Chapter 1 Introduction
1 The three theoretical levels or discourses of this book
2 Structure of the argument
Chapter 2 An American prologue
1 The absence of immediate intellectual inspirations and examples
2 Some remarks on the historical context
2.1 The Great Crash and the New Deal
2.2 The Keynesian paradigm
2.3 The post war reconsideration of market and politics
2.4 Thinking out a better social order
3 Political and philosophical background
3.1 A self-evident liberal political context
3.2 Ethical pluralism and liberalism
3.3 Pragmatism as a way of life
4 Pluralist forerunners
4.1 The long-established pivotal role of social organizations in America
4.2 The etatism of nineteenth-century political science
4.3 The pluralist critique of Harold Laski and others on etatism
4.4 Arthur F. Bentley put on an overstated pedestal
4.5 Earl Latham on the never ending power struggle between groups
4.6 David B. Truman
4.6.1 Inevitable interest groups in an open society
4.6.2 Overlapping memberships and potential interest groups
4.6.3 Political stability proves an adequate promotion of interests
4.6.4 Proposals to lighten the dark sides of interest groups
5 Worries about electoral political incompetence
5.1 The psychological discourse during the interbellum
5.2 Political science necessitates a new democratic theory
5.3 Deweyism as democratic theory
5.4 Postwar empirical research on electoral competence
5.5 Bernard Berelson on beneficial political indifference
6 Making up the balance
Chapter 3 Foreign Policy and Political Incompetence
1 Three principles of democratic decision making
2 The pressures on Congressmen and their shortcomings
3 Three ways to improve the existing decision making
4 Why the choice of means cannot be delegate to experts
5 The advancement of political competence
6 Needed reforms of the political system: party government
7 Balance: the emancipation dilemma
Chapter 4 A shared point of departure
1 The right social techniques and the end of ideology
2 Seven widely shared ends for rational social action
3 Calculation and control as conditions of rational social action
3.1 Four processes of calculation
3.2 Four techniques of control
4 The price system
4.1 How businessmen are controlled via the price mechanism
4.2 Market and socialism can be combined
5 Hierarchy
5.1 Bureaucracy and the reasons and causes of its dissemination
5.2 The unavoidable costs of indispensible bureaucracies
5.3 The primacy of politics
6 Polyarchy
6.1 Polyarchy as the solution of the first problem of politics
6.2 The social conditions of polyarchy
6.2.1 Social indoctrination in the suitability of democracy
6.2.2 Social consensus on fundamental values
6.2.3 A high level of social pluralism
6.2.4 A relatively high measure of political participation
6.2.5 Circulation of leaders
6.2.6 Social security, equality and literacy
6.2.7 Some indefensible arguments against levelling of incomes
7 Bargaining
7.1 Its consequences for the rationality and responsiveness of politics
7.2 Party Government as a way to cope with the drawbacks of bargaining
8 Hierarchy and polyarchy versus the price system
8.1 Some technical shortcomings of polyarchy and hierarchy
8.2 Some shortcomings of the price system
8.2.1 The manipulation of the citizen by the economic and political elite
8.2.2 The socially narrow view of market choices
8.3 Efficiency and the innovative potential of public and private organizations
9 Bargaining versus the price system
9.1 co-management and the illegitimacy of private ownership
9.2 A prelude to the debate on neocorporatism: national bargaining
10 Improved techniques to realize the project of the Enlightenment
10.1 The end of classical liberalism and of socialism
10.2 The planning of personalities
11 Provisional conclusions
11.1 Interdisciplinarity, scientific progress and naïveté
11.2 The reception of Politics, Economics, and Welfare
11.3 The endless ‘end of ideology’ –movement
11.4 Modernization and the end of Big politics
11.5 The spirit of the age by Weber, Mannheim and Schumpeter
11.5.1 Schumpeter, and Dahl and Lindblom
11.5.2 Mannheim and Dahl
Chapter 5 The behavioralist mood
1 The breeding ground of behavioralism
1.1 Bentley, Wallas and Merriam
1.2 German refugees, social and political irrelevance, funds, and more
1.3 The influence of Popperian epistemological notions
2 The state and the prospects of political science according to David Easton
2.1 Facts, petty facts and petty laws
2.2 The need for theories
2.3 Is it possible to transform political studies into a genuine science?
2.4 The unfulfilled task of normative political theory
2.5 The potention of equilibrium theory in political science
3 Dahl’s critique of old and new political science
4 Lindblom’s praise of modern-day political knowledge
5 An epitaph to a successful protest
5.1 A plain depiction of behavioralism
5.2 The accomplishments of behavioralism
5.3 The future of political science: picking up the pieces
6 Some preliminary observations on behavioralism
6.1 The dearth of epistemological reflection
6.2 Building up from scratch?
6.3 Building to the skies?
6.4 Behaviorism versus behavioralism: merely sensory perceptions?
6.5 Against political philosophy?
6.6 Economic theory of democracy, equilibrium and rational choice
Chapter 6 A logical analysis of polyarchy
1 A preface to a democratic theory
1.1 Democracy according to James Madison
1.2 Populist democracy
1.3 An attainable alternative: polyarchy
1.4 The limited significance of constitutional safeguards against tyranny
1.5 Minorities govern within borders crafted by majorities
2 Some comments to a preface
2.1 Symbolism and deductive logic
2.2 Natural rights or a decision-procedure
2.3 Normative assumptions and political science
2.4 Dahl’s growing economic individualism
Chapter 7 Empirical research into the polyarchy
1 Research on the distribution of power
1.1 The debate between elitists and pluralists
1.2 The definition of and the research on power
1.3 Dahl’s study of New Haven
1.3.1 Pivotal questions and research methods
1.3.2 Indirect influence of the apolitical stratum
1.3.3 Five patterns of leadership
1.3.4 Specialized influence and dispersed inequalities
1.3.5 How an active minority watches over democracy
1.3.6 The shifting reception of Who Governs?
2 A fulfilled democracy or a contented political scientist?
2.1 Democracy as a method of conflict management
2.2 Pluralism instead of majority decisions
2.3 Social consensus as a condition of existence of democracy
2.3.1 The broad social consensus in the United States
2.3.2 All Americans have the same political ideology
2.4 Political parties and voters
2.4.1 The irrelevance of undemocratic decision making in political parties
2.4.2 Parties and the rationality of public decision making
2.4.3 The rationality of the electorate
2.5 Four strategies to influence political decision making
2.5.1 Why is there no American socialist party?
2.5.2 Social pluralism obstructs the formation of a collective will
3 Comparative research into the conditions of existence of polyarchies
3.1 The characteristics of a polyarchy
3.2 Social economic development explains little
3.3 Social inequality is no obstacle to political stability
3.4 Preferably from greater public contestation to greater inclusion
3.5 The absence of sharp social cleavages
3.6 The importance of a dissemination of the democratic creed
3.6.1 Specific beliefs advancing polyarchy
3.6.2 The origin of political beliefs
3.7 The slim possibilities to transform hegemonies into polyarchies
4 Excursion: the poor Civil Society of the Czech Republic
Chapter 8 Passionate pleas for democratic participation
1 The participants, their complaints and their favorite opponents
2 The classical theory: ideal or reality?
3 Suspect thinking on ‘systems’
4 Angst for ideology, participation and social change
5 The unrecognized dynamic character of the classical theory
6 The elitism of the pluralists and their blindness for social disaffection
7 Dahl’s defense against accusations of elitism
8 Carole Pateman on economic democracy and Schumpeter
9 The costs of democratic participation and deliberation
10 Dahl’s reaction to the democratization movement
10.1 The justification of authority and the costs of participation
10.2 A commune is not a nation
10.3 Social inequality obstructs genuine democracy
10.4 The corporate leviathan and a plea for market socialism
10.5 The democratic leviathan and the gap between politicians and citizens
10.5.1 Establishing advisory councils for elected officials
10.5.2 The obsolete and unbearable megalopolis
10.5.3 The planning of new cities
11 How democratization evolves into neopopulism
11.1 Political participation and public or particularistic interest
11.2 Participation via internet and referendums: at last citizens become boss?
12 The influence of Schumpeter on postwar democratic theory
12.1 Two interpretations of Schumpeter and pluralism
12.2 Schumpeter, the pluralists and economic democratic theory
12.3 Do pluralists have normative criteria?
12.4 Is competition between leaders what pluralism is all about?
12.5 Pateman and the need to read the authentic texts
Chapter 9 Power & powerlessness in the polyarchy
1 Power: some theoretical notions
1.1 Dimensions of power
1.2 Do people have ‘real’ interests?
1.3 Troubles with the radical conception of power
2 Unheard voices
2.1 Matthew Crenson investigates the un-politics of air pollution
2.2 Michael Parenti’s perspective from below
2.3 Lewis Lipsitz’ grievances of the poor
3 William Domhoff on the American ruling class
3.1 Political and methodological assumptions
3.2 Four ways to exercise power
3.3 New Haven too is ruled by an elite
4 Dahl’s casual and implicite answer to critique on Who Governs?
5 The right of political science and the political victory of the right
6 How the American social and political system perverted
7 The manufacture of consent and the ideology of the winners
8 The emancipation dilemma again
Chapter 10 Epistemological qualms
1 A wild garden of grievances
2 Core points of critique
3 Dahl’s distance and contentment in the fifties and sixties
4 How models or paradigms construct observations
4.1 Metafysical, epistemological and ethical assumptions
4.2 Views of man and society, and their origin
4.3 Neutrality in the political sciences
4.4 To expect and to investigate consensus or conflict
4.5 Unbalanced thinking within the equilibrium model
4.6 reinforcing agreed upon theories through our behavior
5 Natural versus human sciences
5.1 Dahl’s modest research results and the causes of these
5.2 Positivism and positive political freedom
5.3 The interpretative method as an alternative
5.4 Are significant, complex events as a rule unique?
5.5 Flaws of the scientific and interpretative method
5.6 Customary scientific work and quality
Chapter 11 Modern politics and modern political science
1 Behavioralism, relevance en relativism
1.1 Dahl’s rejoinder
1.2 Brecht, Weber and scientific value relativism
1.3 Rationalization and the actual withdrawal from the sphere of values
2 The naturalist conception of politics: Bay on pseudo politics
3 The petty political opposition of the counter culture against small politics
3.1 A growing discontent in a modernizing society
3.2 The innocence of Charles A. Reich
3.2.1 Current social problems
3.2.2 Our temporary lack of social consciousness
3.2.3 The Corporate State sinks into its own contradictions
3.2.4 The mind-expansions of a new generation
3.2.5 The revolution of the mind
4 Political powerlessness and the revolution that failed to appear
5 Robert Lane and the loss of happiness in market democracies
5.1 An epidemic of depressions, distrust and alienation
5.2 The hedonic treadmill and the famine of interpersonal relations
5.3 The way home
6 An old fashioned answer to modern social problems?
6.1 Dahl’s struggle with the naturalist conception of politics
6.2 Big and genuine politics