Everybody agrees that education is important. Likewise, it has become a commonplace to say that we aren’t educating the nation’s children as well as we should. Improving education is an exceptionally complex task, but one part of the problem is that we’re having trouble as a society defining what a “good education” actually is. This is a particular problem in subjects that are politically and emotionally charged. One of the most acrimonious areas of education is the one that is also nearest to my own heart: biology. Allow me to lay out some thoughts on what a sound education in biology ought to look like, and what the benefits of this might be on both the individual and the societal level.

First, and perhaps most importantly, it is critical that all sciences, including biology, are taught as a process and a way of thinking, rather than a set of facts that are “true” and must be memorized. For example, one of the more startling ideas in biology is that much of the weight of an oak tree has actually been pulled out of thin air. If someone just told me that, and I had no idea where the information came from, I’d think they were a bit loopy at best or trying to sell me a bill of gods at worst. Equipped with an actual understanding of the scientific inquiry that went into this discovery, I not only believe it, but more importantly I understand and remember it as well. Now, replicating even the simplest of the experiments scientists used to unravel the question “How do plants gain weight?” would be difficult in the average classroom and probably not the best use of precious time. But looking into case studies like this one is a fabulous way to learn about both scientific facts and scientific thinking.

Once we start thinking about biology as a process of acquiring knowledge about living things and biology education as an opportunity to understand that process and hone critical thinking skills at the same time, we will be in a much stronger position to improve science education than we are in now. At that point, we’ll be well placed to reliably turn out scientifically literate high school graduates and also to tackle teaching more politically charged aspects of biology education.

Without question, the most politically charged aspect of biology is evolution. It is also among the very most important scientific ideas ever elucidated. If we present evolution in the classroom as “great man, Charles Darwin, discovered evolution, and now we know that people descended from apes without the help of God” we have only ourselves to blame if 65 % of American citizens are creationists . Evolution education might not be quite that bad in most schools, but I’ll warrant that it’s not too much better. What do we lose if evolution is understood by only a minority of Americans? Well, from an aesthetic point of view, it seems a shame that so many of us don’t understand one of the big ideas about how the world works. From a practical perspective, it’s just plain scary that most of the farmers who use antibiotics to help their livestock gain weight and most of the patients who don’t follow their doctor’s instruction when it comes to taking antibiotics don’t understand the role they are playing in promoting the evolution of antibiotic resistant bacteria.

One frequent complaint I hear from students in high school biology classes is that there is so much memorization. This is more closely linked to the failures of our educational system than you might think at first. True, there is a significant amount of new vocabulary that students must learn if they are going to be able to speak, think, read, and write about new concepts. However, a biology class should never feel like a pile of memorization to slog through. The most important thing we can do to change this is to focus on the how’s and why’s of biology rather than just the conclusions that biologists have drawn over the years. In this way, students will be making connections and developing big picture concepts rather than just memorizing niggling little facts.

An important result of this type of education is that years after high school is over, a student who actually developed a genuine understanding of biology is far less likely to be the person frivolously abusing antibiotics.

Another way to greatly improve this situation is to eliminate pure survey classes and require students to study one or two areas in much greater depth. One model that I have seen work quite well at the introductory high school level is to have a traditional survey-style class supplemented by two significant research projects. One of the research projects was a hands-on experiment (or series of experiments), much like a traditional science fair project. The other was an in-depth library-based research project, much like a term paper more traditionally seen in history classes. These types of projects are not without costs. Most notably, they are very hard on the teacher. It takes a tremendous amount of time and energy to coordinate a hundred (or usually more) projects, each on a different topic. This is daunting for a teacher even under the best of circumstances and can be impossible in more difficult situations. Nevertheless, the benefits are clear and significant. Not only do these types of projects give students an opportunity to develop a real understanding of scientific thinking, but they also give the students a library of interlinked facts to refer to when they are trying to make sense of the big picture in biology.

For example, a student who chooses to do a research report on handedness and brain asymmetry in humans will undoubtedly learn about neurology, evolution, and epilepsy as well. As an added bonus, if the projects are structured properly, students get much needed practice making visual and oral presentations and writing non-fiction papers. Rather than just throwing up our hands and saying that this type of education is too difficult to organize, we need to structure our schools (and exert peer-pressure on parents) so that this type of higher-level learning becomes feasible.

A good education in biology should be a routine part of the education that every American student receives. We need to structure curriculums and classrooms so that science is taught as a process and method rather than some sort of received truth. This type of science education is an important part of teaching students to have strong critical thinking skills and for ensuring that they have the tools to not simply negotiate the modern world, but also thrive in it.

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There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian political system unlike most of us assume, have you bothered to cogitate on why many countries of the world do not bother to find out whether there is anything in the wrong with their constitutional provisions or not, yet these countries are doing buoyantly well  economically and politically? I am not writing to justify the Nigerian constitution, but rather to glaringly state that there are in many ways, areas we have continued to consciously maintain that the country should remain in her present situation of underdevelopment. Nigeriaâ??s problems are too numerous to account, but let us try to mention the ones which glaringly occur.

We are all aware of the countryâ??s problems, even our governmental people cannot claim ignorance of this, and I also know that these problems are not insolvent as we can solve them but because we shy away from doing so for the fear of losing out in amassing a lot more wealth from the countryâ??s economy. This urge amassing indefinable proportion of wealth from the countryâ??s purse is the beginning of corruption which today is growing bigger than its perpetuators.

 For the benefit of strangers to Nigeriaâ??s problems, I shall possibly highlight the pressing problems confronting us today as a nation, as I do, bear in mind that Nigeriaâ??s problems by far surpass those I shall highlight here because Nigeria is a country where nothing is just right from constant power failure to death traps called bad roads. The Nigerian people have never seen the good side of life and its beauties, we all are simply inured to sufferings crowned with smile.  A friend, who traveled out of the country to Sweden, called back after precisely 2 weeks to scream to friends here that the country was like it was rugged.

Nigeriaâ??s problems no matter how much of them I will highlight still find its grouping under bad leadership and corruption. Whereas these two vices exist side by side, bad leadership begat corruption and corruption begat underdevelopment, so obviously, underdevelopment is the grandchild of bad leadership, parented by the nationâ??s selfish political office holders and passed down to the generality of Nigerian children who think nothing but how to make money. Today, very many of Nigerians can resist reading Nigerian dailies because no good news ever emanates from the country, what you consider juicy is trade of blames among the big politicians in our land, accusations of corruption, electoral judgments, neglect of certain parts of the country, trials of ex-governors, predicaments of ex EFCC Boss, just mention them.

So we have bad leadership, corruption, denial of right to qualitative education through poorly organized admission processes, denial of right to qualitative health services and facilities through unattainable imposition of medical fees and expenses (Lagos State falls under this category), lack of infrastructures in the country, imposition of increasing of increasing taxes on traders especially Lagos State, which sends even ordinary â??pure water sellersâ? back to far more worst situations. All of these problems have worsened the plight of the people of Nigeria and has grossly subjugated more than 82% of Nigerians to poverty.  Â

One problem which by far I thought the Yarâ?? Adua administration could correct for good was governance with old and tired recycled hands which since independence has led the country to where. I feel disappointingly surprised that our government has failed to learn that this very tradition has ensured that the nation does not see improvement even when defined from any perspective of what â??developmentâ? should mean. Why will a country with group of few people in the society that have run it since decades without improvement and fresh ideas record developments in any sphere of life. It is a sad situation for the country and her citizens, because we have lost any hope that improvement will come our way with same people who have ruled us since independence and lacking in potent ideas.

Nigeria with a population of 250 million people with more than 500 ethnic groups and hundreds of languages and dialects, it is the same old song and story for leadership hands. This is something most people do not talk about but it is like worms eating off our heads. In reference to Orji Kaluâ??s comment, while he was still a secondary school student, Olusegun Obasanjo as the then Head of State, paid his school an official visit, and in his speech pointed out that the they as the youth were the leaders of tomorrow, yet Orji Kalu would turn a full blown man decades later with Obasanjoâ??s return as the President of Nigeria, so what opportunity does Kalu have as the potential leader of tomorrow?

I do not know what qualifications it takes to win political appointments in Nigeriaâ??s governmental system; qualifications do not exist in determining what political appointment anyone can get, except that it is an avenue of compensation, simply put. It is as a result of this that capable hands are never employed to work for the countryâ??s good, and we the ordinary masses are at the losing end because when health facilities are lacking, like all al university teaching hospitals in Nigeria lack modern health facilities. Modern diagnostic equipment cannot be found in most parts of the country. I hope you still recall that no Nigerian university is ranked among the 500 universities in the world.

Obasanjo ruled Nigeria twice, but his return was disastrous to the African continent as a whole, unknown to Buhari and Atiku, talks in the Nigerian streets especially in the southern part of the nation negatively centres on what it would seem like returning Buhari or Atiku after the experiences drawn from Obasanjoâ??s return as the countryâ??s president and his failed third term extension bid. Nigerians are obviously tired of hearing same names in the political arena of the country, appearing, disappearing and reappearing. The people would prefer to vote in an unknown character because we think that unknown individuals are preferable to tried hands. Return of past government officials when the country has not improved are like putting a new wine in an old bottle. Â

Once you find yourself in Nigeriaâ??s corridor of power, you have probably won for yourself and family a lifetime contract, because it is only death that can do you apart with you newfound journey. Even death is incapable of separating your family from political appointment in Nigeria, because at your death, your children, children have inherited a gift of appointment. Two things are basically wrong with the assignment of political appointments in Nigeria. Firstly, as stated here once in power, one expectedly remains in power until he is no more courtesy of death, even he is considers to have failed by one administration, another administration that comes to power finds him useful again. His is one identifiable system of granting political appointments in Nigeria.

Today, Rilwan Lukeman, a man in his 70s has returned as the countryâ??s Minster of finance, and the Nigerian people are wondering what again he owes us with the Minitryâ??s portfolio, are there no more capable hands that can deliver to the country? For Christâ??s sake, Nigeria cannot be lacking of brains that can positively better the petroleum sector that can effectively run the industry. Will Rilwan Lukeman construct more refineries for the country? Will he even repair the non-functional ones, something he did not consider doing for ages as the Minister of that very sector? The moment I noticed the name of Lukeman on list of ministerial nominees as presented to the senate, I surmised he was to return to his former home which is the petroleum ministry. Was your guess as good as mine? Her perhaps needed to continue from he left-off several years ago.

We also have a system, which sees individuals winning political appointments in Nigeria where criteria are lacking. A man who read Arabic or Christian Religious Studies in our University system could head our â??Science and Technology Ministryâ?. Is this not interesting? Dora Akunyili, a medical Doctor who contributed so much to the war against substandard drugs in the country lost her job in other to head Information Ministry. Imagine the relationship between these two Ministries? An anti fake drug crusader will now take up the responsibility of protecting the image of the Federal Government through publicities and unnecessary press conferences whenever the State appears challengers by a personality like Wole Soyinka whose views against the government cannot be ignored for any reason at all. Was Sam Egwu, an ex Governor of Ebonyi State compensated with the Education ministry?Â

Save your laughter for Abba Sayyadi Ruma, a PhD holder in International Relations, who now carries the portfolio of Agriculture Ministry, Was baba ever taught how hoes and cutlasses are held? Ironically Mustapha Shettima, a PhD holder in Agriculture, a very learned man, will be defending the territorial integrity of the nation as the nationâ??s Minister of Defence. Does this erudite agriculturalist know how a gun is held? The federal government of Nigeria at long last decided to replace is knowledge of growing and harvesting with attacking and defending diplomacies. A pharmacist, Alhaji Ibrahim Bio will head the transport Ministry. Dr. I. Y. Lame, an educationist and former principal in a secondary school will head Police Affairs Ministry, where he will be tackling insecurity. He has been promoted beyond his field of knowledge; he is obviously replacing his cane with a tear gas. Are these men who are accomplishments in their various field not square â??giantâ? pegs in round holes? The world may be laughingly waiting on how this men will function will record successes in their assignments.

The situation as seen above is not strange to Nigerians, where a graduate in Yoruba Literature works as a cashier in a Nigerian Bank, and a graduate in Laboratory Technology works with Power Holding Company of Nigeria. But I choose to remind our politicians and political appointees that a Professor in Medicine could become an illiterate in History, and a graduate of Estate Management could become an illiterate in Electrical electronics, consequently, a Mathematics professor may just turn out to be an Illiterate where it concerns Igbo Language as a discipline. So they should not complain or pass the buck when they fail to succeed since the impression is that our politicians are more concerned about wealth than making societal achievements.

It is on this note that I leave you with the question of â??can this country benefit from their services when politics is always triumphing over competence and experience? (Saturday Punch, December 20, 2008)

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As soon as these cells are formed and will gather active thinking people, they will be the foundation, which will bring to power a new generation of politicians in a new party. FoC calls before a country that must unite us and mobilize for creation of a party which is built from the ground and up.

Therefore there is a call for all the Ukrainians to join the «Front of changes».

The leader of the Front Zmin (Front for Change) public initiative, MP Arseniy Yatseniuk has made public this communiqué on their web site (http://frontzmin.org/).

In order for us to understand the political foundation of the FoC, below you will find their 17 points communiqué and I have tried to translate it to

Arseniy Yacenyuk: «I open the Front of Changes»

The purpose of our activity is to assemble all Ukrainians, regardless of their age, level, nationality and religion who are convinced of the future. The future depends on us and our choice. We must give adequate answers for 17 near-term calls.

1. Maintainance of the democracyThe level of personification of the Democracy today depends on whom and as from how high-level officials explains this fundamental value.

- Ukraine must be a parliament-presidential republic. Our state will have neither Tsar nor Tsarina.

- It is necessary to stop «Ukrainian tradition» to make alteration in Constitution under a situation and personality.

2. Overcoming the economic crisisThis crisis is measured, unfortunately, not only by numbers, and, foremost, by human stakes. It can outgrow in a social and political, cultural and spiritual crisis.

Near-term steps to overcome crises are:

- To create an internal market.

- To overcome import dependence of Ukraine.

- To halt political and social fireworks due to the state budget in order to please politicians and frank economic lie.

- Not to delay any more and begin to work.

3. Forming a National Idea

is today in each  at large, a policy where the idea equates with the national.

In actual fact the National idea – is:

- Strong state and conscious citizen, proud that he has the Ukrainian passport.

- Family which has for what to live, and child which has for what to study, and knows, where it will go to work.

- Maintenance of language and culture, comprehension past and reflections about the modern aspects.

4. Maintenance and increase of the national capitalFor years an independent Ukraine and a national capital were formed, though history of its forming was different.

Our task is to create terms in order that we can work on our state.

- It is needed to save not the oligarchs, but Ukrainian assets which influence the economy and which enable the work of hundreds of thousands of people.

- Capital must have equal terms. No businessmen can prevail and be a monopolist in the country.

- Basic rule of conduct with a capital should be to be gently to cherish and hard regulated. Only then will we be able to develop and multiply in interests of entire country.

5. One of the main national capital values is the landThe land is the unique resource in the world, which does not recommence. How to save this capital is another call for the Ukrainian state.

Therefore we are for the removal of moratorium on land, but with clear 4 conditions:

- An observance of the having a special purpose setting of land and forced exception of earth is in the case of its targeted use.

- The proprietors of Ukrainian earth can only be residents of Ukraine.

- It is only possible to sell state lannd, and only in the states it is possible to purchase it.

For this purpose it is necessary to create a state agent for the market of buyers and sellers of land.

- A limit of volume of property which is in one person hand, straight or mediated –, not to create landlords.

6. Forming of modern political nation

Make the national idea and national capital become the prime soil for creation of a political nation.

Conscious political nation:

- Perceives Ukraine not as territory, but as the strong state.

- Able to elect to itself power, but not to be select power.

- Able to change this power and build the strong state for a man, regardless of its nationality, language and confession.

- Has the formed world view which represents interests of all society, but not only for himself.

- Build the legal state and civil society.

7. Balance in the Ukrainian power system

Today basic elements of the Ukrainian policy are plots, Visantisianism, treasons, cynicism and lie.

They are as a tumor which with every year grows and infects our society. But there are rules even in a war. There are simple recipes, to prevent growth of these tumors:

- To change the electoral system – to inculcate the opened lists on elections in Verkhovna Rada.

- To take away deputy immunity.

- To inculcate responsibility of deputies before the electors.

8. Change of political elite

- To methodize authorities of not only youths but also the best. Create a real command of conscious Ukrainians not by nationality, but after calling.

- Forming a new political force, this will not be the charisma club of one leader. New parties, but not polytechnological projects are a way to the change the elite.

9. Forming a layer of professional state management

The State needs new, professionally geared-up, with fresh vision and modern approaches, management, on all stages of government service.

It is necessary to form:

- A middle link of government service which will be permanent, regardless of political colors or events.

- A professional skilled reserve of government service.

10. Modern education

The nation does not have the Nobel laureates.

There is not a single Ukrainian higher educational establishment which is brought to the international ratings. Close to 20% of the graduating students can not find work within its area of specialist background.

We have:

- To revive domestic education through the increase of professionalism of both teachers and students.

- To change financing and accreditations of higher educational establishments.

- To co-ordinate maintenance of education with realities and necessities of the Ukrainian economy.

- To adapt introduction of Bologonskogo process to conformed to Ukrainian realities.

11. Freedom of religion

- In the spiritual world of man nobody has the authority to interfere.

- It is impossible to assume political pressure on a church and political influence of church as such.

- Basic principle: « Keep a close love to it and respect his confession».

12. The language must not be the article of political speculation

- The state must create terms, in order for the Ukrainians to be able to freely study and use, Russian, German, Polish, French and other English languages which consider the native or want to seize.

13. Spiritual and physical health of Ukrainians

Tendencies are terrible – nation gets older, physically and weakens spiritually, and the best ones migrate out of the country.

- Ukraine needs system changes in medical service, through new standards, and introductions of protocols of treatment, connected with medical insurance.

- It is necessary to revive prophylactic medicine.

Analogical state and with cultural development.

- A hungry family will not sustain itself with classic music and modern literature. It thinks on how to survive, more so in the days of today’s global economic crisis.

14. Ukrainian choice

- We will not get external confession without internal changes.

- Therefore we do not offer a European, but a Ukrainian choice. Make a Ukrainian choice of values and national interest, both for the state and for the individual citizen.

- The way to the European Union is distant and protracted. But on this way we must be interesting in each other. Ukraine must not be asked, it must invite.

- The Ukrainian presence abroad must be everywhere, where Ukrainian economic and political interest is. We will co-operate with all, except for those, who finances terrorism and diffuses a nuclear weapon.

- We must overcome a base problem in the Ukrainian foreign policy with relationships with Russian Federation.

- Ukraine must go out on the absolutely new level of socializing with new American Administration.

15. Creation of the National plan of changes

- Changes can not come in one day, or even during one year.

- These changes one man can not do alone.

- But if we together will have a clear goal of these changes, they will be effective.

- Therefore the National plan of changes will be formed and realized jointly by all Ukrainians.

16. Today to the country necessary changes

We must acknowledge that all of us and until now live in the post Soviet system of economic, political, social and mental co-ordinates.

Calls which appeared today before the state and each of us talk that change are needed to it all.

- Today to the country is in need of changes, cardinal changes, but not ordinary preformatted changes which we have lived by the last seventeen years.

- Having strong historical foundation, we must build the strong walls of the Ukrainian state system.

17. Only together we will give effective answers for the calls of our time

- Independently will not do much. But millions of Ukrainians, which remember the history and are ill for the future, should go alongside.

- After my journeys on regions and meetings with people, I felt a public request for a new format. I will move further. I will try to meet with each, who share an interest to the future of Ukraine, and will search ideological supporters.

- For this reason Arseniy Yacenyuk begins initiative “Front of changes”. So far it is not a party. But already there are initiative groups in many areas. I am sure that the result of this initiative will be a party. A party, built from below. This is a party which does not have shareholders and leader.

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Bureaucracy, Organisation and Political Change
A Critical Analysis of Approaches to the Study of Organisation

by Prof. Zohar Ben-Asher

It is of rather common agreement that organisation, at least originally, was formed in order to pursue the common interests of specific groups [1]. It is far from being agreed, however, what roles are played by various sorts of internal organisational structures, especially when somehow related to political change.

Weber, for example, perceived politics in terms of dispositions over weapons and over means of administration [2]. This implies the existence of overt or covert political classification. The key to such a classification would be a certain formula by which organisational structure would be determined. It might resemble the supposed Marxist classification of economic epochs and the “economic” classes that feature in this type of classification. A question thus might arise: Why would Weber have to follow Marx in essence but still differ in as much as he chose to change the keys for classification.

One, perhaps oversimplified, possible answer is that Weber simply “does not see anything attractive in socialism.” [3] This is what Gerth and Mills had suggested, maybe because it was them who found socialism so unattractive. But as it were, the difference between Marx and Weber goes beyond this level of argumentation. It indicates their profoundly different concepts of what is politics. Both of them perceived and understood politics as a process that reveals itself and is reflected through organisation. But it was not the same organisation for these two thinkers. The difference was mainly in the way they viewed the structure of this process.

Bureaucracy represents political organisation, reflecting its very system and its philosophy. It might well be one of the most important (if not the most important) criteria against which examination of the political organisation could be made. Also, it could serve to examine “politics in action” or in other words – political change. While some of the inherent characteristics of bureaucracy would be its political orientation, it does not automatically go the other way around. That is, it would not be necessary that bureaucratic phenomena should characterise every political organisation. It seems, however, highly likely that they would play an important role in political change. In many cases they would reflect the motivational drives of the political organisation and its structural restraints.

Within the political organisation, bureaucracy not only reflects these drives but it also – possibly even more sharply – indicates situational structures. It may thus be that organisations such as a revolutionary movement would tend to place limits on trends towards the development of bureaucracy, or even eliminate them altogether; at least during the time of struggle to change or purge incumbent regime. The shift would come, however, with the actual take over of political power and the establishment of this movement as the sovereign regime. It would be then, almost without fail that development of the new bureaucratic structure begins. The course of development of the new bureaucratic structure would indicate the direction of the political change. More precisely, it would indicate the interests pushed forward by this change. This observation may point at one of the significant differences between Marx and Weber. It is rather outstanding that the former examined bureaucracy – and organisation – mainly as they functioned in and related to economic interests. The latter placed much more stress on the judicial and administrative aspects of bureaucracy. These, for Marx, were means to the end of promoting economic interests. For Weber, they constituted the very end in itself.

Yet, organisational inner structure may be viewed somewhat differently. It could well represent the result of an equation, the components of which are the different interest groups within the organisation. Certain roles within it would be especially sensitive because they could influence its development. For once, they might be able to determine the type of bureaucracy that would develop. Or they even might become themselves bureaucratic. In particular, the ability to exercise control over information and communications system seems to be crucial. This is so because those who control sources of information might be– even in a fully-fledged democracy – the only ones who really have the accurate picture of the situation. If this were to be the case, they would be in a much better position than anyone else and retain a distinct advantage in the political game that takes place within the organisation. [4] This factor, like other such factors pertaining to the inner composition of a given organisation would have direct influence on the prospects of political change. Moreover, as the process of change takes place, the inner structure may determine to a great extent the character and direction of the change.

The Cultural Revolution of China was possible because of the special inner structure that enabled Mao to “go to the people” while circumventing the regular procedures of mass mobilisation that normally practised in China. Liu Shaoqi, Peng Chen and others may have controlled the bureaucratic apparatus of the Party. They could manipulate the people only through the regular channels of operation that were available to them. These channels required certain complicated preparatory work in order to be effective. Mao, on the other hand, dissociated himself from the bureaucratic formation. He managed to establish himself as having “over-bureaucratic” status. This allowed him an unmitigated access to the people and enabled him to mobilise them directly. This difference, between the tools that Mao had and those of his opponents, was the determinant factor that shaped the mode of the Revolution and, in fact, its results.

Role distribution, value structure, authority and other components of political organisation may differ not only from one society to another. They can also change from time to time in the same society due to either internal or external reasons. Yet all of these phenomena, while placed in the timeless and space-less framework, compose a theoretical setting in which generalisation of the relationship between the different factors can be observed. This is what Talcott Parsons called “total society.” [5]

It might be very tempting to deal with generalisations of this sort. Due to their “theoretical level” they can afford to disregard “details” such as background, special socio-economic realities and environment, religious pressures and so forth. But we must be aware of some essential and lingual restraints that have to be placed on such a procedure of investigation. These are not at all like mathematical models that so many social scientists favour – maybe because they should be based on “closed sets.” [6] Here, in social and behavioural sciences the basic presupposition is open-ended since by definition it may assume unpredictable and constant changes. [7] In this sense, attempts “to fill in gaps in different aspects of the total field which any future attempt to deal with a complex society as a whole” [8] can never be satisfactory. It may be merely of a situational value within a certain unit of space and time.

It is only with this in mind that the examination of the relations between bureaucracy and organisation and political change in their general aspects can be done.

* * *
Organisation, we have seen, is really a function – at least as much as it is a structure. Its existence depends on its participants and on a common goal they wish to pursue. It might be valid in some cases to argue that “the output of the organisation is, for some other system, an input.” But it is not necessary that in its mere being, “organisation is a system, which as the attainment of its goal ‘produces’ an identifiable something which can be utilised in some way bay another system.” [9] Thus, it is not necessarily true that description of analysis of an organisation can only be done from “the cultural-institutional point of view.” [10] However, these two approaches to the examination of a given organisation are, presumably, very convenient and enable analytical coverage of the whole scope.

The point of necessity, or the consistency of such a necessity, is further debatable. It was Parsons himself who questioned the internal consistency of Weber’s ideal type of organisation (in regard to authority and obedience within organisations). [11] His arguments repeated above tend to suffer the same sort of disadvantages.

For Parsons, values of organisation function to legitimise its existence as a system and its main functional mode of operation. These, In Parsons’ opinion, are necessary for the implementation of values. [12] Such a legitimisation, he maintain, enables the organisation to determine the codes of loyalty to be demanded of members of the organisation. Yet, no solution is offered for cases where membership can be actively engaged in more than just one organisation. Organisations, according to Parsons, in their very existence, set obligations and demands. They are deduced from the values and goals (that are, as such, embedded in the values) of each organisation. These demands and obligations define and set limits for loyalty and attempt to direct it towards the organisation. But what if the organisation in question is a part of a larger one? Or, as may happen also, what if the organisation favours or prefers interests of another organisation to its own, as far as loyalty is concerned? [13] The direct ratio loyalty – value – organisation cannot, therefore, be “total” and must be changed to an indirect one. Such a change could violate the placement of loyalty in the set of values by detaching the goals from these values. Then there will be room for arguing that values are related to the structure and the inner functions. Or logically, there will be rules for deduction and operation while goals are the presuppositions or the axioms of the system. Only when this consistency is attained – and only in such an order – can changes in goals precede structural changes of an organisation.

The logical order makes the difference in the analysis of political change. It indicates the effect of processes on each other. The Parsonian “logic” enables merely a “cause-effect” system in which the cause is structural change and the effect is the political change. This is unlike the philosophical-mathematical logic that begins in the change of goals as the indicator for political change. Here there is a process in which political change might have an impact on the mode, direction and intensity of the entire social process; certainly as it pertains to organisational structures.

Another point in Parsons that should be noted is associated with his approach to the problem of division of labour and its related aspects. Parsons states: “In a complex division of labour, both the resources necessary for performing technical functions and the relation to the population elements on whose behalf the functions are performed have become problematical. Resources are made available by special arrangements; they are not simply ‘given’ in the nature of the context of the function. And who shall be the beneficiary of what ‘product’ or ‘services’ on what terms is problematical; this becomes focus of organisational arrangement of many different kinds.” [14]

The core of the problems, according to Parsons, lies in the fact that beyond “a certain point” of the progress of division of labour, decisions which determine the mode of this division are concerned more with the relations of the beneficiaries than with the technical employment of resources. The process of decision-making would be one of the essential modifiers of the organisation. It would thus be technically motivated and the organisational capacity to control the involved population would become the supreme criterion for distribution of goods or social amenities. But, distribution of goods is a function of the distribution of labour. Yet, the Parsonian formula, although perceiving this, detaches it from the values of the organisation [15] of which the distribution of labour is an inherent constituent. There is here a gross inconsistency, as the dependency is not expressed.

Adopting Parsons’ approach, one can logically draw a situation where distribution of work, which is a political reality, leads to a situational, non-politically motivated distribution of goods. This is a contradictory description and it is both logically and practically invalid. If such a detachment of distribution of goods from values is assumed, then, an actual given division of labour could be treated as a value of the organisation. Its result, that is, distribution of goods, would also remain within the set. Both might thus be subject to modifications and re-modifications by virtue of them being situational variables. This, while the concept of (cf. actual) division of labour is one of the constituents of the organisational goals. Employment of resources, preferences and “technical functions” as well as manipulation (mode and context) of population by the system are, in this view, reflections and expressions of both the given structural mode and ideological stage of the organisation. They are also a direct function of values and at the same time, indirect function of goals. In this sense, the former presentation [16] is inconsistent but there are examples that can be explained logically. Such are China’s payment of interest to former capitalists as a compensation for their investment in enterprises prior to the take over of the CCP or the Israeli preference of non-developed and developing areas in erecting industry.

The analysed relations are of vital importance for the understanding of the kind of organisations that develop (bureaucracy, in our case) and for the understanding of this development.

S. N. Eisenstadt discusses several conditions that he considers necessary for the development of a bureaucratic organisation. These conditions basically represent differentiation in the social system. The bureaucratic organisation [17] develops in relation to such differentiation because it “can help coping with some of the problems arising out of such differentiation,” [18] especially hose whose main concern is the co-ordination of large-scale activities.

Some of the conditions required for the development of a bureaucracy pertain to the differentiation between roles and institutional spheres. Allocation of roles not in accordance with “natural” groups (like kin and familial cells) but rather in accordance with “artificial” ones (like religious, professional and national groups) is an example of these types of differentiation. It could also result from the existence of “many functionally specific groups” that do not operate within the ‘natural’ organisations. The common ground for these conditions lies in that they represent gaps between the two types of organisations. On the one hand, there is some kind of “natural” organisation (that can be described in biological terms, e.g., the blood relationships). On the other, the “artificial” organisation in which the ties are based on specific interests that may or may not be in contrast with those of the “natural” organisation. This sort of gap can be, in fact must be viewed as basically qualitative one. The other conditions brought by Eisenstadt seem to create gaps whose main characteristics are more of quantitative nature. In this range appear the differences between scopes: of “natural” groups and cultural, social or national ones; of number and complexity of functions of these two kinds of groups and the complexity of ties that should be maintained by different groups. [19]

The last condition, however, seems to involve both qualitative and quantitative characteristics. It is related to the extent of “free-floating” resources like manpower, economic resources, commitments and so forth.

The development of these conditions, maintains Eisenstadt, may very well result in the development of a bureaucratic system. This sort of organisation is likely to be initiated as an attempt by role (and power) holders to mobilise resources and to resolve various problems that they may face.

But it is not an isolated process that brings about the creation and development of a bureaucratic system. These things take place in a particular social organisation. For this reason, they would always also include conscious efforts to achieve equilibrium within this organisation. Equilibrium is needed not only to stabilise the organisation but also because it is a primary condition for the bureaucracy “to maintain its autonomy and distinctiveness” as Eisenstadt puts it.

Yet, according to Eisenstadt, there is also another process that may take place in such a situation: that is, de-bureaucratisation. He claims, and it appears to be a rather solid argument, that “the tendencies toward bureaucratisation and de-bureaucratisation may, in fact, develop side by side.” This is because the process of refining and definitions made by the bureaucracy as to its autonomy and goals may very well lead to the taking over of some of its “very functions and activities” by “other groups of organisation.” This could happen “when some organisation (i.e., a parents’ association or a religious or political group) attempts to direct the rules and working of a bureaucratic organisation (school, economic agency and so forth) for its own use or according to its own values and goals.” [20]

This approach towards the phenomenon of bureaucracy may seem contradictory. But given the conditions for the evolution of bureaucracy, it is in fact consistent one. The bureaucratic organisation in itself consists of well-defined groups of role holders. So constituted, any given bureaucracy seeks to refine the definitions for each role within itself. This contributes to further isolation of groups of role holders. Although this isolation is initially a functional one, it may extend itself to other spheres of life. Moreover, such a process that leads to isolation not only can be seen in itself as a process of de-bureaucratisation. It can also be perceived as a source of tacit – or even open – competition for power. During the stage of inception of the bureaucracy, there are attempts to make definitions of functions and group as accurate as the can be. The motivation behind this is the aspiration to increase and improve the co-operation and effectiveness of the different branches so they all would contribute to the consolidation of the bureaucracy in question. But now, once it is established and secure, the motivations change. The mere fact of progress along time span changes conditions. Gaps that could be ignored at the initial stages slowly enter the focus of the debate (either the internal one or even the public discourse). What previously had been regarded as organisational and – or – functional relations may now become political relations and struggle for power. On the other hand, the more the bureaucracy has been able to establish itself as a complex system, the greater would be the power required to operate and control this system. The intensity of the struggle for power also becomes greater and certain roles that involve functions of control and power could be used (and normally they are indeed being used) against or over opponents and – or – supporters in such areas as education, communications, information, etc. Accordingly, they also become more and more important.

The holders of such roles recognise the increasing importance of their roles. It would only be expected, therefore, that they would try to further promote such a definition of their role(s) that would help them to perpetuate their hold on this role. This would, in turn, increase the important of the role even further. But other role holders would do the same, at the same time and within the same bureaucratic framework. This creates an internal competition within the bureaucracy that paradoxically would create forces of disunity. Stress on competence and de-centralisation of power would be likely to follow and would contribute to the undermining of the entire system. At this stage it could be expected that various pivotal forces – or it could be frustrated ones – that would attempt to break the framework of the bureaucracy. Amongst those that would be likely to participate in this process we could find not only those in power, but also role holders whose roles are less important or under threat. The members of this last group wish, of course, to promote their position and the best way to do so would be to elevate the importance of their role. This creates tension because in effect, such a process is nothing less than a clear attempt to break the monopoly of the important roles and to actually neutralise them. The struggle might be focused on the issue of “what should replace the existing format of bureaucracy.” Each contesting group would come up with quite different solutions, naturally.

In light of this discussion, it seems that the presentation offered by Eisenstdt’s would be not only useful but also consistent and valid.

There might be an inference from this to the arena of political change. Political change, it might be argued, should be regarded simultaneously as input and an output of the process of bureaucratisation and de-bureaucratisation as described above. When analysing an organisation, it could be attached to the set as one of the essential values of the bureaucratic organisation. Not only philosophically (to support logical validity) but also practically.

This attitude differs significantly from Weber’s view of the ideal bureaucracy. [21] Moreover, Weber stated that “when those subject to bureaucratic control seek to escape the influence of the existing bureaucratic apparatus, this is normally possible only by creating an organisation of their own which is equally subject to the process of bureaucratisation.” [22] That is to say, according to the approach presented, that Weber really failed to see the entire picture. While it may well be true that such a tendency (of bureaucratisation of the group) could exist, it is precisely this process that indicates the de-bureaucratisation of the roof organisation (of which this group has been or still is a part). Bureaucratisation of a sub-system implies a tendency to organisational – and many times also ideological – detachment from the system. The weakening of the bureaucratic system by one or more of its sub-systems cannot but result in the de-bureaucratisation of the system. Only in this way could a sub-system aspire and may achieve autonomy and create an independent bureaucratic structure. Equally, only by becoming more and more bureaucratic, can such a sub-system establish its autonomy and weaken the parent system to which it previously belonged.

Another important difference lies in the possible answer to the question of “who controls the existing bureaucratic machinery?” Weber maintains that “such control is possible only to a very limited degree for persons who are not technical specialists.” [23] The other approach, that to great extent views bureaucracy as a reflection of political reality, tolerates the existence of “non-specialist” power and control holders. [24]

Weber maintains that “bureaucratic administration means fundamentally the exercise of control on the basis of knowledge.” [25] Here, he mainly mean technical knowledge or more accurately, professional knowledge that was acquired through previous training. His model might be best fit the professional military. But bureaucracy could exist also in other organisations – formal or informal – certainly if perceived within a political context and even if modified by various changes. If we would stick to the model drawn by Weber, then no political change could result from the operation of the bureaucracy. This is because in his model the role holders can never control in a complete manner the apparatus, without which political changes could not happen. Theoretically, Weber’s ideal bureaucracy is thus very static and as such tends to be practically impossible. It may seem permissible to say that political change would bring about bureaucratisation. But the opposite – which is in fact what happens left, right and centre – is not logically valid if we follow Weber’s pattern and apply to it the same rules of deduction that operate in his own theoretical system.

According to the same theoretical process, struggle of role holders of different professions cannot exist once control has been established and practised. Moreover, use of roles by other role holders would be logically impossible. In this sense, most of Weber’s followers, who may have suggested that such a possibility is implied in Weber’s system, committed a logical error, even if their argument as such proved to be practically true. Indeed, as March and Simon have indicated, in many respects “Weber’s essential proposition that bureaucratises are more efficient (with respect to the goals of the formal hierarchy) than are alternative forms of organisation” is – as a matter of fact – undeniable. [26]

The main logical and philosophical troubles with the Weberian perceptions are anchored not so much in his descriptive model as in the deterministic approach and the inflexibility of the model. While it might be – in situational terms – an accurate description of a given system, analysis of the bureaucratic phenomena in general should have rather focused itself on the process of change. A. Etzioni says: “Modern society is to a large degree a bureaucratic society… Not only does modern society as a whole tend to be bureaucratic, but the most powerful social units of modern society are also bureaucratic.” [27] Yet, the Weber’s approach – and to a great extent also Etzioni’s approach – treat the social complex within a static framework and fail to capture its inherent element of dynamism and change. Thus, in light of these descriptions, it would be impossible to analyse quite a few political events as phenomena that belong in the framework of organisation and bureaucracy. For example, the Chinese protracted warfare prior to the 1949 take over, the Cultural Revolution or the Israeli Protest Movement that followed the 1973 “Yom Kippur” War. Furthermore, if the methodologies adopted by Weber, Etzioni and their like were to be followed, it would also be impossible to analyse, on their own terms, such phenomena as inner struggles within bureaucratic systems, like – say – the Soviet Communist Party to name but one.

Etzioni points out the allocation of means and social integration as other “functional requirements” of society that are carried out and controlled by complex organisations. To him, this is the very bureaucratisation of society. [28] It is true that many functions or roles in almost all societies are characterised by bureaucratic processes. But it would be false both methodologically and logically, as well as a practical error, to ignore the inter-relations of the different agencies between and among themselves and between these agencies and that centre that at least theoretically represents the source of power and control within society. An argument was put forward to “justify” or at least explain this type of false. Arguably, it stems from the fact that at the time when the main theories of bureaucracy and organisation were first formulated, such important factors (or means) as the mass media and mass communications did not exist or were not as central as they are today. Only when, in time, these factors grew more important and significant, could they also enter the theoretical setting as functional agencies rather than mere isolated factors. Factually, this is very true. But these factors must still be considered as independent factors – at least as far as the interplay between the factors themselves takes place. There is no doubt that even in societies where the media are operated and controlled by the state they still influence significantly the system itself and even the entire society. If this is ignored, no real analysis can be offered that would be able to consider political changes – particularly if and when these are somehow related to changes that the organisational system might be undergoing. Such omission is not unavoidable if the Weber-inspired methodology is employed; certainly if without a measure of criticism. [29]

Indeed, it is not really surprising that the definitions of complex organisations tend to be somewhat fluid. We may find, for example, the following:

“The unit organisation exists at a point in time. It remains in existence and is operative only as long as the co-ordinated activity of which it is composed is continuous. Many unit organisations do come into existence, engage in activity and accomplish some unit objective, but they do so within the framework of a total pattern of activity and toward a common goal. Individuals also may engage in individual activity that has as its purpose a fraction of some common purpose rather than a personal goal of the individual. This hierarchy of unit organisations and individual activity, all a part of some common design, may be said to constitute a complex organisation. The latter entity is not continuous and it may be seen as a time-lapse photograph of unit organisations and individual activity, all structured under some common purpose and contributing activity toward some common goal.” [30]

Such a definition cannot hold philosophical validity from its very beginning. Firstly, limitation of time could not be detached from that of space. [31] Secondly, a deterministic, total approach as taken here (“It remains… only as long as… etc.) may easily be countered and upset by examples of deviation (e.g., when part or all of the constituents are changed or cease to operate while the framework of the organisation remains in existence). And once deviation occurs, a set of arguments could not be considered as a complete theory with a closed set of provable theorems based on agreed axioms and rules of deduction. At best, it might be a collection of suggestive arguments that may or may not be true for a given and particular private case. If this is the case, emphasis should be placed on the causality of the arguments stipulated. It must also be noted that any particular description cannot be but a fairly loose proposition. Most of the arguments discussed above attribute some sort of “necessity” to their content. But this cannot be, of course, logical. In fact, it is not even relevant. The entire discussion could only remain within the boundaries of descriptive themes. Any attempt to claim otherwise defies logic and is thus misleading.

Entirely different is the approach offered by G. L. Lippitt in his Organisational Renewal. [32] Lippitt tries to examine organisations and behaviour of both organisations and their particles from a psychological point of view that weighs aspects “that benefit the individual and group in the organisation.” [33] He maintains that the “normal” situation of a system is some sort of a status quo and that change is really a deviation from this status quo. He does not draw the limits – or boundaries – of this status quo and he refrains from a strict definition of the range of the possible changes and from a clear reference to such changes. The organisational world of Lippitt can thus be viewed as either being in total and perennial stability or as subject to total and constant change. Both are permitted if plain logic is applied to the drawn models of Lippitt. Definition of particles, or constituents and their roles cannot be found in his 305-page long book. The same is true as to possible indications of internal or external relations of organisational systems. Even his annotated bibliography that holds additional 9 pages and contains some 52 works seems to be one-sided and heavily biased – and hardly useful.

The following short passage is a typical statement of this work:

“Frustration is experienced by those who think success in mobilising human resources, or in initiating organisation renewal, is simply a matter of education and, perhaps, of using persuasive stimuli reinforced by annual picnics, newsletters and adequate coffee-breaks.” [34]

This is so because: “Organisation renewal is the process of initiating, creating and confronting needed changes so as to make it possible for organisations to become or remain viable, to adapt to new conditions, to solve problems, to learn from experience and to move toward greater organisational maturity.” [35] Not only is the definition itself empty and of no use at all, in terms of the argument or for the examination of theorems (for example, what is “organisational maturity”?) The argument itself, that begins as highly deterministic one, fades and loosens so as to end as a rather simplistic “saloon talk” that cannot be taken seriously.

Indeed, the Chinese situation under Mao is a clear blow to Lippitt’s statement. There, the system was anchored in the belief that success in mobilising human resources is simply a matter of education and the Chinese leadership who thought so did not seem to have been frustrated. But there is a crucial point that lies beyond this level. It must be referred to the logical structure of both definitions. These would serve in a logical model as the axioms while the argument would be, for all practical matters, the theorem. Lack of accuracy is not only a matter of aesthetics. It is precisely what determines the framework of the entire discussion. If any component of either the definition or the argument were to be removed nothing would happen. There is no close definition, nor any solid argument could be found that together might lead to any possible range of strongly based conclusions. This pulls away the ground from underneath Lippitt’s structure, leaving him with no model what so ever. The tendency to observe the organisational phenomena from the viewpoint of a behavioural pattern is, however, interesting. It must be, of course, limited to either individual participants or to particular mechanisms (that are operated by individuals). Under the limit of this condition it might be interesting to examine possible relations between role holders and functions of the system, between and among role holders themselves, etc.

Indeed, within this sort of framework, a discussion concerning the internal communications within organisations could be useful. The question of whether or not some undefined individual is frustrated – or why – could not be traced and answered in general terms. On the other hand, it would be certainly possible to observe the behavioural patterns that result from a specific position of individual within the system. Questions that seek answers as regard to the extent or mode of change that results from the exercising of a particular role in the system that enable its holder to manipulate other people are certainly legitimate. But such questions cannot be found in Lippitt’s work. Also, open-ended or multi-ended answers could be useful, but not if they fail to be within any logical context. A mere collection of statements without foundations and directions cannot replace a serious discussion and analysis.

* * *

Organisations are important as they appear to be because – as March and Simon say – “people spend so much of their time in them.” [36] This is rather a superficial answer, as they admit themselves. But the importance of organisations or the understanding of them is embedded in the fact that distribution of wealth, labour and power, as well as the well being of each of us and the prospects of change – are all related functions of organisational patterns. This in itself means that limitations are placed on the possibility to understand and – or – to describe the core of the organisational activity. This is because the means to do so, that is: language, is by itself a related function of organised patterns. Hence, the only “open” field of understanding is that by which we try to describe through definitions and deductive rules some of the mechanisms of organisational activity. We cannot break out of the framework by merely providing suggestive formulas that can only refer to situational realities.

In this sense, the attempt made by March and Simon to seek explanations that could correspond to the most basic and simple questions arising from the observation of the organisational phenomena, is fruitful. It is so because in this way a methodology for such an observation can be developed. Albeit it is still more inductive than deductive, this type of observation is a key for the understanding of the processes that take place within a given organisation. Furthermore, it serves as a basis for correlating such processes to political change or other activities that are associated with the observed organisation, even if they are not an integrated part of it.

Adopting this policy of observation, March and Simon can cover a relatively large number of viewpoints while not slipping too much to the “absolutist approach” that characterise quite a few other works in the field of organisation.

An important aspect covered by them is that of the relations between the motivational setting of an organisation and the alternatives open to it. This is a question that, as they rightly mention, “has not been examined in any detail in the literature.” [37] The way in which they bring forward this issue is typical of their work and it is certainly worthy of praise. First they suggest a hypothesis while using theorems based on a set of previously formulated definitions. They refrain from falling into the trap of the determinist and absolutist approach and thus they keep from merely offering baseless suggestions. They put forward a series of examples taken from different private cases and make sure to comment on each of these. Only then they attempt to draw a framework for conclusions, while not ignoring that these could only be suggestive in their nature. When dwelling on the questions of motivations and alternatives they suggest the following: “In general, the greater the objective availability of external alternative, the more likely that such alternatives will be evoked.” [38] The terms are well defined and the problem of the “intentions” of the authors is avoided.

These relations seem to be crucial. They correspond to the previously mentioned inter-relations between the components of the bureaucratic system. They also have much to do with the source of political change that may occur within, or in connection with, a certain bureaucracy. Availability of alternatives, as March and Simon indicate points at two kinds of ranges. One is the objective range of alternatives. The other range is that of what seem to be as alternatives to various participants within the system. Considering the interplay of groups of interest within a bureaucratic set, the distinction between the two ranges tend to be associated with and influenced by the structure of the set. This is also true for the attempts made by the set – or its leadership – to materialise such alternatives in the least disharmonious manner. The motivational factor must therefore be closely associated with the identity of the players. It would be so both in the realm of individual-group relations and in the realm of inter-group relations.

There seems to be “an identification mechanism” that works within the system. Also, “even in the absence of positive identification, the strength of group pressures as the uniformity of group opinion increases.” It therefore seems to be valid to assume that “the perceived consequences of alternatives are, at least partly, a function of the strength of group pressures and the direction of these pressures that stem from sub groups and extra-organisational groups.” [39]

The structural organisation of a given set of groups is influenced by the alternatives – both real and imaginary. Simultaneously, it influences the range of possible and desirable alternatives. It is impossible to determine exactly where the starting point lies. But it is quite obvious that this complex of factors, namely, group identity and pressures, the nature of the structural organisation and the existence of several ranges of alternatives, are all, in fact – and when they interact – the core of any possible political change. This basic assumption must be acknowledged when dealing with any of these factors. Otherwise, the analysis will be incomplete and rather arbitrary.

There is an inherent essential difficulty that attempts to analyse bureaucracy – or even organisations in general – face. Such attempts could basically be either descriptive or theoretical. Yet, a descriptive attempt, particularly if it would also try to be accurate, must refer to particular phenomenon (or phenomena) that only exist in exact and particular frame of time and space. It would then be confined to inductive suggestions that may only concern some aspects of the general phenomena. It cannot state absolutely proven theorem and remains logical at the same time. Moreover, if accuracy is to be maintained, it should also refer at least to the previously mentioned factors. At the same time, it cannot confine itself merely to the structural aspects. Motivations, alternatives, technical operation of the system, definitions of power for the various levels of hierarchy and other such factors must also be referred to.

The theoretical type of attempt is even harder to pursue. For once, it has to cover all of these aspects that must be included in the theoretical setting. The main factor, however, is the theoretical “backbone” on which the entire movement within the suggested system depends. It must remain open-ended and in a constant flux so as to enable changes in the forms and – or – essence to enter the set, either as new givens or as renewed or unchanged ones. These act and perceived in accordance with the changing conditions. The effort here must include, therefore, a logically closed theory of dynamics as well as techniques that allow the work in several levels of definition that may vary according to different natures of the qualitatively different components of such a theoretical setting.

In order to deal with the complexity and to study the phenomena of bureaucracy, organisation, political change and their like, some of the logical and philosophical strict limitations must be sacrificed. Thus, some of the observations and theoretical relations between components of a given theoretical setting would be treated out of the frame of the formal logic. Yet the demand for examination of such relations must not e neglected altogether. It is still of great importance. Martin Albrow in his Bureaucracy reveals many of these. He also tries to analyse them and to seek justification for them. Thus, when touching the relations between bureaucracy and ideology he suggests that “some justification for paying even slight attention to the concept of bureaucracy in ideological contexts appears to be necessary.” There are three reasons for this. Firstly, while ideologies are designed to incite men to action, this does not mean that their content is wholly emotive. On the contrary, it is a feature of modern ideologies that they purport to be based upon an objective view of the nature of man and society. Secondly, it is notoriously difficult for the social scientist to remove all traces of ideological commitment from his or her work and it is therefore important to be aware of the nature of the ideological concepts of bureaucracy. Thirdly, Marxist (or self-proclaimed Marxist) and to a lesser degree also Fascist ideologies claim to erase the distinction between ideological and scientific thought – at least as far as their own doctrines are concerned. Political leaders set themselves up as arbiters of scientific truth and academicians avowedly direct their work to political ends. That the scientific element in this conflict of ideology and knowledge cannot be lightly disregarded is obvious when we consider the high prestige as a political scientist that Karl Marx, the most successful ideologist of all time, has in non-Marxist circles. [40]

Albrow’s approach is highly advantageous. Not only does he lack the absolutist tendency that characterises many of the writers dealing with the discussed phenomena. While examining some of the literature, he tries to gain access to pieces of information that could be consulted when pursuing the study of related subjects. [41] In this he uniquely achieves a degree of reliability that many works fail to maintain because they do not concede the possibility of open-ended changing relations. Adhering only to a one-way solution, as is the case with many of the works in the field (and most of those mentioned here) tend to culminate in the construction of static models and limited understanding – not only of bureaucracy and of organisation in general. But also, it confines and limits the discussion of political change and only allows for a static model and formulas to be presented. This is inadequate logically and academically but even more so – it is entirely unrealistic and untrue. It must be noted, however, that such works can still benefit their readers even though they suffer from such important shortcomings. If not with insight, they can at least still provide us with information pertaining to bureaucracy, organisation and political change and to their inner and inter relations.

Notes & References

[1] Peter M. Blau (1968), “Organization: Theories” in David L. Sills, ed., International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, New York, Macmillan & Free Press, Vol. II, pp 297-98

[2] Max Weber (1928), Essay in Sociology [edited & translated by H. H. Gerth & C. Wright Mills], New York, Oxford University Press, “Introduction”, p. 47
[3] Ibid., p. 49

[4] Israel, in the aftermath of the 1973 war could be a case in point. The incumbent leadership managed to retain power mainly because it had full control over the sources of information (albeit not over all of the means of communications).

[5] Talcott Parsons (1960), Structure and Process in Modern Society, Glenco, Il The Free Press

[6] These, in fact, consist of limited number of agreed presuppositions that in many times have been selected arbitrarily. On these operate some rules of mathematical deduction so as to allow desired conclusions. Unlike in statistical models, where they might be permitted, in pure mathematical models deviations would not be acceptable and be considered as false.

[7] This is because social and behavioural sciences deal with human beings of which the definition includes such values as “individualism,” “mind,” “brain,” feelings,” “sensitivity” and so forth. These values cannot be measured and summed-up mathematically, nor can they be reduced linguistically to the status of concrete value.

[8] For a detailed discussion see: Ben-Asher, Z. (1972), “Language, Mathematics and Social Sciences” in Philosophia, VII (1): 85-127 (March) and Pears, D. E. (1973), Logic by Set Theory, London, Durham & Barr, pp. 321-60

[9] Parsons, op. cit., p. 2

[10] Ibid., p. 17

[11] Ibid., p. 20

[12] Weber’s administrative staff was defined as having professional expertise as well as the right to give orders. Parsons argues that such attributes may well give rise to a conflict within a given bureaucracy, as it would be impossible to ensure that higher authoritative positions should be matched by equivalent professional skills. Also, members of the organisation would face the problem of whether to obey those who have the right to give orders or to obey those with higher degree of expertise.

[13] Parsons, op. cit., p. 21

[14] For example, political parties that demand of its members that their loyalty to, say, the state should take priority over loyalty to the Party.

[15] Parsons, op. cit., p. 61

[16] Ibid., p. 62, 116-128 passim

[17] Ibid., pp. 130-31 (reference to the Israeli case)

[18] Eisenstadt, S. N. (1969), “Bureaucracy, Bureaucratisation and De-bureaucratisation” in A. Etzioni, ed., A Sociological Reader on Complex Organisations, New York, Holt & Winston, Inc. [Enlarged; first published in 1961 as Comlex Organisations: A Sociological Reader], pp. 304-305

[19] Ibid., p. 305

[20] Ibid., p. 306

[21] Ibid., p. 307

[22] And also from his sub species of bureaucracy like “Patrimonial bureaucracy” etc.
Max Weber (1967), “The Ideal Bureaucracy” in Organisational and Human Behaviour [edited by G. D. Bell], Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall, p. 88 [reprinted from Weber (1947), The Theory of Social and Economic Organisation [translated by T. Parsons], New York, the Free Press]

[23] Ibid., p 89

[24] At least the two cases mentioned above, of China and of Israel, seem to represent such a mode of control.

[25] “The Ideal Bureaucracy” op. cit., p. 89

[26] March, J. G. and H. A. Simon (1958), Organisations, New York, John Willey & Sons

[27] Etzioni, op. cit., p. 293

[28] Ibid.

[29] It could be seen in many works that examine the process of decision-making. Often it is possible to identify the tendency, in such works, to isolate the particular process and mechanism of the decision-making from the complex of relations that operate between and among the various agencies. Rather, there can be found discussions on the relations between the “centre” and the agencies (or some of them).

[30] Torgensen, P. E. (1969), A Concept of Organisation, New York, American Book, p. 52

[31] See the long standing discussions in this matter in (for instance): Russell, B., Principia Mathematica and Problems of Philosopy, Ryle, G., The Concept of Mind etc. For a discussion and analysis of the problems of time and space in social organisation see also: Ben-Asher, Z. (1972), “Logic and Questions of Time and Space in Descriptive Models of State-Societies” in The Israeli Quarterly of Social Research, II (4): 31-56

[32]Lippitt, G. L. (1969), Organisational Renewal, New York, Meredith Corp.

[33] Ibid., Introduction, p. 1

[34] Ibid., p. 143

[35] Ibid., from the glossary that he wrote because – so he states – “I feel it may be helpful to the reader to have a glossary…”, p. 1

[36] March & Simon, op. cit., p. 2

[37] Ibid.

[38] Ibid.

[39] Ibid., p. 59

[40] Albrow, M. C. (1970), Bureaucracy, London, Pall Mall Press [American edition by Praeger], p. 67

[41] Ibid., p. 125

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Should we and can we develop an African philosophy of education?: Pedagogy of Sagacity

In 1986, Njoroge and Bennaars, published Philosophy and education in Africa; an introductory text for students of education. Since the publication of this textbook there has been an intellectual aridity in this area of educational philosophizing in Kenya. This is in spite of the said textbook being merely introductory or prolegomenon. More importantly is the model proposed and formulated in this textbook intended as a conceptual framework for developing an African philosophy of education (1986; 92). This model has remained un-attempted.

My paper will argue in the affirmative while distinguishing should as a non-moral normative imperative and can as a question of ability. While indeed we should develop African philosophy of education this imperative remains unachievable until we have experts with requisite scholarly abilities.

Problem of shortage of educational philosophers

Experts in philosophy of education are called educational philosophers. They should be trained in technical philosophy and educational sciences. The two disciplines must meet in one. To ‘meet in one,’ means that an educational philosopher should integrate both technical philosophy and educational sciences as an integral area of academic specialization. Educational philosopher is the middle term between technical philosophy and educational sciences. In other words one should have academic qualification as a technical philosopher and as a trained professional teacher.

Lack of this ‘meeting in one’ of the two areas is to blame for lack of resources in this area. It means persons who are lesser than the ideal are teaching this discipline. There are two types of categories of teachers of philosophy of education in Africa who are lesser than the ideal.

The generalists and the specialists, the former are professional educators without philosophical footing. The latter are academic philosophers without educational training. Both as Plato would say must be debarred and be made to give way for educational philosopher.

Generalists make philosophy of education be about general principles, aims and goals of education. The technical philosopher makes philosophy of education too abstract and unrelated to everyday concerns of professional teacher in schooling. The latter stand accused of arm chair speculation, the latter stands accused of generality.

The model of African philosophy of education: Pedagogy of sagacity

Pedagogy of Sagacity stands on two feet – one foot is planted in Sage philosophy and the other in Pedagogy of Oppressed – both feet are rooted in the conceptual model for developing African philosophy of education as articulated by Njoroge and Bennaars (1986, 88-89).

Pedagogy of Sagacity or Sagacious Pedagogy is developed as an attempt to transcend the original impetus of the project of Sage philosophy of Nairobi School. As Gail Presbey states,

I suggest that the original impetus for starting the sage philosophy project – the defense against Euro-American skeptics who thought Africans incapable of philosophizing – has been outgrown. The present need for studies of African sages is to benefit from their wisdom, both in Africa and around the world. I also suggest that the title ‘sage’ has to be problematized. While there were good reasons to focus earlier on rural elders as overlooked wise philosophers, the emphasis now should be on admiring philosophical thought wherever it may be found-in women, youth, and urban Africans as well. In such a way, philosophy will be further relevant to people’s lives, and further light will be shed and shared regarding the lived experience in Africa.

Gail concludes by pointing out that

Whether, and in what way, sage philosophy continues and grows will be determined in part by the ideas of those who have the will to continue it; their works will help define the terms “sage” and “sage philosophy” in the future.

Pedagogy of Sagacity is contemplated here as a possible contribution to the development of Sage philosophy in terms of African philosophy of education. Njoroge and Bennaars (1986, 98) have formulated

…a basic framework within which philosophical thinking about African education must be located. Within this model we identified four distinct areas of concern each reflecting a specific function of Technical Philosophy, a specific approach in educational Philosophy and a specific trend in African Philosophy. These areas of concern are: the Ethnophilosophy of Education, the Phenomenology of African Education, the Critique of African Education and the Philosophical analysis of African Education.

The authors (1986, 88) intend this to be a normative ‘framework within which to locate educational philosophy in Africa.’ Thus they state that (1986, 89),

…we can now establish what ought to be the major features or concerns of an African Philosophy of Education; thus we may arrive at a MODEL that brings out the specific features of a truly African Philosophy of Education.

For this model to be realized two criteria or conditions must be fulfilled, namely technical and African. As regards the former criterion ‘an African Philosophy of Education, to be recognized as truly technical, (it) must display similar functions and approaches as the Technical Philosophy of Education’ (1986, 89). There are four functions of technical philosophy namely, critical, rational, phenomenological and speculative (1986, 23-24). Corresponding to these four functions respectively are four approaches to philosophy of education namely, implicational, existential, critical and analytical approaches (1986, 89).

With regard to the second criterion or condition African philosophy must be African that is ‘it must reflect the trends characteristic of philosophical thinking in Africa’ (1986, 89). Njoroge and Bennaars (1986, 83-89) have delineated four trends in African philosophy namely, ethno-philosophy, cultural philosophy, political philosophy and formal philosophy. Each of these trends is paired with a corresponding function from the four technical functions of philosophy. The resulting combinations are four distinct approaches to African philosophy of education these are; ethno-philosophy paired with speculative function results in implications approach in African philosophy of education; cultural philosophy paired with phenomenological function results in existential approach; political philosophy paired with critical function results in critical approach; and lastly formal philosophy paired with analytical function results in analytical approach (1986, 89).

We can therefore identify ‘four major areas of concern, which may be called the basis … of a truly African Philosophy of Education.’ These are ethno-philosophy of education; phenomenology of African education; critique of African education; and philosophical analysis of African education.[1] In Aristotelian causality technical functions of philosophy are the formal causes while trends in African philosophy are the material causes. Formal and material causes are co-constitutive principles of substantial being, the substance of African philosophy of education is possible within the framework of Njoroge and Bennaars. As Wittgenstein states (1981;2.14) ‘what constitutes a picture is that its elements are related to one another in a determinate way,’ this is ‘the pictorial form’ of reality (2.15). In a pictorial form of reality ‘a picture … attached … to reality … reaches right out to it’ so that the picture is the measure of what reality should be. (2.1521). The framework of Njoroge and Bennars is the measure of what is to be regarded as African philosophy of education.

Platonic middle term

The model proposed by Njoroge and Bennaars has not yet been worked out in practice. This could be due to lack of experts who are ‘extremely rare’ (1986;78) with the right combinations namely, training in technical philosophy and training as professional educators (B.Ed). Further still development of African educational philosophy requires experts with knowledge and skill in African philosophy. The requirement that African philosophers of educators be doubled edged experts in technical philosophy and professional educators (1986; 77-80) is akin to Plato’s (Republic Book, V. 473d) observation that

Cities will have no respite from evil … unless philosophers rule as kings in the cities, or those whom we now call kings and rulers genuinely and adequately study philosophy, until, that is, political power and philosophy coalesce, and the various natures of those who now pursue the one to the exclusion of the other are forcibly debarred from doing so. Otherwise the city we have been describing will never grow into a possibility or see the light of day.

To paraphrase Plato in the framework of Njoroge – Bennaars we can state that: Kenya will have no African philosophy of education unless philosophers teach and research in educational foundations, or those who teach philosophy of education genuinely and adequately study philosophy; until, that is, technical philosophy and educational sciences coalesce in African educational philosophers and the various scholars who now pursue one to the exclusion of the other are forcibly debarred from meddling in this area. Otherwise the proposed model of African philosophy of education will never develop into a possibility or see the light of day. Plato in the cited place provides a middle term which logically links technical philosophy and educational sciences in philosophy of education in Africa. The middle term is a technical African philosopher who is also a professional philosopher i.e. a scholar who integrates both technical philosophy and educational profession. It is from such a one that hope lies for possibility of developing an African philosophy of education. With such rare experts we can develop African philosophy of education.

Pedagogy of Sagacity: Thought Experiment on African Philosophy of education

Of the four trends in African philosophy identified by Njoroge and Bennars Sage Philosophy is not included, yet Odera Oruka (1990;16-17) includes it as a distinct trend in African philosophy. There are four trends in African philosophy identified by Oruka (1990, 13 – 20) namely, ethno-philosophy, philosophic sagacity, nationalist-ideological philosophy and professional philosophy. For Oruka (1991,43) ‘sage philosophy comes as a third alternative’ it lies between folk philosophy or (ethno-philosophy) and ‘the written critical discourse’ or  (professional trend); sage philosophy ‘demonstrates the fact that traditional Africa had both folk wisdom and critical personalized philosophical discourse.’ Sage philosophy is here subjected to phenomenological analysis within the model of Njoroge – Bennaars in attempt to develop African philosophy of education. As the model of Njoroge – Bennaars requires African philosophy of education should be worked out on two-fold points, firstly, technical method of philosophy and secondly a trend in African philosophy. To develop pedagogy of sagacity, phenomenology is the opted technical function of philosophy while philosophic sagacity or sage philosophy is the trend in African philosophy; from these two a new area in African educational philosophy arises namely, pedagogy of sagacity.

Banking versus problem-posing education

Pedagogy of sagacity is influenced by pedagogy of the oppressed. Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educationist developed a trend in philosophy of education called pedagogy of the oppressed (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed ‘is an instrument for … critical discovery … of dehumanization’. ‘The central problem’ of pedagogy of the oppressed ‘is this: How can the oppressed, as divided, unauthentic beings, participate in developing the pedagogy of their liberation?’ ‘This pedagogy makes oppression and its causes objects of reflection by the oppressed, and from that reflection will come their necessary engagement in the struggle for their liberation. And in the struggle this pedagogy will be made and remade’ (1972, 25). Pedagogy of the oppressed is a critique of traditional pedagogy that is teacher-centered; the teacher assumes the dominant role while the learners are passive. In traditional pedagogy Freire identified two dialectically opposed poles, the oppressors – who happen to be teachers, and the oppressed – who happen to be learners. The teacher is in a dialectical opposition to the learner in which case the teacher has-knowledge but the learner has-not knowledge, he is assumed to be tabula rasa. Freire employs analogy of the banking industry to expose ten contradictory pedagogical ‘attitudes and practices, which mirror oppressive society as a whole’ (1972, 46-47). The teacher acts as the ‘bank-clerk’ by use of ‘banking methods of domination’. Freire institutes a pedagogical paradigm shift where he replaces ‘the educational goal of deposit-making …with the posing of problems of men in their relations with the world’ (1972,52). This is also called liberating education which ‘consists in acts of cognition, not transferrals of information’ (1972,53). The ‘practice of problem-posing education first of all demands a resolution of the teacher-student contradiction. Dialogical relations – indispensable to the capacity of cognitive actors to cooperate in perceiving the same cognizable object – are otherwise impossible’ (1972, 53). Iconoclasm of banking education allows freedom for ‘the critical reflection of both teacher and students’ this leads to ‘emergence of consciousness and critical intervention in reality.’ (1972, 53-54).To contrast ‘banking education … and … problem-posing education’ Freire (1972;56-57states

… the two educational concepts and practices under analysis come into conflict. Banking education attempts, by mythicizing reality, to conceal certain facts which explain the way men exist in the world; problem-posing education sets itself the task of de-mythologizing. Banking education resists dialogue; problem-posing education regards dialogue as indispensable to the acts of cognition which unveils reality. Banking education treats students as objects of assistance; problem-posing education makes them critical thinkers. Banking education inhibits creativity and domesticates the intentionality of consciousness by isolating consciousness from the world, thereby denying men their ontological and historical vocation of becoming more fully human.

Freire is in total rejection of banking education the means for emancipation from ‘authoritarianism and an alienating intellectualism’ is to begin with people ‘in the ‘here and now’, which constitutes the situation in which they are submerged, from which they emerge…. To do this authentically they must perceive their state not as fated and unalterable, but merely as limiting – and therefore challenging.’ (1972;57-58)

Pedagogy of sagacity is an attempt to develop African philosophy of education.  It is a critical reflection on possibility of African pedagogy, as Freire notes ‘critical reflection is also action’ in the sense that ‘action and reflection occur simultaneously’ (1972, 99).

Two Typologies of Sages

Odera Oruka (1991; 34) identifies two types of sages in Africa, namely, folk sage and philosophic sage.

Findings in Kenya show that there are two main divisions of sage philosophy. One is that of the sage whose thought, though well informed and educative, fails to go beyond the celebrated folk-wisdom. Such a sage may not have the ability or inclination to apply his own independent critical objection to folk beliefs. He is, therefore, a folk sage in contrast to the second type of the sage, the philosophic sage. The former is a master of popular wisdom while the latter is an expert in didactic wisdom.

The philosophic sage may know, as the folk sage does, what the cardinal beliefs and wisdoms of his community are, but he makes an independent, critical assessment to what the people take for granted. Thus, while the sagacity of the folk sage remains at the first order level of philosophy, that of the philosophic sage is a second-order philosophy, that is a reflection on and a rationalized evaluation of what is given in the first order. What is given in the first order is a mixture of conventional-cum-customary beliefs and practices.

Oruka (1991, 37) believes that ‘There are and there will be sages even among Africans with modern education’ for instance Nyerere. To be a sage one needs ‘to be wise and able to utilize that wisdom for the benefit of one’s community.’ ‘The concern in the sage research is not to claim that sagacity is, by definition, philosophy but to look for philosophy within sagacity, that is, to get to their overlap. ‘Within this overlap, both the philosopher and the wise man have the same function: they employ abstract reasoning for the understanding and solution of the basic questions of human life’ (1991, 41). Odera Oruka (1991, 34) carried out his research project in Kenya. ‘One major aim is to look for philosophy or traces of philosophy in traditional Africa….by talking to the living sages…. Exposing the value of such thoughts is again one other important aim of the sage research’ (1991, 41). However, most importantly the sage project was meant ‘to help substantiate or disapprove the well-known claim that ‘real philosophical thought’ had no place in traditional Africa.’ This claim implied that ‘existence of philosophy in modern Africa is due wholly to the introduction of western thought to Africa’ (1991, 34). The invalidation of this claim could only be established if traditional Africa was found to host philosophic sages. The project was successful for it identified philosophic sages (individuals with didactic wisdom) in Kenya while distinguishing them from folk sages (individuals with popular wisdom) (1991, 33-34).

This European prejudice is reflected in the work of Mullin J (1965) which was meant to be an attempt ‘to lay down guide-lines for the … Christian apostolate in modern Africa’ (1965, 3). Mullin (1965, 32-33) contrasts African mentality with European mentality he states:

The African’s reasoning methods are not discursive; he knows nothing of the syllogism, he thinks inductively rather than deductively; nor is his thinking analytic: it is intuitive and synthetic …. This is a mentality different from the European, and to be respected as such …. One consequence of it is a circular manner of thinking, a collecting of impressions, a feeling of the way before coming to the kernel of a problem …. A more important consequence is the primacy in his thought of the concrete over the abstract; and the human over the institutional …. European teachers, trained in deductive thought, pass on ideas in a way impossible for the African to assimilate. They do not square with his reasoning’.

While the philosophic sage engages in sagacious didactics, the folk sage engages in narration. Philosophic sagacity is often ‘a product and a reflective re-evaluation of the culture philosophy. The few sages who possess the philosophic inclination make a critical assessment of their culture and its underlying beliefs.’ They use power of reason to produce ‘a system within a system, and order within an order’ (1991, 49). Folk sagacity is first order culture philosophy. ‘It is absolute in its ideas and truth claims and has an ideological war with anything to the contrary.’ Folk sages ‘are specialists in explaining and maintaining this order…. Their explanations or thought do not go beyond the premises and conclusions given by the prevailing culture’ (1991, 49). Philosophic sage is critical reflection on the first order philosophy of culture. It is ‘a critical rebellion against the first order conformity and anachronism’. While the first order glorifies the communal conformity, philosophic sagacity is skeptical…it employs reason to assess it. The first order is purely absolutist and ideological, the second order is generally open-minded and rationalistic. Its truths are given as tentative and ratiocinative, not as God-sent message (1991, 49). Further contrast between the two sage includes (1991, 36)

The folk sage is versed in the common-place culture, customs and beliefs of his people. He can recite or describe them with much competence.  However, he is unable to raise any critical question about them, nor is he able to observe the inherent contradictions. The philosophic sage, like the folk sage, may equally be versed in the beliefs and values of his society. His main task is to make critical assessment of them and recommend, as far as the communal pressure allows, only those beliefs and values that pass his rational scrutiny. The folk-sage is identifiable by his consistent inability to isolate his own opinion from the beliefs of the community and his ready inclination to take refuge behind the popular unexamined wisdom wherever he is intellectually challenged. The philosophic sage, on the other hand, is clearly able to isolate the given beliefs of the community from his own evaluation, rationalization and even criticism of those beliefs. He is also able to enjoy a dialectical or intellectual game with the interviewer.

Mullin’s characterization of African mentality is a fallacious generalization which collapses African thought to folk sagacity. There are philosophic sages capable of syllogistic reasoning in Africa both in literate and pre-literate societies. ‘There is possibility for sagacity both in pre-literate and literate societies’ (Oruka 1991, 37). To be a sage is not necessarily to be philosophic

Pedagogy of sagacity

Pedagogy of sagacity uses phenomenological method of philosophy to anayze two typologies of teachers based on the paradigms of Oruka’s two sages, philosophic and folk sages. This is in attempt to fructify Njoroge – Bennaars (1986) model or conceptual framework for developing African Philosophy of education.

Folkish teacher versus philosophic teacher

By use of phenomenological analysis we can draw implications from the two sages. Philosophic-sage points to a teacher who is critical and empowers learners to think for themselves. He uses student-centered pedagogy. His classroom is community of researchers; his role is to midwife students in their search for solution to problems. Classroom is related to real life problems. Folkish-sage points to folkish-teachers who merely recycle old lecture notes. They do not update themselves they dictate notes to learners who are expected to be passive recipients. Such teachers fail to criticize educational theories and practices. They are authoritarian and aim at making learners memorize notes in order to pass examinations. Such a teacher fears questions and fails in self-criticism. The folkish-teacher uses banking pedagogy, while philosophic-teacher uses problem-solving pedagogy.

In the movie Sarafina Mrs. Masumbuka exemplifies philosophic-teacher who is gadfly that stings learners to dare to think, that is to critically question the received traditions. She midwifes regeneration of learners as enlightened and emancipated active learners who demystifies the stratified sanitized syllabus. The teacher who replaces her is an example of folkish teacher. He can at best impose and popularize authorized apartheid pedagogical narrative which  is oppressive to the African students. That teacher mechanically transmits fossilized pre-packaged ideas without critical reflection. This is a dogmatic teacher who fails to emancipate himself from dominant oppressive pedagogy of white supremacist in apartheid South Africa.

Conclusion

Model by Njoroge – Bennaars is useful in developing African philosophy of education. Pedagogical Sagacity is a product of that model and proves that it is pragmatic and relevant to African philosophy of education. There remains more areas in education in Africa where sage Philosophy needs to be explored and logical conclusions be drawn to improve teaching/learning in philosophy of education in Africa, Kenya in particular. Sage Philosophy furnishes a productive conceptual framework for educational philosophizing not only in Africa but also anywhere else where critical analysis of pedagogical theory and practice is to be carried out. This is a proposal of one possible direction among others where Sage Philosophy can be relevant beyond Oruka’s original concern. It points at possible contributions of Sage Philosophy (in department of Philosophy) to educational philosophy (in department of Educational Foundations).

Bibliography

Freire P, (1972) Pedagogy of the oppressed, translated by Myra Bergman Ramos, Middlesex: Penguin Books.

Mullin, J. (1965) The Catholic Church in Modern Africa, a pastoral Theology, London: Geoffrey Chapman.

Njoroge – Bennaars (1986) Philosophy and education in Africa: An introductory text for students of education. Nairobi: Transafrica.

Odera O, (1990) Trends in Contemporary African Philosophy. Nairobi: Shirikon

________  (1991) Sage Philosophy; indigenous thinkers and modern debate on African Philosophy. Nairobi: ACTS

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Big Business,
Indoor Plumbing and Toilet Paper,
before Ethics was understood,
and
before the National Security Agency (NSA).

Hidden Microphones & Cameras,Our Political System was a revelation in 1776, before

The actions of our political Representatives like George Washington were shaped by the ethics of honor instilled by the educational system and social awareness of that time.  Ethics plays no large part in our present educational systems.  Ethics should be a formal part of every class from pre-school to doctoral presentation.  Instilled formally, the people would better understand how to predict consequences from any proposed action.  The corrupt would die out with time and attrition.

Since the Declaration of Independence (and the first fights against taxation without representation), technology has allowed Special Interest groups (to include Terrorist Groups, souless Corporations, and corrupt politicians) to use the innate weaknesses of our political structure to undermine the basis for our Constitution; a modern form of racketeering and organized crime, jeopardizing national security.

The Citizens of the United States
require implementation of
State representation, including ALL states,
by a large and diverse Ethical Oversight Committee
to ensure the security of peoples Freedoms,
to manage National Security Agency (NSA) operations,
and
to determine how the information collected and derived by
the NSA shall best be used
as it relates to our Freedoms and Security,
and to “absolutely” restrict this information
from any other purpose.

Who are the ghosts behind the faces of our government, who continues to manipulate the world into a continuous chain of wars. A chain that has killed many millions of people, and that deters development?  This is only one relationship the NSA should be informing the public about.

The NSA is soley controlled by the office of the President of the United States and only needs a single judge to obtain a warrant to covertly monitor any person or corporation (wire tapping, covertly breaking in to copy documents, copy by any means computer information, record in detail the habits and personal relationships of anyone, …).

Recently, President Bush took control away from that judge and even though the judge was ineffectual, the President now has absolute control over the NSA.

The President is a puppet of the same organization that controls the Federal Reserve. Therefore they control the United States, not the President, not the People, and certainly not ethics.  The Fed encourages war to promote special interest prosperity.  Loans with interest to both sides of every war.  Interest paid on every dollar produced for the United States.  Who benefits from the interest paid?

Current NSA warrants are meaningless and effectively allows the NSA to collect information without public scrutiny, while Presidential directives prevent the NSA from monitoring special interest group corrupt practices and disclosing those actions to the public

Under our current system a single judge would have to oversee thousands of covert transactions nationwide to adequately monitor national security issues, and to follow up to ensure those requests were legitimate. Further, since information collected by the NSA can be arbitrarily “classified”, the NSA can arbitrarily prevent the judge from monitoring the kinds of data collected.

The current system is not practical and therefore unethical, there is no reasonable way the judge would know what the NSA does with the information collected; and since the judge is controlled by the President, this is highly susceptible to corrupt practices. The current system allows for shielding corruption while promoting unscrupulous special interest activities.

The “Protect America Act” is unconstitutional. But a “simple change” to provide “REPRESENTATION by all States” in the covert collection and processing of data would make the Act Constitutionally sound.

The NSA must be managed by doctors of science (one parallel position for each State elected political representative; but with no affiliation) to evaluate all data collected and eliminate the useless requirement of warrant by a judge (presently coerced into signing off on any NSA warrant presented before them); and to require the NSA to monitor for corrupt political practices (terrorist activities, criminal activities, political practices that endanger National Security, …), with the mandate to notify the offending parties quietly to correct their unethical behavior, only then after they have failed to correct their actions adequately, their actions are publish on a NSA publicly available website.

We the people would then boycott corrupt representatives and their supporting corporations. The associated District Attorney would be notified, and be given the details to substantiate investigation. The District Attorney would then fully investigate and prosecute in accordance with the law. The NSA would at no time directly intervene, thereby limiting their power to nudging our political system away from corrupt activities.

The following details how to update our 200 year old political structure to provide representative governance that promotes the economy, desires of the masses, and ethical government practices; allowing the Government and the people to think as ONE.  This same system can be seeded into other governments like Iraq to create an ethical environment for all peoples.

_______________________________________________________

To find & email your specific Congressmen and Senators:

• Your State’s Congressmen
• Your States’ Senators

To email Congressman all across the United States:

• http://www.conservativeusa.org/mega-cong.htm

To talk directly with the staff of your representatives:

• (202) 225-3121 for the House
• (202) 224-3121 for the Senate

—————————————————————————————————

COPY & PASTE THE FOLLOWING to your Representatives

Subject: Create an “Oversight of NSA Ethics committee” (ONE) to manage NSA Data Collection, Assessment, and Directives in the United States

As your constituent, I request that you forward the following to all political delegates in every State of the United States, and that a Highly Ethical group of diverse people representing every State and its population be instated to provide ethical oversight and management of all National Security Agency (NSA) data collection, assessments, and directives.

Because this large representative body of individuals will act as a covert, but highly trained publicly elected governing body, this will allow the NSA to continue data collection without warrant. The Senate and Congress will provide “oversight and not direct control” of this new branch in our political structure, thereby providing the needed checks and balances.

The problem with our current political system is that Special Interests (Oil Companies, Defense Contractors, Big Business Corporations, Foreign Interests, …) actively and covertly influence our political representatives. Private research (to include Terrorist involvement with genetic engineering in all its forms, nuclear physics research, economic initiatives, social reform efforts, …) are potentially high risk threats to National Security, yet are largely unmonitored. Corrupt and Neglective influences are not ONLY the fault of our Representatives, they are the fault of our unupdated 200 year old political structure.

To correct this weakness in our Government, in addition to the Senate and Congress, create a new branch of State elected political representatives whose only purpose is to manage the National Security Agency (NSA), which did not exist at the birth of our political structure.

Candidates for these new positions must be doctors of science with proven understanding of ethical evaluation. Doctors of science are necessary because they need to understand and interact with the inner workings of computer software to continuously analyze the large amounts of diverse real world data collected.

Our present political structure does not have an ethical political component to effectively neutralize the criminal aspect of political pandering, coercive control over our Representatives, or Terrorist influences in our Society and in our Government, but we do have the resources to do so.

The National Security Agency (NSA) monitors ALL organizations: CIA, NIS, Air Force, Army, PLO, Al-Qaeda, Defense Contractors, Oil Companies, Greenpeace, ALL of our Politicians, and basically all organizations whether domestic or abroad. Anyone with this information controls the focus of our Nation, along with our Freedoms and Security.

An important point here is that collecting information is necessary and of little negative consequence in an ethical environment, what specifically is done with that information is extraordinarily important, especially in unethical and abusive hands. Currently, Special Interests unethically manipulate our country’s assets, despite “We the Peoples” desires. How many people and soldiers have died supporting a business interest rather than a national interest?

Greater than $12 Billion “lost” in Iraq, destruction of New Orleans, War in Iraq, manipulation of the media, greater than $12 Billion illegally allocated to Halliburton where they subsequently moved outside of our legal system to Dubai (Saudi Arabia), …

As a consequence of Special Interest actions, they erode human rights, leave our country unnecessarily exposed to security threats, and hinder commerce that would flourish were it not for unethical business practices of Special Interests and Large Corporations.

Each “Oversight of NSA Ethics committee” (ONE) delegate represents elected representation by certified highly ethical doctors and non-partisan control over our country’s human rights, freedoms, and security.

Together with Congress and the Senate, ONE delegates provide a tertiary and complementary system of representation, with each representative political faction having unique assets and control mechanisms. The combination of focused representation for business, the people, and ethics makes the system innately representative, well informed, ethical, and stable. Businesses will continue to sponsor individual Senators and Congressmen, however, all money contributed to ONE candidates shall go into a common fund to promote all potential ONE candidates equally within each State.

Because this large representative body of individuals will act as a covert, but highly trained publicly elected governing body, this will allow the NSA to continue data collection without warrant.

No longer will we need to have less Freedom to have more Security, or vice versa.

These highly trained elected personnel provide for independent maximizing of Freedoms and maximizing of Security for all citizens !!! While the Congress and Senate provide oversight and continues to control the military as part of the checks and balances to make this political structure stable.

Presently, special interests make Security and Freedom mutually incompatible. Many countries have the same political structure as we do and yet live in a police state where the individual has no recognized rights; we must prevent a similar situation from happening here in the United States. The current actions of the President’s Office are a prelude of worse things to come.

To take into account all perspectives and actual events to maximize both Freedom and Security for our entire country requires much more raw information than 10,000 people can amass, and assessment that would take these people many lifetimes to be just. But events happen concurrently every day that threaten our Freedoms and Security.

NSA computers process diverse data at great speeds to provide minute by minute evaluation of threats to our national security, and currently as directed by special interests. To stop the unethical use of NSA resources, a large group of persons extensively trained in ethical reasoning needs to create the “computer-based automated keys” (Directives) for unlocking relationships related to promoting BOTH Freedoms and Security.

Directives are computer software analysis functions that sift through real world information. Something like Antivirus programs for protecting your computer. When key relationships are found, a task is generated to cleanup that corrupt system. Ethical care must be taken to ensure good relationships are not disturbed, while corrupt activities are corrected. The concept being: “To do the least necessary to allow unhindered natural social development; while ensuring that repeated corrupt practices of the same types identified do not recur.

As Directives are developed that can be generalized for a particular class of social system, they can be shared amongst similarally structured nations. Thereby helping to reduce the development costs for all countries; and provide international peer review of all Directives developed. At no time will raw data be shared by various National Security Agencies of the different nations.

Computer systems have been used for similar purposes for many years with great success in economics to limit risks and promote investment diversity. By developing automated directives, this helps to provide integrity and consistent behavior of the NSA. The derived results can then be evaluated by this large team of elected Representatives using state of the art ethical evaluation tools; thus ensuring the information collected is used solely to independently promote the Freedoms and Security of ALL citizens.

Please instate a comprehensive “Oversight of NSA Ethics committee” (ONE) to manage the National Security Agency (NSA) as outlined below, a system allowing the Government and the people to think as one.

• To maintain equitable representation of all peoples, each State shall publicly elect an Oversight of NSA Ethics (ONE) delegate paralleling each elected Congressman and Senator position; but having no affiliation.
• The Constitution for each State shall act as the basis for the ethical perspective of each delegate.
• The requirements for election as a ONE delegate are:
  • shall be a certified doctor from a nationally accredited school
  • shall have authored and published a paper related to ethics in a nationally distributed professional journal
  • shall be a permanent resident of that State
  • shall pass uniform but unique tests related to Ethics, Critical Reasoning, probability, and statistics
  • shall be free of a felony record
  • shall not be strongly biased regarding any special interests
  • shall forever be disallowed from ever discussing any information formulated or witnessed while in office; and shall teach ethical evaluation for two years after their term in office
  • shall submit themselves for lie detection and questioning periodically to prevent outside influence by any special interest
• The delegates shall be relocated to the surroundings near the NSA and will be furnished Government owned housing while in office. Physical security for the delegates shall consist of NSA surveillance with an armed NSA controlled security force to control any attempt to access or disproportionately influence the delegate or their family.
• Each delegate shall have a two person staff at the NSA and a two person staff in their home State to monitor, collect, and research information.
• Each State shall have one highly trained field agent for each delegate for that State whom shall collectively implement directives from the NSA using legal resources.
• All work surrounding NSA data collection shall be done in a secure facility protected from military threat.
• Absolutely no raw data or interest specific data or interest specific directives shall ever leave the facility under penalty of treason related to all intentionally involved.
• No interest specific data or interest specific directive shall be propagated outside of the confines of the NSA by delegate staff or agents under penalty of racketeering.
• The ONE delegates shall poll their respective communities related to values and perspectives, but polls shall not contain any Special Interest specific information.
• The NSA shall devise and maintain a relational database to allow delegates to productively relate all measure and kind of ethical issue to the vast amounts of information collected by the NSA.
• The delegates shall formulate “Automated Directives” for automatically: flagging potentially destructive relationships, developing priorities, developing issued directives to field agents, monitor metrics to verify results, track long term effects and related relationships, provide for a continuously updated scores related to the qualities related to our freedoms and security at that moment in time, and provide simulations for anticipating the effects of issuing a proposed directive and how it would affect the freedoms and security scores, …
• The creation of directives shall solely be governed by the ONE Committee. The President, Congress, the House, the Military, nor any other special interest group shall ever have any influence over the creation of directives, other than approved ethical channels of communication. Any attempt to do so outside of approved channels shall be considered treason within the confines of the NSA, and racketeering otherwise, and all involved shall share the same fate, regardless of political standing or financial backing.
• Because the positions of the delegates are elected positions. Data would be provided by the NSA which tracks the number of hours each delegate actively performed research, the influence each delegate had on the overall freedom and security qualities, and the core generalized formulas for creating the Automated Directives would be publicly disclosed but would not relate delegate involvement nor the data or type of data that they relate. This is necessary to help ensure high-tech corporations do not fillfully subvert NSA monitored data. Each delegate would be allowed to create public announcements that do not violate that which is outlined above.
• The ONE delegates shall govern themselves regarding inappropriate actions generated by a delegate, with periodic oversight by the Senate and Congress. A delegate that fails to use ethical reasoning in promoting a Directive and which benefits a special interest may be penalized and a State elected alternate may take their place.
• The term of service for each Delegate shall be four years; followed by a two year mandatory position at an accredited University teaching related ethics topics involving analysis and software. The Delegate may then accept nomination for the following election cycle.
• Classes in ethics for learning to create automated Directives shall use independently developed computer models and simulation systems. At no time shall any Directive from the NSA be directly analyzed. The simulated environment would cause errors inconsistent with NSA real world processing. However, relationships discovered can be submitted to the NSA for review through approved ethical channels.
• Collectively, the ONE committee shall determine the information necessary to guide the President, Congress, Senate, and the Military. The President, Congress, Senate, and the Military will have continuous one-way input into the NSA as part of NSA data collection, without warrant, the feedback will be immediate, so there is no need for any political party or military component to have dialog with ONE delegates or the NSA data collection and assessment systems.
• The Congress and Senate shall provide a team trained in ethical evaluation to periodically monitor (not control) the NSA and report back to the Senate and Congress.
• The military remains under the control of the Senate and the Congress; and the NSA shall only be allowed restricted control over a military asset with minute by minute support of the majorities of both the Senate and Congress where time critical relationships exist.
• Every political representative in the United States will be able to send their viewpoints to the NSA by sending an email to a NSA server, with only an automated response. But their views will be collected and processed automatically by the data collection system. The same applies for all citizens. All citizens shall have representation and voice.
• The administrators necessary to manage the NSA regarding operations personnel, supplies, existing field agents, the budget, and all other aspects of the NSA shall answer to the ONE committee and shall provide a continuous and accurate assessment of resource managment to Congress.
• As technology provides greater capabilities in diverse areas such as spy technologies, computer modeling of world economics, …, the NSA shall continue to evolve systems to better represent and anticipate the needs and desires of all citizens.

Under this system, the NSA shall collect and assess all information as practically possible worldwide, without the need for warrant in the United States.

Instate a comprehensive “Oversight of NSA Ethics committee” (ONE) to govern NSA data collection systems as outlined above; a system allowing the Government and the people to think as one.

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Many people have concern about what is happening with the American educational system. Politicians throw money at it in an attempt to please their electorate. Recently private schools and home schooling have gained ground and in fact produce higher academic numbers on average. But nobody that I know of has taken a look at where we went wrong and when.

But first a look at when we were doing well. Noah Webster once known as the headmaster of American education and author of the first American English dictionary 1828. Noah Webster could be called one of the founding teachers. He was an educator himself and wrote many educational texts including the Blue back Speller which was the spelling book of the 19th century which had sold 80 million copies by 1899. Noah Webster said in his dictionary that education “should enlighten the understanding”. But I invite everyone to look at the full definition which can be accessed on the internet. There were others who contributed to the original philosophy of American education namely: Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, the Quakers etc. etc.. Thomas Jefferson stated that “young people should study history to be able to recognize tyranny in embryo and so crush it.” So these were the individuals that were responsible for creating the original American educational philosophy which was successful.

So now, what went wrong? And who is responsible? Well, it was actually a very fundamental change in the philosophy. It all started around the turn of the century. There was a new school of thought germinating from Wuntian psychology out of Germany (Wilhelm Wunt father of modern psychology). The philosophy was definitely materialistic and totally opposite of the original meaning of the word psychology – the study and doctrines of the human soul.

The new idea was that humans were not spiritual beings but that we were all just animals and that the way you understand human behavior is by comparing us to animals. If you understood how a rat behaved you would then understand how a human behaved. So this philosophy was gradually entered into every university begining at the turn of the century. It became behaviorism and that became the standard philosophy taught in colleges by 1960 to all teachers as part of there training as educators. The teaching philosopy was conditioning and not understanding as Noah Webster had statedThis by the way, was a direct date coincidence with the statistics of the failure of American education.

So what can we do about this? Well there is private schools or homeschooling both of which are a lot more successful on average than public schools. I am not trying to upbraid teachers as I think it is one of the most important jobs in our society and teachers are, for the most part, well intentioned. I just think they have been misinformed. We need to make education so that young people actually reach for it instead of having it forced upon them. Also education is not for the masses it should be tailored to each student. In other words each student should get the basics reading writing arithmatic. But after that they should have their own personal program based on their goals. They should be made aware of the importance of history but should explore the subject themselves and should read the writings of the people who were actually a part of history rather than somebodies interpretation of it. Example, the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.

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There are about 1.5 million elementary school teachers and 1.1 million secondary school teachers in the United States, and the amount spent, by average, on home schooling per child in the United States is about $450. (Source: Charity Navigator.com)

- Between 8 and 15 million children nationwide are unsupervised at the end of each school day;

- An average deaf child isn’t introduced to English until age six, upon entering school.

- About 87% of Americans aged 18 to 24 have completed high school with a diploma or an alternative credential such as a General Education Development certificate;

-The school districts in the U.S. with the highest child poverty rates have $1,139 fewer state and local dollars to spend per student than the wealthiest districts; and

- When among 18 to 24-year-old Americans are given maps, 70 percent cannot find New Jersey and 11 percent cannot find the United States.

This country is in a sad state of affairs when it comes to the education of our youth and based on these statistics, it will take the political and philanthropic community to continue dialogue around educational, social, and humanitarian needs of disadvantaged children and families in the future to help resolve the problem.

Although public education has always played an important part in politics in this country, it has also been subject to continual political scrutiny.

Local politics and education are inseparable, as every city’s local school system is an organization with a political culture. Various groups from both within the system and outside the system compete for power. Typically there are very limited budgetary resources.

Yet our local school systems are devoted to children and tax dollars — two of our most important resources. Often times, limited resources cause varying degrees of funding ability for most local school systems, which in turn creates a lot of competition for existing resources.

Because of this, special interest groups compete, and funding priorities become the object of political debate – local, state and national.

Education is often a major part of both national political party platforms as well as local community discussions. The focus in the news surrounding our country’s recent elections.

But just in case we have forgotten, our country’s Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution delegated authority over education to the states. Each state varies from highly decentralized local education systems to more centralized state systems like Hawaii. However, the most recent trend has been movement toward increased state standards with new accountability systems.

Interest in Education at the Federal levwel has long been part of our culture, and in 2001, under direction of President Bush, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was renewed and renamed No Child Left Behind Act (2001). This was a critical step in bettering our country’s public education – the objective being – to increase the accountability of schools that needed improvement. The ACT also called for “highly qualified” teachers in every classroom.

Of all the localized special interest groups – from football supporters, planning and zoning committees, business, boards and various other local agencies, there is also the idea that diverse communities can become divided on school issues in areas of socio-economics.

Religion and political affiliation can also play a role in the politics of our local education, while public education advocates and privatization groups often differ on local policies.

Even community business groups can also be divided regarding the money required for facility improvement projects such as stadiums or school facilities. That is why effective local school leadership lies in balancing these diverse special interest groups.

The reality is that politics are part of every local school system. Local school leaders must learn to work within the unique political reality of their local system to accomplish the goals of an organization.

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The term political system refers to a recognized set of procedures for implementing and obtaining the goals of a group.

Each society must have a political system in order to maintain recognized procedures for allocating valued resources. In political scientist Harold Lasswell’s (1936) terms, politics is who gets what, when, and how. Thus, like religion and the family, a political system is a cultural universal; it is a social institution found in every society.

We will focus on government and politics within the United States as well as other industrialized nations and preindustrial societies. In their study of politics and political systems, sociologists are concerned with social interactions among individuals and groups and their impact on the larger political order. For example, in studying the controversy over the nomination of Judge Robert Bork, sociologists might wish to focus on how a change in the group structure of American society—the increasing importance of the black vote for southern Democratic candidates—affected the decision making of Howell Heflin and other senators (and, ultimately, the outcome of the Bork confirmation battle). From a sociological perspective, therefore, a fundamental question is: how do a nation’s social conditions affect its day-to-day political and governmental life?

POWER

Power is at the heart of a political system. Power may be defined as the ability to exercise one’s will over others. To put it another way, if one party in a relationship can control the behavior of the other, that individual or group is exercising power. Power relations can involve large organizations, small groups, or even people in an intimate association. Blood and Wolfe (1960) devised the concept of marital power to describe the manner in which decision making is distributed within families.

There are three basic sources of power within any political system—force, influence, and authority. Force is the actual or threatened use of coercion to impose one’s will on others. When leaders imprison or even execute political dissidents, they are applying force; so, too, are terrorists when they seize an embassy or assassinate a political leader. Influence, on the other hand, refers to the exercise of power through a process of persuasion. A citizen may change his or her position regarding a Supreme Court nominee because of a newspaper editorial, the expert testimony of a law school dean before the Senate Judiciary Committee, or a stirring speech at a rally by a political activist. In each case, sociologists would view such efforts to persuade people as examples of influence. Authority, the third source of power, will be discussed later.

Max Weber made an important distinction between legitimate and illegitimate power. In a political sense, the term legitimacy refers to the “belief of a citizenry that a government has the right to rule and that a citizen ought to obey the rules and laws of that government”. Of course, the meaning of the term can be extended beyond the sphere of government. Americans typically accept the power of their parents, teachers, and religious leaders as legitimate. By contrast, if the right of a leader to rule is not accepted by most citizens (as is often the case when a dictator overthrows a popularly elected government), the regime will be considered illegitimate. When those in power lack legitimacy, they usually resort to coercive methods in order to maintain control over social institutions.

How is political power distributed among members of society?

Political power is not divided evenly among all members of society. How extreme is this inequality? Three theoretical perspectives answer this question in three different ways. First, Marxist theories suggest that power is concentrated in the hands of the few who own the means of production. Powerful capitalists manipulate social and cultural arrangements to increase further their wealth and power, often at the expense of the powerless.

Second, power elite theories agree that power is concentrated in the hands of a few people; the elite includes military leaders, government officials, and business executives. This group consists of those who occupy the top positions in our organizational hierarchies; they have similar backgrounds and share the same interests and goals. According to this view, any organization (even a nation-state) has a built-in tendency to become an oligarchy (rule by the few).

Third, pluralist theories suggest that various groups and interests compete for political power. In contrast to Marxist and power elite theorists, pluralists see power as dispersed among many people and groups who do not necessarily agree on what should be done. Lobbyists for environmental groups, for example, will battle with lobbyists for the coal industry over antipollution legislation. In this way the will of the people is translated into political action. Thurow, however, suggests that too many divergent views have made it nearly impossible to arrive at a public policy that is both effective in solving social problems and satisfactory to different interest groups.

TYPES OF AUTHORITY

The term authority refers to power that has been institutionalized and is recognized by the people over whom it is exercised. Sociologists commonly use the term in connection with those who hold legitimate power through elected or publicly acknowledged positions. It is important to stress that a person’s authority is limited by the constraints of a particular social position. Thus, a referee has the authority to decide whether a penalty should be called during a football game but has no authority over the price of tickets to the game.

Max Weber (1947) provided a classification system regarding authority that has become one of the most useful and frequently cited contributions of early sociology. He identified three ideal types of authority: traditional, legal-rational, and charismatic. Weber did not insist that particular societies fit exactly into any one of these categories. Rather, all can be present in a society, but their relative degree of importance varies. Sociologists have found Weber’s typology to be quite valuable in understanding different manifestations of legitimate power within a society.

Traditional Authority

In a political system based on traditional authority, legitimate power is conferred by custom and accepted practice. The orders of one’s superiors are felt to be legitimate because “this is how things have always been done.” For example, a king or queen is accepted as ruler of a nation simply by virtue of inheriting the crown. The monarch may be loved or hated, competent or destructive; in terms of legitimacy, that does not matter. For the traditional leader, authority rests in custom, not in personal characteristics, technical competence, or even written law.

Traditional authority is absolute in many instances because the ruler has the ability to determine laws and policies. Since the authority is legitimized by ancient custom, traditional authority is commonly associated with preindustrial societies. Yet this form of authority is also evident in more developed nations. For example, a leader may take on the image of having divine guidance, as was true of Japan’s Emperor Hirohito, who ruled during World War II. On another level, ownership and leadership in some small businesses, such as grocery stores and restaurants, may pass directly from parent to child and generation to generation.

Legal-Rational Authority

Power made legitimate by law is known as legal-rational authority. Leaders of such societies derive their authority from the written rules and regulations of political systems. For example, the authority of the president of the United States and the Congress is legitimized by the American Constitution. Generally, in societies based on legal-rational authority, leaders are conceived as servants of the people. They are not viewed as having divine inspiration, as are the heads of certain societies with traditional forms of authority The United States, as a society which values the rule of law, has legally defined limits on the power of government. Power is assigned to positions, not to individuals. Thus, when Ronald Reagan became president in early 1981, he assumed the formal powers and duties of that office as specified by the Constitution. When Reagan’s presidency ended, those powers were transferred to his successor.

If a president acts within the legitimate powers of the office, but not to our liking, we may wish to elect a new president. But we will not normally argue that the president’s power is illegitimate. However, if an official clearly exceeds the power of an office, as Richard Nixon did by obstructing justice during investigation of the Watergate burglary, the official’s power may come to be seen as illegitimate. Moreover, as was true of Nixon, the person may be forced out of office.

Charismatic Authority

Weber also observed that power can be legitimized by the charisma of an individual. The term charismatic authority refers to power made legitimate by a leader’s exceptional personal or emotional appeal to his or her followers. Charisma allows a person to lead or inspire without relying on set rules or traditions. Interestingly, such authority is derived more from the beliefs of loyal followers than from the actual qualities of leaders. So long as people perceive the person as possessing qualities that set him or her apart from ordinary citizens, the leader’s authority will remain secure and often unquestioned.

Political scientist Ann Ruth Willner (1984) notes that each charismatic leader draws upon the values, beliefs, and traditions of a particular society. The conspicuous sexual activity of longtime Indonesian president Achmed Sukarno reminded his followers of the gods in Japanese legends and therefore was regarded as a sign of power and heroism. By contrast, Indians saw Mahatma Gandhi’s celibacy as a demonstration of superhuman self-discipline. Charismatic leaders also associate themselves with widely respected cultural and religious heroes. Willner describes how Ayalollah Khomeini of Iran associated himself with Husein, a Shiile Muslim martyr; and Fidel Castro of Cuba associated himself with Jesus Christ.

Unlike traditional rulers, charismatic leaders often become well known by breaking with established institutions and advocating dramatic changes in the social structure. The strong hold that such individuals have over their followers makes it easier to build protest movements which challenge the dominant norms and values of a society. Thus, charismatic leaders such as Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King all used their power to press for changes in accepted social behavior. But so did Adolf Hitler, whose charismatic appeal turned people toward violent and destructive ends.

Since it rests on the appeal of a single individual, charismatic authority is necessarily much shorter lived than either traditional or legal-rational authority. As a result, charismatic leaders may attempt to solidify their positions of power by seeking other legitimating mechanisms. For example, Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba in 1959 as the leader of a popular revolution. Yet in the decades which followed the seizure of power, Castro stood for election (without opposition) as a means of further legitimating his authority as leader of Cuba.

If such authority is to extend beyond the lifetime of the charismatic leader, it must undergo what Weber called the routinization of charismatic authority—the process by which the leadership qualities originally associated with an individual are incorporated into either a traditional or a legal-rational system. Thus, the charismatic authority of Jesus as leader of the Christian church was transferred to the apostle Peter and subsequently to the various prelates (or popes) of the faith. Similarly, the emotional fervor supporting George Washington was routinized into America’s constitutional system and the norm of a two-term presidency. Once routinization has taken place, authority eventually evolves into a traditional or legal-rational form.

As was noted earlier, Weber used traditional, legal-rational, and charismatic authority as ideal types. In reality, particular leaders and political systems combine elements of two or more of these forms. Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy wielded power largely through the legal-rational basis of their authority. At the same time, they were unusually charismatic leaders who commanded (lie personal loyalty of large numbers of Americans.

TYPES OF GOVERNMENT

Each society establishes a political system by which it is governed. In modern industrial nations, a significant number of critical political decisions are made by formal units of government. Five basic types of government are considered: monarchy, oligarchy, dictatorship, totalitarianism, and democracy.

Monarchy

A monarchy is a form of government headed by a single member of a royal family, usually a king, a queen, or some other hereditary ruler. In earlier times, many monarchs claimed that God had granted them a divine right to rule their lands. Typically, they governed on the basis of traditional forms of authority, although these were sometimes accompanied by the use of force. In the 1980s, monarchs hold genuine governmental power in only a few nations, such as Monaco. Most monarchs have little practical power and primarily serve ceremonial purposes.

Oligarchy

An oligarchy is a form of government in which a few individuals rule. It is a rather old method of governing which flourished in ancient Greece and Egypt. Today, oligarchy often takes the form of military rule. Some of the developing nations of Africa, Asia, and Latin America are ruled by small factions of military officers who forcibly seized power—either from legally elected regimes or from other military cliques.

Strictly speaking, the term oligarchy is reserved for governments run by a few select individuals. However, the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China can be classified as oligarchies if we extend the meaning of the term somewhat. In each case, power rests in the hands of a ruling group—the Communist party. In a similar vein, drawing upon conflict theory, one may argue that many industrialized “democratic” nations of the west should rightly be considered oligarchies, since only a powerful few actually rule: leaders of big business, government, and the military. Later, we will examine this “elite model” of the American political system in greater detail.

Dictatorship and Totalitarianism

A dictatorship is a government in which one person has nearly total power to make and enforce laws. Dictators rule primarily through the use of coercion, often including torture and executions. Typically, they seize power, rather than being freely elected (as in a democracy) or inheriting a position of power (as is true of monarchs). Some dictators are quite charismatic and achieve a certain “popularity,” though this popular support is almost certain to be intertwined with fear. Other dictators are bitterly hated by the populations over whom they rule with an iron hand.

Frequently, dictatorships develop such overwhelming control over people’s lives that they are called totalitarian. Monarchies and oligarchies also have the potential to achieve this type of dominance. Totalitarianism involves virtually complete governmental control and surveillance over all aspects of social and political life in a society. Bolt Nazi Germany under Hitler and the Soviet Union of the 1980s are classified as totalitarian states.

Political scientists Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski have identified six bask traits that typify totalitarian states. These include:

1. Large-scale use of ideology. Totalitarian societies offer explanations for every part of life. Social goals, valued behaviors, even enemies are conveyed in simple (and usually distorted) terms. For example, the Nazis blamed Jews for almost every. thing wrong in Germany or other nations. If there was a crop failure due to drought, it was sure to be seen as a Jewish conspiracy.
2. One-party systems. A totalitarian Style has only one legal political party, which monopolizes the offices of government. It penetrates and controls all social institutions and serves as the source of wealth, prestige, and power.
3. Control of weapons. Totalitarian states also monopolize the use of arms. All military units art subject to the control of the ruling regime.
4. Terror. Totalitarian states often rely on general intimidation (such as prohibiting unapproved publications) and individual deterrent (such as torture and execution) to maintain control (Bahry and Silver, 1987). Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago (1973) describe the Soviet Union’s imprisonment of political dissenters in mental hospitals, where they are subjected to drug and electric shock treatments.
5. Control of the media. There is no “opposition press” in a totalitarian state. The media communicate official interpretations of events and reinforce behaviors and policies favored by the regime.
6. Control of the economy. Totalitarian states control major sectors of the economy. They may dissolve private ownership of industry and even small farms. In some cases, the central state establishes production goals for each industrial and agricultural unit. The revolt of the Polish workers’ union. Solidarity, in the early 1980s was partly directed against the government’s power over production quotas, working conditions, and prices.

Through such methods, totalitarian governments deny people representation in the political, economic, and social decisions that affect their lives. Such governments have pervasive control over people’s destinies.

Democracy

In a literal sense, democracy means government by the people. The word democracy originated in two Greek roots—demos, meaning “the populace” or “the common people”; and kratia, meaning “rule.” Of course, in large, populous nations, government by all the people is impractical at the national level. It would be impossible for the more than 246 million Americans to vote on every important issue that comes before Congress. Consequently, democracies are generally maintained through a mode of participation known as representative democracy, in which certain individuals are selected to speak for the people.

The United States is commonly classified as a representative democracy, since we elect members of Congress and state legislatures to handle the task of writing our laws. However, critics have questioned how representative our democracy is. Are the masses genuinely represented? Is there authentic self-government in the United States or merely competition between powerful elites?

Clearly, citizens cannot be effectively represented if they are not granted the right to vote. Yet our nation did not enfranchise black males until 1870, and women were not allowed to vote in presidential elections until 1920. American Indians were allowed to become citizens (thereby qualifying to vote) only in 1924, and as late as 1956, some states prevented Indians from voting in local elections if they lived on reservations.

Unlike monarchies, oligarchies, and dictatorships, the democratic form of government implies an opposition which is tolerated or, indeed, encouraged to exist. In the United States, we have two major political parties—the Democrats and Republicans—as well as various minor parties. Sociologists use the term political party to refer to an organization whose purposes are to promote candidates for elected office, advance an ideology as reflected in positions on political issues, win elections, and exercise power. Whether a democracy has two major political parties (as in the United States) or incorporates a multiparty system (as in France and Israel), it will typically stress the need for differing points of view.

Seymour Martin Upset, among other sociologists, has attempted to identify the factors which may help to bring about democratic forms of government. He argues that a high level of economic development encourages both stability and democracy. Upset reached this conclusion after studying 50 nations and finding a high correlation between economic development and certain forms of government.

Why should there be such a link? In a society with a high level of development, the population generally tends to be urbanized and literate and is better equipped to participate in decision making and make the views of its members heard. In addition, as Upset suggests, a relatively affluent society will be comparatively free from demands on government by low-income citizens. Poor people in such nations can reasonably aspire to upward mobility. Therefore, along with the large middle class typically found in industrial societies, the poorer segments of society may have a stake in economic and political stability.

Upset’s formulation has been attacked by conflict theorists, who tend to be critical of the distribution of power within democracies. As we will see later, many conflict theorists believe that the United States is run by a small economic and political elite. At the same time, they observe that economic stability does not necessarily promote or guarantee political freedoms. Lipset (1972) himself agrees that democracy in practice is far from ideal and that one must distinguish between varying degrees of democracy in democratic systems of government. Thus, we cannot assume that a high level of economic development or the self-proclaimed label of “democracy” assures freedom and adequate political representation.

POLITICAL BEHAVIOR IN THE UNITED STATES

As American citizens we take for granted many aspects of our political system. We are accustomed to living in a nation with a Bill of Rights, two major political parties, voting by secret ballot, an elected president, state and local governments distinct from the national government, and so forth. Yet, of course, each society has its own ways of governing itself and making decisions. Just as we expect Democratic and Republican candidates to compete for public offices, residents of the Soviet Union are accustomed to the domination of the Communist party. In this section, we will examine a number of important aspects of political behavior within the United States.

Political Socialization

Five functional prerequisites that a society must fulfill in order to survive were identified. Among these was the need to teach recruits to accept the values and customs of the group. In a political sense, this function is crucial; each succeeding generation must be encouraged to accept a society’s basic political values and its particular methods of decision making.

Political socialization is the process by which individuals acquire political attitudes and develop patterns of political behavior. This involves not only learning the prevailing beliefs of a society but also coming to accept the surrounding political system despite its limitations and problems. In the United States, people are socialized to view representative democracy as the best form of government and to cherish such values as freedom, equality, patriotism, and the right of dissent.

The principal institutions of political socialization are those which also socialize us to other cultural norms—including the family, schools, and the media. Many observers see the family as playing a particularly significant role in this process. “The family incubates political man,” observed political scientist Robert Lane. In fact, parents pass on their political attitudes and evaluations to their sons and daughters through discussions at the dinner table and also through the example of their political involvement or apathy. Early socialization does not always determine a person’s political orientation; there are changes over time and between generations. Yet research on political socialization continues to show that parents’ views have an important impact on their children’s outlook.

The schools can be influential in political socialization, since they provide young people with information and analysis of the political world. Unlike the family and peer groups, schools are easily susceptible to centralized and uniform control; consequently, totalitarian societies commonly use educational institutions for purposes of indoctrination. Yet, even in democracies, where local schools are not under the pervasive control of the national government, political education will generally reflect the norms and values of the prevailing political order.

In the view of conflict theorists, American students learn much more than factual information about our political and economic way of life. They are socialized to view capitalism and representative democracy as the “normal” and most desirable ways of organizing a nation. At the same time, competing values and forms of government are often presented in a most negative fashion or are ignored. From a conflict perspective, this type of political education serves the interests of the powerful and ignores the significance of the social divisions found within the United States.

It is difficult to pinpoint a precise time in which politics is learned. Fred Greenstein argues that the crucial time in a young person’s psychological, social, and political development is between ages 9 and 13. In the same vein, one study found that children 13 and 14 years of age were much more able to understand abstract political concepts than were children a few years younger. Specifically, in response to a question about the meaning of government, older children tended to identify with Congress, whereas younger children identified with a more personal figure such as the president. Other research, however, points to a significant leap in political sophistication during the ages of 13 to 15.

Surprisingly, expression of a preference for a political party often comes before young people have a full understanding of the political system. Surveys indicate that 65 to 75 percent of children aged 10 and 11 express commitment to a specific political label, including “independent.” Political scientists M. Kent Jennings and Richard G. Niemi (1974) have found that children who demonstrate high levels of political competence—by understanding the differences between political parties and between liberal and conservative philosophies—are more likely to become politically active during adulthood.

Like the family and schools, the mass media can have obvious effects on people’s thinking and political behavior. Beginning with the Kennedy-Nixon presidential debates of 1960, television has given increasing exposure to political candidates. One result has been the rising importance of politicians’ “images” as perceived by the American public. Today, many speeches given by our nation’s leaders are designed not for immediate listeners, but for the larger television audience. In the social policy section later, we will examine the impact of television on American political campaigns.

Although television has obvious impact on elective politics, it has also become an important factor in other aspects of American political life. In 1987, when a joint congressional committee held televised hearings on the Iran-contra scandal, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North’s outspoken testimony brought him a wave of public support. One effect of his media success, though primarily in the short run, was an increase in support for the “contras” and their effort to overthrow Nicaragua’s Marxist regime. By contrast. Judge Robert Bork’s televised testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1987 seemed to hurt his chances of winning confirmation as a Supreme Court justice.

A number of communication studies have reported that the media do not tend to influence the masses of people directly. Elihu Katz (1957) describes the process as a two-step flow of communication, using an approach which reflects interactionists’ emphasis on the social significance of everyday social exchanges. In Katz’s view, messages passed through the media first reach a small number of opinion leaders, including teachers, religious authorities, and community activists. These leaders “spread the word” to others over whom they have influence.

Opinion leaders are not necessarily formal leaders of organized groups of people. For example, someone who hears a disturbing report about the dangers of radioactive wastes in a nearby river will probably tell family members and friends. Each of these persons may inform still others and perhaps persuade them to support the position of an environmentalist group working to clean up the river. Of course, in any communications process in which someone plays an intermediate role, the message can be reinterpreted. Opinion leaders can subtly transform a political message to their own ends.

Participation and Apathy

In theory, a representative democracy will function most effectively and fairly if there is an informed and active electorate communicating its views to government leaders. Unfortunately, this is hardly the case in the United States. Virtually all Americans are familiar with the basics of the political process, and most tend to identify to some extent with a political party, but only a small minority (often members of the higher social classes) actually participate in political organizations on a local or national level. Studies reveal that only 8 percent of Americans belong to a political club or organization. Not more than one in five has ever contacted an official of national, state, or local government about a political issue or problem.

The failure of most Americans to become involved in political parties has serious implications for the functioning of our democracy. Within the political system of the United States, the political party serves as an intermediary between people and government. Through competition in regularly scheduled elections, the two-party system provides for challenges to public policies and for an orderly transfer of power. An individual dissatisfied with the state of the nation or a local community can become involved in the political party process in many ways, such as by joining a political club, supporting candidates for public office, or working to change the party’s position on controversial issues. If, however, people do not take interest in the decisions of major political parties, public officials in a “representative” democracy will be chosen from two unrepresentative lists of candidates. In the 1980s, it has become clear that many

Americans are turned off by political parties, politicians, and the specter of big government. The most dramatic indication of this growing alienation comes from voting statistics. Voters of all ages and races appear to be less enthusiastic than ever about American elections, even presidential contests. For example, almost 80 percent of eligible American voters went to the polls in the presidential election of 1896. Yet, by the 1984 election, voter turnout had fallen to less than 60 percent of all adults. By contrast, elections during the first half of the 1980s brought out 85 percent or more of the voting-age population in Austria, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, and Sweden.

Declining political participation allows institutions of government to operate with less of a sense of accountability to society. This issue is most serious for the least powerful individual and groups within the United States. Voter turn out has been particularly low among younger Americans and members of racial and ethnic minorities. In 1984, only 36 percent of eligible voters aged 18 to 20 went to the polls. According to a postelection survey, only 55.8 percent of eligible black voters and 32.6 percent of Hispanic reported that they had actually voted. Moreover, the poor—whose focus understandably is on survival—are traditionally under-represented among voters as well. The low turnout found among these groups is explained, at least in part, by their common feeling of powerlessness. Yet such voting statistics encourage political power brokers to continue to ignore the interests of the young, the less affluent, and the nation’s minorities.

Sociologist Anthony Orum notes that people are more likely to participate actively in political life if they have a sense of political efficacy—that is, if they feel that they have (he ability to influence politicians and the political order. In addition, citizens are more likely to become involved if they trust political leaders or feel that an organized political party represents their interest. Without question, in an age marked by the rise of big government and by revelations of political corruption at the highest levels, many Americans of all social groups feel powerless and distrustful. Yet such feelings are especially intense among the young, the poor, and minorities. is a result, many view political participation, including voting, as a waste of time.

Cross-national comparisons, while confirming he comparatively low level of voting in the linked States, also suggest that Americans are more likely than citizens of other nations to be active at the community level, to contact local officials on behalf of themselves or others, and to have worked for a political party. Perhaps this contrast reflects how unusual it is for people to be directly involved in national political decision making in the modem world. Nevertheless, it is possible to speculate that if tens of millions of Americans did not stay home on Election Day— and instead became more active in the nation’s political life—the outcome of the political process might be somewhat different.

Women and Politics

In 1984, American women achieved an unprecedented political breakthrough when Representative Geraldine Ferraro of New York became the Democratic nominee for vice president of the United States. Never before had a woman received the nomination of a major party for such high office.

Nevertheless, women continue to be dramatically underrepresented in the halls of government. In 1988, there were only 23 women (out of 435 members) in the House of Representatives and only 2 women (out of 100 members) in the Senate. This is not because women have failed to participate actively in political life. Eligible women vote at a slightly higher rate than men. The League of Women Voters, founded in 1920, is a nonpartisan organization which performs valuable functions in educating the electorate of both sexes. Perhaps the most visible role of women in American politics is as unpaid workers for male candidates: ringing doorbells, telephoning registered voters, and carrying petitions. In addition, wives of elected male politicians commonly play significant supportive roles and are increasingly speaking out in their own right on important and controversial issues of public policy.

The sexism of American society has been the most serious barrier to women interested in holding public office. Female candidates have had to overcome the prejudices of both men and women regarding women’s fitness for leadership. Not until 1955 did a majority of Americans state that they would vote for a qualified woman for president. Yet, as a 1984 national survey revealed, Americans say they will support a woman running for office only if she is by far the most qualified candidate.

Moreover, women often encounter prejudice, discrimination, and abuse after they are elected. In 1979, a questionnaire was circulated among male legislators in Oregon, asking them to “categorize the lady legislators” with such labels as “mouth, face, chest/dress, and so forth”.

Despite such indignities, women are becoming more successful in winning election to public office. For example, there were 1176 women in state legislatures in 1988, as compared with only 31 in 1921,144 in 1941, and 301 in 1969. Not only are more women being elected; more of them are identifying themselves as feminists. The traditional woman in politics was a widow who took office after her husband’s death to continue his work and policies. However, women being elected in the 1980s are much more likely to view politics as their own career rather than as an afterthought. These trends are not restricted to the United States.

A new dimension of women and politics emerged in the 1980s. Surveys detected a growing “gender gap” in the political preferences and activities of males and females. Women were more likely to register as Democrats than as Republicans and were also more critical of the policies of the Republican administration. What accounts for this “gender gap”? According to political analysts, the Democratic party’s continued support for the equal rights amendment may be attracting women voters, a majority of whom support this measure. At the same time, virtually all polling data indicate that women are substantially less likely than men to favor large defense budgets and military intervention overseas; these policies have become more associated with the Republican party of the 1980s than with the Democrats.

Politicians have begun to watch carefully the voting trends among women, since women voters could prove decisive in dose elections. The gender gap did appear to be a factor in the 1984 elections—though not as significant a factor as some observers had expected. According to a poll by ABC News, men supported President Ronald Reagan’s successful bid for reelection by a margin of 63 to 36 percent. By contrast, 56 percent of women voted for Reagan while 44 percent supported the Democratic ticket of Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro. In the 1986 elections, the ender gap narrowed somewhat, yet apparently contributed to the victories of Democratic senatorial candidates in at least nine states, four of them in the south. For example, in Colorado, men supported Republican Ken Kramer over Democrat Timothy Wirth by a 49 to 48 percent margin, yet Wirth was elected because women preferred him by a 53 to 44 percent margin. By contributing to these Democratic victories, women voters were an important factor in the party’s 1986 takeover of e Senate.

Interest Groups

This discussion of political behavior has focused primarily on individual participation (and non-participation) in the decision-making processes of government and on involvement in the nation’s political parties. However, there are other important ways that American citizens can play a role in the nation’s political arena. Because of common needs or common frustrations, people may band together in social movements such as the civil rights movement of the 1960s or the anti-nuclear power movement of the 1980s. Americans can also influence the political process through membership in interest groups (some of which, in fact, may be part of larger social movements).

An interest group is a voluntary association of citizens who attempt to influence public policy. The National Organization for Women (NOW) is considered an interest group, so, too, are the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation and the National Rifle Association (NRA). Such groups are a vital part of the American political process Many interest groups (often known as lobbies) are national in scope and address a wide variety of political and social issues As we saw earlier, groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Common Cause, the American Conservative Union, and Christian Voice were all actively involved in the debate over the nomination of Judge Robert Bork for the Supreme Court.

Typically, we think of interest groups as being primarily concerned with regulatory legislation However, as political scientist Barbara Ann Stolz (1981) points out, even the federal criminal code has become a target for interest-group activity Business groups have sought to strike the “reckless endangerment” provision that, in effect, makes it a crime for a business to engage knowingly in conduct that will imperil someone’s life Business interests have also attempted to broaden the criminal code to include certain types of incidents that occur during labor disputes, unions, by contrast, wish to maintain current laws.

Interest groups often pursue their political goals through lobbying—the process by which individuals and groups communicate with public officials in order to influence decisions of government. They also distribute persuasive literature and launch publicity campaigns to build grass roots support for their political objectives Finally, interest groups, through their political action committees, donate funds to political candidates whose views are in line with the groups’ legislative agendas.

The role of interest groups within the American political system has generated intense controversy, particularly because of the special relation ships that exist between government officials and lobbyists for interest groups The widespread nature of these ties is evident from the number of former legislators who, after retiring or losing bids for reelection, immediately go on the payroll of interest groups In 1985, there were 300 former lawmakers and former high-level White House officials parlaying their governmental experience into profitable new careers as Washington lawyers, lobbyists, consultants, and administrators So pervasive is this network of insiders that an organization. Former Members of Congress, links them together Currently, there are no laws preventing members of Congress from returning as lobbyists to reshape (or even dismantle) legislation that they created in the public interest.

Interest groups are occasionally referred to as pressure groups, implying that they attempt to force their will on a resistant public In the view of functionalists, such groups play a constructive role in decision making by allowing orderly expression of public opinion and by increasing political participation They also provide legislators with a useful flow of information

Conflict theorists stress that although a very few organizations work on behalf of the poor and disadvantaged, most American interest groups represent affluent white professionals and business leaders From a conflict perspective, the overwhelming political clout of these powerful lobbies discourages participation by the individual citizen and raises serious questions about who actually rules a supposedly democratic nation.

MODELS OF POWER STRUCTURE IN THE UNITED STATES

Who really holds power in the United States’ Do “we the people” genuinely run the country through elected representatives? Or is there small elite of Americans that governs behind the scenes? It is difficult to determine the location of power in a society as complex as the Unite States In exploring this critical question, social scientists have developed two basic views of our nation’s power structure the elite and pluralism models.

Elite Model

Karl Marx essentially believed that nineteenth century representative democracy was a shape.

He argued that industrial societies were dominated by relatively small numbers of people who owned factories and controlled natural resources In Marx’s view, government officials and military leaders were essentially servants of the capitalist class and followed their wishes therefore, any key decisions made by politicians inevitably reflected the interests of the dominant bourgeoisie Like others who hold an elite model of power relations, Marx thus believed that society is ruled by a small group of individuals who share a common set of political and economic interests.

The Power Elite. In his pioneering work. The Power Elite, sociologist C. Wright Mills described the existence of a small ruling elite of military, industrial, and governmental leaders who controlled the fate of the United States. Power rested in the hands of a few, both inside and outside of government—the power elite. In Mill’s words:

The power elite is composed of men whose positions enable them to transcend the ordinary environments of ordinary men and women, they are in positions to make decisions having major consequences. … They arc in command of the major hierarchies and organizations of modern society.

In Mills’s model, the power structure of the United States can be illustrated by the use of a pyramid. At the top are the corporate rich, leaders of the executive branch of government, and heads of the military (whom Kills called the “warlords”). Below this triumvirate are local opinion leaders, members of the legislative branch of government, and leaders of special-interest groups. Mills contended that such individuals and groups would basically follow the wishes of the dominant power elite. At the bottom of society are the unorganized, exploited masses.

This power elite model is, in many respects, similar to the work of Karl Marx. The most striking difference is that Mills felt that the economically powerful coordinate their maneuvers with the military and political establishments in order to serve their mutual interests. Yet, reminiscent of Marx. Mills argued that the corporate rich were perhaps the most powerful element of the power elite (first among “equals”). And, of course, there is a further dramatic parallel between the work of these conflict theorists The powerless masses at the bottom of Mills’s power elite model certainly bring to mind Marx’s portrait of the oppressed workers of the world, who have “nothing to lose but their chains”.

Mills failed to provide detailed case studies which would substantiate the interrelationship among members of the power elite. Instead, he suggested that such foreign policy decisions as America’s entry into the Korean war reflected a determination by business and military leaders that each could benefit from such armed conflict. In Mills s view, such a sharing of perspectives was facilitated by the frequent interchange of commanding roles among the elite. For example, a banker might become the leader of a federal regulatory commission overseeing financial institutions, and a retired general might move to an executive position with a major defense contracting firm.

A fundamental element in Mills’s thesis is that the power elite not only has relatively few members but also operates as a self-conscious, cohesive unit. Although not necessarily diabolical or ruthless, the elite comprises similar types of people who regularly interact with one another and have essentially the same political and economic interests. Mills’s power elite is not a conspiracy but rather a community of interest and sentiment among a small number of influential Americans.

Admittedly, Mills failed to clarify when the elite acts and when it tolerates protests. Nevertheless, his challenging theories forced scholars to look more critically at the “democratic” political system of the United States.

The Ruling Class. Sociologist G. William Domhoff agreed with Mills that American society is run by a powerful elite. But, rather than fully accepting Mills’s power elite model, Domhoff argued that the United States is controlled by a social upper class “that is a ruling class by virtue of its dominant role in the economy and government”. This socially cohesive ruling class owns 20 to 25 percent of all privately held wealth and 45 to 50 percent of all privately held common stock.

Unlike Mills, Domhoff was quite specific about who belongs to this social upper class. Membership comes through being pan of a family recognized in The Social Register—the directory of the social elite in many American cities. Attendance at prestigious private schools and membership in exclusive social clubs are further indications that a person comes from America’s social upper class. Domhoff estimates that about 0.5 percent of the American population (or 1 of every 200 people) belongs to this social and political elite.

Of course, this would mean that the ruling class has more than 1 million members and could hardly achieve the cohesiveness that Mills attributed to the power elite. However, Domhoff adds that the social upper class as a whole does not rule the nation. Instead, members of this class who have assumed leadership roles within the corporate community or the nation’s policy-planning network join with high-level employees of profit-making and nonprofit institutions controlled by the social upper class to exercise power.

In Domhoff’s view, the ruling class should not be seen in a conspiratorial way, as “sinister men lurking behind the throne.” On the contrary they tend to hold public positions of authority. Almost all important appointive government posts— including those of diplomats and cabinet members—are filled by members of the social upper class. Domhoff contends that members of this class dominate powerful corporations, foundations, universities, and the executive branch of government. They control presidential nominations and the political party process through campaign contributions. In addition, the ruling class exerts a significant (though not absolute) influence within Congress and units of state and local government.

Perhaps the major difference between the elite models of Mills and Domhoff is that Mills insisted on the relative autonomy of the political elite and attached great significance to the independent power of the military. By contrast, Domhoff suggests that high-level government and military leaders serve the interests of the social upper class. Both theorists, in line with a Marxian approach, assume that the rich are interested only in what benefits them financially. Furthermore, as advocates of elite models of power. Mills and Domhoff argue that the masses of American people have no real influence on the decisions of the powerful.

One criticism of the elite model is that its advocates sometimes suggest that elites are always victorious. With this in mind, sociologist J. Alien Whitt (1982) examined the efforts of California’s business elites to support urban mass transit. He found that lobbying by these elites was successful in San Francisco but failed in Los Angeles. Whitt points out that opponents of policies backed by elites can mobilize to thwart their implementation.

Domhoff admits that the ruling class does not exercise total control over American society. However, he counters that this elite is able to set political terms under which other groups and classes must operate. Consequently, although the ruling class may lose on a particular issue, it will not allow serious challenges to laws which guarantee its economic privileges and political domination.

Pluralist Model

Several social scientists have questioned the elite models of power relations proposed by Marx, Mills, Domhoff, and other conflict theorists. Quite simply, the critics insist that power in the United States is more widely shared than the elite model indicates. In their view, a pluralist model more accurately describes the American political system. According to the pluralist model, “many conflicting groups within the community have access to government officials and compete with one another in an effort to influence policy decisions”.

Veto Groups. David Riesman’s The Lonely Crowd suggested that the American political system could best be understood through examination of the power of veto groups. The term veto groups refers to interest groups that have the capacity to prevent the exercise of power by others. Functionally, they serve to increase political participation by preventing the concentration of political power. Examples cited by Riesman include farm groups, labor unions, professional associations, and racial and ethnic groups. Whereas Mills pointed to the dangers of rule by an undemocratic power elite, Riesman insisted that veto groups could effectively paralyze the nation’s political processes by blocking anyone from exercising needed leadership functions. In Riesman’s words, “The only leaders of national scope left in the United States are those who can placate the veto groups”.

Dahl’s Study of Pluralism. Community studies of power have also supported the pluralist model. One of the most famous—an investigation of decision making in New Haven, Connecticut—was reported by Robert Dahl in his book, Who Governs? (1961). Dahl found that while the number of people involved in any important decision was rather small, community power was nonetheless diffuse. Few political actors exercised decision-making power on all issues. Therefore, one individual or group might be influential in a battle over urban renewal but at the same time might have little impact over educational policy. Several other studies of local politics, in such communities as Chicago and Oberlin, Ohio, further document that monolithic power structures do not operate on the level of local government.

Just as the elite model has been challenged on political and methodological grounds, the pluralist model has been subjected to serious questioning. Domhoff (1978) reexamined Dahl’s study of decision making in New Haven and argued that Dahl and other pluralists had failed to trace how local elites prominent in decision making were part of a larger national ruling class. In addition, studies of community power, such as Dahl’s work in New Haven, can examine decision making only on issues which become pan of the political agenda. This focus fails to address the possible power of elites to keep certain matters entirely out of the realm of government debate. Conflict theorists contend that these elites will not allow any outcome of the political process which threatens their dominance. Indeed, they may even be strong enough to block discussion of such measures by policymakers.

Who Does Rule?

Without question, the pluralist and elite models have little in common. Each describes a dramatically different distribution of power, with sharply contrasting consequences for society. Is there any way that we can reconcile the vast disagreements in these two approaches?

Perhaps we can conclude that, despite their apparent points of incompatibility, each model offers an accurate picture of American political life. Power in various areas rests in the hands of a small number of citizens who are well-insulated from the will of the masses (elite view). Yet there are so many diverse issues and controversies in the nation’s political institutions that few individuals or groups consistently exercise power outside their distinctive spheres of influence (pluralist view). Even presidents of the United States have acknowledged that they felt more comfortable making decisions either in the area of foreign policy (Richard Nixon) or in the area of domestic policy (Lyndon Johnson). Moreover, the post-World War II period has seen increasing power vested in the federal government (elite model). But, even within the federal bureaucracy, there are a staggering number of agencies with differing ideas and interests (pluralist model).

We can end this discussion with the one common point of the elite and pluralist perspectives— power in the American political system is unequally distributed. All citizens may be equal in theory, yet those high in the nation’s power structure are “more equal.”

SUMMARY

Each society must have a political system in order to have recognized procedures for the allocation of valued resources—in Harold D. Lasswell’s terms, for deciding who gets what, when, and how. We have examined various types of political authority and forms of government and explores the dimensions of the American political system.

1. Power relations can involve large organizations, small groups, or even individuals in an intimate relationship.
2. There are three basic sources of power within any political system — force, influence, and authority.
3. Max Weber provided ( e of the most useful and frequently cited contributions of early sociology by identifying three ideal types of authority: traditional, legal-rational, and charismatic.
4. The United States, as a society which values the role of law, has legally defined limits on the power of government.
5. In the 1980s, monarchies hold genuine governmental power in only a few nations of the world.
6. Today, oligarchy often takes the form of military rule, although the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China can be described as oligarchies in which power rests in the hands of the ruling Communist party.
7. Political scientists Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski have identified six basic traits that typify totalitarianism: large-scale use of ideology, one-party systems, control of weapons, terror, control of the media, and control of the economy.
8. The United States is commonly classified as a representative democracy, since we elect members of Congress and state legislatures to handle the task of writing our laws.
9. The principal institutions of political socialization m American society arc the family, schools, and media.
10. Only a small minority of Americans actually participate in political organizations or in decision making on a local or national level.

11.  Women are becoming more successful at winning election to public office.

12.  An interest group a often national in scope and frequently addresses a wide variety of social and political issues.

13.  Advocates of the elite model of the American power structure see the nation as being ruled by a small group of individuals who share common political and economic interests, whereas advocates of a pluralist model believe that power is more widely shared among conflicting groups.

14.  Television is having a growing impact on American political campaigns.

KEY TERMS

Authority Power that has been institutionalized and is recognized by the people over whom it is exercised.

Charismatic authority Max Weber’s term for power made legitimate by a leader’s exceptional personal or emotional appeal to his or her followers.

Democracy In a literal sense, government by the people.

Dictatorship A government in which one person has nearly total power to make and enforce laws.

Dictatorship of the proletariat Marx’s term for the temporary rule by the working class during a stage between the successful proletarian revolution and the establishment of a classless communist society.

Elite model A view of society as ruled by a small group of individuals who share a common set of political and economic interests.

Force The actual or threatened use of coercion to impose one’s will on others.

Influence The exercise of power through a process of persuasion.

Interest group A voluntary association of citizens who attempt to influence public policy.

Legal-rational authority Max Weber’s term for power made legitimate by law.

Legitimacy The belief of a citizenry that a government has the right to rule and that a citizen ought to obey the rules and laws of that government.

Lobbying The process by which individuals and groups communicate with public officials in order to influence decisions of government.

Marital power A term used by Blood and Wolfe to describe the manner in which decision making is distributed within families.

Monarchy A form of government headed by a single member of a royal family, usually a king, a queen, or some other hereditary ruler.

Oligarchy A form of government in which a few individuals rule.

Pluralist model A view of society in which many conflicting groups within a community have access to governmental officials and compete with one another in an attempt to influence policy decisions.

Political action committee (PAC) A political committee established by a national bank, corporation, trade association, or cooperative or membership association to accept voluntary contributions for candidates or political parties.

Political efficacy The feeling that one has the ability to influence politicians and the political order.

Political party An organization whose purposes are to promote candidates for public office, advance an ideology as reflected in positions on public issues, win elections, and exercise power.

Political socialization The process by which individuals acquire political attitudes and develop patterns of political behavior.

Political system A recognized set of procedures for implementing and obtaining the goals of a group.

Politics In Harold D. Lasswell’s words, “who gets what, when, how.”

Power The ability to exercise one’s will over others.

Power elite A term used by C. Wright Mills for a small group of military, industrial, and government leaders who control the fate of the United States.

Pressure groups A term sometimes used to refer to interest groups.

Representative democracy A form of government in which certain individuals are selected to speak for the people.

Routinization of charismatic authority Max Weber’s term for the process by which the leadership qualities originally associated with an individual are incorporated into either a traditional or a legal-rational system of authority.

Terrorism The use or threat of violence against random or symbolic targets in pursuit of political aims.

Totalitarianism Virtually complete government control and surveillance over all aspects of social and political life in a society. (390)

Traditional authority Legitimate power conferred by custom and accepted practice.

Two-step flow of communication Elihu Katz’s term for a process through which a message is spread by the media to opinion leaders and is subsequently passedi along to the general public.

Veto groups David

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