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Symbols and Political Quiescence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Murray Edelman
Murray Edelman*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
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Extract

Few forms of explanation of political phenomena are more common than the assertion that the success of some group was facilitated by the “apathy” of other groups with opposing interests. If apathy is not an observable phenomenon in a political context because it connotes an individual's mental state, quiescence is observable. It is the purpose of this paper to specify some conditions associated with political quiescence in the formation of business regulation policies. Although the same general conditions are apparently applicable to the formation of public policies in any area, the argument and the examples used here focus upon the field of government regulation of business in order to make the paper manageable and to permit more intensive treatment.

Political quiescence toward a policy area can be assumed to be a function either of lack of interest—whether it is simple indifference or stems rather from a sense of futility about the practical prospects of securing obviously desirable changes—or of the satisfaction of whatever interest the quiescent group may have in the policy in question. Our concern here is with the forms of satisfaction. In analyzing the various means by which it can come to pass, the following discussion distinguishes between interests in resources (whether goods or freedoms to act) and interests in symbols connoting the suppression of threats to the group in question. Few political scientists would doubt, on the basis of common sense evidence, that public policies have value to interested groups both as symbols and as instruments for the allocation of more tangible values. The political process has been much less thoroughly studied as a purveyor of symbols, however; and there is a good deal of evidence, to be presented below, that symbols are a more central component of the process than is commonly recognized in political scientists' explicit or implicit models.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 54 , Issue 3 , September 1960 , pp. 695 - 704
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1960

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References

1 Harold Lasswell is a major exception, and some of his contributions will be noted.

2 Herring, E. Pendleton, Public Administration and the Public Interest (New York, 1936), p. 213.Google Scholar

3 Leiserson, Avery, Administrative Regulation: A Study in Representation of Interests (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1942), p. 14.Google Scholar

4 Truman, David, The Governmental Process (New York, 1951), ch. 5.Google Scholar

5 Bernstein, Marver, Regulating Business by Independent Commissions (New York: Princeton University Press, 1955), ch. 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Redford, Emmette S., Administration of National Economic Control (New York, 1952), pp. 385–386.Google Scholar

7 Op. cit., note 5 above.

8 In addition to the statements in these analytical treatments of the administrative process, evidence for the proposition that regulatory statutes often fail to have their promised consequences in terms of resource allocation are found in general studies of government regulation of business and in empirical research on particular statutes. As an example of the former see Wilcox, Clair, Public Policies Toward Business (Chicago, 1955).Google Scholar As examples of the latter see Meyers, Prederie, ‘Right to Work’ in Practice (New York: Fund for the Republic, 1959)Google Scholar; Hamilton, Walton and Till, Irene, Antitrust in Action, TNEC Monograph 16 (Washington: GPO, 1940).Google Scholar

9 Redford, op. cit., p. 383. Similar explanations appear in Herring, op. cit., p. 227, and Bernstein, op. cit., pp. 82–83. Some writers have briefly suggested more rigorous explanations, consistent with the hypotheses discussed in this paper, though they do not consider the possible role of interests in symbolic reassurance. Thus Truman calls attention to organizational factors, emphasizing the ineffectiveness of interest groups “whose interactions on the basis of the interest are not sufficiently frequent or stabilized to produce an intervening organization and whose multiple memberships, on the same account, are a constant threat to the strength of the claim.” Truman, op. cit., p. 441. Multiple group memberships are, of course, characteristic of individuals in all organizations, stable and unstable; and “infrequent interactions” is a phenomenon that itself calls for explanation if a common interest is recognized. Bernstein, loc. cit., refers to the “undramatic nature” of administration and to the assumption that the administrative agency will protect the public.

10 Cf. the discussion of meaning in Mead, George Herbert, Mind, Self and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934), pp. 78–79.Google Scholar

11 Truman, op. cit., pp. 439–446; Latham, Earl, The Group Basis of Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1952), ch. 1.Google Scholar

12 The writer has explored this effect in labor legislation in “Interest Representation and Labor Law Administration,” Labor Law Journal, Vol. 9 (1958), pp. 218–226.

13 Evidence for these propositions is contained in the writer's study of congressional representation, still not completed or published. See also Dexter, Lewis A., “Candidates Must Make the Issues and Give Them Meaning,” Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 10 (1955–1956), pp. 408–414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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16 Fensterheim, Herbert, “The Influence of Value Systems on the Perception of People,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 48 (1953), p. 93.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed Fensterheim cites the following studies in support of the proposition: Krech, D. and Crutchfield, R. S., Theory and Problems of Social Psychology (New York, 1948)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Luchins, A. S., “An Evaluation of Some Current Criticisms of Gestalt Psychological Work on Perception,” Psychological Review, Vol. 58 (1951), pp. 69–95 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Bruner, J. S., “One Kind of Perception: A Reply to Professor Luchins,” Psychological Review, Vol. 58 (1951), pp. 306–312 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; and the chapters by Bruner, Frenkel-Brunswik, and Klein, in Blake, R. R. and Ramsey, G. V., Perception: An Approach to Personality (New York, 1951).Google Scholar See also Osgood, Charles, Tannenbaum, Percy and Suci, George, The Measurement of Meaning (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1957).Google Scholar

17 Among the leading general and experimental studies dealing with the phenomenon are: Rokeach, M., “Generalized Mental Rigidity as a Factor in Ethnocentrism,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 43 (1948), pp. 259–277 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Canning, R. R. and Baker, J. M., “Effect of the Group on Authoritarian and Non-authoritarian Persons,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 64 (1959), pp. 579–581 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Maslow, A. H., “The Authoritarian Character Structure,” Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 18 (1943), p. 403 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Adorno, T. W. and others, The Authoritarian Personality (New York, 1950)Google Scholar; Saenger, Gerhart, The Psychology of Prejudice (New York, 1953), pp. 123–138 Google Scholar; Fromm, Erich, Escape from Freedom (New York, 1941)Google Scholar; Merton, R. K., Mass Persuasion (New York, 1950).Google Scholar

18 Frenkel-Brunswik, Else, “Interaction of Psychological and Sociological Factors in Political Behavior,” this Review, Vol. 46 (1952), pp. 44–65.Google Scholar

19 Adorno, op. cit.

20 Festinger, Leon, Riecken, Henry, and Shachter, Stanley, When Prophecy Fails (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1956).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Adorno, op. cit., p. 665.

22 Salomon, Albert, “Symbols and Images in the Constitution of Society,” in Bryson, L., Finkelstein, L., Hoagland, H. and Maclver, R. M. (eds.), Symbols and Society (New York, 1955), p. 110.Google Scholar

23 Lasswell, op. cit., p. 195.

24 Barnard, Chester I., The Functions of the Executive (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938), p. 226.Google Scholar

25 Morris, Charles, Signs, Language and Behavior (New York, 1946), pp. 210–211.Google Scholar

26 Burke, Kenneth, A Grammar of Motives (New York, 1945), p. 393.Google Scholar

27 Ibid., p. 362.

28 Mead, op. cit.; Cassirer, Ernst, An Essay on Man (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944).Google Scholar

29 See March, James G. and Simon, Herbert A., Organizations (New York, 1958), pp. 65–81 Google Scholar, and studies cited there.

30 See, e.g., Edelman, Murray, “Causes of Fluctuations in Popular Support for the Italian Communist Party since 1946,” Journal of Politics, Vol. 20 (1958), pp. 547–550 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ross, Arthur M., Trade Union Wage Policy (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1948).Google Scholar

31 Adorno, op. cit., p. 655.

32 Lindesmith, Alfred R. and Strauss, Anselm L., Social Psychology (New York, 1956), pp. 253–255.Google Scholar For a report of another psychological experiment demonstrating that attitudes are a function of group norms, see Sarnoff, I., Katz, D., and McClintock, C., “Attitude-Change Procedures and Motivating Patterns,” in Katz, Daniel and others (eds.), Public Opinion and Propaganda (New York, 1954), pp. 308–9Google Scholar; also Festinger et al., op. cit.

33 Lazarsfeld, Paul F., Berelson, Bernard and Gaudet, Hazel, The People's Choice (New York, 1944), p. 83.Google Scholar For an account of an experiment reaching the same conclusion see Lipset, S. M., “Opinion Formation in a Crisis Situation,” Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 17 (1953), pp. 20–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 Mead, op. cit., p. 78.

35 Cf. Wilcox, op. cit., pp. 281, 252–255.

36 Many examples may be found in the writer's study entitled The Licensing of Radio Services in the United States, 1987 to 1947 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1950).

37 For discussions of the utility of this view to social scientists, see Bentley, Arthur F., The Process of Government (1908; New York: The Principia Press, reprint 1949)Google Scholar; Truman, op. cit. But cf. Rothman, Stanley, “Systematic Political Theory,” this Review, Vol. 54, pp. 15–33 (03, 1960).Google Scholar

38 The Folklore of Capitalism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937), pp. 212, 215, 216.

39 They are listed above under “Pattern B.”

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