Two Faces of Power
"This is not an exhaustive bill of particulars; there are flaws other
than these and the sociological model and methodology-including some
which the pluralists themselves have not noticed. But to go into this
would not materially serve our current purposes. Suffice it simply to
observe that whatever the merits of their own approach to power, the
pluralists have effectively exposed the main weaknesses of the elitist
model.
As the foregoing quotations make clear, the pluralists concentrate
their attention, not upon their sources of power, but its exercise.
Power to them means "participation and decision making" and can be
analyzed only after "careful examination of a series of concrete
decisions." As a result, the pluralist researcher is uninterested in the
reputedly powerful. His concerns instead are to (a) select for study a
number of "key" as opposed to "routine" political decision, (b) identify
the people who took an active part in the decision making process, (c)
obtain a full account of their actual behavior while the policy conflict
was being resolved, and (d) determine and analyze the specific outcome
of the conflict.
The advantages of this approach, relative to the elitest alternative,
need no further exposition. The same may not be said, however, about its
defects- to of which seem to us to be of fundamental importance. One is
that the model takes no account of the fact that power may be, and
often is, excersize by confining the scope of decision making to
relatively "safe" issues. The other is that the model provides no
objective criteria for ditiguishing between "important" and
"unimportant" issues arrising in the political arena."
This passage explains the decision-making process of pluralists.
Pluralists are detailed and analyze every step carefully before making a
final decision. They focus more on their decisions and the analysis of
the issue rather than the source of power that make the decision.
Pluralists gather different important points that create a rational
decision as opposed to keeping it "safe" and going through simple
routines as the elitists would do. They also focus on analyzing people
who participated in the decision-making process. Elitists feel that
there are weaknesses to the pluralists' ways to decision-making such as,
not establishing ways to decide what is important and unimportant.
I chose this passage because I admire anyone who is detailed about
matters that affects a person's life for the better. I rather power be a
concept that people can consider enough to be detailed about how it is
broken down. I respect how pluralists focus more on the act of power
rather than the source of power. That way the source of power can change
but the way you go about the decision-making can always be something
you can rely on if you focus on the decision-making process like the
pluralists do. It is important that people understand that times change
and issues cannot be treated the same when they are no longer the same
during that time period.
