Comments on Anderson's ch 2

As always, unless otherwise noted, references to Anderson are to his 2011 7th edition assigned as a text for this course.

As a comparativist, I’m having troubles with Anderson’s discussion of political culture (40-44).  This is not the place to launch a full-out assault, but I will offer a few points (and am prepared to amplify on these points if asked):

• Anderson is right that in terms of public policy, as in all politics, people’s orientations towards the political system and their role in it are politically significant.
• But: Even though Almond and Verba (1963) place the US among the participant political cultures (compared to Britain, a then-democratizing Germany, a then-democratizing and politically turbulent Italy, and the one-party-dominant patronage-based system in Mexico, US citizens are not highly politically engaged.  Overall, political interest and political knowledge are not as high as traditional democratic theory expects, nor do US citizens demonstrate the willingness and/or ability to engage in systematic thinking on policy matters.  Moreover, for a number of reasons (including some that don’t turn on the citizens themselves) voter turnout rates in the US are among the lowest in advanced, industrial states.
• But: Characterizing the US as participant political culture, as Almond and Verba  do ignores that there are variations in political orientations and political engagement among Americans, a point that is implied  by Anderson’s mention (41) of Elazar’s work which identifies regionally-based political cultures (though the explanatory power of Elazar’s scheme is open to question). 
• Anderson’s comment (43) that “it can also be assumed that more demands will be made on government in a participant political culture [like that of the US] than in either a parochial or subject culture” should not be read to say that there will be demands for more or bigger government in  a system characterized as participant; case in point, the Tea Party movement, clearly a participation-oriented group of people who make demands for less, smaller government.

In Anderson’s profiles of the official and nongovernmental participants in the policy process, experts are all over the place.  By experts,  I mean a person who is recognized by others as having possession of specialized and useful knowledge and skills which others can possess, if at all, only with substantial training and experience.  (The role of experts in public life is a particular interest of mine.)  In this connection, recall Anderson’s discussion of congressional staff, the Executive Office of the President, and research organizations.  Courts, too, draw on expert testimony.  One of the hallmarks of the Civil Service is its specialized knowledge and experience. Note, as well, that one of the resources for interest groups, though not one identified by Anderson (61), is their stock of policy-relevant information which they use to press their views. 

Remember policy typologies?  The Redford analysis that Anderson summarizes (69-75) involves another scheme for characterizing policy, this time, essentially, in terms of the number of players.  And you can make various connections between Redford’s formulation and the approaches of Lowi and Wilson (bibliographic citations given earlier).  For example, Redford’s micropolitics seem to be an instance which Wilson would characterize as one of concentrated benefits and distributed costs.  Or, Lowi’s cases of redistributive policies (see Anderson: 14-15) are likely to end up as Redford’s macropolitics, though not all macropolitics necessarily involve redistributive policies (for example, Anderson uses the escalation of the Vietnam war as an instance of macropolitics, but the politics of Vietnam are rarely described as redistributive in nature).  Many analytical devices—like these of Lowi, Wilson, and Redford—can be helpful, but they rarely solve all problems; sometimes it seems, in academe, it’s just that you gotta have a gimmick.

Anderson (71) says that “iron triangles” involve “symbiotic relationships” but it may not be sufficiently clear that in such a system there are a pattern of exchanges of values that are present.  So, interest groups given campaign support to congressional committee members who give agencies powers and budgets, and these agencies then promote the priorities of the interest groups.  An Auburn political scientist gives a good description, and the Wikipedia entry is good, too.

On the other hand, Anderson’s discussion of Redford does point to a very important aspect of the policymaking process.  The scope of conflict—does an issue get contained to a small number of people and institutions or is it played out as a major political issue involving, in one way or another, almost everyone in the political system—matters a lot, and those vitally interested in a policy fight will try to either narrow or expand the range of players according to what is to their political advantage.