- The Oxford Handbook of Classics In Public Policy and Administration
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- List of Contributors
- What Makes a Classic?: Identifying and Revisiting the Classics of Public Policy and Administration
- Herbert A. Simon, Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organization
- David B. Truman, The Governmental Process: Political Interests and Public Opinion
- Robert K. Merton et al., A Reader in Bureaucracy
- Harold D. Lasswell, The Decision Process: Seven Categories of Functional Analysis
- C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite
- Charles E. Lindblom, “The Science of Muddling Through”
- Thomas R. Dye, Politics, Economics and the Public: Policy Outcomes in the American States
- Herbert Kaufman, The Forest Ranger: A Study in Administrative Behavior
- E. E. Schattschneider, The Semi-Sovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy in America
- V. O. Key, Jr., Public Opinion and American Democracy
- Michel Crozier, The Bureaucratic Phenomenon
- Theodore J. Lowi, “American Business, Public Policy, Case Studies and Political Theory”
- Aaron Wildavsky, The Politics of the Budgetary Process
- Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups
- Theodore J. Lowi, The End of Liberalism: The Second Republic of the United States
- Jack L. Walker, “The Diffusion of Innovations among the American States”
- Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States
- Graham T. Allison, The Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis
- George J. Stigler, “The Theory of Economic Regulation”
- Michael D. Cohen, James G. March, and Johan P. Olsen, “A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice”
- Anthony Downs, “Up and Down with Ecology: The ‘Issue-Attention’ Cycle”
- Carol H. Weiss, Evaluation Research: Methods for Studying Programs and Policies
- Jeffrey L. Pressman and Aaron B. Wildavsky, Implementation
- Oliver E. Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications
- Hugh Heclo, “Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment”
- Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Service
- Richard Rose, Do Parties Make a Difference?
- John W. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies
- Mathew D. McCubbins and Thomas Schwartz, “Congressional Oversight Overlooked: Police Patrols versus Fire Alarms”
- Terry M. Moe, “The New Economics of Organization”
- Mathew D. McCubbins, Roger G. Noll, and Barry R. Weingast, “Administrative Procedures as Instruments of Political Control”
- Paul A. Sabatier, “An Advocacy Coalition Framework of Policy Change and the Role of Policy-Oriented Learning Therein”
- Fritz W. Scharpf, “The Joint-Decision Trap: Lessons from German Federalism and European Integration”
- James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why they Do it
- Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action
- Christopher Hood, “A Public Management for All Seasons?”
- Ian Ayres and John Braithwaite, Responsive Regulation: Transcending the Deregulation Debate
- Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones, Agendas and Instability in American Politics
- Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community: Empirical Foundations, Causal Mechanisms, and Policy Implications
- Peter A. Hall and David Soskice, Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
This chapter examines The Power Elite, a radical work by C. Wright Mills that challenges the foundations of US liberal democracy and analyses the conditions under which democratic pluralism in the country can be reversed. Focusing on the theory of divided and united elites in relation to the system of checks and balances, Mills argues that the emergence of a power elite in the United States after 1945 necessitates a reevaluation of the foundations of democratic pluralism due to the significant changes in the competition for power and alternation in office at different levels of government. He also contends that members of only three elite groups had access to positions of national power: the “corporate rich,” the “warlords,” and the members of the “political directorate.” This chapter considers the rise and the fall of the elite model by assessing the four strands of Mills’s thought, one of which concerns the formation of state elites as the “true” power elite.
Keywords: C. Wright Mills, liberal democracy, democratic pluralism, elites, checks and balances, power elite, corporate rich, warlords, political directorate
William Genieys is CNRS Research Professor at the University of Montpellier and and Director of the CEPEL (Centre d’Etudes Politique de l’Europe Latine). His work on sociology of elites has been published in major journals including Comparative Politics, Governance, International Political Science Review, French Politics, Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. He won the French Dogan Prize in Political Science (2013).
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- The Oxford Handbook of Classics In Public Policy and Administration
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- List of Contributors
- What Makes a Classic?: Identifying and Revisiting the Classics of Public Policy and Administration
- Herbert A. Simon, Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organization
- David B. Truman, The Governmental Process: Political Interests and Public Opinion
- Robert K. Merton et al., A Reader in Bureaucracy
- Harold D. Lasswell, The Decision Process: Seven Categories of Functional Analysis
- C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite
- Charles E. Lindblom, “The Science of Muddling Through”
- Thomas R. Dye, Politics, Economics and the Public: Policy Outcomes in the American States
- Herbert Kaufman, The Forest Ranger: A Study in Administrative Behavior
- E. E. Schattschneider, The Semi-Sovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy in America
- V. O. Key, Jr., Public Opinion and American Democracy
- Michel Crozier, The Bureaucratic Phenomenon
- Theodore J. Lowi, “American Business, Public Policy, Case Studies and Political Theory”
- Aaron Wildavsky, The Politics of the Budgetary Process
- Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups
- Theodore J. Lowi, The End of Liberalism: The Second Republic of the United States
- Jack L. Walker, “The Diffusion of Innovations among the American States”
- Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States
- Graham T. Allison, The Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis
- George J. Stigler, “The Theory of Economic Regulation”
- Michael D. Cohen, James G. March, and Johan P. Olsen, “A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice”
- Anthony Downs, “Up and Down with Ecology: The ‘Issue-Attention’ Cycle”
- Carol H. Weiss, Evaluation Research: Methods for Studying Programs and Policies
- Jeffrey L. Pressman and Aaron B. Wildavsky, Implementation
- Oliver E. Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications
- Hugh Heclo, “Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment”
- Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Service
- Richard Rose, Do Parties Make a Difference?
- John W. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies
- Mathew D. McCubbins and Thomas Schwartz, “Congressional Oversight Overlooked: Police Patrols versus Fire Alarms”
- Terry M. Moe, “The New Economics of Organization”
- Mathew D. McCubbins, Roger G. Noll, and Barry R. Weingast, “Administrative Procedures as Instruments of Political Control”
- Paul A. Sabatier, “An Advocacy Coalition Framework of Policy Change and the Role of Policy-Oriented Learning Therein”
- Fritz W. Scharpf, “The Joint-Decision Trap: Lessons from German Federalism and European Integration”
- James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why they Do it
- Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action
- Christopher Hood, “A Public Management for All Seasons?”
- Ian Ayres and John Braithwaite, Responsive Regulation: Transcending the Deregulation Debate
- Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones, Agendas and Instability in American Politics
- Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community: Empirical Foundations, Causal Mechanisms, and Policy Implications
- Peter A. Hall and David Soskice, Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage
- Index
