9780130497024

This authoritative analysis introduces the key concepts used by contemporary political scientists. Rigorous, concise, and tightly argued, it makes use of everyday and historical examples to illustrate important and challenging conceptual material.Uses the core political phenomenon ofinfluenceas a springboard to explaining politics, government, state, political systems, democracy, and the like. Explores the democratic political system and what has been learned about the conditions that facilitate or undermine democracy. Is updated throughout to treat recent developments in world events and political analysis. Discusses the important differences between democratic and nondemocratic systems.For anyone interested in learning more about how political systems and governments work.

Preface

ix

PART I THE BASICS

Introducing Influence: Examples from the Least to the Most

3

(9)

Examples: From the Least to the Most

4

(5)

The Influence of Citizens in Democratic Countries

9

(3)

What is Influence?

12

(10)

The Absence of Standard Terminology

12

(1)

Influence and Causation

13

(1)

Interests, Desires, and the Definition of Influence

14

(4)

Interests versus Desires

14

(1)

Difficulties in the Concept of Interests

15

(1)

Advantages of Distinguishing Influence from Interest

16

(1)

Definition of Influence

17

(1)

What Do We Mean by More---or Less---Influence?

18

(4)

Distribution of Influence

18

(1)

Gradations of Influence

19

(1)

Scope and Domain of Influence

19

(3)

What is Politics?

22

(5)

The Nature of Politics

22

(2)

The Ubiquity of Politics

24

(3)

What is a Political System? A Government? A State?

27

(7)

Systems and Subsystems

27

(1)

Political System

28

(1)

The Government and the State

29

(3)

Why So Much Attention to Governments and States?

32

(1)

Politics and Economics, Governments and Corporations

32

(2)

Revisiting and Appraising Influence

34

(21)

Explaining Differences in Influence

34

(4)

The Network of Causes

35

(1)

Possibilities and Limits of Influence

36

(2)

Forms of Influence

38

(5)

Inducement and Power

38

(1)

Force and Coercion

39

(1)

Persuasion and Manipulation

40

(1)

Authority

41

(2)

Further Distinctions with Respect to Influence

43

(2)

Control

43

(1)

Domination and Subjection

44

(1)

Manifest and Implicit Influence

44

(1)

Spheres of Decision-Making or Levels of Influence

45

(3)

First and Second Levels of Influence: Available Options and Agendas

45

(1)

Third Level of Influence: Structures

46

(1)

Fourth Level of Influence: Consciousness

47

(1)

Evaluating Forms of Influence

48

(7)

PART II POLITICAL SYSTEMS: SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES

Political Systems: Similarities

55

(10)

Two Extreme Views

56

(1)

Similarities of Political Systems

57

(8)

Uneven Access to Political Resources

57

(1)

Quest for Influence over Government

58

(1)

Uneven Distribution of Influence over Government

59

(1)

Pursuit and Resolution of Conflicting Aims

59

(1)

Acquisition of Legitimacy

60

(1)

Development of an Ideology

61

(1)

Impact of Other Political Systems

62

(1)

Inevitability of Change

63

(2)

Political Systems: Differences

65

(13)

Paths to the Present

66

(1)

Degree of Modernity``

66

(3)

Distribution of Political Resources and Skills

69

(3)

Cleavage and Cohesion

72

(2)

Severity of Conflict

74

(3)

Institutions for Sharing and Exercising Influence and Power

77

(1)

Differences: Polyarchies and Nonpolyarchies

78

(10)

The Emergence of Polyarchy

79

(1)

The Essential Institutions of Polyarchy

79

(2)

The Growth of Polyarchy

81

(1)

Further Differences between Polyarchies and Nonpolyarchies

81

(7)

Civil Rights and Liberties

81

(3)

Pluralism: Autonomy versus Control

84

(1)

Persuasion versus Coercion

85

(1)

Reciprocal versus Unilateral Control

86

(1)

Paths to the Present

86

(2)

Polyarchies and Nonpolyarchies: Explanation

88

(15)

Subordination of the Military

88

(3)

A Supportive Political Culture

91

(1)

A Modern, Dynamic, Pluralist Society

92

(5)

Subcultures

97

(2)

Outside Interference

99

(4)

PART III POLITICAL PARTICIPATION AND POLITICAL EVALUATION

Individuals' Participation in Politics

103

(23)

Why Individuals Do Not Participate in Politics

104

(6)

Why Individuals Do Participate in Politics

110

(9)

Socioeconomic Characteristics

113

(1)

Motives

114

(4)

The Most Influential

118

(1)

Changes in Political Attitudes and Behavior

119

(7)

A Brief Look at the Postmaterialist Younger Generation

121

(1)

A Longer Look at the Case of Women

121

(5)

Political Evaluation

126

(17)

Normative, Empirical, and Conceptual Analyses

126

(1)

How Normative and Empirical Analyses Are Connected

127

(2)

Three Points about Normative Analysis of Politics

129

(3)

An Example of Conceptual Clarification: Rae's Equalities

132

(2)

An Ambitious Contemporary Normative Framework: Rawls's A Theory of Justice

134

(5)

Two Types of Moral Reasoning

134

(2)

Rawls's Procedure

136

(1)

Two Principles of Justice

136

(1)

Criticism of Rawls's Framework

137

(1)

Implications

138

(1)

Conclusion: Plurality of Perspectives, Extraneous Influences, and Arriving at One's Own Framework for Political Evaluation

139

(4)

PART IV POLITICAL ANALYSIS: TO WHAT ENDS?

What Good is Modern Political Analysis?

143

(16)

Political Science?

143

(6)

Strategies of Pure Science

144

(1)

Can Political Phenomena Be Measured?

145

(2)

When Does a Difference ``Make a Difference''?

147

(1)

Basic versus Applied Political Science

147

(2)

Why Political Analysis?

149

(10)

Benefits for Individuals (Micro Level)

149

(2)

Benefits for Political Systems (Macro Level)

151

(1)

Delivering Services in Metropolitan Areas

152

(1)

Designing National Government Institutions

152

(1)

``Democratic Peace''

153

(1)

Designing International Political Institutions

154

(1)

Strategies for Making Decisions

155

(1)

Holistic Strategies

155

(1)

Strategies of Limited Rationality

156

(1)

Experimental Strategies

157

(2)

Index

159

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This sixth edition of Modern Political Analysisappears more than a decade after its immediate predecessor and in the early years of a new century and new millennium. Notwithstanding the passage of years and accompanying political events--of which the audacious terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, are surely among the most prominent--this new edition of Modern Political Analysisreaffirms enduring perspectives on the nature of politics and how contemporary political scientists analyze it. Even so, this edition, marked by the addition of a co-author (Bruce Stinebrickner) to work with the original author (Robert A. Dahl), reflects a thorough revision of what has gone before. Our treatment of influence and the nature of politics in Part I has been substantially revised and reordered to make it more easily grasped by student readers. Chapter 1 describes people in different situations of influence, ranging from those with virtually no influence over others to enormously powerful figures like Hitler and Stalin. Only after these historical accounts in Chapter 1 do we treat in more abstract fashion the central concept of influence and its relationship to politics and associated phenomena in the remaining four chapters in Part I. The four chapters that constitute Part II treat similarities and differences among the world''s political systems and generally parallel the approach used in the fifth edition. However, the demise of the Soviet Union since that previous edition has reshaped the political landscape in a large part of the world and significantly increased the number of sovereign states on this planet, all of which is reflected in relevant tables and figures presented in Chapters 8 and 9. Yet our analysis in Chapter 9 confirms that earlier editions'' overarching approach to the factors that facilitate democracy in national political systems has stood the test of time. In this context, we wish to thank Sunil K. Sahu, a colleague of Stinebrickner at DePauw University, and Michael Coppedge of the University of Notre Dame, a former graduate student of Dahl at Yale, for their help in revising various sections of Part II. Professor Sahu suggested many bibliographic and data sources relevant to our analysis in Chapters 6 through 9, while Professor Coppedge provided insights that assisted in the construction of the "polyarchy index" that underlies Figures 9-1 and 9-2. The two chapters that make up Part III have both been substantially revised, but in different ways. While the outline of the analysis of political participation in Chapter 10 is largely the same as in the fifth edition, we have refined and streamlined the argument in several respects and updated the bibliographic citations in light of relevant research that has become available since the fifth edition. We would be remiss not to mention our mutual friend David R. Mayhew of Yale University for his assistance in pointing us to recent important research on political participation. Professor Mayhew was Stinebrickner''s Ph.D. dissertation advisor at Yale in the 1970s and is a longtime departmental colleague of Dahl, and both of us are grateful to him for his characteristically knowledgeable and timely help. Our revision of Chapter 11, which treats political evaluation, is an attempt to simplify and clarify the arguments) so as to make the main points more accessible to student readers. We conclude the book in Part IV by blending old and new material in a new chapter entitled "What Good Is Modern Political Analysis?" In that chapter we incorporate recent work by political scientists suggesting how political science can and does have applicability and relevance outside the academic world. We would also like to thank the following reviewers: Michael C. Downs, Indiana University-Purdue University; Clarissa Peterson-DePauw University; and Robert Price-University of California, Berkeley. Before we sent our manuscript to Prentice Hall, Kelsey Kauffman undertook to read and reformat the entire draft. Her fresh eyes caught a number of errors, and we would like to thank her for her timely editorial assistance. We are painfully aware that on everything said in this book there is much more to be said. From the first edition to the present, however, Modern Political Analysis has been intended to be a short book. It would have been much easier to write a longer one. To keep the book close to its original size, when adding new sections we have usually deleted old ones. No reader will, we hope, regard this book as more than an introduction to a world of experience as complex as it is fascinating. Robert A. Dahl and Bruce Stinebrickner

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Modern Political Analysis

Modern Political Analysis

0130497029

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