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THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE KEVIEW
To THE EDITOR:
We found Wilson's comments on our first
draft helpful and thought it polite to thank him
for them, but we did not feel obliged to revise
the article to reflect his views rather than ours.
There are two main points at issue: what
Banfield and Wilson said in City Politics, and
what would constitute valid procedures for
verifying their propositions.
One of the "three main lines of analysis" in
City Politics "concerns the political ethos and
emphasizes the fundamental cleavage between
the public-regarding, Anglo-Saxon Protestant,
middle-class ethos and the private-regarding,
lower-class, immigrant ethos" (p. 329). "Public-regardingness" includes preferences for the
various governmental forms and policies mentioned in the first paragraph of the preceding
letter. "People who are decidedly public-regarding or decidedly private-regarding on one
matter tend to be so on all matters" (ibid.).
Earlier studies reported that cities with "private-regarding" governmental institutions had
larger foreign-stock populations. Banfield and
Wilson cited these studies in support of their
theory, apparently untroubled by doubta
about their relevance. Their second thoughts
on this score seem to have come only after reading our study, which found no such relationships. Unlike the studies which they cited, we
did control for such factors as state laws, region,
city size, and other population characteristics.
Not only did Banfield and Wilson accept
these earlier findings as support for their
theory, they also asserted on pages 55 and 169
that the preferences of a city's residents would
be reflected in its governmental forms and policies. While we agree that both passages are
"vaguer than they should be," it is difficult to
find in either of them support for the present
claim that they represent the thought of
Williams and Sherbenou rather than that of
Banfield and Wilson.
We did not attribute to Banfield and Wilson
the belief that one variable is "the cause" of
cities' institutions and policies, but we did
read City Politics as saying that the prevailing
ethos in a city is of some importance in this
respect. The basic issue is the validity of our
assumption (which also used to be Banfield
and Wilson's) that there is a relationship between the attitudes of a city's residents and the
nature of its institutions and policies. Banfield
and Wilson's letter seems to deny that the impact of the dominant ethos can be discerned
through the tangle of other independent variables. As we said, we think that if the "publicregarding" and "private-regarding" ethics are
as important as Banfield and Wilson assert,
their effects should be observable in the aggregate, if the data analysis includes the controls that we used. The 1960 foreign-stock population, incidentally, is a fairly accurate reflection of cities' composition over the past two
generations, with the exceptions noted in our
article.
We agree that the foreign-stock population
includes a vast and disparate array of social
types, as does the category of "old American."
These two groupings are so broad as to be
meaningless. We said as much in our article.
But until now, Banfield and Wilson have taken
the opposite position. In City Politics they
said that the first hypothesis "that might be
derived from our discussion of ethos" is "that
in all social classes the proportion of voters
who are decidedly public-regarding is higher
among Protestants than among other ethnic
groups" (p. 235). Throughout the book uppermiddle-class Jews are said to be as "publicregarding" as Protestants, and there are one
or two terse and casual suggestions that PolishAmericans are particularly likely to be "private-regarding." Their subsequent article extended this latter characterization to people of
Czech descent. Otherwise, Banfield and Wilson
have not heretofore distinguished among various kinds of ethnics or old-stock Americans.
We are pleased that they have come around
to our point of view.
It is also a good thing that they are now doing
research to verify their theory. Their finding
that voters of Polish and Czech descent tend
to be opposed to municipal expenditures in
Cuyahoga County and Chicago is interesting,
but it is not evidence that these voters are also
opposed to the city manager plan, nonpartisan
elections, or any of the other alleged elements
of "public-regardingness." We are also pleased
that Banfield and Wilson share our belief in the
need for clarifying their theory; pages 306-310
and 324-326 of our article should be of some
help to them.
RAYMOND E. WOLFINGER
JOHN OSGOOD FIELD
Stanford University
To THE EDITOR:
I'd like to add a long footnote to a long footnote in Jack Walker's, "A Critique of the
Elitist Theory of Democracy," (this REVIEW,
June, 1966). In footnote 13, Walker cites Herbert McClosky's "Consensus and Ideology in
American Politics," as furnishing important
data to support the view that it is elite consensus and the apathy of relatively "un-
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1001
COMMUNICATIONS
democratic" masses that makes contemporary
"democracy" work. McClosky's conclusions
are questionable at many points, but there are
two issues raised by his article which are
closely related to Walker's critique and which I
want to comment on.
First is the question: where does the trouble
come from, when and if "democracy" is not
practiced, or is threatened? Despite his more
general position that mass apathy is functional
for democracy, McClosky points out that
there are risks involved when large numbers of
people do not "grasp the essential principles" of
the Constitution. As examples of these risks,
he cites support for Senator McCarthy, the
John Birch Society and the Impeach Earl
Warren campaign. Within the context of his
argument, "these risks" appear to be examples
of what may happen when previously apathetic,
confused masses become politically involved.
And yet it seems clear that the activities of
dissatisfied "elite" groups have played a significant role in such causes. Can one discuss
McCarthyism without noting the role of public
officials and party activists in encouraging and
condoning his activities! Can one discuss the
Birch Society without noting sympathy it receives from elected officials, not to mention
delegates at the 1964 Republican convention.
(It would be fascinating to know if McClosky's
data might look different if based on the 1964
rather than the 1956 conventions.) Can one
deal with the Impeach Earl Warren campaign
without noting the widespread attacks on the
Supreme Court by prominent elected officials
and political activists? These phenomena are
not merely examples of mass support for "undemocratic" causes. The point is this: McClosky's argument tends toward an oversimplified picture of "democracy" maintained
by political elites while threatened from time to
time by nonpolitical masses. He fails to take
into account the other side of the picture: the
damage that can be done, both passively and
actively, by relatively small numbers of "undemocratic" political activists.
The second point concerns McClosky's
assumption that America is, in fact, a "democracy." This assumption is nowhere discussed
and the failure to discuss it leads to confusion.
If we simply assume "democracy" exists, then,
given McClosky's data, it seems natural to
conclude that this existence must be related to
elite behavior, since elites seem to have the
more democratic attitudes. If, on the other
hand, we assume America falls seriously short
of approximately democratic norms in certain
areas, then we cannot be sure what conclusions
to draw from McClosky's data. Perhaps the
elite is responsible for these failures to achieve
democracy, perhaps not. Carrying this point a
step further: in an area such as social and
ethnic equality where failure to approximate
democratic norms is infamous, McClosky's
data indicate both elite and mass public
divided around the 50% mark—for and against.
What does this tell us about where the responsibility for failure lies? Not very much. To
create "democracy" by assumption, as McClosky does, prematurely closes crucial questions for those concerned with concretely relating mass and elite behavior to the degree of
"democracy" achieved in particular areas. It is
good that Walker, Christian Bay and others
have re-opened these matters.
LEWIS LIPSITZ
University of North Carolina
To THE EDITOR:
In his "Summary Report" (this REVIEW, 60,
354-365), Dr. Deutsch advances conclusions
and prescriptions which are fraught with farreaching implications for the foreign and
national security policies of the United States.
The following comments are addressed to the
evidence which Dr. Deutsch adduces in support
of said conclusions and prescriptions.
Although, under the rubric Evidence, Dr.
Deutsch refers (p. 355) to findings derived from
the analysis of the French, West German,
British and American elite press; public
opinion polls; surveys of arms control proposals; and a collection of "aggregative data
about actual behavior," he bases his conclusions
mainly and explicitly upon evidence derived
from elite interviews conducted in the summer
of 1964. Among the various kinds of evidence
adduced, this item occupies by far the relatively largest space of the "Summary." Its
salience can be easily derived by coding. Indeed, Dr. Deutsch's quantitative and literary
emphasis leaves no doubt about the heavy
weight he assigns to the evidence of elite interviews 1964.
According to Dr. Deutsch, these interviews
were conducted with 147 French and 173 West
German respondents. Although he writes
(p. 358) that these interviews "are discussed at
considerable length elsewhere," he does not
disclose the place where this lengthy discussion
can be found. He does not provide any information on the criteria for the selection of the
aforementioned respondents, for the choice of
season and calendar year, and the structure, if
any, of the interviews. His samples seem unduly
small, raising questions as to whether Dr.
Deutsch's research design is well grounded in