Daily Times

In the context of civil-military relations in Pakistan, some quarters overreact about the interference of military in matters of the state, although the role of military in any political system is normal and understandable.

According to Max Weber, Power is the ability to exercise one’s will over others. To put it another way, whoever can control the behavior of others is exercising power. Power relations can involve large organizations, small groups, or even people in an intimate association.

There are three basic sources of power within any political system; force, influence, and authority. The term, authority refers to institutionalized power that is recognized by the people over whom it is exercised. A person’s authority is often limited.

Who really holds power in the United States? Do the people genuinely run the country through elected representatives? Or is it true that behind the scenes, a small group of the elite controls both the government and the economic system?

It is difficult to determine the location of power in a society as complex as the United States. In exploring this critical question, social scientists have developed two basic views of a nation’s power structure: the power elite and the pluralist models. Karl Marx believed that the 19th century representative democracy was essentially a sham. He argued that industrial societies were dominated by relatively small numbers of people who owned factories and controlled natural resources.

Several social scientists insist that power in the United States is shared more widely than the elite models indicate. In their view, a pluralist model more accurately describes the nation’s political system. According to the pluralist model, many competing groups within the community have access to the government, so that no single group is dominant

In Marx’s view, government officials and military leaders were essentially servants of this capitalist class and followed their wishes. Therefore, any key decisions made by politicians inevitably reflected the interests of the dominant bourgeoisie.

Like others who hold an elite model of power relations, Marx believed that society is ruled by a small group of individuals who share a common set of political and economic interests.

Sociologist C Wright Mills took this model a step further in his pioneering work ‘The Power Elite’. Mills described a small group of military, industrial, and government leaders who controlled the fate of the United States-the power elite; power rested in the hands of a few, both inside and outside government.

A pyramid illustrates the power structure of the United States in Mill’s model. At the top are the corporate rich, leaders of the executive branch of the government, and the heads of military (Whom Mills called the “warlords”). Directly below are local opinion leaders, members of the legislative branch of government, and leaders of special-interest groups.

Mills contended that these individuals and groups would basically follow the wishes of the dominant power elite. At the bottom of the pyramid are unorganized exploited masses.

The power elite model is, in many respects, similar to the work of Karl Marx. The most striking difference is that Mills believed that the economically powerful coordinate their maneuvers with the military and political establishments to serve their common interests yet, reminiscent of Marx, Mills argued that the corporate rich were perhaps the most powerful element of the power elite (first among ‘equals’). And the powerless masses at the bottom of Mills’s power elite model certainly bring to mind Marx’s portrait of the oppressed workers of the world, who have ‘nothing to lose but their chains’

There is another model known as Domhoff’s Model. Over the last three decades, sociologist G William Domhoff, co-author of the chapter-opening excerpt from ‘Diversity in the Power Elite’, has agreed with Mills that powerful elite runs the United States.

He finds that it is still largely White, male, and upper class, as he wrote in his book with Richard L Zweigenhaft. But Domhoff stresses the role played both by elites of the corporate community and by the leaders of policy-formation organizations such as chambers of commerce and labor unions. Many of the people in both groups are also members of the social upper class.

While these groups overlap, they do not necessarily agree on specific policies. Domhoff notes that in the electoral arena, two different coalitions have exercised influence. A corporate-conservative coalition has played a large role in both political parties, generating support for particular candidates through direct-mail appeals. A liberal-labor coalition is based in unions, local environmental organisations, and a segment of the minority group community, liberal churches, and the university and arts communities.

Marx believed that society is ruled by a small group of individuals who share a common set of political and economic interests

Several social scientists insist that power in the United States is shared more widely than the elite models indicate. In their view, a pluralist model more accurately describes the nation’s political system. According to the pluralist model, many competing groups within the community have access to government, so that no single group is dominant.

The pluralist model suggests that a variety of groups play a significant role in decision making. Typically, pluralists make use of intensive case studies or community studies based on observation research.

One of the most famous — an investigation of decision making in New Haven, Connecticut was reported by Robert Dahl. Dahl found that although the number of people involved in any important decision was rather small, community power was nonetheless diffused. Few political actors exercised decision-making power on all issues. One individual or group might be influential in a battle over urban renewal but at the same time have little impact on educational policy.

The pluralist model, however, has not escaped serious questioning. Domhoffre examined Dahl’s study of decision making in New Haven and argued that Dahl and other pluralists had failed to trace how local elites who were prominent in decision making were part of a larger national ruling class.

In addition, studies of community power, such as Dahl’s work in New Haven, can examine decision making only on issues that become part of the political agenda. They fail to address the possible power of elites to keep certain matters entirely out of the realm of government debate.

Dianne Pinderhughes has criticized the pluralist model for failing to account for the exclusion of African Americans from the political process. Drawing on her studies of Chicago politics, Pinderhughes points out that the residential and occupational segregation of Blacks and their long political dis-enfranchisement violates the logic of pluralism which would hold that such a substantial minority should always have been influential in community decision making.

This critique applies to many cities across the United States, where other large racial and ethnic minorities, among them Asian Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Mexican Americans, are relatively powerless. The problems encountered by African American voters in Florida in the 2000 election bear out this critique of the pluralist model.

Historically, pluralists have stressed ways in which large numbers of people can participate in or influence governmental decision making. New communications technologies like the Internet are increasing the opportunity to be heard, not just in countries such as the United States but in developing countries the world over.

One common point of the elite and pluralist perspectives stands out, however: “in the political system of the United States, power is unequally distributed. All citizens may he equal in theory, yet those who are high in the nation’s power structure are more equal.” New communications technology may or may not change that distribution of power.

The writer is a former Director, National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA), Government of Pakistan, a political analyst, a public policy expert and an author. His book Post 9/11 Pakistan was published in the United States

Published in Daily Times, May 29^th 2018.