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SCIENCE POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF DNA
RECOMBINANT MOLECULE RESEARCH

HEARINGS

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON

SCIENCE, RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

NINETY-FIFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 29, 30, 31; APRIL 27, 28; MAY 3, 4, 5, 25, 26;
SEPTEMBER 7 AND 8, 1977

[No. 24]

Printed for the use of the
Committee on Science and Technology

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

93-481 O

WASHINGTON: 1977

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Washington, D.C. 20402

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mental fact that a few citizens are always called upon to govern the
remainder.1 6

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This statement must be dealt with in a viable theory of participation. In more moderate terms, the problem is one of authority and responsibility, of leadership and capacity, in the context of which the nature and scope of participation are to be spelled out.

The issue of the importance of a controlled and responsible elite is more sharply drawn by Professors Thomas R. Dye and L. Harmon Zeigler in their The Irony of Democracy. In a trenchant and challenging Postscript to the Second Edition, Professor Dye asserts:17

Mass governance is neither feasible nor desirable. Widespread popular participation in national political decisions is not only impossible to achieve in a modern industrial society, it is incompatible with the liberal values of individual dignity, personal liberty, and social justice. Efforts to encourage mass participation in American politics are completely misdirected. To believe that making American government more accessible to mass influence will make it any more humane is to go directly against the historical and social science evidence. It is the irony of democracy that masses, not elites, pose the greatest threat to the survival of democratic values. More than anything else, America needs an enlightened elite capable of acting decisively to preserve individual freedom, human dignity, and the values of life, liberty, and property. Our efforts must be directed toward ensuring that the established order is humane, decent, tolerant, and benign.

Elitism is a necessary characteristic of all societies. The elitism we have ascribed to American society is not a unique corruption of democratic ideas attributable to capitalism, war, the "military-industrial complex," or any other events or people in this nation. There is no “solution” to elitism, for it is not the problem in a democracy. There have been many mass movements, both "left" and "right" in their political ideology, which have promised to bring power to the people. Indeed, the world has witnessed many "successful" mass movements which have overthrown social and political systems, often at great cost to human life, promising to empower the masses. But invariably they have created new elite systems which are at least as "evil," and certainly no more democratic, than the older systems which they replaced. Revolutions come and go-but the masses remain powerless. The question, then, is not how to combat elitism or empower the masses or achieve revolution, but rather how to build an orderly, humane, and just society.

16. H. Zeigler & T. Dye, supra note 10. 17. T. Dye & H. Zeigler, supra note 10

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NATURAL RESOURCES JOURNAL

[Vol. 16

Participation theory must confront the challenges formulated by Professor Dye.

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GROUP THEORIES OF POLITICS

Any theory of politics is a theory of power, its management and use. In separately discussing the three subsets of power theory in the preceding paragraphs it was intended simply to suggest the explicitness with which the concepts of power were dealt with. Group theories also concern power, but, as dealt with by many political scientists, power is the result, rather than the purpose of group behavior; it is the object, rather than the subject.

American political science is pluralist in orientation, and this fits in nicely with group theories of politics and political behavior. Essentially, group theory states that for a variety of reasons, including the desire to be effective, political man in America organizes himself into groups. Political activity therefore involves conflict, bargaining, and negotiations among groups. It is through alliances and alignments of groups that political action occurs. Groups, in turn, are kept from overreaching themselves by overlapping memberships and because new groups can always be organized. Thus, a system of countervailing power serves to check excesses.1 a›

Critics of group theory have pointed to the fact that there is a slient majority not represented by the myriads of groups interacting in the political process-and potential groups do not necessarily emerge to balance the situation. Others have pointed to the establishment bias of group theory, suggesting its failure to accommodate change. Still others have challenged the motivational logic of group behavior.19 Yet the effect of these criticisms has not been to depreciate the descriptive validity of group analysis, but to suggest that group theory is not the "general theory of political behavior" which some had hoped it would be. In any case, theories of citizen involvement and public participation cannot ignore group theory and the research on which it rests because the latter explains a great deal about how the American political system functions.

RESIDUAL PROBLEMS

This section identifies a number of conceptual problems which impinge upon citizen involvement and public participation. The

18. The classic explication of group theory remains D. Truman, The Governmental Process (1958).

19. A frequently overlooked criticism of group theory, using the concepts of economic utility analysis is M. Olson, The Logic of Collective Action (1965).

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