.
The term "ideology," as usually employed, in-
cludes some features that we have deleted from our
root definition. An ideology is usually construed as a
distorted ( that is, known to be false at certain points)
and self-glorifying doctrine which certain others are
blindly and passionately committed to.
A group's ideology presents a more or less systematic

and rigid dogma by which the group attempts to hold
and develop the internal loyalty of its members while
striving to preserve or transform its environment. 18
The identified position is thus not open to reasoned
argument and modification.
These features are certainly typical of some
ideologies, but we have not included them as the neces-
sary or defining features. It is true that ideologies do
develop and flourish in conditions where integrated
beliefs are needed to guide action, but where the avail-
able empirical controls are inadequate to check the
validity of these beliefs with rigor. The belief systems
that develop in these conditions, we submit, all tend
to organize the available information so as to protect
higher level values and beliefs from destruction. But it
does not follow that each belief system is distorted:
one may be right or much more correct than others.
What does follow in such situations is that we usually
cannot be sure which alternative ideology is the most
distorted; we lack the background of verified knowl-
edge against which to measure the distortion. It also
follows that not only my opponent's, but also my be-
liefs, are ideological in this context. Finally, it is not
necessary that either of us be blindly and passionately
committed to his ideology; one of us may advance his
position with extreme caution, sensitive to the fact that
the gap between the limited evidence available and the
beliefs advanced is bridged by making assumptions
favorable to one's prior commitments.
It is possible to become a more cautious ideologist
and the process of self-clarification helps one to achieve
that goal. Through self-clarification one is forced to
recognize that in many important areas his inquiries,
too, serve to replace his perplexities with comforting
beliefs. As one admits this fact he tends to become more
willing to hold his views as reasoned opinions rather
than as established truth; he becomes more eager to
consider alternative approaches to the environment in
the hope of exposing more of his implicit assumptions.

The significant implications of self-clarification
for responsible political inquiry are suggested by Karl
Mannheim:
It is clear . . . that every social science diagnosis
is closely connected with the evaluations and un-
conscious orientations of the observer and that the
critical self-clarification of the social sciences is inti-
mately bound up with the critical self-clarification of
our orientation in the everyday world. 19
We have not claimed that self-clarification of the
perspective will render the views developed in situa-
tions of uncertainty non-ideological. We have claimed
that such a process promises to render the theorist's
ideology more responsible. After self-clarification,
one's ideology can be developed with more self-con-
sciousness and supported with greater caution; it is
more amenable to self-generated modification and re-
vision; and, by seeking to render explicit the subjective
factors which influence his interpretation of the avail-
able evidence, the theorist opens up his entire system
of beliefs to public debate and criticism.
But how does one go about this process of self-
clarification? Certain procedures have already been
implied. It is first necessary to recognize that one's
conceptual organization is shaped by historical and
social forces and that it continues, in all likelihood, to
receive support from selected segments of society.
Once this crucial recognition is made, the investigator's
exclusive concern with external reality is modified by
an effort to expose himself to new possibilities of
classification. One of the most effective ways of doing
this is identified by Stuart Hampshire:
The habits of self-conscious criticism may modify the
habits of behavior. But the habits of criticism are
themselves only slowly revised by further criticism
and comparison, and by communication with minds
that are outside the circle of convention and custom
within which he [the investigator] is confined. . . .
Aware of the limits of my thought set by historical
conditions, I may set myself at all times to consider
my own past actions, and my present intentions,
from the vantage point of other systems of thought. 20
In other words, the scholar aiming at perspectival

clarification can seek to broaden and deepen his per-
spective by establishing communication with a wide
variety of disparate viewpoints. The process is not es-
sentially different from that by which the original per-
spective is developed, but here the investigator
consciously strives to immerse himself in threatening
or opposing systems of thought of the past and present.
He enters into communication with doctrines of the
Right, Center, and Left. He tries to understand the
outlooks of those men who come from class back-
grounds above, below, or merely different from, his
own. In the process of communicating with contrasting
orientations of past and present, the investigator will
check his responses to newly revealed aspects of the
environment; he will ask how these newly emphasized
features tap latent values and commitments in himself
that he had not previously been aware of or concen-
trated on. For one of the central means by which we
alter each other's orientations to action is by "an
appeal to valuations which the other keeps in the
shadows of inattention, but which are assumed never-
theless to be actually held in common."i 1
Other approaches can supplement and feed into
this basic procedure. The scholar can attempt to
"locate" himself in society. He starts with the intellec-
tual stratum, especially those elements of that stratum
to which his ideas are primarily aimed and which gen-
erally serve as the sounding board against which he

checks the plausibility of his formulations. He asks,
What is the general economic and status position of
these individuals in his society? What about their rela-
tive standing in the professions to which they belong?
How does the institutional setting of academic life
affect their attitudes and commitments? Are their as-
pirations frustrated or relatively satisfied? Are they
influential or not? Where and where not? What are
their expectations and how do these expectations in-
fluence and limit the scholar's own judgments? In simi-
lar ways, the scholar can consider his relations to other
social groups. In the whole process his goal is to un-
cover those presuppositions and conceptual emphases
he has hitherto taken for granted, and to discover some
of the group-rooted, often unconscious, values and
commitments that have been influencing him to con-
strue the political environment in the way he does.
Perspectival self-clarification, again, does not
guarantee valid empirical knowledge, nor does it alone
provide an adequate road to that knowledge. Rather,
it provides an important prerequisite for that pursuit;
it enables the investigator to become deliberatively re-
sponsive to new experiences and to new possibilities of
classification. Combined with systematic attempts to
interpret the political environment and to render the
interpretation concrete by making recommendations
for political action, it enables ideology to be more re-
sponsible. We emphasize its importance here because,
in our view, it is that aspect of ideology construction
and examination which requires most attention in con-
temporary political inquiry.
POLITICAL INTERPRETATION I One of the most

effective ways to check the adequacy of the perspective
is, of coulse, to apply it to concrete problem areas. The
investigator, attempting to develop a responsible
ideology, will make as many of his hypotheses as he
can testable in principle and will strive to make a large
share of these, or at least important aspects of them,
testable in practice. A proposition is best made test-
able by specifying a range of potential observations
that the proposition excludes, and it is most effectively
established by searching intensively for those invalidat-
ing observations and not finding them. An attempt
should be made, then, to put "pivotal" hypotheses in
testable form and to revise the ideology as the results
of testing require. As we attempted to indicate earlier,
however, it is unwise to rely on this method too ex-
clusively. In large areas of political inquiry it is in
practice impossible to test adequately many of the key
hypotheses. The following difficulties are of special im-
portance.
1. In political inquiry, as we have seen, some of
the conclusions reached depend partly on the investi-
gator's judgment of what alternatives are possible to
achieve in the present context. Empirical inquiry into
past and present structures does not alone settle such
questions; controlled and often long-range social ex-
perimentation is required, and the needed action and
controls are often practically or politically unfeasible.
2. In order to formulate and to test a cross-
cultural law, the necessary and sufficient conditions for
its operation must be known and indicators that will be
sufficient to establish its operation must be identified.
The law will affirm, for example, that under conditions
a, b, c, d, e, the societal consensus will be the collective
product of society, where the empirical indicators of
"collective product" are factors f, g, h, i. But because
of a variety of factors ( such as cultural relativity, ir-
reversibility of social change, the complex inter-
dependence among variables, and the complexities of
the rules governing the use of concepts like "religion"

and "crime"), it has often been exceedingly difficult in
political inquiry to formulate and to test such general
laws. The difficulties here emphasized center around
the inability to specify some of the conditions for, and
some of the indicators of, a law's operation.*
The laws with which we must usually work in
political inquiry have here been called principia media:
not all of the conditions and indicators have been
identified, and included in the law's statement are
limitations of time and place. Thus instead of being
stated as a general law, the above law covering po-
litical consensus might be abridged as follows: In the
United States today conditions a, b, c combine to make
the social consensus a collective product, and factors
f, g are the indicators of "collective product." The law
is stated relative to time and place because some of the
conditions and some of the empirical indicators of its
operation are unknown. The investigator, unaware of
the necessary and sufficient conditions for the law's
operation, presumes that the identified conditions
and indicators adequately cover the law in the specific
time and place. Accordingly, he will devise tests that
cover only those identified factors. Other factors, not
recognized, but nevertheless relevant, will not be
brought to explicit test; and the adequacy of the ac-
cepted test will remain problematic.
* A law, by convention, can be stated in either of two ways.
( 1) It can be stated briefly with the "text" or set of initial condi-
tions necessary for its operation not included in the statement of
the law itself, but nevertheless known. Thus Boyle's law states
that at a given temperature the volume and absolute pressure of a
gas vary inversely. But there are known conditions in which this
law does not apply, and these conditions are included in the quali-
fying text. (2) Included in the statement of the law can be all of
the necessary and sufficient conditions for its operation. 2 2 Our
point is that in whichever form political laws are stated, many
of the conditions necessary to their operation, and the indicators
necessary to their identification, are not known.
The unknown factors forcing us to state the law
relative to time and place are best considered to be un-
known presuppositions. Many propositions in political
inquiry depend on unknown presuppositions, with the
result that certain essential features of the phenomena
under investigation have ( or probably have) escaped
the testing net. This, in our judgment, is part of the
problem in the elitist-pluralist debate. The conditions
for and indicators of such relationships as "manipula-
tion," "coercion," "persuasion," and "authority" have
not been adequately sorted out.
3. In the areas with which we are concerned, the
variable factors recognized and investigated are far
less subject to measurement and control than is desir-
able for adequate testing. The investigator must make
judgments about recognized variables which he is
unable to test carefully. These judgments, in cumu-
lative result, may prejudge the conclusions reached;
they may diminish the effect that conclusions reached
in rigorously tested areas can have on the complete
political interpretation.*
4. For those aspects of the problem studied where
reasonable tests have been constructed, it has often
been in practice impossible to reduce the necessary ob-
servations to the impersonal level needed.
In physics, it has gradually become possible to make

many data yielding experimental observations by
reading the dials of scientific instruments, the so-
* Karl Popper, the author of the falsifiability criterion,
recognizes that these problems increase the difficulties of applying
that criterion effectively to many social phenomena: "In physics,
for example, the parameters of our equations can, in principle, be
reduced to a small number of natural constants-a reduction
which has been successfully carried out in many important cases.
This is not so in economics; here the parameters are themselves
in most important cases quickly changing variables. This clearly
reduces the significance, interpretability, and testability of our
measurements." 23
called pointer readings. This is a type of perceptual

situation specifically designed to maximize accuracy of
observation and thus interobserver agreement in the
report of observation. 24
In contemporary political inquiry, however, many of
the tests that are reduced to impersonal observations
do not test very much, and other tests require in-
terpetive perceptions. It has been claimed of psycho-
analysis, for example, that although potential evidence
has been specified that would call the theory into ques-
tion, the perceptual judgments required in those ob-
servations make it unlikely that an opponent and an
advocate of the theory would interpret the same "evi-
dence" in the same way. 25
5. When reliable tests apparently falsify certain
key propositions of an ideology, the situation often
does not justify scrapping the supported ideology in
favor of another. There are examples of conditions in
the natural sciences where evidence negated the predic-
tions of a theory, but where the theory was still wisely
retained. The Newtonian theory of gravitation, the
Newtonian theory of optics, and the wave theory of
light have been cited as examples of theories that were
controverted by available evidence, but that were not
scrapped or significantly modified because they still
remained the best available theories. 26 An interpreta-
tion can be falsified only when another one more ade-
quately explains the phenomena, but, in conditions of
limited empirical control, decisions concerning which
among the available interpretations is most adequate
depend to a great extent on the judgment of the in-
vestigator and his audience. A given test might force
one to revise aspects of his ideology to the minimum
degree necessary to subsume the new evidence, but in
the present state of inquiry it is difficult to envisage
many cases where a set of applicable tests could effec-
tively resolve the controversy between competing
ideologies.
One of the tasks of political inquiry is to reduce
the scope and intensity of the testing problems identi-
fied above. The political scientist can often contribute
to this effort in the process of ideology construction
and testing; on the other hand, of course, he will
often be handicapped in his efforts by having to work
within the confines of these very limitations. We have
emphasized the difficulties in empirical testing pro-
cedures, then, not to denigrate the potential impor-
tance of these procedures, but to clarify their limitations
for contemporary political inquiry and to underline a
further maxim for the responsible ideologist: The re-
sponsible ideologist will not demand of the opposing
interpretation a rigor and precision in empirical test-
ing which he is unable to provide for his own posi-
tion. He will recognize that in many situations the
opposing theory, implausible from his vantage point, is
plausible from other perspectives, and that the im-
plausibility of a theory is not necessarily indicative of
its invalidity.
PROPOSALS FOR ACTION I The developed ideology

consists of a set of integrated beliefs or hypotheses,
tested at some points but partially supported by their
appearance of plausibility to certain segments of so-
ciety. One of the most effective ways to clarify further
and test the implications of the ideology is to "con-
cretize" the hopes and beliefs embedded in it. First,
specific recommendations for action are made. The
recommendations may specify certain policies to be
enacted, certain groups which are to act in specified
ways, and certain agencies through which action is to
be channeled. Second, the consequences that can be
expected when these recommendations are translated
into action are specified, as well as the effects that can

be expected should the recommendations be ignored.
This process of making concrete proposals helps
to reveal to oneself and others many of the impulses
behind the political interpretation. Thus the investi-
gator who over a period of time contends that policies
x, y, and z will increase the long-range economic wel-
fare and felt satisfaction of all segments of society, but
whose policy recommendations in the short-run re-
dound to the obvious benefit of one selective group
and to the disadvantage of others, has opened up his
ideology for further examination. The resulting ex-
amination may bring to the forefront values that have
influenced beliefs, but that had previously been out of
the focus of his attention.
Formulating proposals for action also offers a
crude, but sometimes effective, method for testing the
utility of the ideology. Does it promote policies that
resolve or alleviate the problematic situations that
called it forth? Are the observed consequences con-
gruent with the expected consequences? Again, this
procedure is often difficult to apply in practice; for
one thing, it is often politically unfeasible to translate
proposed policies into action, and for another thing, it
is then often difficult to isolate the effects of these
actions from other factors. Nevertheless, acting upon
beliefs represents one more important way in which the
utility of an ideology can be subjected to empirical
test; it is another key aspect of the responsible ideology.
Conclusion
The responsible ideology is one in which a serious

and continuing effort is made to elucidate publicly all
of the factors involved in its formulation and in which
a similar effort is made to test the position at strategic
points by all available means. A continuous shuttle is
established between the levels of self-clarification,
formulating and testing beliefs about the environment,
recommending appropriate public action and attitudes,
and specifying the expected consequences of the pro-
posed action. In this way a maximum effort is made to
keep all factors involved in the formulated ideology at
the forefront of attention, and every opportunity is
grasped to confront these recognized factors with the
hard facts of the environment.
The responsibly formulated ideology, in short,
unites the analytical precision of a Robert Dahl, the
self-awareness of a Karl Mannheim, and the commit-
ment to social relevance of a C. Wright Mills. No
scholar can achieve a full measure of excellence in
each of these ways, but perhaps the composite picture
can provide an ideal standard against which to evaluate
one's intellectual strengths and weaknesses.
When we seek to identify features of a responsible
ideology, it must be emphasized, we can only consider
ideal standards of performance. It will always be ex-
ceedingly difficult to approach these standards in prac-
tice. For the suggestions advanced here go against the
natural human propensity-highly developed in struc-
tures of intense conflict-to protect cherished beliefs
from doubt and scrutiny. Central to our approach,
nevertheless, has been the belief that the very recogni-
tion of the severity of the problem of ideology can pro-
mote a psychological willingness to reconsider some of
the root commitments brought to inquiry. It is simply
not enough to agree that my core commitments are
neither fully articulated nor fully tested. It is also neces-
sary to admit that those core commitments profoundly
shape my political thinking in subtle ways. The recog-
nition that "subjective" factors intrude deeply into my
own interpretations as well as those of my adversaries

encourages me to submit my bedrock beliefs to further
examination by me and by others.
In relations between opponents, mutual recog-
nition of the uncertain foundations of contested beliefs
tends to convert the doctrinal clash into the controlled
debate. The debaters might remain sharply divided,
but the intellectual confrontation becomes more
thoughtful and perhaps more constrained. The way is
paved for mutual reconsideration of existing orienta-
tions. Indeed, for Karl Mannheim the hope of promot-
ing this result provided the primary motivation for
inquiry into the ideological roots of scholarly research.
As he intimates his hope: "We do not hold up to the
adversary that he is worshipping false gods; rather we
destroy the intensity of his idea by showing that it is
historically and socially determined." 21
Perhaps a final clarification will ensure that the
scope of the claims advanced here is not misin-
terpreted. The responsible ideology may be wrong.
There is no necessary connection asserted here be-
tween responsibility and validity. What we do assert
is that the responsible ideology stands at a higher level
of intellectual achievement than the unstructured con-
ventional wisdom and the rigid doctrine. It will be
more responsive to new evidence. It will be better able
to recognize and confront internal tensions than is
possible at either of these two levels. Neither the lack
of a defined structure on the one hand, nor the excesses
of dogmatism and blind passion on the other, will
render the responsible ideology immune to critical
analysis or oblivious to the results of empirical tests.
The idea of the responsible ideology stands as an inter-
mediate ideal located between the irresponsible doc-
trine and the fully validated theory. Its purpose is to
provide some coherence to human activities in those
persisting situations of limited empirical control.
Is it futile to develop a profile of the responsible
ideology? Is the effort incompatible with existing
moods and drifts in political inquiry? We think not. It
is true that in the name of responsibility and objectivity
many social scientists have sought to expunge ideology
from their research. Yet it now seems clear that such
an approach has not often eliminated the ideological
dimension. More correctly, that dimension has been
suppressed from research vocabularies and then rein-
stated in research results in ways that slide under con-
scious attention and therefore escape potential control.
Perhaps the effort to expunge ideology has been ill-
conceived. And perhaps we need to give more explicit
attention to the ideological dimension. By resisting the
urge to suppress ideology, we might in fact better
approach that clarity of intellectual purpose and
heightened social relevance to which most scholars
aspire.
Notes
Chapter 1
1. Carl G. Hempel, "Explanation and Prediction by Covering

Laws," in Bernard Baumrin, ed., Philosophy of Science (New
York: Interscience Publishers, 1963 ), pp. 108, 111.
2. Karl Mannheim, Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction
(New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1954), p. 168.
3. See ibid., pp. 168-189, for a discussion of principia media.
4. Each of the positions supported above is faced with theoretical
as well as practical difficulties. Thus Carl Hempel and Ernest
Nagel have supported the nomothetic ideal of explanation. Others,
such as Michael Scriven, have cast doubt on aspects of the nomo-
thetic ideal as being too formal, unrealizable in practice, and ex-
cluding valuable forms of inquiry. See Ernest Nagel, The Structure
of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation (New
York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1961); Minnesota Studies in
the Philosophy of Science, Vol. II (Concepts, Theories and the
Mind-Body Problem), Herbert Feigl, Michael Scriven, and Grover
Maxwell, eds. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1958).
158 Notes
5. The conception of science as an enterprise in which the indi-
vidual develops an appreciation for the beauty of the phenomena
studied is developed by Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge:
Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy (New York: Harper and
Row, 1962).
6. Peter Winch develops the most recent argument in favor of
the Verstehen method; see The Idea of a Social Science (London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958).
7. The classic conception of inquiry, as here understood, is best
elaborated and defended by C. Wright Mills, The Sociological
Imagination (New York: Grove Press, 1961), especially pp. 119-
142. An excellent example of this method at work is Gunnar
Myrdal's An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern
Democracy (New York: Harper, 1944).
8. Mills, The Sociological Imagination, p. 126.
9. For a defense of this method, see Kenneth Boulding, The
Image: Knowledge in Life and Society (Ann Arbor: Ann Arbor
Paperbacks, 1961 ) , especially Ch. XI.
Chapter 2
1. For a review of the contemporary debate and its implications,

see Ralf Dahrendorf, Class and Class ConfUct in Industrial Society
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1959), and "Out of Utopia:
Toward a Reorientation of Sociological Analysis," American
Journal of Sociology, LIV (September, 1958) 115-27; Seymour
Lipset, "Political Sociology," in Robert K. Merton, Leonard
Broom, and Leonard S. Cottrell, Jr., eds., Sociology Today: Prob-
lems and Prospects (New York: Basic Books, 1959), pp. 81-114.
2. See C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (New York:
Grove Press, 1961), Ch. 2, and The Power Elite (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1956), Ch. XI; and R. Dahrendorf, "Out
of Utopia," American Journal of Sociology.
3. See, for example, Talcott Parsons' criticism of Mills' The
Power Elite: "The Distribution of Power in American Society," in
his Structure and Process in Modern Societies (New York: The
Free Press of Glencoe, 1960), pp. 199-225.
4. C. Wright Mills, Power, Politics, and People, Irving Louis
Horowitz, ed. (New York: Ballantine Books, 1961), p. 256.
5. Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the
Sociology of Knowledge (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1936), pp.
273-274.
6. Stanislaw Ossowski, Class Structure in the Social Conscious-
ness (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963 ), p. 160.
7. Bertrand Russell, Power: A New Social Analysis (New York:
W.W. Norton, 1938), p. 35.
159 Notes
8. Harold D. Lasswell and Abraham Kaplan, Power and Society,
A Framework for Political Inquiry (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1950), p. 76.
9. Robert Dahl, "The Concept of Power," in Sydney Ulmer, ed.,
Introductory Readings in Political Behavior (Chicago: Rand
McNally, 1961), p. 125.
10. Mills, The Power Elite, p. 9.
11. Talcott Parsons, Essays in Sociological Theory (New York:
The Free Press, 1949), p. 391.
12. The term is Parsons', developed to describe Mills' conception
of power: "The Distribution of Power in American Society," in
op. cit., pp. 219-222.
13. James H. Meisel, The Myth of the Ruling Class: Gaetano
Mosca and the Elite (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
1962), p. ix.
14. Parsons, Structure and Process in Modern Societies, p. 174.
15. An investigator might apply one conception to his own society,
another to foreign societies. But, in general, each has a tendency
to lean in one direction or the other. Thus Ralf Dahrendorf, C.
Wright Mills, Milovan Djilas, and Harold Lasswell lean in varying
degrees toward the zero-sum concept, while Adolf A. Berle,
Robert Dahl, Talcott Parsons, and Robert Maciver lean toward
the conception of power as a collective product.
16. The following works are central to our discussion: C. Wright
Mills, The Power Elite, The Sociological Imagination, and Power,
Politics, and People,· Floyd Hunter, Community Power Structure
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953); Robert
Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, © 1956), "A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model,"
American Political Science Review, LIi (June, 1958), 463-469,
and Who Governs? (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961).
17. Mills, Power, Politics, and People. p. 23 (italics mine).
18. Mills, The Power Elite, pp. 335, 338. In The Causes of World
War 111 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1958), especially Chap-
ters 10 and 13, Mills sketches the constricted frame of reference
attributed to the "power elite" and suggests reasons why this
orientation is congenial to them.
19. Mills, Power, Politics, and People, p. 32.
20. Ibid. (italics mine).
21. Floyd Hunter, Community Power Structure.
22. Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy
(New York: Harper, 1947), pp. 250-264. Schumpeter criticizes
the "classical" image of democracy and suggests a new version.
Dahl, whose theory we will consider, leans on Schumpeter's analy-
sis at several points, and acknowledges a debt to his predecessor.
23. Dahl, Who Governs? p. 85.
160 Notes
24. Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory, p. 132.
25. Dahl, Ibid., p. 145 (italics mine).
26. /hid., p. 138 (italics mine).
27. Ibid., p. 150.
28. Ibid., pp. 132-133.
29. Dahl, Who Governs? p. 84.
30. Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory, p. 142.
31. Ibid., p. 145.
32. Mills, The Power Elite, pp. 318-319; The Sociological Imag-
ination, pp. 11, 165-176. For an excellent analysis of the con-
cept "alienation" and of "need" as an empirical concept see
Arnold Kaufman, "On Alienation," Inquiry 7 (Spring, 1964), 1-25.
33. Adolf A. Berle, Power Without Property (New York: Har-
court, Brace and World, 1959), p. 83.
34. Ibid., 110-116.
35. Mills, The Causes of World War III. The main argument is
that the power elite is shoving the nation into an unnecessary war.
36. See, for example, "The Decline of the Left," in Power,
Politics, and People, pp. 221-235.
37. Mills, The Sociological Imagination, p. 11.
38. Ibid., p. 13.
39. See C. Wright Mills, "The Power Elite: Comment on Criti-
cism," Dissent, V (Winter, 1957), 22-34.
40. Barbara Wootton, Freedom Under Planning (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1945), p. 40.
41. See Mills, "The Labor Leaders and the Power Elite," in Power,
Politics, and People, pp. 97-109, for a discussion of the place of
labor leaders in the power structure.
42. Dahl, "A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model," American
Political Science Review, p. 463. Mills does not claim to have
given his hypothesis a definitive test: "The idea of the power elite
is of course an interpretation. It rests upon and enables us to make
sense of major institutional trends, the social similarities and
psychological affinities of the men at the top." Power, Politics, and
People, p. 30. And he does not believe it is presently possible
definitively to test the hypothesis. ". . . the very top of society is
often inaccessible, the bottom hidden. . . . We must expect
fumbles when, without authority or offici;il aid, we set out to in-
vestigate something which is in part organized for the purpose of
causing fumbles. . .. And yet, if we are trying to understand
something of the true nature of the society in which we live, we
cannot allow the impossibility of rigorous proof to keep us from
studying whatever we believe to be important." The Power Elite,
p. 363.
43. Hunter, Community Power Structure. It is not necessary to
161 Notes
reconstruct the author's method, for he reviews his procedure with
some care in the Appendix, pp. 263-273.
44. Ibid., p. 265.
45. See Nelson Polsby, "Three Problems in the Analysis of Com-
munity Power," American Sociological Review, XXIV (Decem-
ber, 1959), 796-803.
46. Kent M. Jennings, Community Influentials: The Elites of
Atlanta (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1964), pp. 162-
63.
47. Herbert Kaufman and Victor Jones, "The Mystery of Power,"
Public Administration Review, XIV (Summer, 1954), 207.
48. See Carl J. Friedrich, Constitutional Government and De-
mocracy: Theory and Practice in Europe and America (Boston:
Ginn, 1946), pp. 589-591.
49. Dahl, "A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model," American
Political Science Review, p. 464.
50. Ibid., p. 466.
51. Dahl, Who Governs? p. 336 (italics mine).
52. Ibid., p. 333.
53. See Peter Bachrach and Morton S. Baratz, "Two Faces of
Power," American Political Science Review, LVI (December,
1962), 947-952. As they express the point: "To measure relative
influence solely in terms of the ability to initiate and veto proposals
is to ignore the possible exercise of influence or power in limiting
the scope of initiation."
54. Dahl, "A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model," p. 468 (italics
mine).
55. Karl Mannheim, Freedom, Power, and Democratic Planning
(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1950), p. 138.
56. Dahl, "A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model," pp. 468-469.
57. Dahl, "Equality and Power in American Society," in William
V. D'Antonio and Howard J. Ehrlich (eds.), Power and De-
mocracy in America (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1961), p. 86.
58. Dahl, "A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model," p. 464.
59. Gunnar Myrdal, Value in Social Theology: A Selection of
Essays on Methodology, Paul Streeten, ed. (London: Routledge
and Kegan Paul, 1958), p. 125.
60. Seymour Lipset, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics
(New York: Doubleday, Anchor Books, 1963), p. 445.
61. Robert Dahl, Modern Political Analysis (Englewood Cliffs,
N.J.: Prentice-Hall, © 1963), p. 20.
62. Daniel Bell offers this characterization in a debate with Henry
Aiken; see Aiken and Bell, "Ideology: A Debate," Commentary,
162 Notes
XXXVIIJ (October. 1964), 70 (italics mine). See also, Bell's The
End of Ideology (New York: The Free Press, 1960), pp. 369-76.
63. For further discussion of the "proper" meaning of ideology
see the debate between Palombara and Lipset. Joseph La Palom-
bara, "Decline of Ideology: A Dissent and an Interpretation," and
Seymour Lipset, "Some Further Comments on 'The End of
Ideology,'" American Political Science Review, LX (March,
1966), 5-18. Their discussion appeared too late to be incorporated
into this study, but La Palombara's comments, especially, parallel
aspects of this analysis.
Chapter 3

Sociology of Knowledge (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1936), p.
309.
2. Examples of representative positions on this point: Robert K.
Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (New York: The Free
Press of Glencoe, 1957), Part III; Ernest Nagel, The Structure of
Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation (New
York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1961), pp. 485-502; Irving L.
Horowitz, Philosophy, Science, and the Sociology of Knowledge
(Springfield, Ill.: Charles C Thomas, 1961).
3. Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia; C. Wright Mills, Power,
Politics and People, Irving Louis Horowitz, ed. (New York: Bal-
lantine Books, 1961), Part IV, Chs. 3 and 4; Stanley Taylor, Con-
ceptions of Institutions and the Theory of Knowledge (New York:
Twayne Publishers, Bookman Associates, 1956).
4. Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, pp. 64-84.
5. Ibid., p. 276.
6. Karl Mannheim, Essays on the Sociology of Culture, Ernest
Manheim with Paul Kecskemeti, ed. (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1956), p. 122.
7. Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, pp. 266-272.
8. ]bid., p. 284.
9. Ibid., p. 268.
10. Karl Mannheim, "Utopia," in Edwin A. Seligman, ed., En-
cyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. XV (1935), p. 201.
11. Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, p. 40.
12. Mannheim, "Utopia,'' in Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences,
p. 202.
13. Mannheim, Essays on the Sociology of Culture, p. 106.
163 Notes
16. Ibid., p. 105.
17. Ibid., p. 108.
19. Ibid., p. 294.
20. Ibid., p. 301.
21. Ibid., p. 300.
22. Ibid., p. 304.
23. Nagel, The Structure of Science, p. 501.
25. Ibid., p. 301.
26. Ibid., p. 299.
27. See Karl Mannheim, "Conservative Thought," in his Essays
on Sociology and Social Psychology, Paul Kecskemeti, ed. (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1953), pp. 74-164.
28. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure, p. 499.
30. Ibid., p. 97.
31. Charles Frankel, The Case for Modem Man (Boston: Beacon
Press, 1955), pp. 140-141.
32. James H. Meisel, The Myth of the Ruling Class: Gaetano
Mosca and the Elite (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
1962), pp. 8-9.
33. Karl Mannheim, Diagnosis of Our Time (London: Kegan
Paul, Trench, Trubncr, 1943), p. 119.
34. Karl Mannheim, Freedom, Power, a!ld Demorcratic Planning,
Hans Gerth and Ernest Branstedt, eds. (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1950), p. 265.
36. Mills, Power, Politics, and People, pp. 427-428 and 455.
37. Ernest Nagel, Logic Without Metaphysics (New York: The
Free Press of Glencoe, 1956), pp. 66, 63.
38. Ibid., p. ix.
39. Ibid., p. 76.
40. Ibid., p. 78.
41. Ibid., p. 77.
42. Ibid., p. 78.
43. Karl Mannheim in a letter of April 15, 1946 to Kurt Wolff,
reprinted in Llewellyn Gross, ed., Symposium on Sociological
Theory (New York: Harper and Row, 1959), pp. 571-572.
164 Notes
Chapter 4
l. Karl Mannheim, Freedom, Power, and Democratic Planning,

Hans Gerth and Ernest Branstedt, eds. (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1950), pp. 239-240.
Kegan Paul, 1956), pp. 85-86.
3. George Herbert Mead's writings, essays, and lectures are pub-
lished posthumously in four volumes: The Philosophy of the
Present, A. E. Murphy, ed. (Chicago: Open Court, 1932); Mind,
Self and Society, Charles W. Morris, ed. (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1934); Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth
Century, Merritt H. Moore, ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1936); The Philosophy of the A ct, Charles W. Morris, ed.,
in collaboration with John M. Brewster, Albert M. Dunham, and
David L. Miller (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1938).
Anselm M. Strauss has collected from these books aspects of
Mead's work most relevant to his theory of mind and self: The
Social Psychology of George Herbert Mead: Selected Writings of
an American Pragmatist (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
© 1934). Most of the references here cited have been taken from
this last-named work.
4. The distinctions are suggested by Ludwig Freund, "Responsi-
bility-Definitions, Distinctions, and Applications in Various Con-
texts," in Carl J. Friedrich, ed., Responsibility, Nomos III (New
York: Liberal Arts Press, 1960), p. 35.
5. Mead, in Strauss, ed., The Social Psychology of George
Herbert Mead, p. 172.
6. See William Alston, Philosophy of Language (Englewood
Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice-Hall, 1964), pp. 25-31, for a critique of
"response" theories.
7. Stuart Hampshire, Thought and Action (New York: The
Viking Press, and London: Chatto & Windus,© 1959), p. 120.
8. Mead, in Strauss, ed., The Social Psychology of George
Herbert Mead, p. 152.
9. Ibid., p. 270.
10. Ibid., p. 174.
11. Ibid., p. 232.
12. See Seymour Lipset, Political Man; Herbert McClosky, "Con-
servatism and Personality," American Political Science Review, LII
(March, 1958), 27-45; Lewis Lipsitz, "Work Life and Political
Attitudes: A Study of Manual Workers," American Political
Science Review, LVIII (December, 1964), 951-962; Irwin W.
165 Notes
Goffman, "Status Consistency and Preference for Change in Power
Distribution," American Sociological Review, XXII (June, 1957),
275-281.
14. Karl Mannheim, Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge, Paul
Kecskemeti, ed. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1952), p.
318.
275.
16. Two recent studies have developed concepts similar in many
ways to the concept of the perspective: George A. Kelly, A Theory
of Personality: The Psychology of Personal Constructs (New
York: W. W. Norton, 1963); Kenneth Boulding, The Image:
Knowledge in Life and Society (Ann Arbor: Ann Arbor Paper-
backs, 1961).
17. Robert Tucker, Philosophy and Myth in Karl Marx (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961), pp. 238-240.
18. For a discussion of cases where the investigator's implicit con-
cept of "politics" has limited his ability to perceive aspects of the
environment relevant to his formally defined purposes see Peter
Bachrach, "Corporate Authority and Democratic Theory." Paper
delivered at the annual meeting of the American Political Science
Association, September, 1966.
19. Charles Frankel, The Case for Modern Man (Boston: Beacon
Press, 1955), pp. 133, 138.
20. Friedrich Waismann, "The Resources of Language," in Max
Black, ed., The Importance of Language (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
Prentice-Hall, © 1962), p. 113.
Chapter 5
1. Arnold Kaufman, "The Irresponsibility of American Social

Scientists," Inquiry (Universitsforlaget, Oslo), III (Summer,
1960), 112.
2. Ibid., p. 113.
3. Judith Shklar, After Utopia: The Decline of Political Faith
(Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1957), pp. x, 272.
4. Gerald Holton, "Modern Science and the Intellectual Tradi-
tion," in George B. de Huszar, ed., The Intellectuals: A Contro-
versial Portrait (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1960),
p. 184. (Italics mine.)
5. Heinz Eulau, The Behavioral Persuasion in Politics (New
York: Random House, 1963), p. 133.
166 Notes
6. Talcott Parsons. Essays in Sociological Theory (New York:
The Free Press of Glencoe, 1949). p. 368.
7. David Easton, "The Current Meaning of Behavioralism," in
James Charlesworth, ed., The Limits of Behavioralism in Political
Science (Philadelphia: American Academy of Political and Social
Science, 1962), p. 8.
8. Gunnar Myrdal. "The Relation Between Social Theory and
Social Policy." British Journal of Sociology, IV (September,
1953), 210-242; Robert Presthus, The Organizational Society: An
Analysis and a Theory (New York: Random House, Vintage
Books, 1965); C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination
(New York: Grove Press, 1961).
Kegan Paul, 1956), pp. 105, 114, 117.
10. Mills, The Sociological lmaginatio11, p. 135.
11. Gunnar Myrdal, Value in Social Theory: A Selection of Es-
says on Methodology, Paul Strceten, ed. (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1958), p. 133.
12. Abraham Kaplan, The Conduct of Inquiry (San Francisco:
Chandler, 1964), p. 402.
13. Sidney Hook, "From Alienation to Critical Integrity," in
George B. de Huszar, ed., The Intellectuals: A Controversial Por-
trait (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1960), p. 531.
14. Ibid., pp. 531-532. (Italics mine.)
15. For efforts to develop responsible approaches to political
analysis which converge at many points with the positions advanced
here and in later sections of this chapter, see C. Wright Mills, "The
Social Role of the Intellectual," in Power, Politics, and People,
Irving Louis Horowitz, ed. (New York: Ballantine Books, 1961),
pp. 292-304; Christian Bay, "Politics and Pseudopolitics: A
Critical Evaluation of Some Behavioral Literature," American
Political Science Review, LIX (March, 1965). 39-51; David
Kettler, "Political Science and Political Rationality." Paper de-
livered at the September 1966 meeting of the American Political
Science Association in New York City. This analysis leans es-
pecially on the Mills essay.
16. For a discussion of the complex linkages between valuations
and beliefs, see Myrdal, Value in Social Theory, pp. 72-81, 131-
136.
17. Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia: A 11 Introduction to the
190.
18. Joseph Monsen, Jr., and Mark W. Cannon, The Makers of
Public Policy: American Power Groups and Their Ideologies
(New York: McGraw-Hill, © 1965), p. 20.
167 Notes
20. Stuart Hampshire, Thought and Action (New York: The Vik-
ing Press, and London: Chatto & Windus, 1959), pp. 208, 214.
(Italics mine.)
21. Myrdal, Value in Social Theory, p. 73.
22. For a discussion of this point, see Robert Brown, Explanation
in Social Science (Chicago: Aldine, 1963), p. 149.
23. Karl R. Popper, The Poverty of Historicism (New York:
Harper & Row, 1964), p. 30.
24. Karl Zener, "The Significance of the Experience of the In-
dividual for the Science of Psychology," in Minnesota Studies in
the Philosophy of Science, II (Concepts, Theories and the Mind-
Body Problem), Herbert Feigl, Michael Scriven, and Grover Max-
well, eds. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1958),
p. 358.
25. B. A. Farrell, "A Note on Dr. Master's Sense of 'Refutable,'"
Inquiry, VII (Spring, 1964), 99-104. P. A. Partridge points to
similar difficulties in sorting "types" of power relations: "Some
Notes on the Concept of Power," Political Studies, XI (June,
1963), 107-125.
26. R. G. Swineburne, "Falsifiability of Scientific Theories," Mind,
73 (July, 1964), 431-436.
Bibliography
Books
Alston, William. Philosophy of Language. Englewood Cliffs, NJ.:

Prentice-Hall, 1964.
Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York:
Harcourt, Brace & World, 1951.
Baumrin, Bernard, ed. Philosophy of Science. New York: Inter-
science Publishers, 1963.
Bell, Daniel. The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political
Ideas in the Fifties. New York: The Free Press, 1960.
Berle, Adolf Augustus. Power Without Property. New York:
Berlin, Isaiah. The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy's
View of History. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1953.
Black, Max (ed.). The Importance of Language. Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1962.
Boulding, Kenneth. The Image: Knowledge in Life and Society.
Ann Arbor: Ann Arbor Paperbacks, 1961.
170 Bibliography
Brown, Robert. Explanation in Social Science. Chicago: Aldine,
1963.
Cassirer, Ernst. An Essay on Man. New York: Doubleday, 1956.
Charlesworth, James (ed.). The Limits of Behavioralism in
Political Science. Philadelphia: American Academy of Po-
litical and Social Science, 1962.
Dahl, Robert. A Preface to Democratic Theory. Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 1956.
- - - . "The Concept of Power," in Sydney Ulmer, ed., Intro-
ductory Readings in Political Behavior. Chicago: Rand Mc-
Nally, 1961.
- - - . Who Governs? New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961.
- - - . Modern Political Analysis. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
Prentice-Hall, 1963.
Dahrendorf, Ralf. Class and Class Confiict in Industrial Society.
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1959.
D'Antonio, William V., and Howard J. Ehrlich, eds. Power and
Democracy in America. Notre Dame: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1961.
de Huszar, George B., ed. The Intellectuals: A Controversial
Portrait. New York: The Free Press, 1960.
Easton, David. "The Current Meaning of Behavioralism," in
James Charlesworth, ed., The Limits of Behavioralism in
Political Science. Philadelphia: American Academy of Po-
litical and Social Science, 1962.
Eulau, Heinz. The Behavioral Persuasion in Politics. New York:
Random House, 1963.
Feigl, Herbert, Michael Scriven, and Grover Maxwell, eds.,
Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. II (Con-
cepts, Theories, and the Mind-Body Problem). Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1958.
Frankel, Charles. The Case for Modern Man. Boston: Beacon
Press, 1955.
Friedrich, Carl J. Constitutional Government and Democracy:
Theory and Practice in Europe and America. Boston: Ginn,
1946.
- - - , ed. Responsibility, Nomos III. New York: Liberal Arts
Press, 1960.
Fromm, Erich. The Sane Society. New York: Holt, Rinehart &
Winston, 1955.
Gross, Llewellyn, ed. Symposium 011 Sociological Theory. New
York: Harper & Row, 1959.
Hampshire, Stuart. Thought and Action. New York: The Viking
Press, and London: Chatto & Windus, 1959.
Holton, Gerald. "Modern Science and the Intellectual Tradition;"'
in George B. de Huszar, ed., The Intellectuals: A Controversial
Portrait. New York: The Free Press, 1960.
Hook, Sidney. "From Alienation to Critical Integrity," in George
B. de Huszar, ed., The Intellectuals: A Controversial Portrait.
New York: The Free Press, 1960.
Horowitz, Irving L. Philosophy, Science, and the Sociology of
Knowledge. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C Thomas, 1961.
171 Bibliography
- - - , ed. The New Sociology: Essays in Social Science and Social
Theory in Honor of C. Wright Mills. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1965.
Hunter, Floyd. Community Power Structure. Chapel Hill: Univer-
sity of North Carolina Press, 1953.
Jennings, Kent M. Community Influentials: The Elites of Atlanta.
New York: The Free Press, 1964.
Kaplan, Abraham. The Conduct of Inquiry. San Francisco:
Chandler, 1964.
Kelly, George A. A Theory of Personality: The Psychology of
Personal Constructs. New York: Norton, 1963.
Kirk, Russell. A Program for Conservatives. Chicago: Henry
Regnery, 1954.
Kissinger, Henry A. The Necessity for Choice: Prospects of
American Foreign Policy. New York: Doubleday, 1962.
Lasswell, Harold, and Abraham Kaplan. Power and Society, A
Framework for Political Inquiry. New Haven: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 1950.
Lipset, Seymour M. Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics.
New York: Doubleday, Anchor Books, 1963.
Mannheim, Karl. "Utopia," in Edwin A. Seligman, ed., Encyclo-
pedia of the Social Sciences. New York: Macmillan, 1935,
Vol. XV, pp. 200-206.
- - - . Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of
Knowledge. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1936.
- - - . Diagnosis of Our Time. London: Kegan Paul, Trench,
Trubner, 1943.
- - - . Freedom, Power, and Democratic Planning, Hans Gerth
and Ernest Branstedt, eds. London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1950.
- - - . Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge, Paul Kecskemeti,
ed. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1952.
- - - . Essays on Sociology and Social Psychology, Paul Kecs-
kemeti, ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1953.
- - - . Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction. New York:
- - - . Essays on the Sociology of Culture. Ernest Manheim with
Paul Kecskemeti, ed. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
1956.
Marcuse, Herbert. One Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology
of Advanced Industrial Society. Boston: Beacon Press, 1964.
Mead, George Herbert. The Philosophy of the Present. A. E.
Murphy, ed. Chicago: Open Court, 1932.
- - - . Mind, Self & Society. Charles W. Morris, ed. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1934.
- - - . Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century. Merritt
H. Moore, ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1936.
- - - . The Philosophy of the Act. Charles W. Morris, ed., in
collaboration with John M. Brewster, Albert M. Dunham, and
David L. Miller. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1938.
Meisel, James H. The Myth of the Ruling Class: Gaetano Mosca
and the Elite. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962.
172 Bibliography
Merton, Robert K. Social Theory and Social Structure. New York:
The Free Press, 1957.
- - ·-, Leonard Broom, and Leonard S. Cottrell, Jr., eds. So-
ciology Today: Problems and Prospects. New York: Basic
Books, 1959.
Mills, C. Wright. White Collar: The American Middle Classes.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1951.
- - - . The Power Elite. New York: Oxford University Press,
1956.
- - - . The Causes of World War Ill. New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1958.
- - - . Power, Politics, and People. Irving Louis Horowitz, ed.
New York: Ballantine Books, 1961.
- - - . The Sociological Imagination. New York: Grove Press,
1961.
Monsen, Joseph, Jr., and Mark W. Cannon. The Makers of Public
Policy: American Power Groups and Their Ideologies. New
York: McGraw-Hill, 1965.
Myrdal, Gunnar. An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and
Modern Democracy. New York: Harper, 1944.
- - - . Value in Social Theory: A Selection of Essays on Method-
ology. Paul Streeten, ed. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1958.
Nagel, Ernest. Logic Without Metaphysics. New York: The Free
Press, 1956.
- - - . The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of
Scientific Explanation. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World,
1961.
Ossowski, Stanislaw. Class Structure in the Social Consciousness.
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963.
Parsons, Talcott. Essays in Sociological Theory. New York: The
Free Press, 1949.
- - - . Structure and Process in Modern Societies. New York:
The Free Press, 1960.
Polanyi, Michael. Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical
Philosophy. New York: Harper & Row, 1962.
Popper, Karl R. The Poverty of Historicism. New York: Harper
& Row, 1964.
Presthus, Robert. The Organizational Society: An Analysis and a
Theory. New York: Random House, 1965.
Rokeach, Milton, ed. The Open and Closed Mind: Investigations
into the Nature of Belief Systems and Personality Systems.
New York: Basic Books, 1957.
Russell, Bertrand. Power: A New Social Analysis. New York:
Norton, 1938.
Schumpeter, Joseph. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. New
York: Harper, 1947.
Shklar, Judith. After Utopia: The Decline of Political Faith.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1957.
Strauss, Anselm M., ed. The Social Psychology of George Herbert
Mead: Selected Writings of an American Pragmatist. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1934.
173 Bibliography
Taylor, Stanley. Conceptions of Institutions and the Theory of
Knowledge. New York: Twayne Publishers, Bookman As-
sociates, 1956.
Tucker, Robert C. Philosophy and Myth in Karl Marx. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1961.
Ulmer, Sydney, ed. Introductory Readings in Political Behavior.
Chicago: Rand McNally, 1961.
Winch, Peter. The Idea of a Social Science. London: Routledge
and Kegan Paul, 1958.
Wootton, Barbara. Freedom Under Planning. Chapel Hill: Uni-
versity of North Carolina Press, 1945.
Periodicals
Aiken, Henry, and Daniel Bell. "Ideology: A Debate," Com-

mentary, 38 (October, 1964), 69-79.
Bachrach, Peter. "Corporate Authority and Democratic Theory."
Paper delivered at the annual meeting of the American Po-
litical Science Association, September 1966, in New York
City.
- - - , and Morton S. Baratz. "Two Faces of Power," American
Political Science Review, LVI (December, 1962), 947-952.
Bay, Christian. "Politics and Pseudopolitics: A Critical Evaluation
of Some Behavioral Literature," American Political Science
Review, LIX (March, 1965), 39-51.
Dahl, Robert. "A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model," American,
Political Science Review, LIi (June, 1958), 463-469.
- - - . "Further Reflections on "The Elitist Theory of Democ-
racy,'" American Political Science Review, LX (June, 1966),
296-305.
Dahrendorf, Ralf. "Out of Utopia: Toward a Re-orientation of
Sociological Analysis," American Journal of Sociology, LIV
(September, 1958), 115-127.
Farrell, B. A. "A Note on Dr. Master's Sense of 'Refutable,'"
Inquiry, VII (Spring, 1964), 99-104.
Goffman, Irwin W. "Status Consistency and Preference for Change
in Power Distribution," American Sociological Review, XXII
(June, 1957), 275-281.
Haer, John L. "Social Stratification in Relation to Attitudes
Toward Sources of Power in a Community," Social Forces,
XXXV (December, 1956), 137-142.
Kaufman, Arnold. "On Alienation," Inquiry, VII (Summer, 1964),
1-25.
- - - . "The Irresponsibility of American Social Scientists," In-
quiry, III (Summer, 1960), 102-117.
Kaufman, Herbert, and Victor Jones. "The Mystery of Power,"
Public Administration Review, XIV (Summer, 1954), 205-
212.
l(ettler, David. "Political Science and Political Rationality." Paper
174 Bibliography
delivered at the annual meeting of the American Political
Science Association, September 1966, in New York City.
La Palombara, Joseph. "Decline of Ideology: A Dissent and
an Interpretation," American Political Science Review, LX
(March, 1966), 5-16.
Lavine, T. Z. "Reflections on the Genetic Fallacy," Social Re-
searclz, XXIX (Autumn, 1962), 321-336.
Lipset, Seymour. "Some Further Comments on The End of
Ideology,'" American Political Science Review, LX (March,
1966), 17-18.
Lipsitz, Lewis. "Work Life and Political Attitudes: A Study of
Manual Workers," American Political Science Review, LVIII
(December, 1964 ), 951-962.
McClosky, Herbert. "Conservatism and Personality,'' American
Political Science Review, Lil (March, 1958), 27-45.
Mills, C. Wright. "The Power Elite: Comment on Criticism,"
Dissent, V (Winter, 1957), 22-34.
Myrdal, Gunnar. "The Relation Between Social Theory and Social
Policy," Britislz Journal of Sociology, IV (September, 1953),
210-242.
Partridge, P. A. "Some Notes on the Concept of Power," Political
Studies, XI (June, 1963), 107-125.
Polsby, Nelson. "Three Problems in the Analysis of Community
Power," American Sociological Review, XXIV (December,
1959), 796-803.
Swineburne, R. G. "Falsifiability of Scientific Theories," Mind,
LXXIII (July, 1964), 434-437.
Walker, Jack L. "A Critique of the Elitist Theory of Democracy,"
American Political Science Review, LX (June, 1966), 285-
295.
Index
alienation, 29, 105-06 Bell, Daniel-Continued
see also troubles on the meaning of ideology,
anticipated reactions 52
empirical test of, 43 Berle, Adolph, on power analy-
law of, 41 sis, 30, 32, 159n
see also power
assumptions, see ideology; per- class
spective and conceptual disputes, 111
authority, 21, 29, 30, 105, 149 and ideology, 58
see also power and the intellectuals, 66-68
coercion, 20, 29, 30, 149
Bachrach, Peter
on meaning of political, 165n see also power
on power analysis, 161n concepts
Baratz, Morton, on power awareness of, 107-108
analysis, 161n and conceptual disputes, 17-
bargaining, 21, 29, 30 19, 104-106
see also power as protective devices, 110-111
Bay, Christian, on responsible and terms, 17-18
ideology, 166n see also perspective
Bell, Daniel conflict theory
as ideologist, 52-53 genesis of, 15-16, 63, 138
176 Index
conflict theory-Continued Feuerbach, Ludwig, on alien-
as model of power, 14-16, ation, 106n
104, 159n Frankel, Charles
consensus, I 4-16 on the genetic fallacy, 115-
as collective product, 26, 28, 116
33, 44, 46 on Mannheim, 79, 115-116
as elite product, 28, 44, 46, Fromm, Erich, 133
63
see also consensus theory generality, proper level of, 130
consensus theory generalized other
genesis of, 15-16, 141 formation of, 98-103
as model of power, 14-16, meaning of, 96
104, 106, 159n and the perspective, 103
tests of, 147-48 and political interpretation,
constitution, and pluralism, 27 103
control, as ideal of science, 6, 7 and social position, 102-03
cultural apparatus, 106 and values, 109
see also power elite see also perspective
genetic fallacy, 85-86, 114-115
Dahl, Robert see also ideology; perspective
the definition of power, 19 gesture, 94
as ideologist, 24-26, 26-30,
41-48, 106, 113-14, 159n Hampshire, Stuart, clarification
on ideology, 51 of assumptions, 144-45
and responsible inquiry, 153 Hempel, Carl, 157n
testing procedures, 38, 41-48 Holton, Gerald, on intellectual
Dahrendorf, Ralf, 159n responsibility, 124
decision-making Hook, Sidney, on intellectual re-
bias of, 23, 29 sponsibility, 13 2-3 4
and inaction, 135 human nature, Mills on, 34
democracy, classical image of, Hume, David, value questions,
26 123
see also pluralism Hunter, Floyd, 22, 24
desire, defined, 94 on reputation test of power,
determinism, 4 39-40
Mannheim on, 60-61, 101 hypotheses
distortion, see ideology ad hoc, 112-13, 114
Djilas, Milovan, 159n privileging, 110-14
domination, and conceptual dis- tests of, see tests
putes, 111
see also power ideographic ideal, 5
ideology, 15-16, 53, 125-26,
Easton, David, on intellectual 142
responsibility, 125 and action, 118, 121-22, 139,
economic notables, and plural- 151-52
ism, 27 defined, 2, 37, 49, 50-53, 78,
epistemology 142
Mannheim on, 69-74, 83-86 dimensions of, 54, 137-39,
task of, 69-70 143
Eulau, Heinz, on intellectual re- and dogmatism, 138, 140-42,
sponsibility, 124 142-43, 144-46, 154
177 Index
ideology-Continued Lasswell, Harold, on power, 18-
Mannheim on, 59, 62-63, 19, 159n
76-78
and the perspective, 36-37, Maciver, Robert, 159n
61-62, 89-90, 106-107, maladjustment, and alienation,
124, 128, 138, 139-46, 153 106
problem of, 3-4, 56, 78, 87- manipulation, 20, 30, 33-34, 35,
88, 89-90, 110-14 105, 111, see also power
and responsibility, 122, 123- Mannheim, Karl, 11-12, 89-90
25, 126-32, 132-34, 151, and ideal of science, 70-74,
153-55 83-88
and validity, 51, 53, 115-16, and ideology, 45, 57-59, 60,
146-51, 154 62-63, 76-78, 153
indicators, see tests and intellectuals, 63-68, 79-
intellectuals 80, 101-103, 128
defined, 64 and George Herbert Mead,
and the generalized other, 92-93
100-03 and the perspective, 16, 48-
role of, 67, 68-69 (see also 50, 59-60, 103
political scientists) and self-clarification, 141,
as ruling class, 66-67, 79-80, 144, 154
81-82 and social determinism, 60-
social position of, 16-17, 58, 61, 75-76, 92
64-67, 101-02, 145-46 Marcuse, Herbert, 133
issues, as latent, 28, 34 Marx, Karl
see also troubles and ideology, 57-59, 93
and intellectuals, 58
Jennings, Kent, on reputation Mead, George Herbert
test, 40 and the generalized other,
Jones, Ernest, 34 96-103
Jones, Victor, on reputation and language, 94-97
test, 40 and Karl Mannheim, 92-93
meaning, theories of, 95-96
Kaplan, Abraham Meisel, James
definition of power, 18-19 on Mannheim, 80
on responsibility of social on power, 20
scientists, 131-3 2 Merton, Robert, on social basis
Kaufman, Arnold of ideas, 75
on human needs, 160n Mills, C. Wright, 133, 159n
on responsibility, 119, 120 compared to Dahl, 26-30,
Kaufman, Herbert, on reputa- 44-48
tion test, 40 as ideologist, 16-17, 26-30,
Kettler, David, on responsible 31-39, 44-48, 106, 113-
ideology, 166n 114
on ideology, 84, 125, 130,
language 153, 166n
social basis of, 93-97 and power analysis, 19, 22-
as system of control, 94-97 24, 31-38, 160n
see also generalized other Myrdal, Gunnar, 124, 131, 145
Lipset, Seymour
as ideologist, 52 Nagel, Ernest, 72, 84-86, 157n
on ideology, 51 need, defined, 94
178 Index
nomothetic knowledge, § Polanyi, Michael, 158n
see also science Popper, Karl, on problems of
testing, 149
Ossowski, Stanislaw, on con- position, as test of power, 31-
ceptual disputes, 18 38, 47
possibility
Parsons, Talcott, 159n Dahl on, 46-47
as ideologist, 16 Mills on, 35-36, 46-47
on intellectual responsibility, problem of assessing, 36-37
124-25 and reality level, 45
on power, 19 see also tests
participation, as test of power, power
31, 41-48 as central to political in-
particularization of ideologies, quiry, 14, 18, 49
60 conflict model of, 14-16, 19-
personality, and generalized 20
other, 98-103 consensus model of, 14-16,
perspective 19-20
defined, 48, 59-60, 103, 114 definitions of, 18-19, 111
and the generalized other, effects of, 29, 30
103 as passive condition, 22, 30
and the genetic fallacy, 114- test of ( see participation;
15 position; reputation)
and ideology, 9-10, 12, 48- types of, 20-21, 105
50, 71, 79, 89-90,92, 103- power elite, 23, 24, 36, 38
108, 108-114, 114-16, 152 defined by Dahl, 41, 45-46
and the intellectual, 65-66 as ideology, 15-17, 27-30,
self-clarification of, 76, 109- 31-38, 44-48
10, 138, 139-46 as manipulative, 33-35
persuasion, 149 prediction, as goal of science, 6,
pluralism, 24-27, 107 7, 85-86
and competing parties, 25 preference, see troubles
as ideology, 15-17, 27-30, Presthus, Robert, 125
42-48 principia media, 6, 7, 48
and inactive groups, 25, 26 see also science
and majority rule, 26 problematic situation, 8, 137-
political, implicit definition of, 38
108
political science reality level
the classic tradition of, 8-10 and concept construction, 97,
ideals of, 5-8, 83-88, 107- 110-11
08, 128 defined, 45
and ideographic ideal, 5 see also perspective
and nomothetic ideal, 5 relationism, Mannheim on, 70-
and Verstehen, 7-8 73
see also ideology religion, and conceptual dis-
political scientists, 4, 130-31 putes, 16-17
and ideological involvement, reputation, as test of power,
122-32, 135-36 31, 39-40
and public officials, 126-28 responsibility
and value questions, 124, 128 definitions of, 80-81, 82,
see also intellectuals 119-20, 129
179 Index
responsibility-Continued troubles, 29, 33-34, 36, 46, 130,
in ideology construction, 67- 141
69, 116, 132-35, 136, 137- and preferences, 29, 33, 44-
55 45, 107, 120
and intellectuals, 67-69, 79- Tucker, Robert, on Marx's con-
82, 120-21, 123-32, 135- cept of alienation, 106n
36
role taking, 98 unanimity, as criterion of valid-
Russell, Bertrand, definition of ity, 73
power, 18 understanding, as goal of
Schumpeter, Joseph, 159n science, 7-8, 85
science, ideal of, 4-8, 83-88, utopia, Mannheim on, 62-63,
124-25, 128, 129-32 76-78
Scriven, Michael, 153n see also ideology
Shklar, Judith, on ideology,
123 validity
significant others and general- criteria of, 70, 72-74, 154
ized other, 98-99 and relativism, 70-73
significant symbols, develop- values
ment of, 94-95 conflict in, 113, 140
see also language; perspective and facts, 109
social structure, and ideas, 99- role in inquiry, 108-114,
101, 144-46 123-24, 128-29
sociology of knowledge Verstehen, 7-8, 85
and epistemology, 68-74 vocabulary, 104
as field of inquiry, 56, 57-59 see also perspective
and ideal of science, 83-87
see also ideology Waismann, Friedrich, on con-
terror, and repression of issues, ceptual clarity, 115, 165n
44 want, defined, 94
tests, 8-10, 34-36, 48, 83, 86- Winch, Peter, 158n
87, 147-51 Wootton, Barbara, on assessing
of power (see also participa- future possibilities, 37,
tion; position; reputation) 160n

3 - Connolly, William E. - Political Science and Ideology-Routledge (2017)

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

3 - Connolly, William E. - Political Science and Ideology-Routledge (2017)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

POLITICAL

Published 2017 by Routledge

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright © 1967 by Atherton Press.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2006047491

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

ISBN 13: 978-0-202-30851-7 (pbk)

Power and American Politics 21

3 The Sociology of Knowledge I 55

The Sociology of Knowledge and Epistemology 69

Karl Mannheim: An Appraisal 88

4 The Concept of the Perspective I 91

The Perspective and Political Ideology 103

5 Toward Responsible Ideology j 117

upon established knowledge. Decisions of public conse-

we focus on the work of representative political scien-

A deductive-nomological explanation is based on

A third-level aim, falling outside the nomothetic view

as generally conceived, is the "investigation of those

* Thus the form of these laws would be: In culture I, given

There are no impersonal measures available which can

produce the expected messages our perspective is re-

inquiry, it does not, as he (usually) supposed, neces-

flicting interpretations, to reveal some of the strategic

In political inquiry, research is commonly

of them. For example, the Parsonian conception of

THE CONCEPT OF POWER I We must, first of all,

* "It is with this problem of agency in mind that I have been

term would be a center of a conceptual dispute, and

Power is the production of intended effects. 7

My intuitive idea of power, then, is something like

Power we may define as the realistic capacity of a

All of these definitions have certain broad features

vanced. 12 That is, power is conceived as a scarce value,

Power and American Politics

With this preliminary outline of the divergent

relationships are operating? ( 3) How necessary or

THE ELITIST THEORY I When identifying holders

Power has to do with whatever decisions men make

In the United States today the "key" public prob-

The middle levels of power are in drift and stale-

THE PLURALIST THEORY I There is no "power

by free choice, violence, intimidation, or law, the

Dahl, then, like Mills, recognizes that inactive

In this sense the majority (at least of the politically

The fact is that the Economic Notables operate

The elitists and pluralists do agree on some

sidered within each issue area will deviate from the

* Mills' concept of "troubles" has clear affinities to Marx's

Mills construes as part of the power relationship

However power is defined, the empirical investi-

THE METHOD OF FORMAL Pos1TION I To the

binding decisions. They possess high social status in

* Mills' assumptions and ideals are usually stated negatively;

Ours is a time of uneasiness and indifference-not

Fourth, and supporting beliefs three and four, Mills is

It is true, as psychoanalysts continually point out,

Given these empirical claims ( that is, assuming

to a narrow set that falls within the definition of reality

* This is an overstatement of Mills' position, but, I believe,

context of these cherished beliefs that hypothesis gains

THE METHOD OF REPUTATION I The method of

Questions like "who runs things here" already have