Public Administration and Public Policy in Ireland

Theory and Methods

Maura Adshead, Michelle Millar

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781134458882
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to public policy and administration in Ireland, thereby bridging the gap between general texts on public policy and policy analysis and books on Irish politics. Each chapter covers one of the key issues in policy analysis, eg. rational choice, corporatism, and then illustrates this with an empirical Irish case study. With the inclusion of further reading, overviews of main concepts and source material, the editors provide a student-friendly textbook which fills an important gap in the available literature on Irish politics and public administration.

1 Elitism and agri-environmental policy in Ireland

Mark Evans and Liam Coen

Introduction

Elite theorists argue that the history of politics has been characterized by the history of elite domination. Elite theory therefore challenges the key premises of most western liberal assumptions about politics, the organization of government and the relationship between the state and civil society. As Gaetano Mosca puts it:

In all societies - from societies that are very meagerly developed and have barely attained the dawning of civilization, down to the most advanced and powerful societies - two classes of people appear - a class that rules and a class that is ruled. The first class, always the less numerous, performs all political functions, monopolizes power and enjoys the advantages that power brings, whereas the second, the more numerous class, is directed and controlled by the first.

(Mosca 1939: 50)

Hence, for elite theorists the nature of any society — whether it is consensual or authoritarian, pacifist or totalitarian, legitimate or illegitimate - is determined by the nature of its elite. This chapter provides a critical review of the content and nature of elite theory and assesses its contribution to our understanding of contemporary political science in general and the study of the Irish policy process in particular. It develops three central arguments. First, it argues that elitism still provides an important focus for the work of political scientists and political sociologists, particularly in the United States, and continues to present a compelling critique of the liberal democratic model. Second, the chapter observes that one of the most striking features of modern and contemporary elitist perspectives lies in their convergence with once-opposite theoretical traditions. Third, it argues that contemporary variants of the elitist approach focus less on providing a grand narrative on who governs and more on highlighting the nature and role of privileged elites in decision-making centres.

Brief review of the evolution of elitist approaches

Although the seeds of elite theory were sown in the ideas of Plato, Machiavelli and others, elitism as a theory of social power is most associated in its earliest form with the work of Pareto, Mosca and Michels. Their common thesis was that the concentration of social power in a small set of controlling elites was inevitable in all societies and they rejected the feasibility of Karl Marx's vision of evolutionary change towards a classless society with power equality. This section provides an overview of the core propositions of classical elitist thought focusing on: Vilfredo Pareto's (1935) reworking of Machiavellian realism and the circulation of elites; Gaetano Mosca's (1896) idea of The Ruling Class; and Robert Michels' (1911) main work Political Parties, which drew attention to the inevitability of an 'iron law of oligarchy.' Each one of these three texts engages in a critique of Marxism and pluralism which emphasizes the rejection of both class domination and the diffusion of power on pluralist lines. A critical discussion of these texts will enable us to identify a partial, if weak, theory of elite domination.

Pareto and the concept of elite circulation

Pareto argued that historical experience provides testimony to the perpetual circulation of elites and oligarchy. Every field of human enterprise has its own elite. Pareto (1935) borrowed two categories of elites from Machiavelli, 'Foxes' and 'Lions' (1961: 99-110), in order to illustrate the nature of governing elite structures. The two categories stand at opposite ends of a continuum of governance. 'Foxes' govern by attempting to gain consent and are not prepared to use force; they are intelligent and cunning, enterprising, artistic and innovative. However, in times of crisis their misplaced humanitarianism leads them towards compromise and pacifism. Hence, when final attempts to reach a political solution have failed the regime is fatally weakened. 'Lions' represent the opposite pole. They are men of strength, stability and integrity. Cold and unimaginative, they are self-serving and are prepared to use force to achieve or maintain their position. 'Lions' are defenders of the status quo in both the state and civil society. They are likely to be committed to public order, religion and political orthodoxy For Pareto, the qualities of 'Fox' and 'Lion' are generally mutually exclusive. His tor) is a process of circulation between these two types of elites. Pareto's ideal system of governance would reflect a balance of forces which exhibits characteristics of both 'Fox' and 'Lion.' This ongoing process of elite renewal, circulation and replacement illuminates the thesis that an elite rules in all organized societies.

Pareto's (1935) focus upon the concentration of power in the hands of a political elite represented a rejection of both vulgar Marxist economism and the weak but popular liberal/pluralist view. It undermined the Marxist conception of the state as a mere tool of the capitalist class. It rejects Marx's view that the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle (for a more detailed discussion of Marxism, see Chapter 3). At the same time, Pareto's (1935) elitist claims are also at odds with the pluralist conception of the state as a cocoordinator of the national interest in a plural society (for a more detailed discussion of pluralism, see Chapter 2).

Mosca and the idea of the ruling class

Mosca (1939) argued that elites were inevitable as all societies are characterized by the dictatorship of the majority by the minority. He posited the existence of a ruling, but not necessarily economically dominant, class from which key office holders were drawn. Within Mosca's (1939) formulation, each ruling class develops a political formula which maintains and legitimates its rule to the rest of the population. Elite circulation will usually occur through inheritance, but, from time to time, power will pass into the hands of another class due to the failure and collapse of the political formula. Mosca's (1939) conceptualization of the political formula has much in common with the concept of hegemony, which springs from the view of Marx and Engels (see Chapter 3) that the ideas of the ruling class are in every historical stage the ruling ideas. Hence, the capitalist class, which is the dominant economic group in society, is simultaneously its ruling intellectual force. In other words, a Marxist would say that those people owning the means of production also control the process of government and can use this source of domination to impose their views on society. This results in a false consciousness among the proletariat, whereby they accept their subordinate position in capitalist society and do not question the existing social and political structure. Mosca (1939), by contrast, failed to develop the concept of political formula in any systematic way, unlike his Marxist contemporary Antonio Gramsci (see Chapter 3, pp. 00-00). The centrality of the ideological dimension to an understanding of the dialectic of power domination and control is an important consideration which Mosca's (1939) research clearly overlooked.

Michels and the ‘iron law of oligarchy’

Michels (1911) work needs to be understood in the context of his own personal struggle against the German academic establishment. He wrote from the standpoint of a radical socialist whose ability to secure an academic post at a German university was impaired by his ideological position. However, it was the German Social Democratic Party and its propensity for oligarchy, and not the establishment, which bore the full brunt of his frustrations. Michels' (1962: 364) central explanation of the inevitability of elites represents a further critique of pluralism and Marxism. With regard to the former, Michels (1911) argued that the practical ideal of democracy consisted in the self-government of the masses in conformity with the decision-making of popular assemblies. However, while this system placed limits upon the extension of the principle of delegation, it fails 'to provide any guarantee against the formation of an oligarchic camarilla' (Michels 1962: 364). In short, direct government by the masses was impossible. Michels (1911) applied a similar argument to political parties. In his view, the technical and administrative functions of political parties make first bureaucracy and then oligarchy inevitable. Hence, for Michels, '[w]ho says organization, says oligarchy' (1962: 364). This maxim clearly determined his conception of the nature of elites. The notorious notion of the 'iron law of oligarchy' provides the key to Michels' thoughts on the nature of elite structures, for it ensures the dominance of the leadership over the rank-and-file membership. Elite circulation is maintained by the inability of the masses to mobilize against the leadership view. This ensures their subjugation to the whim of the elite. In essence, it is the very existence of this system of leadership which is incompatible with the tenets of liberal democracy and pluralism.

Ihe work of Robert Michels (1911) is remembered more as a series of 'sound bites' than a seminal contribution to political thought. As a case in point, others than he have given his phrase the 'iron law of oligarchy.' For example, the notion of organization as the basis of oligarchy has been developed much further in the research of organizational theorists such as J.G. March and H.A. Simon (1958), amongst others. The major impact of Michels' work has been on pluralist thinking, insofar as it has compelled pluralists to acknowledge the existence of elites although they continue to reject the argument that elites act cohesively. McConnell, for example, writing from an American perspective, observes:

The first conclusion that emerges from the present analysis and survey is that a substantial part of the government in the United States has come under the influence of a narrowly based and largely autonomous elites [sic]. These elites do not act cohesively with each other on many issues. They do not 'rule' in the sense of commanding the entire nation. Quite the contrary, they tend to pursue a policy of non-involvement in the large issues of statesmanship, save where such issues touch their own particular concerns.

(McConnell 1996: 339)

The classical elitists in perspective

Pareto, Mosca and Michels generally assume the integration of elites without any rigorous empirical investigation. Pareto failed to demonstrate a theory of elite domination in his native Italy. Mosca showed that governments in the past were often characterized by a self-serving elite, but did not establish that this was always the case. Further, while Michels argued that Western European political parties were characterized by elite domination, his fondness for selecting convenient empirical evidence to support his arguments is vulnerable to counter-critique. Perhaps not surprisingly, then, subsequent elite theorists have strongly disagreed about the nature, causes and consequences of elite rule in western industrialized societies. This debate will be considered in the following section, which deals with more modern elitist perspectives.

Mainstream variants of elitism in contemporary usage — from radical elitism to the statists

This section reviews some modern elitist perspectives, from the radical elitists to the statists, by focusing on two key areas of consideration within elitist thought: national elite power network studies and epistemic communities; and statecentered perspectives.

National elite power network studies

The study of national elite power networks (NEPNs) has long been a focus of study in the United States and Britain. The key concern of this literature has been to identify the degree to which national elite structures are unified or diversified. The origins of these studies lie in the pluralist-radical elitist debates of the 1940s and 1950s in the United States. These had two chief protagonists: C. Wright Mills, who in The Power Elite (1956) provided an account of the role of power elites within the US Executive; and James Burnham, who argued in The Managerial Revolution (1972) that a new managerial elite was in the process of establishing control across all capitalist states. However, it was the work of the radical elitist C. Wright Mills (1956) that had the most impact on future NEPNs. His theory involved a three-level gradation of the distribution of power. At the top level were those in command of the major institutional hierarchies of modern society - the executive branch of the national government, the large business corporations, and the military establishment. The pluralist model of competing interests, Mills (1956) argued, applied only to the 'middle levels,' the semi-organized stalemate of interest group and legislative politics, which pluralists mistook for the entire power structure of the capitalist state. A politically fragmented 'society of the masses' occupied the bottom level. Mills's work suggested a close relationship between economic elites and governmental elites: the 'corporate rich' and the 'political directorate' (1956: 167-9). He maintained that the growing centralization of power in the federal executive branch of government had been accompanied by a declining role for professional politicians and a growing role for 'political outsiders' from the corporate world (Mills 1956: 235). Despite this, Mills contended that it would be a mistake 'to believe that the political apparatus is merely an extension of the corporate world, or that it had been taken over by the representatives of the corporate rich' (1956: 170). Here, Mills wanted to distinguish his position from what he termed the 'simple Marxian view,' which held that economic elites were the real holders of power. For this reason, he used the term 'power elite' rather than 'ruling class' — a term which for him implied too much economic determinism (Mills 1956: 276-7). Crucially, Mills argued that political, military, and economic elites all exercised a considerable degree of autonomy, were often in conflict, and rarely acted in concert.

'The Power Elite (Mills 1956) provided the most important critique of pluralism written from an elitist perspective. It emphasized that, far from being an independent arbiter of the national interest, the state was actually dominated by an NEPN of politicians, military and corporate bosses who melded public policy to suit their own ends. The credibility of Mills's analysis was given a boost by a series of community power studies which compounded the validity of the elitist interpretation of American politics. In the debate which ensued throughout the 1950s and 1960s, pluralists emphasized the non-falsifiability of the claims of the community power theorists.

A United States perspective: from Mills to Domhoff

NEPN theorists in the united States such as Mills and Domhoff have found a considerable amount of elite integration, although with various bases in the national power structure. According to Mills:

The conception of the power elite and of its unity rests upon the corresponding developments and the coincidence of interests among economic, political, and military organizations. It also rests upon the similarity of origins and outlook, and the social and personal intermingling of the top circles from each of these dominant hierarchies.

(Mills 1956: 292)

The existence of a broad, inclusive network of powerful persons with similar social origins, in different institutions, is an important feature of this view of the power structure. However, the NEPN literature identifies three key dimensions of political elite integration: social homogeneity, which emphasizes shared class and status origins; value consensus, which focuses on agreement among elites on the 'rules of the game'; and personal interaction among elites, both informally through social and personal interaction and formally through membership of common organizations. This third dimension is reflected in the interlocking directorates of major US corporations. These ties are seen as fostering integration, cohesiveness and consensus within the business community. Many social scientists, particularly in the US, have examined these sociometric ties among elites in individual communities (see Kadushin 1974; Laumann and Pappi 1973; Laumann 1976; Laumann et at. 1977) but few have turned their attention to the national level.

The pluralist critique of the NEPN studies rests on the view that these elites are not cohesive; that is, that they fail to act together on many issues. Each elite group is distinct and narrowly based, with its influence confined to the issues most relevant to its membership (see Dahl 1961; Polsby 1963). Thus, elites are seen as fragmented rather than integrated since each is involved primarily with its own relatively narrow concerns and constituencies. In a critique of elitism, Dahl (1958) argued that elite theorists frequently make the mistake of equating a capacity for control with facilitative power. The formation of a ruling elite requires not only control over important resources but also the establishment of unity and cohesiveness among its members. Clearly, the Marxist account of ruling-class theory would place less emphasis upon the importance of social origins among members of the political elite in a society with a capitalist economy. The Marxist approach would argue that bias in favour of capitalist interests is built into the policy-making process, guaranteeing that those interests ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Contributors
• Preface: policy, politics and public administration
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Elitism and agri-environmental policy in Ireland
• 2 Pluralism and the politics of morality
• 2 Marxism, the state and homelessness in Ireland
• 4 Feminism and politics of gender
• 5 Neo-corporatism and social partnership
• 6 Clientelism: facilitating rights and favours
• 7 Policy networks and sub-national government in Ireland
• 8 Institutionalism 'old' and new: exploring the Mother and Child scheme
• 9 Rational actor models, Voting and the Northern Ireland Assembly
• 10 Policy transfer and the Irish university sector
• 11 Europeanisation and the Irish experience
• 12 Globalisation: Ireland in a global context
• Bibliography
• Index