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    Power in New Haven: A Reassessment of 'Who Governs?'Author(s): Peter MorrissReviewed work(s):Source: British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 2, No. 4 (Oct., 1972), pp. 457-465Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/193412.

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    B.J.Pol.S. 2,457-465Printed nGreatBritain

    Power in New Haven: a Reassessment of'Who Governs?'PETER MORRISS*

    One of the issues that has dominatedAmericanpolitical science in the last twentyyears has been the debate between those who assert that America is ruled by anelite, and those who believethat thepluralistmodel is a moreaccuratedescription.Robert Dahl, who is the most influential of the pluralists,has attacked 'elitists' ontwo fronts: negatively,he has arguedthat they misperceivethe nature of power'and are sloppy in their criteria for determininga rulingelite ;2 positively, in WhoGoverns?,3he has attemptedto apply his own conceptualization of power to anAmerican community and thus give empiricalbacking to the pluralistmodel.There is now a considerable literaturediscussing Dahl's conceptual work onpower,4which I do not wish to consider. The application of the concept in WhoGoverns? however, has received little critical attention. In this essay I shallhave two main purposes: to examine how faithful Who Governs? is to Dahl'searlierconceptualwork, and to assesswhetherthe evidencepresented n the bookdemonstratesthat New Haven is a pluralistdemocracy(or, rather,was when theresearchtook place).It is central to Dahl's conception of a power relationshipthat, if it can be saidto exist, a change must have been produced.What Dahl is sayingis that at time tthe situation of the relevant actors in the systemwas x, at time t' the situation wasx', but if A had not mobilized some of his resources into the power relationshipit would have been x at time t'; x' and x are not the same, thereforea powerrelationship existed. Thus in Dahl's traffic example,5 when the man stands atthe side of the (American)road and commands all the cars to drive on the right,

    * Departmentof Government,Universityof Manchester.R. A. Dahl, 'The Concept of Power', Behavioral Science, nI(1957), 20I-I5.2 R. A. Dahl, 'A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model', American Political Science Review, Ln(1958), 463-9.3 R. A. Dahl, Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City (New Haven: YaleUniversityPress,1961).4 See, for example,P. Bachrachand M. Baratz,'Two Faces of Power',AmericanPoliticalScience Review, LVI 1962), 947-52. P. Bachrach and M. Baratz, 'Decisions and Nondecisions:An Analytical Framework', AmericanPolitical Science Review, LVI (1963), 632-42. J. H. Nagel,'Some Questions About the Concept of Power', Behavioral Science, xmI(1968), 129-37. W. H.Riker, 'Some Ambiguities in the Notion of Power', American Political Science Review, Lvm(1964), 34I-9. D. H. Wrong, 'Some Problems defining Social Power', American Journal ofSociology, LXXII (1967-8), 673-8I. For a view similar to Dahl's see N. W. Polsby, 'How to StudyCommunity Power: The Pluralist Alternative', Journal of Politics, xxn (I960), 474-84.5 Dahl, 'TheConceptof Power',p. 202.

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    458 MORRISSand they do, he has exercised no power because they would have driven on therightanyway - x' and x are identical;when the policeman orders trafficto turnright at an intersection he is exercising power because some of the cars wouldotherwisehave driven straightacross the intersection- x' and x are different.There are obviously difficulties n this approach, because x and x' are directlyobservablewhilst x is, by definition, not. Nevertheless, one of the first steps thatone would expect Dahl to make when applyinghis conceptualizationof power isto try to obtain some idea of what people would have done in the absence of A,the actorwhosepoweris under test. Surprisingly,he does not adoptthis approach.In his early discussion of senatorial power,6Dahl abandoned all hope of dis-covering either x (the situation before the lobbying started) or x (the vote thatwould have occurredhad individual Senators refrained from lobbying), insteadconsideringthat people who won out at x' were the most powerful. Dahl recog-nized thatthis was not in agreementwith his conceptualizationa fewpagesearlier,but pleaded that this was because x and x were, in practice, unobtainable. Icannot see why these cannot be discovered, given sufficient research time: if,that is, the idea of Senators having power over each other in the absence of allother political forces has any meaning - about which I have grave doubts. Atany rate, there is far more involved here than that 'the formal concept of powerhas been subtly altered in the process of research'7:the whole principle of theconcept has been ignored.

    A possible reason for this muddle is that Dahl is confusing two senses of theterm 'power' that are possible under his definition. The first is that A is morepowerfulthan B if he can get B to do thingsthat he would not otherwisehavedone,and B cannot influenceA back. In this sense SenatorA would have power overSenator B if Senator A could successfully lobby Senator B, and cause him tochange the way he intended to vote. The second sense is that A is more powerfulthan B with respect to a third party C if the set of things that A can get C to docontains the set of things that B can get C to do, and more.Now if we assume that any bill that the Senatepasseswill modify the behaviourof a considerable number of individuals (by, for example, changing the law andthus making a certainnumber of citizens amend their behaviour in orderto staywithin the law - or sending a number of people to gaol), at first glance it wouldappearthat a Senator who had voted for the majorityhad helped changepeople'sbehaviour,whilst a Senatorwho voted againsthad not. This is what Dahl appearsto mean by power over 'the Senate' rather than Senators.On this readingSenatorA', who voted on the winningside but failed to persuadeanybodyelse to do so, ismore powerful with respect to the general public or the Senate, but not withrespect to Senators, than Senator B', who persuadedfive people to vote on thelosing side. But if we look closer we find that SenatorA' can only be said to bepowerful if, wereit not for him, the bill would not have beenpassed: if his was thedecisive vote on which the fate of the bill depended. So merely voting for thewinning side is not enough as a test of power; one must also show that if this6 Dahl, 'The Concept of Power', pp. 209-14.7 Dahl, 'TheConceptof Power',p. 212.

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    Power in New Haven: A Reassessmentof' Who Governs?' 459Senator had not voted for the bill it would have failed; if the bill would havepassed even if the Senator had stayedin bed we could hardlycall him influential.In general,if there is a ballot with all the votes in before the votes arecounted, onecan claim to be decisive only if the majorityin one's favour is one vote (or some-times two, since voting the other way would have produced a tie). In the case ofSenatorA ,who voted for the winningside and also persuadedone other Senatorto change his mind and vote for that side, he can be considered to have had adecisive influence on the bill if he was in a majority of four or less (or three ifSenator B intended to abstain before SenatorA persuadedhim to vote for hisside). And so on. If anybody ever did such an exercise as this he would end upwith two lists: one measuring power over other Senators, the other measuringpower overthe outcome of bills or the Senate. The two lists could well be differentto each other, and neither need bear any resemblanceto Dahl's.In his analysisof power within the Senate,Dahl made it quiteclearthat he wasonly concerned with decisions taken within the confines of the Senate; in WhoGoverns?,however, Dahl was studyingthe distributionof power in New Haven.Yet he still concentrated almost entirelyon decision-makingwithin the legislativeand administrativebodies, so that the two measures of power were still open tohim: power over other officials, or over the citizens of New Haven. There is asimilar concentration on winning decisions as opposed to changing people'sbehaviour, but in a slightly differentway. This time he writes that 'a rough testof a person's overt or covert influence is the frequencywith which he successfullyinitiates an important policy over the opposition of others, or vetoes policiesinitiated by others, or initiates a policy where no opposition appears.'8Dahlappears to have decided that merely supporting the winning side is not enoughto be called powerful; in this he is, of course, quite right. But to call the personwho initiates or vetoes a policy powerful is not right either.9 It seems odd toinclude the initiation of a policy where no opposition appears, for the wholepoint about Dahl's definition of power is that changing somebody's behaviouris involved. Just as it does not requirestrengthto swim with the tide, it does notrequire power to initiate a unanimousproposal.The more crucial point is why initiating a proposal should be thought soimportant. For, as I have argued, the really powerful person is not one whomerely votes on the winning side, nor necessarily the person who initiates theproposal, but the person whose approval is essentialfor the proposal to pass (orthe opposition to succeed).We all know that the presenterof a measuremay notbe the power behind it. Consider for examplethepracticeof a government'susingPrivate Members' Bills to introduce measures into the House of Commons thatit supports but to which, for various reasons, it does not wish to put its name;

    8 Dahl, Who Governs?, p. 66.9WhilstDahl doesnotsaywhathemeansby 'vetoes',I understandt tomeanthat oneperson,or at least a minority,successfullypreventsa measurebeing passed.Althoughsomebodywhovetoes a policyis undoubtedlypowerful, wouldhavethoughtthat thecounterpart f success-fully initiatinga policyis successfullynitiatingoppositionto it. Butperhaps hat is whatDahlmeant.

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    460 MORRISSthat such a bill passes may be less because of the dynamismof the presenterthanbecause it has governmentbacking.10To initiate a policy, then, is not a test of power because to initiate a policysuccessfullyis not necessarilyto alterthe behaviourof any memberof the legisla-ture or administration; neither need it alter the behaviour of any citizen if thepolicy could have been initiated successfully by someone else. In WhoGoverns?,just as in his study of Senators, Dahl does not attempt to show either that anypolitical official'sbehaviour had beenchanged,orto discoverbyhow muchcitizens'behaviour had been alteredby the policy decisions.Thereis, in WhoGoverns?,hardly any mention of what the decisionswere,whothey affected, and by how much. Even in the issue area of urban redevelopmentthere is no mention of how the city centre was being redeveloped, and who waslikely to benefitfrom its redevelopment.The receivingend of the power relation-ship, as it were, is left unexplored.Because of this gap in the research,Dahl is unable to comparethe importanceof different decisions, and so he has to assume that all decisions are equallyimportant, and to 'consider one participant as more influential than another ifthe relative frequency of his successes out of all successes is higher, or the ratioof his successes to his total attemptsis higher '' rrespectiveof on which decisionshe was successful, or unsuccessful. A moment's thought would convince anyonethat all decisions arenot equally important(particularly f one includes decisionson which therewas no opposition), and that perhapssuccessin one largedecisionis a sign of more power than success in many differentlittle ones. Dahl is hereaggregatingdecisions in a way flatly incompatiblewith his work in 'The Conceptof Power',in whichhe consideredthat, strictly speaking,notwo decisionsaffectingdifferentpeople, or affectingthem in differentways could be consideredequal orranked in order of importance.'2 In WhoGoverns? he gives no reasons for be-lieving that all decisions are equally important; which is not surprisingfor, ofcourse, there are none.The importance of these changes in operationalizingpower can be shown byexamining the three issues Dahl chose to examine in New Haven. They are theurbanredevelopmentprogramme,decisions overpublic education, and decisionsovercandidateswithin the two majorparties. Theywere chosen because 'Nomina-tions determinewhichpersonswill hold public office. The New Haven redevelop-ment program measuredby its cost - presentand potential - is the largestin thecountry.Publiceducation, asidefrom its intrinsicimportance,is the costliest itemin the city's budget.'13 Are these reasonsjustifiable?

    10For example,SidneySilverman'sbill abolishinghangingwas heading or failure until thegovernment earrangedhe orderof business o ensure hat it passed. SidneySilvermanwasanenergeticMP, buthedid not havethepowerto gethis bill throughon his own; he had to havegovernmentupport.Dahl, Who Governs?, p. 333.12 Althoughhe conceded that sometimes n research comparable'decisions could be con-sideredtogether,criteria or comparabilitydependingon the subject-matter f the research.See Dahl, 'The Concept of Power', pp. 205-9.13Dahl, Who Governs?, p. 64.

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    Power in New Haven: A Reassessmentof' WhoGoverns?' 461Clearly, nominations are important only if being a public official greatlyincreases one's power, and if it makes a considerable differenceto the way the

    city is governed which individuals hold public offices. This is one of the thingsthat a pluralistmodel asserts and a rulingelite one denies, so that the selection ofthis issue is biased, unless it is first established that political officials are im-portant. If they are, it is necessaryto investigatewho put them there; if they arenot, there is no point botheringwith investigatingthem. So the relevanceof thisissue depends on the findingsof the other two.The two other issues are both judged important because of their cost. Now ifthere were a ruling elite, it would have decided which issues were important andwould have spent money on them; it would also have decided that certain issueswere unimportant,or did not serve the rulingelite's interest,and would not havespent much money on them. For an investigatorto choose issues by the amountof money spent on them is, then, to accept the hypothesized rulingelite's criteriaof relevance;it is, in effect,to ask the rulingelite which issues they thinkare mostimportantand then only to investigatethose that theysuggest.Thereforea believerin the ruling elite would not accept that these two issues are necessarilythe mostimportant.Neither should Dahl. For in his conceptualizationof power, the importanceofan issue is measuredby the number of people whose behaviouris changed. Thismay coincide with the amount of money that is being spent on the issue, but thereis no a priorireason to believethatit will do. If Dahl hadinvestigatedNew Haven'spolitics in the first half of the I950Sinstead of the second half, and had investi-gated the two issues on which most money was being spent, he would not haveinvestigatedurbanredevelopment,which had not started at the beginningof theperiod. But the need for urban redevelopmentwas almost as great in 1950 as itwas in 1955- the problemdid not spring up overnight- so that, by Dahl's criteria,if the issue was importantin 1955it was also importantin 1950.ThereforeDahl,had he researched n 1950, should have investigatedthe decision (or non-decisionif one prefers) not to start an urban redevelopment programme; the evidencefrom WhoGoverns?is that he would not have done so. We may well suspectthatthere were programmesthat, had they been initiated in 1955, would have beenas important as urban redevelopment- a massive slum clearance scheme in theghetto, for example.14It would have told us a lot about power in New Haven had Dahl looked for

    14Dahl almosttotally ignoresNegroesin WhoGoverns?.He does bringthemin sometimes,as when he writes hat'like othergroups n thecommunity,romNegroeson DixwellAvenuetoteachers n the public schools, sometimes he Notables have theirwayand sometimes heydonot' (WhoGoverns?, . 75).A critic,afterquotingthis,comments it doesnot appear,however,that any decision-maker n the years 1950-7 was a Negro' (C. T. Burtenshaw, The PoliticalTheory of Pluralist Democracy', WesternPolitical Quarterly, xxi (1968), 579-80). Most of theimportant ssues that came to a headin the earlysixties wereconcernedwith the treatmentofNegroes- for example,busing,and a disputeabout integratinghousingestates(W. L. Miller,The Fifteenth Ward and the Great Society (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966)). That the Negroesthemselves elt left out is demonstratedbythesevereriotsin the summerof 1968.Riots are notusually part of a pluralist model.

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    462 MORRISSsuch issues, and studied why there was such a small expenditureon them. Thatwould have been the best way of choosing issues that would enable us to decidebetween the pluralist and ruling elite models, within a decision-making frame-work.But Dahl should not have chosen urban redevelopment as an issue to studyat all. For if we are to believehis descriptionof it, there was hardly any oppositionto Mayor Lee's development programme, or disagreementwith it.15 As I havealreadyargued,to carrya proposal againstwhich thereis no opposition is not tobe powerful.There are other reasons why Dahl's choice of issues is unfortunate.As one ofthe main differencesbetweenpluralistand rulingelite models is over the amountof influence that business leaders have over political decisions, a test betweenthe two models should choose issues in which both business and other groupswere interested in order to ascertain their relative power. Unfortunately, Dahldoes not do this. As he notes:Most Social Notablesand manyEconomicNotableslivingin New Haven sendtheirchildrento private schools; as a consequence heir interest n the publicschools isordinarily ather light... Moreover,o holdoffice n thepartiesor in publiceducationonemust,with a fewexceptions,have aresidencenNewHaven,andmanyof the Econ-omic Notableslive in thesuburbs.16Further,businessinterests,as distinct from individual business leaders(and Dahldoes not seem to recognize the distinction, as the above quotation illustrates),are not likely to be much affected by decisions on public schools nor, an elitistwould argue, by changes in the people who fill public offices. Urban redevelop-ment is left, then, as the only issue about which businessmen are likely to haveany interest.When considering Dahl's conclusions in this area we come up against amajor inconsistency between his conceptualization of power and his treatmentof pluralism - the role of anticipated reactions.17This suggests that A can behighly influential without himselfacting if B chooses his actions with referencetothe reactions that he anticipates A will have to them. The pluralist model, asDahl advances it, demands not only the absence of a governingelite but also thepossibility that any group can gain entry into the political arena; at the veryleast, leaders have to bear in mind constantly the possibility that if they offendcertain groups they may be voted out of office at the next election.'8 This boils

    5 Dahl, Who Governs?, Chap. IO,particularly pp. 136-7.16 Dahl, Who Governs?, pp. 70-I.17 This term was first coined by C. J. Friedrich in Constitutional Government and Politics(New York andLondon:Harper&Brothers,1937),pp. I6-I8.18Dahl does not definepluralism n any one place, but dropshints widely throughouthiswritings: see R. A. Dahl, Pluralist Democracy in the United States: Conflictand Consent(Chicago:

    McNally, 1967) passim, particularly pp. 24, 105, i68, 325-7, 374-9; Dahl, Who Governs?,passim, particularly pp. 169, 228, 283, 305; R. A. Dahl, 'The Analysis of Influence in LocalCommunities', n C. R. Adrian,ed., Social ScienceandCommunity ction(EastLansing:In-stitutefor CommunityDevelopmentandServices,MichiganStateUniversity,196I),pp.33-42.

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    Power in New Haven: A Reassessmentof' Who Governs?' 463down to assigningpower to the voters (A) because the leaders (B) anticipateA'sreactions (voting) - a paradigm case of power by anticipated reactions. In hisconceptual work, however, Dahl had arguedthat one cannot be powerfulunlessone acts, thereby ruling out power by anticipated reactions.19And in WhoGoverns? the emphasis on initiating proposals similarly prevents Dahl fromascribing power through anticipatedreactions- or it would if he stuck to it.Consider the relationship between Mayor Lee and the Citizens Action Com-mission. 'Lee describedthe CAC this way: We've got the biggest muscles, thebiggest set of muscles in New Haven on the top CAC . . 20 Yet, 'except for afew trivial instances, the muscles never directlyinitiated, opposed, vetoed, oraltered any proposal brought before them by the Mayor and his DevelopmentAdministrator.'21Then should one conclude that the CAC was powerless withrespect to the Mayor? No, argues Dahl with remarkable inconsistency, foranticipatedreactions were at work,and 'theMayor,who once describedhimselfasan expert in group dynamics , was particularlyskillful in estimating what theCAC could beexpectedto supportorreject.'22Power,then,was with the 'muscles'.Further:TheFirst National[Bank]had to be persuadedby LeeandLogueto backredevelop-ment;hadthe directors f thebankconcluded hatredevelopment asnot inthe bank'sinterests,hewidening f ChurchStreet,whichwasan mportantlement n theredevelop-mentof thecentralbusinessdistrict,wouldprobablyhavebeenout of thequestion. fallthe banksin New Haven had opposedredevelopment,t could hardlyhave movedforward ven under he skillfulauspicesof Lee, Logue,andTaylor.23Other 'organized interests' whose support had to be forthcoming for urbanredevelopmentto proceedincludedYale UniversityandNew Haven'sindustries.24By any sensible definition of power, if the support of a group is a necessarycondition for a policy being implemented,that group is powerfulwith respecttothat policy. In normal terminologywe would say, from the account given above,that the Mayor was a pawn of the CAC, and that the banks and other economicinterests could hold the Mayor, and the whole redevelopmentplan, to ransom.And if, as Dahl argues,the redevelopmentplan had widespreadpopularsupport,R. A. Dahl, 'Equalityand Power n AmericanSociety', n W. V. D'AntonioandH. J. Ehrlich,eds., Powerand Democracy n America Notre Dame: Notre Dame UniversityPress, I96I),pp. 78, 89; R. A. Dahl, APrefacetoDemocraticTheoryChicago:Universityof ChicagoPress,1956),Chaps.4 and5.'9 Dahl, 'TheConceptof Power',p. 204; Dahl, 'A Critique f theRulingEliteModel',p.469.Cf. Nagel, 'Some QuestionsAbout the Conceptof Power', p. I03; Wrong,'SomeProblemsDefiningSocialPower',p. 679.20 Dahl, Who Governs?, p. 130.21 Dahl, WhoGoverns?, . 13I.22 Dahl, WhoGoverns?, . 137.23 Dahl, WhoGoverns?, . 138. SeealsoMiller,TheFifteenthWard,p. 150, wherehesaysthatat the mid-sixties he redevelopmentof the city centrelooked like beinga failureuntil 'LeepersuadedMacy'sto open a branch n New Haven.I rememberone of Lee'sadministratorsseemedto be holdinghis breath hrough he daysof negotiations; If we hadn'tgot Macy's twouldhave beenjust awful, he admittedwith a sighof reliefwhenit wasover'.24 Dahl, WhoGoverns?, p. 137-8.

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    464 MORRISSthen the business interests had considerable power over the popular will.Further,the CAC consisted of eleven businessmen,manufacturersand bankersout of a total given by Dahl of twenty-two; the remainingeleven weremade up ofrepresentativesof Yale, the Democratic Party, labour, the Jewish community, alawyer,and 'four individualswho hadspecialstatus inhousing,welfare,education,and industrial development'.25Dahl does not say how many of these could beexpected to side with the business community in a vote, but it would seem fair toassume that business interests had a safe majority on the CAC. Dahl nevermentions a vote taking place on the CAC; if it was always unanimous then itseems incontrovertablethat the business interests were never defeated, either bythe Mayor or by other interests. It is an interestingsidelight on Dahl's views onthe power of leaders that, because there were two labour leaders on the CACopposed to eleven businessmen,he concludes that labour was 'represented'andthereforecould not complain about the decisions reachedby the Commission26tokenism dies hard in liberals.

    Finally, Dahl mentions that urban redevelopment, although frequentlyproposed before Lee took it up, nevercameto anythinguntil the FederalHousingAct of 1949 was passed, which authorized grants to cities for redevelopmentprogrammes;'the grantswere, in effect, a means of enablinga city to acquireandclear land and then sell it at a loss to redevelopers'.27This seems to mean that thetaxpayer was subsidizing private development firmsto enable them to buy landat lower prices than it was worth. In other words, all proposals for urban re-development were unsuccessful until legislation was provided allowing privatecompanies to make larger-than-normalprofits out of the redevelopment.28In short, nowhere in WhoGoverns? does Dahl give an instance of a businessinterest being defeated on a matter which could be considered of the remotestconcern to business, and yet Dahl collects considerable evidence to show thatbusiness interests were powerful in the area of urban redevelopment.The hypo-thesis that New Haven is dominated by a business elite remainsunrefuted.The other main conclusion Dahl reaches is that, whilst the generalpublic havelittle directinfluence on most decisions,theyhavea considerable ndirect influencethrough elections.29Unfortunately, he gives no evidence that leaders do amendtheir behaviour because of their fears of the consequences in an election; this ispartly,of course, becausehis conceptualizationof powerdoes not acceptthat onecan exercisepower through anticipatedreactions.

    25 Dahl, Who Governs?, p. I3I. On p. 71 Dahl gives the total as twenty-four.26 Dahl, Who Governs?, p. 133.27 Dahl, Who Governs?, p. 117.28 And in practicethe Act encouragedredevelopmentor businessor expensive housingbecause in the long run,the profitmotive somehowoperatesas theundesignatedbut effectivelegislatorwhile the public obligation is pushed under the rug'(C. Abrams,The Cityis theFrontierNewYork: Harper&Row, 1965),p. 84).See also Chaps.5 and6 for theworkingsoftheHousingActs, andpp. 122 and 166-7for the effect of urbanrenewalon New Haven.29 Dahl, Who Governs?, passim, for example pp. I00-I, 115, 165; also Dahl, Pluralist Demo-cracy in the United States, passim and pp. 105, 130, 376; and Dahl, 'Equality and Power inAmericanSociety',pp. 78-9.

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  • 8/12/2019 Moris, Power in New Haven, A Reassessment of Who Governs

    10/10

    Power in New Haven: A Reassessmentof' Who Governs ' 465He goes to considerable lengths to show that the urban redevelopment pro-grammewasorganizedon a bipartisanbasis; thiswas done so that the Republican

    Partycould not winvotes from those who opposedtheredevelopmentscheme,andso made it impossiblefor Lee to be threatenedeffectively n this area.Again, Dahlshows in some detail how aspiring immigrants and migrantsjoined one of themain parties in order to gain jobs in the city administrationwhen that party wasin office, this being the only way open to these groups of rising in the socialhierarchy.30Dahl asserts that, having been successful, ethnic voting tends todecline as the groups assimilate into the community, but Wolfinger (one ofDahl's assistantsin the New Haven survey), using the same data, has arguedthatethnicvoting has not declined.3 If, in fact, immigrantgroupscontinueto supporta party over long periods, this would knock a hole in Dahl's theory that alertbut inactive publics vote against the party or leader whose policies they dislike.If political parties act more as employmentexchangesthan supportersof specificideologies it is in an individual'sinterest to stick to the same party if it has anychance of winning, because the longer he has supported it, other things beingequal, the more likely he is to be rewardedby it with a job. What little evidenceDahl gives seems, if anything, to supportthe view that the existence of two largecompeting parties does not necessarilylead to control by voters over leaders.It would seem, then, that insofar as the faulty methodology allows any con-clusions to be drawn from Who Governs?,these will not support the case thatNew Haven lived up to the pluralistmodel.

    30 Dahl, WhoGoverns?, articularlyChap.4.31 R. E. Wolfinger,TheDevelopmentand Persistenceof EthnicVoting',American oliticalScience Review, LIX 1965), 896-908.