TheOrisis

ofOemoeraeyREPORT ON THE GOVERNABILlTY

OF DEMOCRACIES TO THETRILATERAL COMMISSION

MICHEL J. CROZIERSAMUEL P. HUNTINGTON

JOJI WATANUKI

---

The Crisis OfDemocracy

Michel CrozierSamuel :P. Huntington

-- Joji'Watanuki

Report on the Governability of Democraciesto the Trilateral Cornrnission

Published byNew York University Press

The Tri/ateral Commission was formed in 1973 by private citizens o[Westem Europe, Japan, and North America to foster closer cooperationamong these three regions on common problems. It seeks to improvepublic understanding o[ such problems, to support proposals for han­dling them jointly, and to nurture habits and practices 01 working

together among these regions.

Clothbound editions ofColumbia University Press booksare Smyth-sewn and printed on permanent

and durable acid-free papero

Copyright © 1975 by The Trilateral Cornmission

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 75-27167ISBN: 0-8147-1364-5 (cloth)

0-8147-1305-3 (paper)

Manufactured in the United States of America9 8 7 6 5

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Is dernocracy in crisis? This question is being posed withincreasing urgency by sorne of the leading statesrnen of theWest, by colurnnists and scholars, and-if public opinion pollsare to be trusted-even by the publics. In sorne respects, thernood of today is rerniniscent of that of the early twenties,when the views of Oswald Spengler regarding "The Decline ofthe West" were highly popular. This pessimisrn is echoed,with obvious Schadenfreude, by various cornrnunist ob­servers, who speak with growing confidence of "the generalcrisis of capitalism" and who see in it the confirrnation oftheir own theories.

The report which follows is not a pessirnistic docurnent. Itsauthors believe that, in a fundamental sense, the dernocraticsysterns are viable. They believe, furthermore, that democra­cíes can work provided their publics truly understand thenature of the democratic system, and particularly if they aresensitive to the subtle interrelationship between liberty andresponsibility. Their discussion of "The Crisis of Dernocracy"is designed to rnake democracy stronger as it grows and be­comes more and more dernocratic. Their conc1usions-doubt­less in sorne respects provocative-are designed to serve thatoverriding objective.

The Trilateral Commission decided to undertake thisproject because it has felt, rightly in rny view, that the vital­ity of our political systems is a central precondition for theshaping of a stable international order and for the fashioningof more cooperative relations arnong our regions. Thoughvery much concerned with issues pertaining to foreign affairs,trilateral as well as East-West and North-South, the TrilateralCornmission has promoted the study which follows in thebelief that at this juncture it is important for the cítizens ofour democracies to reexamine the basic premises and the

workings of our systerns. This rethinking can contribute, it isour hope, to the promotion of the central purposes of thedemocratic systern of government: the combination of per­sonalliberty with the enhancement of social progress.

This report has been prepared for the Trilateral Commis­sion and is released under its auspices. The Commission ismaking-the report available for wider distribution as a contri­bution to inforrned discussion and handling of the issuestreated. The report was discussed at the Trilateral Comrnis­sion meetings in Kyoto, Japan, on May 30-31, 1975. Theauthors, who are experts from North Arnerica, WesternEurope and Japan, have been free to present their own views.

The report is the joint responsibility of the three rappor­teurs of the Trilateral Cornrnission's Task Force on the

_ ___ u_ '_'. __ ."'. __

Governability of Democracies, which was set up in the springof 1.974 and which submitted its report in the spring of 1975.The chapter on Japan is the work of Joji Watanuki. The

__chapter on Western Europe is the work of Michel Crozier.The chapter on the United States is the work of Samuel P.Huntington.

Although only the three authors are responsible forthe analysis and conc1usions, they were aided in their task byconsultations with experts from the trilateral regions. In eachcase, consultants spoke for thernselves as individuals and notas representatives of any institutions with which they areassociated. Those consulted included the fol1owing:

Robert R. Bowie, Professor 01 /nternational Affairs,llarvard lJniversity

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Director, The Trilateral CommissionJames Cornford, Professor 01 Politics, lJniversity 01 Edin­

burghGeorge S. Franklin, North American Seeretary , The Tri­

lateral CommissionDonald M. Fraser, lJnited States House 01 Representatives

Karl Kaiser, Director, Research Institute of the GermanSociety for Foreign Policy

Seymour Martin Lipset, Professor 01 Sociology; HarvardUniversity

John Meisel, Professor 01 Political Science, Queen 's Uni­versity

Erwin Scheuch, Professor of Political Science, Universityof Cologne

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Professor 01 Humanities, TheCity University 01New York

Gerard C. Smith, North American Chairman, The Tri/ateralCommission

Yasumasa Tanaka, Professor 01 Political Science, Gak­ushuin University.

Tadashi Yamamoto, Japanese Secretary, The TrilateralCommission

In the course of its work, the task force held a number ofjoint meetings:

April 20-21, 1974-Rapporteurs and Brzezinski met in PaloAlto, California, to develop general outline of reporto

November 11-12, 1974-Rapporteurs and Brzezinski met inLondon to consider first drafts of regional chapters andestablish more precise outline of study,

February 22-23, 1975-Rapporteurs met with experts fromTrilateral regions in New York City, considered seconddrafts of regional chapters and draft of Introduction.

May 31, 1975-Full draft of study debated in plenary meet­ing of The Trilateral Cornrnission in Kyoto.

I would like to express our appreciation for the energy anddedication shown by Charles Heck and Gertrude Werner inpreparing this book for publication.

Zbigniew BrzezinskiDirectorThe Trilateral Commission

THE AUTHORS

MICHEL CROZIER is the founder and director of theCentre de Sociologie des Organisations in Paris and SeniorResearch Director of the Centre Nationale de la RechercheScientifique. Bom in 1922 in northern Prance, ProfessorCrozier received his higher education at the University ofParis. He has been a regular consultant to the French govern­ment on matters of economic planning, education, and publicadministration. He -hasIeotured and taught at a number ofNorth American universities, including three years at Harvard(1966-67, 1968-70) and two years at the Center for Ad­vanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford(1959-60, 1973-74). Among the books which ProfessorCrozier has written are The Bureaucratic Phenomenon (1964)and The Stalled Society (1970). He was President of theFrench Sociological Association in 1970-72.

SAMUEL P. HUNTINGTON is Prank G. Thomson Profes­sor of Govemment at Harvard University and AssociateDirector of Harvard's Center for Intemational Affairs. He isalso a founder and editor of the quarterly journal, ForeignPolicy. Born in 1927 in New York City, Professor Hunting­ton was educated at Yale University (B.A., 1946), the Uni­versity of Chicago (M.A., 1949), and Harvard University(Ph.D., 1951). He taught at Harvard University from 1950 to1958, then was Associate Director of the Institute ofWar andPeace Studies at Columbia University from 1959 to 1962,when he returned to Harvard. Professor Huntington has beena consultant to the Policy Planning Council of the Depart­ment of State, the Agency for International Development,the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and other or­ganizations. Among the books which he has written arePolitical Order in Changing Societies (1968) and The Com­mon Defense: Strategic Programs in National Politics (1961).

He is coauthor with Zbigniew Brzezinski of Political Power:USA/USSR (1964).

JOJI WATANUKI is Professor of Sociology at Sophia Uni­versity (Tokyo), where he is associated with the Institute ofInternational Relations for Advanced Studies on Peace andDevelopment in Asia. Born in 1931, in Los Angeles, ProfessorWatanuki received his undergraduate and graduate educationat the University of Tokyo. He taught in the Departrnent ofSociology of the University of Tokyo from 1960 to 1971,when he joined the Sophia University faculty. ProfessorWatanuki has spent a number of years teaching and doingresearch at universities in the United States. He was at Prince­ton University-in1962-63 (Rockefeller Foundation Fellowand Visiting Fellow) and at the University of California atBerkeley in 1963-64 (Research Associate at Institute of In­ternational Studies). He was a Visiting Professor in the De­partment of Political Science at the University of Iowa in1969-70, and a Senior Scho1ar in the Cornmunications Insti­tute of the East-West Center in Honolu1u in 1973. ProfessorWatanuki has written numerous articles and books. Amongthe 1atter are Gendai Seiji to Shakai Hendo [ContemporaryPolitics and Social Change] (1962) and Nihon no Seiji Shakai[Japanese Politica1 Society] (1967).

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I-INTRODUCfION

1. The Curren t Pessimism About Democracy 1

11. The Challenges Confronting DemocraticGovernment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

CHAPTER I1-WESTERN EUROPEby Michel Crozier

I. Are European DemocraciesBecomingUngovernable? 11l. The Overload of the Decision-Making Systems2. Bureaucratic Weight and Civic Irresponsibility3. The European Dimension

11. Social, Economic and Cultural Causes 20l. The Increase of Social Interaction2. The Impact of Economic Growth3. The Collapse of Traditional Institutions4. The Upsetting of the Intellectual World5. The Mass Media6. Inflation

111. The Role and Structure of Political Values . . . . . . .. 39l. The Values Structure and the Problem

of Rationality2. Core Politi cal Beliefs3. The Impact of Social, Economic and Cultural

Changes on the Principles of Rationality andon the Core Political Beliefs

4. Tradítíonal Factors as a Counterweight5. The Risks of Social and Political Regression

IV. Conclusions: European Vulnerability . . . . . . . . . . . 52

CHAPTER III- THE UN:ITED STATESby Samuel P. Huntington

I. The Viability and Governability of AmericanDemocracy 59

n. The Expansion of Governrnental Activity 65

III. The Decline in Governmental Anthority 74l. The Democratic Challenge to Authority2. Decline in Public Confidence and Trustf. The Decay of the Party System14. The Shiftíng Balance Between Government

and Opposition

IV. The Democratic Distemper: Consequences ..... " 102

V. The Democratic Distemper: Causes 106

VI. Conclusion: Toward a Democratic Balance 113

CHAPTER IV-JAPANby Joji Watanuki

1. Japanese Democracy's Governability 119l. External Conditions2. Domestic Conditions and Capabilities

II. Changing Values, New Generations andTheirImpact on the Governability ofJapanese Democracy 138l. Political Beliefs2. Social and Economic Values

III. Consequences for and Future Perspectives on theGovernability of Japanese Democracy 149l. Time Lag2. Decline of Leádership and Delay of

Decisions3. Vagaries of Urban, Educated Nonpartisans4. The Place of the Communists in the

Multiparty System5. What Will Happen in the 1980s?

CHAPTER V-CONCLUSION

1. The Changing Context of DemocraticGovernment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

11. Consensus Without Purpose: The Riseof Anomic Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

111. The Dysfunctions of Democracy 161l. The Delegitimation of Authority2. The Overloading of Government3. The Disaggregation of Interests4. Parochialism in International Affairs

IV. Variations Among Regions 168

APPENDICES

Appendix J-Discussion of Study during PlenaryMeeting ofThe Trilateral Commission-Kyoto, May 31, 1975 173

A. Arenas for ActionB. Excerpts of Remarks by Ralf DahrendorfC. Discussion of the Study

Appendix I1-Canadian Perspectives on the Governability ofDemocracies-Discussion in Montreal, May 16, 1975 ....203

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

I. THE CURRENT PESSIMISM ABOUT DEMOCRACY

For almost a quarter-century the Trilateral countries haveshared a tripartite interest in military security, economicdevelopment, and political democracy , They havecoordinated "their efforts to provide for their commondefense. They have cooperated together in the tasks ofeconomic reconstruction, industrial development, and -thepromotion of trade, investment, and welfare within aframework of common international economic institutions.They have brought the comforts-and the anxieties-ofmiddle-class status to a growing majority of their peoples. Insomewhat parallel fashion, they have, also, each in its ownway, developed and consolidated their own particular formsof political democracy, involving universal suffrage, regularelections, party competition, freedom of speech andassembly, After twenty...five years, it is not surprising thatearlier assumptions and policies relating to military securityneed to be reviewed and altered in the light of the changedcircumstances. Nor is it surprising that the policies andinstitutions of the postwar economic system based on thepreeminence of the dollar are in need of a drastic overhaul.Governments, after all, have traditionally existed to deal with

1

2 The Crisis alDemacracy

problems of security and economics, and, individually andcollectively, to adapt their policies in these areas to changingenvironments.

What is much more disturbing, because it is moresurprising, is the extent to which it appears that the processof reconsideration must extend not only to these familiararenas of governmental policy but also to the basicinstitutional framework through which governments govern.What are in doubt today are not just the economic andmilitary policies but also the polítical institutions inheritedfrom the pasto Is political democracy, as it exists today, aviable forro of government for the industrialized countries ofEurope, North- Ámerica, and Asia? Can these countriescontinue to function during the final quarter of the twentiethcentury with the forms of polítical democracy which theyevolved during the third quarter of that century?

In recent years, acute observers on all three continentshave seen a bleak future for democratic government. Beforeleaving office, Willy Brandt was reported to believe that"Western Europe has only 20 or 30 more years of democracyleft in it; after that it will slide, engineless and rudderless,under the surrounding sea of dictatorship, and whether thedictation comes from a politburo or a junta will not makethat much difference.' Ir Britain continues to be unable toresolve the seemingly unresolvable problems ofinflatíon-cum-prospective depression, observed one seniorBritish official, "parliamentary democracy would ultimatelybe replaced by a dictatorship." "Japanese democracy willcollapse," warned Takeo Miki in his first days in office,unless major reforms can be carried out and "the people'sconfidence in politics" be restored.! The image which recursin these and other statements is one of the disintegration ofcivil order, the breakdown of social discipline, the debility ofleaders, and the alienation of citizens. Even what have beenthought to be the most civic of industrialized societies have

Introduction 3

been held to be prey to these disabilities, as observers speakof the Vietnamization of America and the Italianization ofBritain.

This pessimism about the future of democracy hascoincided with a parallel pessimism about the future ofeconomic conditions. Economists have rediscovered thefifty-year Kondratieff cycle, according to which 1971 (like1921) should have marked the beginning of a sustainedeconomic downturn from which the industrialized capitalistworld would not emerge until close to the end of thecentury. The implication is that just as the políticaldevelopments of the 1920s and 1930s furnished theironic-and tragic-raftermath to a war fought to make theworld safe for democracy, so also the 1970s and 1980s mightfumish a similarly ironic political aftermath to twenty yearsof sustained economic development designed in part to makethe world prosperous enough for democracy.

Social thought in Western Europe and North Americatends to go through Pol1yanna and Cassandra phases. Theprevalence of pessimism today does not mean that thispessimism necessarily is wel1 founded. That such pessimismhas not been wel1 founded in the past also does not mean thatit is necessarily ill founded at presento A principal purpose ofthis report is to identify and to analyze the challengesconfronting democratic government in today's world, toascertain the bases for optimism or pessimism about thefuture of democracy, and to suggest whatever innovationsmay seem appropriate to make democracy more viable in thefuture.

II. THE CHALLENGES CONFRONTINGDEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT

The current pessimism seems to stem from the conjunctionof three types of challenges to democratic government.

4 The Crisis 01Democracy

First, contextual challenges arise autonomously from theexternal environments in which democracies operate and arenot directly a product of the functioning of democraticgovernment itself. The Czechoslovak government, for in­stance, is less democratic today than it might otherwise benot because of anything over which it had any control. Asevere reversal in foreign relations, such as either a militarydisaster or diplomatic humiliation, is likely to pose achallenge to regime stability. Defeat in war is usually fatal toany system of government, including a democratic one.(Conversely, the number of regimes in complex societieswhich have been _over.~h.:!own in circumstances not involvingforeign defeat is extremely small: all regimes, includingdemocratic . ones, benefit from a Law of Polítical Inertiawhich tends to keep them functioning until some externalforce interposes itself.) So, also, worldwide depression orinflation may be caused by factors which are external to anyparticular society and which are not caused directIy by theoperation of democratic government; and yet they maypresent serious problems to the functioning of democracy.The nature and seriousness of the contextual challenges mayvary significantly from one country to another, reflectingdifferences in size, history, location, culture, and level ofdevelopment. In combination, these factors may produce fewcontextual challenges to democracy, as was generally thecase, for instance, in nineteenth-century America, or theymay create an environment which makes the operation ofdemocracy extremely difficult, as for instance in WeimarGermany.

Changes in the international distribution of econornic,political, and military power and in the relations both amongthe Trilateral societies and between them and the Second andThird Worlds now confront the democratic societies with aset of interrelated contextual challenges which did not existin the same way a decade ago. The problems of inflation,commodity shortages, international monetary stability, the

/ntroduction 5

management of economic interdependencevand collectivemilitary security affect all the Trilateral societies. Theyconstitute the critical policy issues on the agenda forcollective action.? At the same time, however, particularissues posespecial problems for particular countries. With themost active foreign policy of any democratic country, theUnited States is far more vulnerable to defeats in that areathan other democratic governments, which, attempting less,also risk less. Given the relative decline in its military,economic, and political influence, the United States is morelikely to face serious military or diplomatic reversal duringthe coming years than at any previous time In its history. Ifthis does occur, itcouldpose a traumatic shock to Americandemocracy. The United States is, on the other hand,reasonably well equipped to deal with many economicproblems which would constitute serious threats to aresource-short and trade-dependent country like Japan.

These contextual challenges would pose rnajor issues ofpolicy and institutional innovation in the best ofcircumstances. They arise, however, at a time whendemocratic governments are also confronted with otherserious problems stemming from the social evolution andpolitical dynamics of their own societies. The viability ofdemocracy in a country clearly is related to the socialstructure and social trends in that country. A social structurein which wealth and learning were concentrated in the handsof a very few would not be conducive to dernocracy; norwould a society deeply divided between two polarized ethnicor regional groups. In the history of the West,industrialization and democratization moved ahead insomewhat parallel courses, although in Germany,democratization lagged behind industrialization. Outside theWest, in Japan, the lag was also considerable. In general,however, the development of cities and the emergence of thebourgeoisie diversified the sources of power, led to theassertion of personal and property rights against the state,

6 The Crisis 01Democracy

and helped to make government more representative of theprincipal groups in society. The power of traditionalaristocratic groups hostile to democracy tended to decline.Subsequently, dernocratic trends were challenged, in sornecases successfully, by the rise of fascist movements appealingto the econornic insecurities and nationalistic impulses oflower-rniddle-class groups, supported by the remainingtraditional authoritarian structure. Japan also suffered frorna reactionary rnilitary establishment, against which thebourgeoisie found itself too weak to struggle and tobe able to coexisto In addition, in many countries, corn­munist parties developed substantial strength arnong theworking class,- advocating the overthrow of "bourgeoisdernocracy" in the name of revolutionary socialismo Thepolitical and organizational legacy of this phase still exists inFrance and Italy, although it is by no rneans as clear as itonce was that communist participation in the government ofeither country would necessarily be the prelude to the deathof democracy there. Thus, at one time or another, threats tothe viability of democratic government have come from thearistocracy, the rnilitary, the middle classes, and the workingclass. Presumably, as social evolution occurs, additionalthreats may well arise frorn other points in the socialstructure.

At the present time, a significant challenge comes from theintellectuals and related groups who assert their disgust withthe corruption, materialism, and inefficiency of dernocracyand with the subservience of democratic governrnent to"monopoly capitalism." The development of an "adversaryculture" among intellectuals has affected students, scholars,and the media. Intellectuals are, as Schurnpeter put it,"people who wield the power of the spoken and the writtenword, and one of the touches that distinguish thern frornother people who do the same is the absence of directresponsibility for practical affairs."? In sorne rneasure, theadvanced industrial societies have spawned a straturn of

Introduction 7

value-oriented intel1ectuals who often devote themselves tothe derogation of leadership, the challenging of authority,and the unmasking and delegitimation of establíshedinstitutions, their behavior contrasting with that of the alsoincreasing numbers of technocratic and policy-orientedintellectuals. In an age of widespread secondary school anduniversity education, the pervasiveness of the mass media,and the displacement of manual labor by clerical andprofessional employees, this development constitutes achallenge to democratic government which is, potentially atleast, as serious as those posed in the past by the aristocraticcliques, fascist moyements, and communist parties.

In addition to the emergence of the adversary intellectualsand their culture, a parallel and possibly related trendaffectíng the viability of democracy concerns broaderchanges in social values. In al1 three Trilateral regions, a shiftin values is taking place away from the materialisticwork-oriented, public-spirited values toward those whichstress private satisfaction, leisure, and the need for"belonging and intellectual and esthetic self-fulfillment.?"These values are, of course, most notable in the youngergeneration. They often coexist with greater skepticismtowards polítical leaders and institutions and with greateralienation from the polítical processes. They tend to beprivatistic in their impact and import. The rise of thissyndrome of values is presumably related to the relativeaffluence in which most groups in the Trilateral societiescarne to share during the economic expansion of the 1960s.The new values may not survive recession and resourceshortages. But if they do, they pose an additional newproblem for democratic government in terms of its ability tomobilize its citizens for the achievement of social andpolitical goals and to impose discipline and sacrifice upon itscitizens in order to achieve those goals.

Finally, and perhaps most seriously, there are the intrinsicchallenges to the viability of democratic government which

8 The Crisis 01Democracy

grow directly out of the functioning of democracy.Democratic government does not necessarily function in aself-sustaining or self-correcting equilibrium fashion. It mayinstead function so as to give rise to forcesand tendencieswhich, if unchecked by sorne outside agency, will eventuallylead to the undermining of democracy. This was, of course, acentral theme in de Tocqueville's forebodings aboutdemocracy; it reappeared in the writings of Schumpeter andLippmann; it is a key element in the current pessimism aboutthe future of democracy.

The contextual challenges differ, as we have seen, for eachsociety. Variations ínthe nature of the particular democraticinstitutions and processes in each society may also makesorne types of intrinsic challenges more prominent in onesociety than in another. But, overall, the intrinsic threats aregeneral ones which are in sorne degree common to theoperation of all democratic systems. The more democratic asystem is, indeed, the more likely it is to be endangered byintrinsic threats. Intrinsic challenges are, in this sense, moreserious than extrinsic ones. Democracies may be able toavoid, moderate, or learn to live with contextual challengesto their viability. There is deeper reason for pessimism if thethreats to democracy arise ineluctably from the inherentworkings of the democratic process itself. Yet, in recentyears.. the operations of the democratic process do indeedappear to have generated a breakdown of traditional meansof social control, a delegitimation of political and other formsof authority, and an overload of demands on government,exceeding its capacity to respondo

The current pessimism about the viability of democraticgovernment stems in large part from the extent to whichcontextual threats, societal trends., and intrinsic challengeshave simultaneously manifested themselves in recent years. Ademocratic system which was not racked by intrinsicweaknesses stemming from its own performance as ademocracy could much more easily deal with contextualpolicy challenges. A system which did not have such

Introduc tion 9

significant demands imposed upon it by its externalenvironment might be able to correct the deficiencies whicharose out of its own operations. It is, however, theconjunction of the policy problems arising from thecontextual challenges, the decay in the social base ofdemocracy manifested in the rise of oppositionistintel1ectuals and privatistic youth, and the imbalancesstemming from the actual operations 01 democracy itselfwhich make the governability of democracy a vital and,indeed, an urgent issue for the Trilateral societies.

This combination of challenges seems to create a situationin whichthe needs for longer-tenn and more broadlyfonnulated purposes and priorities, for a greater overallcoherence of policy, appear at the same time that theiricreasing complexity of the social order, increasing politicalpressures on government, and decreasing legitimacy ofgovernment make it more and more difficult for governmentto achieve these goals.

The demands on democratic government grow, while thecapacity of democratic government stagnates. This, it wouldappear, is the central dilemma of the governability ofdemocracy which has manifested itself in Europe , NorthAmerica, and Japan in the 197Os.

NOTES

1 See The New York Times, October 7,1974; The Economist, March23, 1974, p. 12; Geoffrey Barraclough, "The End of an Era," NewYorkReviewofBooks, June 27, 1974,p.14.

2 Many of these issues have been dealt with in the reports of otherTrilateral Commission task forces. See particularly Triangle Papers nos.1-7, embodying reports on the world monetary system, intemationalcooperation, North-South economic relations, world trade, and energy,

3 Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitaiism, Sociaiism, and Democracy(New York: Harper & Bros., 2d ed., 1947), p. 147.

4 See Ronald Inglehart, "The Silent Revolution in Europe:Intergenerational Change in Postindustrial Societies," AmericanPolítical Science Review, 65 (December 1971), pp. 991 fr.

CHAPTER II

WESTERN EUROPEMichel Crozier

1. ARE EUROPEAN DEMOCRACIESBECOMING UNGOVERNABLE?

The vague and persistent feeling that democracies havebecome ungovernable has been growing steadily in WestemEurope. The case of Britain has 'become the most dramaticexample of this malaise, not because it is the worst examplebut because Britain, which had escaped all the vagaries ofcontinental politics, had always been considered everywhereas the mother and the model of democratic processes. Itscontemporary troubles seem to announce the collapse ofthese democratic processes or at least their incapacity toanswer the challenges of modem times.

Certainly appearances remain safe in most West Europeancountries but almost everywhere goveming coalitions areweak and vulnerable while alternative coalitions seem to be asweak and possibly even more contradictory. At the sametime decisions have to be taken whose consequences may befar-reaching while the governing processes, because of theconjunction of contradictory pressures, seem to be capable ofproducing only erratic results.

These difficulties are compounded by the existence ofEurope as a problem. The whirlpool of each national

11

12 The Crisis of Democracy

governing system has more and more restrained the margin offreedom on which progress in European unification can bebuilt. The European bureaucracy, which had been for a timea useful protective device for making rational solutions moreacceptable, has now lost its role. Contradictions at thegoverning level therefore tend to grow while governments areforced to be much more nation-eentered and much lessreliable.

Each country, of course, is substantially different. Themain characteristic of Western Europe is its diversity. Butacross the widely different practices and rationalizations, twobasic characteristics hold true about the basic problem ofgovernability:"

• The European political systems are overloaded withparticipants and demands, and they have increasing difficultyin mastering the very complexity which is the natural resultof their economic growth and polítical development.

• The bureaucratic cohesiveness they have to sustain inorder to maintain their capacity to decide and implementtends to foster irresponsibility and the breakdown ofconsensus, which increase in turn the difficulty of their task.

l. The Overload of the Decision-Making Systems

The superiority of democracies has often been ascribed totheir basic openness. Open systems, however, give betterretums only under certain conditions. They are threatenedby entropy if they cannot maintain or develop properregulations. European democracies have been only partiallyand sometimes theoretical1y open. Their regulations werebuílt on a subtle screening of participants and dernands; andif we can talk of overload, notwithstanding the progress madein handling complexity, it is because this traditional model ofscreening and govemment by distance has gradually brokendown to the point that the necessary regulations have a11 butdisappeared.

Westem Europe 13

There are a number of interrelated reasons for thissituation. First of all, social and economic developments havemade it possible for a great many more groups and intereststo coalesce. Second, the information explosion has made itdifficultif not impossible to maintain the traditional distancethat was deemed necessary to govern. Third, the democraticethos makes it difficult to prevent access and restrictinformation, while the persistence of the bureaucraticprocesses which had been associated with the traditionalgoverning systems makes it impossible to handle them at alow enough level. Because of the instant information modeland because of this.Iack of self-regulating subsystems, anykind of minor conflict becomes a governmental problem.

These convergences and contradictions have given rise to agrowing paradox. While it has been traditionally believed thatthe power of the state depended on the num ber of decisionsit could take, the more decisions the modem state has tohandle, the more helpless it becomes. Decisions do not onlybring power; they also bring vulnerability, The moderoEuropean state's basic weakness is its liability to blackmailingtactics.

Another series of factors tending to overload all industrialor post-industrial social systems develops from the naturalcomplexity which is the result of organizationaI growth,systemic interdependence, and the shrinking of a worldwhere fewer and fewer consequences can be treated asacceptable externalities. European societies not only do notescape this general trend, they also do not face it with thenecessary increase of governing capacities. Politicians andadministrators have found it easier and more expedient togive up to complexity. They tend to accommodate to it andeven to use it as a useful smoke screen. One can give access tomore groups and more demands without having to say no andone can maintain and expand one's own freedom of actionor, in more unpleasant terms, one's own irresponsibility. 1

Beyond a certain degree of complexity, however, nobody

14 The Crisis o[Democracy

can control tlie outcomes of one system ; governmentcredibility declines; decisions come from nowhere; citizens'alienation develops and irresponsible blackmail inereases,thus feeding back into the circlerOne might argue that theLindblom model of partisan mutual adjustment would give anatural order to this chaotic bargaining, but this does notseem to be the case because the fields are at the same timepoorIy structured and not regulated.. 2

One might also wonder why European nations shouldsuffer more complexity and more overload than the UnitedStates, which obviously has a more complex system open tomore participants, But overload and complexity are onlyrelative to the eapacity to handle them, and the presentweakness of the European nations comes from the fact thattheir capacity is much lower because their tradition has notenabled them to build decision-making systems based onthese premises.. This judgrnent about the Europeannation-states ' deeision-making eapabilities may be surprisingsince European countries, like Britain and Franee, pridethemselves in having the best possible elite corps ofprofessional decision-makers, in many ways better trained orat least better seleeted than their American counterparts. Theseeming paradox can be understood if one accepts the ideathat decision-making is not done only by top civil servantsand políticians but is the product of bureaucratic processestaking place in complex organizations and systerns, If theseproeesses are routine-oriented and eumbersome, and theseorganizations and systems overIy rigid, communications willbe difficult, no regulation will prevent blackmail, and poorstructure will increase the overload. For all theirsophistication, modem decision-making techniques do notseem to have helped very much yet because the problem ispolítical or systemic and not a technical one.

One of the best examples of their failure has been shownin a recent comparative study of the way two similardecisions were made in Paris in the 1890s and in the 1960s:

Westem Europe 15

the decision to build the first Parisian subway and thedecision to build the new regional express transit system,This comparison shows a dramatic decline in the capacity totake rational decisions between the two periods. The 1890sdecision gave rise to a very difficult but lively political debateand was a slow decision-making sequence, but it was arrivedat on sound premises financialIy, economicaJly, and socially.The 1960s decision was made in semisecret, without openpolitical debate, but with a tremendous amount of lobbyingand intrabureaucratic conflicto Its results, when one analyzesthe outcomes, were strikingly poorer in terms of social,economic, and financia). retums. It seems that the eliteprofessional decision-makers backed up with sophisticatedtools could not do as well as their less brilliant predecessors,while the technical complexity ofthe decision was certainlynot greater. The only striking difference is the tremendousincrease in the level of complexity of the system and itsdramatic overload due to its confusing centralization, 3

It is true that there are many differences among theEuropean countries in this respect and one should not talktoo hastily of common European conditions. There is quite astrong contrast, for example, between a country like Sweden,which has developed an impressive capability for handlingcomplex problems by relieving ministerial staffs of theburden of administrative and technical decisions and byallocating considerable decision-making powers tostrengthened local authorities, and a country like Italy, wherea very weak bureaucracy and an unstable polítical systemcannot take decisions and cannot facilitate the achievementof any kind of adjustment. Nevertheless, the majority ofEuropean countries are somewhat closer to the Italian modeland Sweden seems to be, for the moment, a strikingexception. This exception does not seem to be due to the sizeor type of problems since small countries, like Belgium oreven the Netherlands and Denmark, are also victims of

16 The Crisis ofDemocracy

overload and complexity due to the rigidity and complexityof group allegiances and to the fragmentation of the polity.

2. Bureaucratic Weight and-Civic Irresponsibility

The govemability of West European nations is hamperedby another set of related problems which revolve around thegeneral emphasis on bureaucratic rule, the lack of civic.responsibility, and the breakdown of consensus.

A basic problem is developing everywhere: the oppositionbetween the decision-making game and the implementationgame, Completely different rationales are at work at one level- ----- ..,'. . ...-

and at the other. In the decision-making game, the capacityto master a successful coalition for a final and finiteagreernent is a function of the nature and rules of the game inwhich the decision is one outcome. Since the same partici­pants are playing the same game for quite a number of crucialdecisions, the nature of their game, the participants' re­sources, and the power relationships between them may haveas much validity in predicting outcomes as the substance ofthe problem and its possible rational solution. In theimplementation game, however, completely different actorsappear whose frames of reference have nothing to do withnational decision-making bargaining and whose game isheavily influenced by the power structure and modes ofrelationship in the bureacracy on one hand, and inthe politico-administrative system in which the decision is tobe implemented on the other. It is quite frequent that thetwo games work differentIy and may even be completely atodds. A gap can therefore exist between the rationality of thedecision-makers and the outcomes of their activity, whichmeans that collective regulation of human activities in acomplex system is basicalIy frustrating. Such a situation isreproduced and exemplified at the upper politicallevel where

Westem Europe 17

al1 modern democratic systems suffer from a generalseparation between an electoral coalition and the process ofgovernment. A completely different set of alliances isnecessary to get an electoral majority and to .face theproblems of government. The United States and Japan alsohave these problems, but they are especially acute in WestEuropean countries because of the fragmentation of socialsystems, the great difficulties of communication, and thebarriers between different subsystems which tend to close upand operate in isolation.

Two different models, however, are predominant inWestern Europe. One model, which has worse consequencesfor governability, is the bureaucratic model associated with alack of consensus. This is the model exemplified especially bycountries like France and Italy, where a very sizable part ofthe electorate will always vote for extremist parties, of theleft and to sorne extent of the right, that do not accept theminimum requirements of the democratic system. In thesecountries social control is imposed on the citizens by a stateapparatus which is very much isolated from the population.Politico-adrninistrative regulations work according to a basícvicious circle: bureaucratic rule divorced from the politicalrhetoric and from the needs ofthe citizens fosters among themalienation and irresponsibility which form the necessary con­text for the breakdown of consensus that has developed. Lackof consensus in its turn makes it indispensable to resort tobureaucratic rule, since one cannot take the risk of involvingcitizens who do not accept the minimum rules of the game.Generally, when social control has been traditionally achievedby strong bureaucratic pressure, democratic consensus has notdeveloped fully and consensual breakdowns are endemicpossibilities. All European countries retain sorne of thesetraditional control rnechanisms.

However, an alternative model is exemplified by the

18 The Crisis al Democracy

countries of northwestern Europe where a broad consensushas been achieved early enough and constantly reinforced,thus preventing the state bureaucracy from dominating tooexclusively. Sweden, with itsetrong localdecision-makingsystern, - with its consensual labor-management bargainingsystem, and with its ombudsman grievance procedures againstthe bureaucracy, is the best example of such a model.

Nevertheless, a general drift toward alienation, irre­sponsibility, and breakdown of consensus also exists inthese countries and even in Sweden. In time, groupbargaining has become more and more routinized, that is,more and more bureaucratic, and workers, if not citizensgenerally, have also tended to feel as alienated as those inrevolutionary Europe. In Denmark, the Netherlands, andBritain, the social democratic consensus is breaking downwhile the relationships between groups have become socomplex and erra tic that citizens are more and morefrustrated. Politics become divorced from the citizens'feelings and even from reality. Vicious circles therefore tendto develop which bring these countries much closer than theyever were to the countries of continental Europe. EvenSweden has been affected, at least in its labor relations."

3. The European Dimension

AH these problems are certainly multiplied by the newdimension of intemational problems which has made theEuropean national state a somewhat obsolete entity, Onecould obviously conceive of a federal European system whichcould rely on strong decentralized local and regionaldecision-making systems, thus reducing the overload on thetop, the bureaucratic nature of the intermediary processes,and the citizens' alienation. But efforts at unification havetended to reinforce the national bureaucratic apparatusesas if these traditional nervous centers of European affairscould not help but harden again. Thus, Western Europe faces

Westem Europe 19

one of its most impossible dilemmas. Its problems are moreand more European in nature, but its capacity to face themrelies on institutional instruments of a national andbureaucratic nature that are more and more inadequate butthat tend at the same time to harden their hold on thesystem.

Personalization of power in Western Europe also has beenused in national and international affairs to fight thebureaucratic entanglements and to foster citizens'identification when participation could not work. Its results,however, are always disappointing. Leaders become prisonersof their image and are too vulnerable to acto They become- ._--- .,-

public relations figures, thus creating a credibility gap andbroadening the misunderstanding between citizens and theirdecisíon-rnaking system.

One should not, however, overemphasize the general drifttoward irresponsibility and impotence in individual Europeanstates and in Europe as a whole. Problems are threatening,the capacity to handle them seems to have diminished, butthere are still many areas where government performances aresatisfactory compared with those of past governments, thoseof other Trilateral areas, and those of the rest of the world.European societies are still very civilized societies whosecitizens are well-protected and whose amenities and possibil­ities of enjoyment have not only been maintained butextended to a great many more people. In addition Europesuffers less from social disruption and crime than the UnitedStates.

There are growing areas, nevertheless, where governments'capacity to act and to meet the challenge of citizens'demands has been drasticalIy impaired, Almost everywheresecondary education and the universities are affected as wellas, frequently, metropolitan government, land use, and urbanrenewal. This impairment of capacities is becoming prevalentin more countries in bargaining among groups, incomeredistribution. and the handling of inflation.

20 The Crisis of Democracy

H. SOCIAL, ECONOMIC, AND CULTURAL CAUSES

In order to better understand these general features of thesocio-political systems of WesternEurope, andto be able tosuggest 'general orientations for the discussion of possiblechange, we should first try to concentrate on the social,economic, and cultural causes of the present crises. Causesand consequences, however, are basically interrelated, and itis impossible to disentangle them. Therefore, we will try tofocus successively on sorne of the maior problem areas whichcan be used for a better understanding of the presentsituation.

First of a11, we will try to assess the general socio-economiccontext, which can be characterized sociologically by theexplosion of social interaction and economically by thedisruptive effect of continuous growth. We will then try toanalyze the general collapse of traditional institutions, whichmay be the immediate background of the crisis. We will thenmove on to the problem of cultural institutions, focusingespecially on the intelleetuals, education, and the media. Wewill conclude by reviewing a last circumstantial problemwhich has had an accelerating impact - the problem ofinflation.

l. The Increase of Social Interaction

In every developed country man has become much more asocial animal than before. There has been an explosion ofhuman interaction and correlatively a tremendous increase ofsocial pressure. The social texture of human life has becomeand is becoming more and more complex and its managementmore difficult. Dispersion, fragmentation, and simple rankinghave been replaced by concentration, interdependence, and acomplex texture. Organized systems have become tre­mendously more complex, and they tend to prevail, in a muchmore composite and complex social system, over the more

westem Europe 21

simple forms of yesterday. Because of the basic importanceof the contemporary complex social texture, its managementhas a crucial importance, which raises the problem of socialcontrol over the individual.

Europe is in a very special situationbecause it has a longrecord of traditional social control imposed upon theindividual by col1ective authorities, especially the state, andby hierarchical religious institutions. Certainly theseauthorities and institutions had been liberalized over thecenturies since the time of absolutismo Nevertheless, a strongassociation between social control and hierarchical values stillpersists, which means that a basic contradiction tends toreappear. Citizens make incompatible claims. Because theypress for more action to meet the problems they have to face,they require more social control. At the same time they resist

.any kind of social control that is associated with the hier­archical values they have learned to discard and reject. Theproblem may be worldwide, but it is exacerbated in Europe,where social discipline is not worshipped as it still is in Japan,and where more indirect forms of social control have notdeveloped as in North America.

European countries, therefore, have more difficultproblems to overcome to go beyond a certain level ofcomplexity in their politico-administrative, social, and eveneconomic systems. There are differences in each country,each one having maintained a very distinctive collectivesystem of social control. But each one of these systems nowappears to be insufficient to solve the problems of the time.This is as true for Britain, which was considered to havemastered forever the art of government, as it is for Italy,which could have been an example of stable "nongovern­ment." France, also, has a centralized apparatus less and lessadequate to manage modern complex systems and becomestherefore more vulnerable. To sorne extent Germany benefitsfrom the deep trauma of nazism, which has forced more basicchange in the management of its social texture, but it isnevertheless under the same kind of strains.

22 The Crisis ofDemocracy

2. The Impact of Economic Growth

The impact of economic growth can be better understoodin view of these basic strains. Itwas believed in the fifties and

"early sixties that the achievement of economic growth wasthe great problem for European nations. If only their GNPcould grow for long enough, most of their troubles as dividedand nonconsensual polities would gradually disappear. Thisfact was so overwhelming1y accepted that for a long time theofficial line of the communist parties was to deny the realityof the material progress of the working c1ass and to arguethat capitalist development had brought not only a relativebut also an "absolutedecline of workers' income. However,certain facts had to be finally faced: namely, the tremendous

.economic gains made during the past twenty years by allgroups and especially fue workers. But the consequences ofthis were to be the opposite of what had been expected.Instead of appeasing tensions, material progress seems to haveexacerbated them.

Three main factors seem necessary to account for theparadox. First, as it happens everywhere, change producesrising expectations which cannot be met by its necessarilylimited outcomes. Once people know that things can change,they cannot accept easily anymore the basic features of theircondition that were once taken for granted. Europe has beenespecially vulnerable since its unprecedented economic boomhad succeeded a long period of stagnation with pent-upfeelings of frustration. Moreover, its citizens have been moresophisticated politically and especially vulnerable to invidiouscomparisons from category to category.

A second factor has to be taken into consideration: thespecial role played by radical ideology in Europeanworking-class politics. At a simple level, the Europeanrevolutionary and nonconsensual ideologies of working-classparties and trade unions were associated with the economicand cultural lag that did not allow the working people a fair

Westem Europe 23

share in society's benefits. But ideology is: only partially aconsequence of frustration; it is also a weapon for action.And in the European context, it remains the most effectiveavailable instrument for mobilization. When ideologydeclines, the capacity of the unions to achieve results alsodeclines. The processes of orderly collective bargaining,even when they bring results, tend to be also so complex andbureaucratic that they produce disaffection. Rank-and-fileworkers do not recognize themselves in such a bureaucraticprocess and they tend to drift away, which means that themore trade unions and working-class parties accept regularprocedures, the weaker they become in their capacity tomobilize their followers and to put real pressure on thesystem. Thus, they have to rediscover radicalismo This ismuch more true for the Latin countries, which had neverachieved a satisfactory bargaining system, but radical drifthas also been very strong in northwest Europe. Generally,even if workers have become better integrated in the overallsocial system, they nevertheless remain basically frustratedwith the forms of bargaining which do not allow them muchparticipation. Therefore, a radical ideology is necessary toenable them to cornrnit themselves to the social game. Thissituation is especially strong in many countries where it canbe argued that working-class groups have not benefited fromprosperity as greatly as they should or could have. Converse­ly, those countries where blue-collar-workers' progress hasbeen cornparatively the greatest and the steadiest, such asGermany, are also those whose resistance to inflation and tothe ideological drift is the strongest.

A third factor may be more fundamental. This is the mostdisruptive consequence of accelerated change. It is trueenough that change often brings greater material results andthat people have been able to recognize and appreciate theirgains, although they might have denied them for a long time.But accelerated change is extremely costly in terms ofdisruption. It means that many branches and enterprises

24 The Crisis o[Democracy

decline and even disappear while others undergo tremendousgrowth. People are forced to be mobile geographicalIy andoccupationally, which can be accounted for in terms ofpsychological costs. They have.had to face .a new form of.uncertainty and are likely to compare their fates more oftento the fates of other groups. Tensions, therefore, are boundto increase.

Moreover, these processes have had a direct and profoundimpact on the modes of social control operating in society,And this is where Europe has been much more vulnerablethan either the United States or Japan. In a society wheresocial control had traditional1y relied on fragmentation,stratification-,and ."social barriers to communication, thedisruptive effect of change which tends to destroy thesebarriers, while forcing people to communicate, makes it moreand more difficult to govern. The problem has never been soacute in North America, which has always been on the wholea much more open society; and it is still not yet as developedin Japan, which has been able up to now to maintain itsfonns of social control while undergoing even more economicchange.

Wide differences of course persist between the very diverseEuropean nations. Italy and to sorne extent France have beenless directly perturbed because they have remained morehierarchical in their social texture. s Throughout the worldindividuals have lost a great deal of their traditional frames ofreference and have not found substitutes in theirrelationships with the col1ective group. Everywhere anomiehas increased for young people; groups are more volatile andsocial control is much weaker. At the same time, the directeffect of economic and geographical disruptions requiresproper handling; it requires the imposition of collectivedisciplines which these disruptions make it impossible togenerare."

A no-growth econorny is, of course, no solution, as Britainhas clearly shown. No country can isolate itself frorn general

Westem Europe 25

change. British society may have suffered less disruption thanthe continental countries, but it is now, in counterpart, thevictim of its poor economic performance. British people maystill be individually less tense than peeple on the continent,but they are becoming collectively demoralized. Egalitari­anism and mass participation pressures have increased as theydid elsewhere and the gap between promises and expectationshas widened even more, leading to repeated and frustratingclashes between the bureaucracy and various sectors of thegeneral public, to poorer and poorer government perform­ances, and to widespread feelings of polítical alíenation.

3. The Collapse of Traditional Institutions

The contradiction regarding social control has beenamplífied by the near collapse of the traditional authoritystructure which was buttressing social control processes. Thecollapse is partly due to the disruptive effect of change, but itcan also be viewed as the logical outcome of a generalevolution of the relationship of the individual to society.

Everywhere in the West the freedom of choice of theindividual has increased tremendously. With the crumbling ofold barriers everything seems to be possible. Not only canpeople choose their jobs, their friends, and their mateswithout being constrained by earlíer conventions, but theycan drop these relationships more easily. People whose rangeof opportunities is greater and whose freedom of change alsois greater can be much more demanding and cannot acceptbeing bound by lifelong relationships. This is, of course,much more true for young people. It has further beencompounded by the development of sexual freedom and bythe questioning of woman's place in society, In such acontext traditional authority had to be put into question.Not only did it run counter to the tremendous new wave ofindividual assertion, but at the same time it was losing thecapacity which it had maintained for an overly long time to

26 The Crlsis o[Democracy

control people who had no alternatives.The late sixties have been a major turning point. The

amount of underlying change was dramaticalIy revealed inthe _p~litical turmoil of the period which forced a sort ofmoral showdown over a certain form of traditional authority.Its importance has been mistaken inasmuch as the revoltseemed to be aiming at polítical goals. What was at stakeappears now to be moral much more than politicalauthority-churches, schools, and cultural organizations morethan polítical and even economic institutions.

In the short space of a few years, churches seem to havebeen the rnost deeplyupset. In most of Europe, a basic shiftwas accelerated which deprived them of their political andeven moral authority over their flocks and within society atlarge. The Catholic church has been hit the hardest because ithad remained more authoritarian. Yet as opinion polIs haveshown, religious feelings and religious needs persisto Theymay even have been reactivated by the anxieties of our timeso that eventualIy churches will be able to regain sorne of theground they have 10s1. In order to succeed they will have toopen up and abandon what remains of their traditionalprincipIes.

This rnay have been already achieved since the authoritarianpattem is vanishing. The crisis is much more apparent withinthe hierarchy than among the laity. Priests are leaving thechurches at an increasing rate; they cannot be replaced, andthose who stay do not accept the bureaucratic authority oftheir superiors and the constraints of the dogma asobediently as before. They are in a position to exact a muchbetter deal, and they get it. Conversely, they feelless capableof exerting the traditional moral authority they maintainedover laymen. It may be exaggerated to pretend that theage-old system of moral obligations and guidance thatconstituted the church has crumbled; it is still alive, but it haschanged more in the last decade than during the last twocenturies. Around this change the new effervescence that has

Westem Europe 27

developed may be analyzed as a proof of vitality. Newrationales may emerge around which the systern will stabilize.But it seems clear enough already that the traditional model,which had been for so long one offhe main Ideologicalstrongholds of European societal structures, has disintegrated.This is certainly a major change for European societies. Sucha model provided a basic pattern for the social order and wasused as a last recourse for buttressing social control, even inthe so-ealled laicist countries like France where the Catholicchurch was supposed to have only a minor influence. Theimpact of the basic shift of values will be widespread. Eventhe nonreligious g¡ili~us,. which had maintained similarmodels of social control despite their opposition to theCatholic principles, will not be able to resist change anybetter even if at first glance they seem less directly affected.

Education as a moral establishment is faced with the sameproblem and may be the first example of this correspondingsimilarity between opposing traditions. Whatever philosophi­cal influences were exerted over it in particular countries,education is in trouble all over Western Europe. It has lost itsformer authority. Teachers cannot believe anymore in their"sacred" mission and their students do not accept theirauthority as easily as they did before. Along with thereligious rationale for the social order, educational authoritydoes not hold firm anymore. Knowledge is widely shared.Teachers have lost their prestige within society, and theclosed hierarchical relations that made them powerful figuresin the classroom have disappeared. Routine makes it possiblefor the system to work and the sheer necessity and weight ofits functions will maintain it in operation. But the malaise isdeep. The dogmatic structure disintegrates; no one knowshow to operate without a structure and new forms do notseem to be emerging. We are still in the process ofdestructuration where generous utopias still seem to be theonly constructive answers to the malaise.

Higher education, which has had a more spectacular

28 Ihe Crisis of Democracy

revolution, may have been partly revived, but in manycountries and in many disciplines it is still in chaos, Europeanuniversities do not offer any kind of institutionalleadership.They are not real institutions fortheir students.

. Very -few teachers will be able to propose positive andnonideological models of commitment to values which can beacceptable to students. Consequently, the universities'potential cannot be used as a stimulant for change in societyand young people's energies are easily diverted towardmeaningless and negative struggles.

Other institutions are also, if less severely, perturbed bythis collapse of moral authority. Among them the army, atleast in its roles as training school for organizationaldisciplines and syrnbol and embodíment of patriotic values,has lost its moral and psychological appeaI. Defense may bemore and more entrusted to professional armies that mayremain reliable. But the conscript army as a school for thecitizen and as a model of authority is on the wane. It has lostall sense of purpose. It is really isolated from the mainstreamof human relationships. Thus, another stronghold of themoral fabric of Westem societies disappears.

Curiously enough the problem of authority in economicorganizations, which had always been considered the mostdifficult battlefield of industrial society, seems comparativelyless explosive. Difficulties have been reactivated during theupheaval of the late sixties. Economic sanctions and thevisibility of results, however, give participants sorne accept­able rationale for collective endeavor. Nevertheless, Europeanenterprises are weaker as institutions, on the whole, thantheir American or Japanese counterparts. They lack con­sensus over the system of authority as well as over the systemof resources allocation, and they even often lack enoughagreement regarding the rules of the game in conflict situa­tions.

The problems are more difficult when the social systemhas maintained sorne of the rigid features of a former class

Westem Europe 29

society and when authority is supposed to be imposed fromaboye. The situation is considerably more touchy in Italy andto sorne extent also in France than in Scandinavia andGermany, where discipline has long been internalízed."Nevertheless, the problem remains more acute in Europe thanin the United States, where people have gradually learnednewer forms of social control, or in Japan, where older formsof social control persist and readjust to present requirementsin a very active fashion.

Two important series of consequences are derived fromthis institutional weakness. First, the integration of theworking class into the social game is only partial, especially inthe Latin countries and in France. Second, the weight of theorganizational middle classes of middle ex.ecutives andsupervisors constitutes a conservative, eventually paralyzingforce.

The lack of integration of the working class not onlyprevents direct bargaining and understanding, which makesthe European enterprise more vulnerable, but it is at the rootof the widespread reluctance of young people to accept thehumiliating, underpaid lower-blue-collar jobs. Europeanentrepreneurs have found an easy solution to the workforceproblem by turning to migrant workers from SouthernEurope and North Africa. However, this policy, which hadbeen highly successful for a while and which has fed theindustrial development of Western Europe during its boomyears, has brought new and difficult problems in thecommunity life of West European cities. Gradually anotherfactor of instability has developed since foreign workers havebegun to question their place and range of opportunities inthe social and economic system.

Efforts at promoting working-class jobs and upgrading andintegrating blue-eollar jobs into the mainstream of industrialdevelopment have usually failed because of the weight of thehierarchy. And the middle-most hierarchical categories haveslowed down the modernization of the institutional fabric of

30 The Oisis ofDemocracy

economic organizations. Their attitudes, furthermore, helpmaintain in these European organizations the rigidity ofsocial control that prevents modemization and growth.

Indeed, if European enterprises look more healthy thanEuropean churches and schools, thís is also because they stillrely more on the old model of social control. One maysunnise that economic organizations will have to follow suitafter the others, which probably means disruption.Differences between countries remain considerable. Sweden,for instance, is wel1 ahead in the development of a new modelwhile Italy is in a stage of partial disruption.

4. TñeUpsetting of the Intel1ectual World

Another basic source of disruption of Western societiescomes from the intellectual world. Daniel Bell has rightlypointed out the basic importance of culture in the coming ofpost-industrial society. Knowledge tends to become the basicresource of humanity. Intellectuals as a social group arepushed into the forefront of sociopolitical struggles and therelationships of the intel1ectual world to society changeradical1y. But neither Daniel Bell nor any other futurologisthas foreseen the importance and the painfulness of such anongoing process of change. There is no reason to believe thatthe contemporary cultural revolution will be more peacefulthan the industrial revolutions of the past.

We seem to be, as a matter of fact, ina cultural crisiswhich may be the greatest challenge that confronts Westernsocieties, inasmuch as our incapacity to develop appropriatedecision-making mechanisms-the ungovernability of oursocieties-is a cultural failure. Europe, in this respect, is themost troubled and the most vulnerable of the three Trilateralareas, primarily because the strength and centrality of itsintel1ectual tradition makes it more difficult to develop newmodels.

The first element of the crisis is the problem of numbers.The coming of a post-industrial society means a tremendous

westemEurope 31

increase In the numbers of intellectuals, would-beintellectuals, and para-intellectuals. Not only do olderintellectual professions develop, but newer ones appear, andmany nonintellectual jobs become professional. But the moreintellectuals there are, the less prestige there is for each. Hereagain we come to the real paradox: The more central aprofession becomes, the less prestige and influence its averagemember will have as an individual. There would not be anyproblem if the socialization and training process would begeared to the new state of affairs. But people continue to betrained in the traditional aristocratic ethos of the prestigiousroles of yesterd~y._ They are thus prepared to expect acompletely different pattem of activities and relationshipswith the outside worId than is actually the case. Moreover,the cumulative effects of their individual endeavors topromote and modernize their roles tend to diminish androutinize them.

A new stratification thus develops between those personswho can really play a leading role and those who have toaccept a humbler status. But this stratification is in turn afactor in the malaise because in many countries, particularIyFrance and Britain, the happy few acquire and maintain theirpositions by restrictive monopolistic practices.

Another factor of discontent comes from the importanceof the aristocratic tradition in Western Europe's culturalworld. According to that tradition, intellectuals are romanticfigures who naturally get a position of prominence through asort of aristocratic exaltation. This attitude is still very muchalive and dominant at a subconscious level. Yet intellectualsas agents of change and moral guides in a period of fastchanges should be and are effectively in the vanguard of thefight against the old aristocratic tradition. Thus not only arethey working to destroy the privileges that theyunconsciously crave, but many of them undergo a moralcrisis for which a radical stand is often an easy solution.

The internal upsetting of the traditional intellectual roles,whose new occupants discover that they do not meet the

32 The Crisis alDemocracy

expectations which had prompted their own personalcommitments, is increased, if not multiplied, because of theexistence of a very strong displacement within the'intellectual world itself. While a long tradítíon had given thehumanitíes an honored position, the new trend favors thenew intel1ectual professions that rnay be of more practicaluse. The more post-industrial society becomes intellectu­alized, the more it tends to displace traditional value-orientedintellectual disciplines to the benefit of action-oriented ones,that is, those disciplines that can play a direct role inpolicy-making.

Value-oriented intel1ectuals do not disappear or evendecline, howevér. They find new and rapidly-developingopenings in the fields of communications. But such areorientation may be morally painful since it can be viewedas somewhat debasing. In any case, the opposition of the twocultures, described by C.P. Snow, has shifted greatly. It hasbecome a battle between those persons who play theaudience, even if it is a protest type, and those whocontribute to the process of decision-rnaking. Thus, the basiccrisis of the intellectual world is a crisis of identity in arapidly changing world where the basic mechanisms ofregulationhave been put severely into question.

Many other factors, of course, are at work. The culturalworld may be considered as a sounding board for the otherforms of malaise of Western societies. But one shouldemphasize that this sounding board plays a very important,autonomous role of its own, first of all because .it reinforcesthe uncertainties and driving anxieties it is expressing and,second, because it projects on the whole of society the crisesof identity its members are experiencing.

Notwithstanding the many differences between countries,.one can clearly recognize a general drift in the art and literaryworlds toward a protest and even revolutionary posture. Ithas clearly shaped the cultural context in which the youngergenerations move.

The importance of such a trend should not be

westem Europe 33

underestirnated. True enough, one can correctly dismiss itsirnmediate political inf1uence and recognize the superficialityof its fashionable aspects. But it has a meaning and aninfluence at a deeper level, It is an expression of a basicweakening of Westem Europe's sense of purpose, capacity tolead, and to govem itself. Above all, it is the source of aprofound divorce between the ruling people and the youngtalents.

Even if it does not affect the general public, which tendsto react against highbrow pessimism, the overall mood ofWestem societies is shaped by a general cultural tendency.West European values are not rejuvenated in a convincingway. No model of civilization emerges from the present-daydrifting culture, no call for reform and pioneering. Ritualismand. ..self-pity remain the basic undercurrent behind thearrogant radical criticism that prevails on the surface. Vagueutopías certainly do not counterbalance the strongerapocalyptic nihilism that forms the texture of our vanguardculture. On the other hand, there is no possible dialoguebetween the ruling elite and the new generation. Fragmenta­tion and stratification, which were 'stifling traditional classsociety, seem to perpetuate themselves through new culturalcleavages. Other regulatory mechanisms which we cannotdistinguish yet may be at work. A new blossoming may wellfollow this long hibemating process. But we must face thefact that we are now in the most vulnerable part of the cycleof change or, to put it a better way, of the process oftransition to post-industrial society.

5. The Mass Media

The vulnerability of the cultural world and its importancefor the whole of society is compounded because of thecentral role it plays in two basic subsystems of moderosocieties: education and the media.

Education exemplifies sorne of the same basiccontradictions as the world of culture. The prestige of

34 The Crisis ofDemocracy

teachers has decreased with the tremendous increase of theirnumbers while their expectations are still greatly influencedby the traditional liberal flavor of their calling, And they are,even more than other intellectuals, directly confronted withthe revolution in human relations that perturbs theirtraditional mode of social control. At the same time, with itscultural drift society has lost the stimulating moral guidanceit requires. As a consequence the transmission of social,polítical, and cultural norms has been very deeply perturbed,thus feeding back into society as a whole. Already researchresults show the extent of intellectual breakdown anddisorientation that prevails in many sectors of thepopulation. People's behavior is not touched, really, but theycan no longer rely on a coherent rationalization of itscontext, and they feel at a loss to find out how they relate to.society. Anomic rebellion, estrangement from society, andaliénation certainly have dangerously progressed because ofthis cultural void.

The media are not in as great a crisis as education is.However, they have been transformed by the explosion andexpansion of communications and the new role played byvalue-intel1ectuals. The media's influence on politics andgovernability is much more direct than that of education, andthe media playa most decisive role in the present drift ofWestern societies. They are a very important source ofdisintegration of the old forms of social control inasmuch asthey contribute to the breakdown of old barriers tocommunication. Television, particularly, has played a majorrole in this respect. It has made it impossible to maintain thecultural fragmentation and hierarchy that was necessary toenforce traditional forms of social control. Its impact hasbeen more recent and more difficult than in the UnitedStates or Japan because of the much stronger resistance offragmented and stratified European societies. Its use is stillmore differentiated according to social categories or classes.Nevertheless, the strength of the appeal of television is such

Westem Europe 35

that it has forced a complete change of public and sociallife,and has also indirectly helped the press to restructure itself.The main impact of these changes, of course, is visibility. Theonly real event is the event that is reported and seen. Thus,journalists possess a crucial role as gatekeepers of one of thecentral dimensions of public life.

The media have thus become an autonomous power. It isnot new to talk about the Fourth Estate. But we nowarewitnessing a crucial change when the profession tends toregulate itself in such a way as to resist pressure fromfinancial or governmental interests. Television, which isheavily influenced in many countries by govemmentalcontrol, works - muchvIess openly than newspapers;self-regulation, however, is everywhere on the increase. Thiscould be viewed as tremendous progress. But at the sametime these mechanisms of self-regulation of the media tend tobe strongly biased. If journalists can create events, they havea structuring impact on public and social life. And if theirbasic logic in creating events is to reach the widest possibleaudience, they will tend to bias the social game in such a waythat public figures will have to play for this audience muchmore than for real outcomes. This has many consequences:

First, the media become a tremendous sounding board forthe difficulties and tensions of society. Movements andfashions take broader proportions. It is much more difficultto escape the whirlpool of public relations events and toconcentrate on more basic problems. Second, the mediadeprive governments and to sorne extent also otherresponsible authorities of the time lag, tolerance, and trustthat make it possible to innovate and to experimentresponsibly.

Third, the pressure of the media makes it extremelydifficult to solve a basic dilemma of modem complexsystems, which has been brought to light as thecounterintuitive effect." Systems operate in such a way thatvery often the general outcome of individual action runs

36 The Crisis o[Democracy

counter to the will of the actors and to the general intuitionone may have in advance. Thus it is imperative to give muchmore importance to systems analyses than to the immediateand apparent views of the actors, which is evidently the biasof the media. The more this sounding board emphasizes theemotional appeal of the actors' "life experience," especiallyas biased by the techniques of the media, the less easy it is toforce a real analysis of the complex game on which politicalleaders must acto Finally, the emphasis on direct evidenceappears to be as loaded with ideology and manipulation asold style oratory. Joumalists' autonomy does not leadnecessarily to transparency and truth but may distort theperception of reatíty.::

Here we find the problem of joumalists as value-orientedintellectuals who tend to be govemed by the game ofcatching the audience's attention and are responsibletherefore for the acceleration of the cultural drift. In the longrun, this problem may be much more important than theproblems of financial and govemment interference in themedia, which are everywhere tending to recede.

Inpolitics, however, the public relations effect is quitedifferent from the North American one since the ruling eliteand theeducated audience playa major role as an importantscreen. They constitute the primary audience of thehighbrow publications, which in tum tend to structure theproblems that will finally reach the broader audience. Publicrelations of a public figure will be conditioned by theexistence of these two levels. This means that there is a veryserious buffer against too immediate reactions. But this doesnot mean a suppression of the public relations distortion,only a transformation of its conditions. At any rate thepressure for change that is against secrecy and protection ofleaders seems to be more on the increase. The only readyanswer to counterbalance it is the use of bureaucracy for realaction, which means that the gap between the decision­making system, distorted by public relations problems, and

Western Europe 37

the implementation system, protected but also bound andbiased by bureaucratic machine-regulating mechanisms, willtend to increase, thus triggering constant new waves offrustration and anger and diminishing the amount of trustpeople will give to their leadership. -

6. Inflation

Inflation can be considered a direct result of theungovernability of Western democracies. It is an easy answerto the tensions of growth. The less a society is capable offacing them, the readier it is to accept inflation as a lesspainful solution. At the same time it is an independent sourceof disruption whichexacerbates conflicts and still diminishesthe capacity of groups and societies to act. Present-dayinflation, therefore, ought to be considered, even if verybriefly, as another independent variable to be analyzed as asupplementary cause of disruption.

It is no wonder that the countries whose social fabric is theweakest, those whose model of social control is still based onhierarchy, fragmentation, and distance, have always beenmuch more vulnerable to inflation. In the 1960s, however, areasonable sort of equilibrium had been found according towhich the anticipation of growth was reasonably matchedwith actual growth while Keynesian policies were stabilizingthe system. The golden age of economics, however, wasshorter in Europe, Germany excepted, than in NorthAmerica. In any case, no country can now resist thetremendous pressure of the new turbulence in the world.

Present-day large-scale inflation has been for a timeremarkably well accepted. It has had a strong distortingeffect on the economic and social position of individuals andgroups. But its impersonal operation prevents directcomplaint. Furthermore, the groups which usually speak theloudest are those which are likely to benefit from .the pro­cess. One can even claim that .the combination of public feel­ing, trade union pressure, and governmental intervention has

38 The Crisis of Democracy

tended to operate in favor of low salaries. Thus, professionalsalaried middle classes, which were certainly privileged, havelost sorne of their advantages. It is not as unfair an outcomeas one would immediately tend to believe .

.The problerns of inflation, however, change their naturewhen the so-eal1ed double-digit numbers seem to become astable feature of the economic picture. The costs seem thenmore and more unbearable. Not only do distortions appear,but social relationships become unstable. Lack of trustprevents the necessary regulation of large and small economicand social subsystems. More people, moreover, anticipate acrisis, and the governrnents' margin of freedom is reduced tothe lowest leveí. We can observe this in Britain and in Italy..Between unemployment and int1ation there does not seemany middle way. Basically, governments appear to be unableto induce groups which are in strategic positions to acceptsacrifices. European unity is not much of a real help since itis much easier for any governrnent to durnp on the outsideworld the consequences of its own weaknesses. Europeancountries' foreign econornic policies tend to be, on thewhole, not only uncoordinated but even erratic.

There are, however, sorne positive elements in the picture:Gerrnany's understanding that it cannot retain its prosperityalone; France's surprisingly better econornic results; andFranco-Gerrnan cooperation. While these factors rnay not yetbe inspiring for the presently weaker countries, they may bea new point of departure and, if sorne success develops, theywill play a very important syrnbolic role for the developrnentof the new capacities Europe requires.

Inflation and its twin evil depression finally make theproblem of governability an imrnediate and practicalone. And the basic question is: Are the European countriesready to meet the chal1enge of the new situation, to developin time of crisis the institutional capacity they could notdevelop in time of prosperity? To make an educated guess onthis very crucial problern, one must now focus more closely

Westem Europe 39

on the role and structure of political values in present-dayWestern Europe.

III. THE ROLE AND STRUCTUREOF POLITICAL VALUES

l. The Values Structure and the Problem of Rationality

Behind all these governability problems of modern Westemsocieties lie sorne more basic problems of values.Participation, people's consent, equality, the right of thecollectivity to intervene in personal affairs, and the possibleacceptance of authority seem to be the preliminary questionsto debate before"givingurcasonablc diagnosis and proposingpossible solutions.

The relationship of values to behavior and especially toinstitutionalized behavior is much more complex than isusually believed, which makes the interpretation of opinionpol1s highly questionable. Above all, there is a widediscrepancy between professed values-what we can getthrough opinion polls and even attitude surveys-and actualbehavior-what people will eventually do when problemsforce them to choose. Not only is there a discrepancy but thenature, importance, and even direction of this discrepancyare difficult to understand and therefore to predict. Forinstance, shortly before the French students' revolt in May1968, opinion polls gave an almost idyllic representation ofstudents' docility, conformisrn, and even satisfied apathy.

However, at an unconscious level, we can surmise thatthere is a rationale in people's behavior which is buttressingthe rnaintenance of the social garnes and their social andcultural characteristics, and these rationales can beconsidered as more stable and meaningful value orientations.These value orientations, however, cannot be easily rnade evi­dento It will be a task for new generations of social scientiststo set these problems in more operational terms. For the rno­ment, we can only present sorne hypotheses that cannot be

40 The Crisis 01Democracy

supported by data and represent only educated guesses whichhave been elaborated by confronting the problems to besolved-governability problems-with the institutional pat­terns and what we know of their evolution and the professedvalues of peop1e about them.

. --In this perspective, the first and most central hypothesis

concerns the concept "of rationalityand its re1ationship tothe structure of values. Western Europe, as the Westem worldgeneral1y, has lived during the 1ast two or three centuries witha certain model of rationality which has had a decisiveinfluence on values, at least by giving them the basic structurewithin which they could be expressed. This kind ofrationality, which Can" be considered as the most powerfultoo1 humanity had discovered for rnanaging col1ective action,is founded upon a clear distinction between ends and meansand an ana1ytical fragmentation of prob1ems within a worldthat cou1d be considered infinite. Within such a frameworkpeop1e can define goals according to their preferences (i.e.,their values). Society's technica1 knowledge could thenprovide them with the necessary (and sufficient) means toimplement their goa1s. Every prob1em can be redefined insuch a way that ends and means may be clearly separate andso that a rationa1 solution cou1d easily be found. Of course,collective action implies several participants with differentorders of preferences. But in the economic sphere analyticalstructuring will help sort out single deciders to whom otherswill be linked by definite contracts (into which they willenter according to their orders of preference). And in thepolitical sphere democratic procedures organized around thetwin concepts of general will and sovereignty give therationale for the same logic.

Of course difficulties can arise with this model ofrationality, and they may be (reluctant1y) recognized. It wilIbe necessary, therefore, to resort to manipulation, compro­mise, and even coercion in order to arrive at a decision. Forthe elaboration of decisions, democracy can be viewed as

Westem Europe 41

both the least evil and most ideal embodiment of rationality.In order to achieve implementation of these decisions,bureaucratic means are supposed to insure accurate andimpersonal compliance. Conflict overrneans maybe anotherworry, but .good leadership and energy will fina1ly overcomethe obstac1es. If there are failures, they are d ue to theweakness of human nature and have to be tolerated as such.

As a general consequence a stable dichotomy has alwayspersisted between the ideal objectives which pertain to thelogic of values and the muddy, messy world of reality, whichis the realm of unsavory "political" deals. But thediscrepancy, although perturbing, does not shake thisfundamental modelof reasoning. On the contrary, the moreideals may be compromised in practice, the more idealizedand the more worshiped they will remain in the domain ofvalues.

The system has worked well enough as long as societalchange was slow, the intervention of public authorities ratherlimited, and the fragmentation and stratification of societystrong enough to insure a pragmatic acceptance of socialorder and established authority. But once the explosion ofcommunication and social interaction has disturbed thenecessary barriers that made societies more simple andtherefore more manageable, this basic pattern of rationalitydisintegrates.

First, there is no way to order goals either rationally ordemocratically. Furthennore, the quality and authenticity ofpreferences and goals becomes questionable. It is all very wellto say that people should choose according to theirpreferences, But where do these preferences come from? Thecontext of influences that is exerted over them appears to bedeterminant. Manipulation becomes a sort of basic fear whichpervades the democratic creed. At the same time, socialsciences begin to question this preference model by showinghow people do not have a priori wants but discover goalsfrom their experience; that is, they learn what they want by

42 The Crisis ofDemocracy

trial and error and implementation schemes. Finally, endsdevelop only through means.

Second, ends do not appear in a vacuum. They are part ofstructured universes which also encompass means.Furthermore, they are interrelated and conflictua1. None ofthem can be pushed very far without interfering with otherends. Finally what are ends for one individual or one groupare means for other individuals or groups.

Third, the breakdown of barriers means that peopleparticipate in very large structured sets where this unilateral,rationality scheme becomes terribly oppressive. If means,according to the logic of this scheme, are the domain of ines­capable rationaltéchriiques, the 95 percent or 99 percent ofhuman beings whose universe does not go beyond thesemeans do not have the possibility to participate in ameaningful way in the government of their daily lives. Ifrational techniques can provide the one best solution, theycannot even discuss the relevan ce of their experience for thecommon good.

Fourth, rationality was always tempered by the limits oftradition and custom, and by the fragmentation of theproblems. If limits disappear, if therefore rationality wins toomuch, if established authority-whether religious or social­crumbles, rationality explodes; it becomes in a certain senseirrationa1.

If with this brief analysis of the crisis of moderorationality as a goal-structuring scheme we revert to ourproblems of governability of Western democracies, we candraw a first set of conclusions. There is no wonder that theconcept of rationality has been put into question. Its ownsuccess was bound to make its contradictions explode. Thecultural and moral breakdown of the late sixties therefore hasexpressed sornething important for the future. Whatever itsvagaries and the dangerous threats it is presenting to thedemocratic way of government, it has aboye all exposed theillusions of traditional rationality and may help us learn a

Westem Europe 43

new kind of reasoning where professed values will not be theonly guide for moral action.

The search for a broader kind of rationality, as well as thesearch for new kinds of social and organizational garnes thatcan embody it, is the major problem of Westem societies.New social and psychological utopias, such as the communitydrive, the encounter group philosophy, and theself-government dreams are useful tools for this search as wellas dangerous illusions. Conversely, political reemphasis oflocal and regional ties may be as much a conservative "retro"fashion as a necessary axis for the renewal of govemmentalprocesses. _

European societies, ami U.S. society as well, are engaged inthis impossible search. European societies start, however,with a handicap, inasmuch. as they are still much moreinvolved in the former model of rationality, while therapidity of change is destroying the customary protectionsthat were counterbalancing its rigid use. These difficulties areclosely linked with social stratification problems, especiallythe social gap between the world of decision and the world ofexecution and the parallel but nonidentical gap between theeducated and the noneducated classes.

2. Core Polítical Beliefs

If we distinguish core polítical beIiefs from principIes ofaction, we discover a rather paradoxical situation whichmay be emphasized as one basic characteristic of ourcontemporary scene. While those principIes of action thatseemed formerIy irnmutable appear to be deepIy shaken,forcing people to open up to existential bewilderment aboutthe meaning of their action and their social identity, corepolitical beliefs about which changes had been alwayshypothesized remain much more stable.

While people commonly feel that the usual way to achievegoals is not acceptable any more (one cannot order people

44 The Crisis ofDemocracy

around even if one pretends one can or even does), and whilecommunity feelings seem much more important for youngpeople than the real content of any goal, the basic tenets ofthe democratic and Christian creed are still very much aliveand .color revolutionary as well as conservative enterprises. Inthis respect four c1usters of values seem to me aspredominant now as they have been for a long time.

First, the freedom of the individual is the cardinal valuewhich is not only unanirnously shared but seems to berediscovered again by any kind of new movement whetherextremely radical or conservatively religious. It will beirnmediately _ar$ue~that these movements have widelydifferent conceptions of freedom. But this is not so certain ifone remains at the level of values or core polítical beliefs. Theonly fundamental distinction one can see at this point is theopposition between the European conception of freedom­which is a sort of freedom-from, that is, emphasizing theinalienable right of the individual not to be interferedwith-and the American one-which is rather a freedom-to,that is, the inalienable right to take initiatives and to leadothers if they so wish. European freedom-from antedatespolitical democracy and has deep Christian roots. It hasdifferent forros according to the European country, withsorne orientation of the more Protestant countries toward thefreedom-to concept; but, on the whole, there is much moreconvergence than one would think across countries andacross c1ass barriers and polítical groupings.

Second, equalíty, whatever its ambiguity and possiblethreats, remains a dominant value orientation all overWestern Europe. European egalitarianism, however, showsagain a difference from the American variety. It is still astratified kind of egalitarianism. People may require equalitywith their peers most punctiliously while they may acceptinequality between statuses and strata. Contrary to NorthAmericans, they might be shocked by differences oftreatment that do not recognize people's status while they

Westem Europe 45

would not mind the differences between statuses per se.Order and efficiency may be more surprising items to put

among the core political beliefs of West Europeans. Onecannot escape being struck, however.with the importance ofthese kinds. of values in the political process. Whenever thedevelopment of freedom threatens to bring chaos, thedemand for order is immediate, even violento It is not a lostor dwindling part of core political beliefs whatever thepossible evolution of its forms in the direction of moretolerance. The special West European form of order,however, has a more social and less juridical connotationthan in the United States. Things (and people) have to be putin their proper place for society to operate. Due process isnot the cardinal element of this belief. Furthermore,efficiency may be added to it inasmuch as it has alegitimating connotation. Order is the way to achieveefficiency, which is the condition of a well-functioningsociety. West Europeans still value the good "efficient"scheme more than the concrete results. Order is the burdenof the white man; efficiency may be the demonstration of itin a modern rationalized society.

Finally, 1 would emphasize dualism as a fourth cluster ofcore political beliefs. Contrary to Eastem countries, WestEuropeans never had a unitary conception of legitimacy.Church and State opposition antedates modern left-rightconflicts. Group cooperation may be dreamed of as a possibleunanimous harmony, but it has never been practiced withoutthe due protection of dualismo Free choice can be preservedonly if the existence of an opposition preserves theindependence of individuals who could be otherwise toodependent on the predominant power to be able to asserttheir rights. AH situations where such an oppositondisappears have to be avoided as paternalistic, feudalistic, andoppressive. Conflict may be handled most painfully throughsuch dualismo Real conflicts may be stifled and distorted, butone feels that the price is worth paying since prior harmony

46 The Crisis alDemocracy

is always suspect. This core belief, which is completelyforeign to Japan, is widely shared in North America, but theAmerican forro of it .emphasízes checks and balances morethan conflict and dualismo Absolute power in this conceptionis evil and must therefore be checked, but this does notnecessarily imply the division of the citizens. In Europe thisdivision is the center of the game, and one can tolerate agreater abuse of governmental prerogatives since governmentwill be paralyzed by the division of society.

3. The Impact of Social, Economic,and Cultural Changes on the PrincipIes of Rationality

- and ori the Core PoliticaI Beliefs

Political behavior and polítical changes do not dependdirectIy on political values but on the possibIe Iearningpeople can do within the constraints of the core politicalbeliefs they adhere to and the principIes of rationality theyapply, What then may be, more precisely, the impact ofsocial, economic, and cultural changes on these two kinds ofsocietal dimensions?

AH over Western Europe the development of socialinteraction, the disruptive effects of cumulative change, thecultural drift, and the exposure of government to mediapublicity have made it more and more difficult to maintian'social control and to answer the demands of the citizens.Traditional rationality, therefore, disintegrates. But values orcore political beliefs are not affected. They may even bereinforced.

The urge for freedom does not level off. On the contrary,it may be intensified by the helpIessness of uprootedindividuals within a too complex world and theirconcomitant blackmailing power over weakened institutions.Not only is the demand for freedom exacerbated, but it doesnot shift from a [reedom-from to a freedom-to orientation.The traditional posture still pays off.

Westem Europe 47

The drive for equality, of course, develops; it may progressfrom a narrow categorical frame of reference to a broaderone. But basically the tightness of the social and politicalgame is such that no significant shíft can be expected in anear . enough future. Conversely, the need for order isreactivated by the chaotic aspect of a generalizedblackmailing game. And it is of a more regressive thanprogressive kind. No learning seems to take place. As usualpeople ask for freedom for themselves and order for theothers. Even dualism may be reinforced inasmuch as thebreakdown of rationality and the weakness of governmentleave the field open for the game of division and opposition.

What is at stake, tlierefore, is not the democratic creed andthe Christian ethos, which are less directly threatened thanthey were for example in the thirties,? but the contradictionbetween these core political beliefs and the principles ofaction that could make it possible to implement them.

Earlier democratic processes had been built on theseparation of groups and classes. They relied as much oninstitutionalized noncommunication as on democraticconfrontation. Authority was worshiped as an indispensablemeans for achieving order although it was rejected as adangerous interference with freedom. Such a model couldnot stand structural. changes that destroy barriers, forcepeople to compete outside traditionallimits, and suppress thedistance that protected traditional authority. A profoundcontradiction therefore develops. People tend to try differentand more open practices or are being forced into them, butthey cannot stand the tensions these practices bring. Sincethey cannot also stand the authority that could moderatethese tensions and bring back order over them, a veryresilient vicious circle develops. Little real leaming takesplace, and authority hides behind public relations andcomplexity but becomes more vulnerable because it does notdare to assert itself. And the more vulnerable it becomes, themore it generates blackmailing group pressures, the less

48 The Crisis o[Democracy

margin it retains for more responsible longer-term action andthe less chance it stands to regain legitimacy.

New patterns of tolerance and mutual adjustment have tobe learned and are in fact being learned todeal with these

.growing tensions and the chaotic consequences they can haveif the easy solution of inf1ation is not available. But thiscannot take place yet at the level of values or the core beliefsystem. We can only hope that action will anticipate beliefs,that is, that people will learn from experience instead ofobeying already existing motivations. This kind of learning isperfectly compatible with the core belief system although itimplies sorne spift.from the freedom-from concept to thefreedom-to concept and the extension of the traditionalnarrow egalitarianism to broader domains. Nevertheless, itwould mean the appearance of new beliefs alongside the coresystem. If such learning does not develop quickly enough,however, there is a growing risk of crisis and regression.

4. Traditional Factors As a Counterweight

European societies still live on a series of traditionaladjustments that are not called into question because theyare taken for granted: the persistence of old forms ofpatronage networks which allow due consideration toforgotten human factors; symbiotic adjustments betweenopposed social and economic partners according to whichconf1icts and tensions are maintained at a workable level;implicit bargaining arrangements between groups that cannotface each other squarely; implicit consensus on sorne sort ofprofessional or work ethic, and so on.

There is, moreover, a longing and a search for earliercommunity practices to be rediscovered and revived, alonging and search which testify to the need of finding moreroots at a time when the acceleration of change destroys thesupport as well as the constraints around which humanitycould find meaning. On the whole, however, Western Europeseems to be worse off than either Japan or North America.

westem Europe 49

Japan still benefits from the existence of a huge capital ofcollective capacity upon which it can rely. North Americadoes not have this capital of tradition; but even if it suffersfrom sorne of the same problems Western Europe has to face,it hashadmore time to learn, and it benefits from more slackin its social and economic system which allows it toexperiment JIlore easily. Western Europe has used up a lotmore of its own reserves than Japan and does not have thelearning experience and the learning capacity of the UnitedStates. It should, therefore, be much more careful withwhatever resources is has and invest as much as it can todevelop them and learn new patterns of adjustment. It doesnot have time to wait; itmust learn and learn as quickly as .possible. A purely defensive strategy would be suicida!because the risk of regression is a very concrete one.

5. The Risks of Social and Polítical Regression

Western Europe has known already a tragic period ofregression when the chao tic and effervescent world born outof World War 1 couldnot face its tensions, especially those ofthe depression, and when its needs for order were met byrecourse to the fascist and Nazi regressions. Fascism andNazism can be analyzed as a retum to older forros ofauthority to restore or impose the indispensable order. Thiswas associated with a sudden shift in patterns of behaviorreactivating those which were closer to earlier types.

Can Western Europe suffer another such setback?Certainly not in the same forro and in the same direction.

There is little left in the present core beliefs in which to findsupport. There is no strong will, no sense of mission, no realdedication to fight for the restoration of an earlier moralorder; there is not so much will to fight for capitalism or evenfor free enterprise as such. No strong movement can beexpected therefore from a right-wing "reactionary"background.

But regression can come also from the left for two

50 The Crisis 01Democracy

converging reasons: The communist parties have emergedmore and more as the parties of order, whose leaders are theonly ones able to make people work, and there has alwaysbeen a very strong tendency to. develop state socialism andpublic - bureaucracy interference as the easy solution tomanage the impossible, that is, to maintain order in the faceof unmanageable conflicts.

These affirmations may seem paradoxical. The communistparties generalIy have lost ground or leveled off almosteverywhere in Western Europe. Their ideology does not havethe same appearance any more. It looks very much like aroutinized church whose charisma has at least partiallydisappeared. -Why should such sedate and moderate partiesbe a threat to democracy just at the time they are beginning.10 respect its basic tenets?

The strength of the present communist parties of WestemEurope does not lie, however, either in their revolutionaryappeal or in their electoral capabilities. They must haveenough of them certainly. But their unique superiority istheir organizational one. They are the only institutions left inWestem Europe where authority is not questioned, where aprimitive but very efficient chain of command canmanipulate a docile workforce, where there is a capacity totake hard decisions and adjust quickly, and where goods canbe delivered and delays respected.

Authority may be heavy-handed in these parties and theclose atmosphere they have maintained over their people hascertainly been a brake to their development. Turnover hasalways been considerable. But granted these costs, theirmachine has remained extraordinari1y efficient and its super­iority has tremendously increased when other major institu­tions have begun to disintegrate. There is now no otherinstitution in Europe, not even the state bureaucracies, thatcan match the communist parties' capabilities in this domain.

True enough, as long as the problem of order does notbecome central, they are out of the game; but if chaos should

Western Europe ·51

develop for a long enough time following a greater economicdepression, they can provide the last solution. Most Europeancountríes have always had a very strong tradition of statecontrol and bureaucratic procedures .tosubstitute for theirpolítical systerns' weaknesses. While bureaucracy may beanathema for the majority of people in opinion polls, it isstill the easy solution for any kind of problem. This, ofcourse, may be more true for France and Britain, but it isalso true in the smaller countries and Germany, which, whileit has moved away from state socialism, still has a strongtradition to which one can appeal.

For sorne of the Westem countries the idea ofnationalization, after years'of oblívion and little ideologicalappeal, has become an issue again, In time of polítical chaosand economic depression it may appear as the last recourse tosave employment and to equalize sacrifices. The communistparties are certainly better trained to administer the resultingconfusion and to restore order to leaderless organizations.They will win then not because of their appeal but by defaultbecause the communists are the only ones capable of fillingthe void.

They have already shown proof of their capabilities. Forinstance they have shown remarkable efficiency inadministering various cities in Italy and France; they havehelped to restore order in Italian, French, and even Germanuniversities; and they have shown everywhere, even inBritain, how to influence key trade unions by using rninoritycontrol devices. Their potential, therefore, is rnuch higher atthat level than it is at the electoral level or at therevolutionary level. And because of this potential they canattract experts and professionals of high calíber and alsoincrease their capabilities on the technical side.

Nevertheless, the cornrnunists do have problems. The mostpressing one is the danger of being contaminated by thegeneral trends of the societies in which they have to operate,that is, to be unable to prevent the disintegration of their

52 The Crisis ofDemocracy

model of authority. This is why they take such great care tomaintain their revolutionary identity. They have beenprotected by their minority ghetto-like status and as long asthey can maintain it, their hard core mem_bership has sodeeply jnternalized their so far successful practices that theycan stand the pressure of the environment for quite a longtime.

They have a difficult game to play,' nevertheless. Theymust be enough in to be present when high stakes are atissue, while remaining sufficiently out to maintain theirorganizational capacity. Their basic weakness líes in theirdifficulty in respecting the freedom-from belíef and theirincapacity to acceprdualism. Can they govern and control

\

societies whose core polítical beliefs are alíen to them?Wouldn't they trigger an extremely strong backlash? It is adifficult question to answer because these societies are in themidst of a deep cultural transformation which affects, withthe principles of rationality, the basis of their politicalstrategy.

Let us just suggest that if the takeover would be sudden,an anticommunist backlash would be Iikely ; but if thebreakdown would be intensíve and profound but alsogradual, the communists coming to power could be verydifficult to question.

IV. CONCLUSIONS: EUROPEAN VULNERABILITY

This review of sorne of the major problems ofgovernability in Western Europe may suffer from an overlypessimistic overtone. By focusing on the more intractableproblems one is easily led to overemphasize contradictionsand to give the misleading impression that breakdowns aresoon likely to occur.

To present a more balanced conclusion, we would putthese analyses in a more general perspective. The problems ofEuropean societies are difficult to solve but they are not

Westem Europe 53

intractable, and European societies, whatever theirweaknesses, do still possess a lot of resources that can bernobilized when wanted. They have already shown during theconternporary period considerable -- resilience and anunexpected capacity to adapt, to adjust, and to invento Rightnow they still rnanage to rnaintain dernocratic stabilityagainst very difficult odds. And during the past twenty yearsthey have carried through a very irnpressive rnutation thatfew observers would have trusted thern to accornplish. Ifthere was no external constraint, there would be no reason tobelieve they could not accornplish the second rnutation thatseerns necessary now.;

The basic situation, therefore, that should concern us isnot so rnuch the intractability of the problerns and theincapacity of the European societies to meet the challenge; itis the vulnerability of Europe. Indeed, aH European nationshave to live through the same irnpossible situation: They haveto carry through a basic mutation in their model 01govérnment and their mode 01 social control while facing atthe same time a crisis from within and a crisis from without.

European nations have different capacities and sorne ofthern at first glance seem more likely to succeed than others.But none of thern has the leeway and resources of the UnitedStates or the collective capacity of action of Japan.Furthermore, they are so interdependent that, while they canhelp and ernulate each other strongly, they are partiallydependent on the vulnerability of the weakest link in thechain.

The crisis frorn within revolves, of course, basically aroundeconornic and social instability. Inflation at the rate it hasreached increases the tensions it had al1eviated formerly. Itsdisruptive effects undermine the basis of the social bondbecause of the loss of trust and the impossibility to planahead. But too rnuch deflation would force an irnpossiblereallocation of resources and/or raise unemployment to anunacceptable level. Countries are therefore in an irnpossible

54 The Crisis alDemocracy

vicious circle, which it is very difficult for them to breakwithout entering a deeper depression, and whose risks seemimpossible to accept in view of the fragility of their socialfabrico

Managing such a crisis imposes the need to give priority toshort-term considerations and makes it all the more difficultto meet the more basic challenge of the necessary mutationof social con trols.

This is, of course, compounded by the consequences of thecrisis from without which is not only the crisis of energy andthe crisis of the balance of payments but the relativesituation of weakness of the European nations whose welfareis for the fírsf timé -directly dependent on outside pressuresfrom non-Western powers. Here again the failure of one ortwo countries can be managed with the help of the strongest,but if France, for example, would follow, the wholeEuropean system would crumble.

In such a difficult situation, state socialism may appear tobe the easiest solution for sorne countries, especially theLatin ones, since it would give workers guarantees and helpspread out employment. But such a course of action, apossibility which must be taken very seriously, would triggera period of social chaos in which the communist partieswould play a decisive role because they would be the onlyones capable of bringing back order and efficiency. Thisscenario, of course, could not apply to the whole of Europe,but it could quickly spread to ltaly, France, and Spain andput unbearable pressure on Germany. At that time Finland­ization would appear as the least evil.

Such a disastrous drifting of Western Europe is notinevitable. lt is not even likely, but the fact that thepossibility must be taken seriously is a measure of the presentvulnerability of Europe. To prevent it, European nationsshould try to go beyond their present dire constraints andface at the same time the challenges of the future.

First, they should try to accelerate the shift away from

Westem Europe 55

their old model of fragmentation, stratification, secrecy, anddistance, which produced an acceptable balance betweendemocratic processes, bureaucratic authority, and sornearistocratic tradition, and experiment with more flexiblemodels that could produce more social control with lesscoercive pressure. Such experimentation, which is bound tosucceed in the long run, looks dangerous in the presentvulnerable situation when we hesitate natural1y to jeopardizewhat remains of the old means of social control as long asone is not sure of the quality of the new means. Innovation,nevertheless, seems to be absolutely indispensable. It has tobe careful innovation; but jt is the only possible answer toEurope's dilemma.

European nations should at the same time try to reorientthe trend of economic growth. They badly need to maintaingrowth to prevent unemployment and an exacerbation ofsocial conflicts, but they cannot maintain the type of growthof preceding years which has brought more and more costlydisruptions and can be considered one of the importantcauses of inflation. A new emphasis on quality, on col1ectiveamenities, on a more careful al1ocation of space is notimpossible. New goals for facing the future can be givenpriority: modernizing the education process; improvingcommunity and regional decision-making; establishing moreresponsible information systerns; radically changing workingconditions and restoring the status of manual work;developing income maintenance programs; making publicbureaucracies responsible to the citizens and privatebureaucracies to the consumers.

The diverse background and history of the differentEuropean nations can be viewed as an asset for suchendeavors since there exists among them a tremendousreservoir of experience and of capable talents. Europeaninterdependence, on the other hand, forces European nationsto face the impossible problem of unity. A united Europewas for a long time the ideal dream to help maintain the drive

56 The Crisis alDemacracy

to overcome the outdated modes of government thatprevailed in the national state systems. But the advocates ofEuropean unity have stumbled too long on the obstacle ofthe central states' nodal power.which the present crises have

. reinforced even more, to maintain hope for the near future.Investments in a European common capacity remain

nevertheless indispensable not only for Europe's sake but foreach country's capacity to overcome its own narrowdeterminisms. Can they be made in view of the presentpressure? This may be the most difficult question. It maycertainly be helped in any case by a better appreciation inthe two other regions of the difficu1ty of their partners'problem and by their willingness to help solve it.

NOTES

1. When asked what to do with a difficult problem a famouscontemporary French politician well known for his skillful use of thesystem used to sum up this practice by saying, "Let's muddle it up alittle more."

2. This seems to be one basic weakness of the Lindblom model inThe Intelligence al Democracy: it does not give due attention to theway the field in which adjustments take place is structured andregulated. Sensible partisan mutual adjustments take place only withinfields which a minimum of structure and regulation has neutralized.Chaos will only bring chaos. Good "partisan mutual adjustment"systems are a construct, as ís any kind of market.

3. See Alain Cottereau, "L'agglornération parisienne au début du,siécle," Socialogie du Travail, 4, 1969, pp. 342-65.

4. To sorne extent Switzerland might be an interesting exception,which is a lasting testimony to the exceptional strength of itsdecentralized local decision-making system.

5. This proposition is very difficult to substantiate since eachcountry may rate differently on the diverse categories of a verycomplex social universe. One can argue that class differences are stillstronger in Britain and Germany than in France. It seems however thatFrench institutions and organizational systems still rely more on

Westem Europe 57

hierarchical mechanisms that their counterpartsin Britain andGermany. The crumbling of social barriers in any case has been morespectacular in France and Italy in one of the key areas of modernchange, the universities. The influx of students in these two countríeshas been much higher in the sixties than in Britain and Germany, with aconcomitant breakdown of social control.

6. This is certainly one of the reasons for the development ofinflation, which is the consequence of the disruption of traditionalsocial regulation as much as it is a cause of it.

7. One should, of course, add that the economic gains of blue-collarworkers in these countries have been cornparatively much higher, butthere is no point opposing the two series of causes, which areintertwined and do reínforceeach other.

8. James Forrester was the first to use this formulation.9.0ne may argue that they are eroded, but 1 personally feel that

they have fewer defenders because nobody attacks them and even morebecause everybody agrees so much that they are taken for granted.

CHAPTER nr

THE UNITED STATES*Sarnuel P. Huntington

1. THE VITALITY AND GOVERNABILITYOF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

The 1960s witnessed a dramatic renewal of thedemocratic spirit in America. The -predominant trends of thatdecade involved the challenging of the authority ofestablished political, social, and economic institutions,increased popular participation in and control over thoseinstitutions, a reaction against the concentration of power inthe executive branch of the federal government and in favorof the reassertion of the power of Congress and of state andlocal government, renewed cornmitment to the idea ofequality on the part of intellectuals and other elites, theemergence of "public interest" lobbying groups, increasedconcerh for the rights of and provision of opportunities forminorities and women to participate in the polity andeconomy, and a: pervasive criticism of those who possessed or

*1 aro indebted to Kevin Middlebrook and Kenneth Juster for theirefficíent help in the collection of material and data for this paper.

59

60 The Crisis ofDemocracy

were even thought to possess excessive power or wealth.*The spirit of protest, the spirit of equality, the impulse toexpose and correct inequities were abroad in the land. Thethemes of the 1960s were those of the Jacksonian Democra-

. cy and the muckraking Progressives; they ernbodied ideas andbeliefs which were deep in the American tradition but whichusually do not command the passionate intensity of commit­ment that they did in the 1960s. That decade bore testimonyto the vitality of the democratic idea. It was a decade ofdemocratic surge and of the reassertion of democratic egali­tarianism.

This democratic surge manifested itself in an almostendless variety-of ways. Consider, for instance, simply a fewexamples of this surge in terms of the two democratic normsof participation and equality. Voting participation, whichhad increased during the 1940s and 1950s, declined duringthe 1960s, reaching lows of 55.6 percent in the 1972presidential election and of 38 percent in the 1974 midtermelection. Almost all other forms of political participation,however, saw a significant increase during the 1950s andcontinuing into the 1960s. An index of campaign activity(representing the mean number of campaign acts performedeach year) rose from a low of .58 in the 1952 election to apeak of .83 in the 1960 election; thereafter, it declinedsomewhat and leveled off, registering .69 in 1962, .77 in1964, .73 in 1968, returning to its previous high of .83 in1970, and then dropping to .73 in 1972. 1 The overall picture

*In addition to these dernocratic trends, and often interspersed withthern there were also, of course, sorne rnarkedly antidernocratic trendsin the 1960s: elitist discrirnination against rniddle-class groups (ration­alized in the name of egalitarianisrn); the suppression of free speech(particularly on university carnpuses); and the resort by extrernistrninorities to physical coercíon and violence. These activities formed,in a sense, the dark outriders of the democratic surge, swept up in thesame senseof movement, but serving different goals with very dífferentmeans.

The United States 61

is one of a sharp increase in campaign activity in the 1950sfollowing which it remained on a high plateau in .the 1960s.The Goldwater, McCarthy, Wallace, and McGovemcandidacies mobilized unprecented numbers of volunteercampaign. workers. In addition, the Republicans in 1962 andthe Democrats subsequently launched a series of majorefforts to raise a substantial portion of their campaign fundsfrom large numbers of small givers. In 1972 Nixon andMcGovern each collected $13 million to $15 million in smallamounts from over 500,000 contributors.

The 1960s also saw, of course, a marked upswing in otherforros of citizen participation, in the forro of marches,demonstrations, - pi6tes{U movements, and "cause"organizations (such as Common Cause, Nader groups, andenvironmental groups.) The expansion of participationthroughout society was ref1ected in the markedly higherlevels of self-consciousness on the part of blacks, Indians,Chicanos, white ethnic groups, students, and women - all ofwhom became mobilized and organized in new ways toachieve what they considered to be their appropriate share ofthe action and of the rewards. The results of their effortswere testimony to the ability of the American políticalsystem to respond to the pressures of newly active groups, toassimilate those groups into the polítical system, and toincorporate members of those groups into the políticalleadership structure. Blacks and women made impressivegains in their representation in state legislatures and Congress,and in 1974 the voters elected one woman and two Chicanogovernors. In a similar vein, there was a marked expansion ofwhite-collar unionism and of the readiness and willingness forclerical, technical, and professional employees in public andprivate bureaucracies to assert themselves and to secureprotection for their rights and privileges. Previously passive orunorganized groups in the population now embarked onconcerted efforts to establísh their claims to opportunities,positions, rewards, and privileges, which they had not

62 The Crisis of Democracy

considered themselves entitled to before.In a related and similar fashion, the 1960s a1so saw a

reassertion of the primacy of equality as a goal in social,economic, and political life. Therneaning ofequality and the

. means of achieving it became central subjects of debate inintel1ectual and policy-oriented circles. What was widelyhailed as the major philosophica1 treatise of the decade(Rawls, A Theory 01 Justice) defined justice largely in termsof equality. Differences in wea1th and power were viewedwith increased skepticism. The classic issue of equality ofopportunity versus equality of results was reopened fordebate. The prevailing preoccupation with equality was wellrevealed in thé titles of books produced by social theoristsand sociologists over the course of three or four years.? Thisintellectual concern over equality did rnot, of course, easilytransmit itself into widespread reduction of inequality insociety. But the dominant thrust in political and social actionwas all clearly in that direction.

The causes of this democratic surge of the 1960s couldconceivably be: (a) either permanent or transitory; (b)either peculiar to the United States or more generallypervasive throughout the advanced industrialized world. Thesurge might, for instance, be the result of long-term social,economic, and cultural trends which were producingpermanent changes in American society (often subsumedunder the heading of the "ernergence of post-industrialsociety") and which would in due course equally affect otheradvanced industrialized countries. Or it could have been theproduct of rapid social and cultural change or upheaval in the1960s which in itself was transitory and whose politicalconsequences would hence eventually fade, that is, it couldhave been the product of a transitory process of changerather than the product of the lasting results of change (e.g.,the rapid expansion of higher education enrollments in the1960s rather than the resulting high level of enrollment inhigher education). In addition, given the similarities which

The United States 63

appeared to exist between the political temper andmovements of the 1960s and earlier periods in Americanhistory, it is possible that the surge could have reflected apeculiarIy American dynamic working itself out on arecurring o.r cyclical basis. On the other hand, it is alsopossible that the sources for the democratic surge were in atransient yet general crisis of the industrialized world whichmanifested itself in comparable if different ways in otherTrilateral countries. Or, of course, most probable in fact andleast satisfying in theory, the surge could be the product of amixture of factors, pennanent and transitory, specific andgeneral.

"In framing a government which .is to be administered bymen over men," observed James Madison in The Federalist,no. 51, "the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enablethe government to control the govemed; and in the nextplace oblige it to control itself." To assume that there is noconflict between these two requirements is sheerself-delusion. To assume that it is impossible to reach a roughbalance between these two requirements is unrealisticpessimism. The maintenance of that balance is, indeed, whatconstitutional democracy is all about. Over the centuries, theUnited States has probably been more successful than anyother government in combining governmental authority andlimits on that authority in an effective manner appropriate tothe environment, domestic and external, in which thatgovernment has operated. Views as to what constitutes theprecise desirable balance between power and liberty,authority and democracy, government and societyobviouslydiffer. In fact, the actual balance shifts from one historicalperiod to another. Sorne fluctuation in the balance is notonly acceptable but may be essential to the effectivefunctioning of constitutional democracy, At the same time,excessive swings may produce either too much government ortoo HUle authority. The democratic surge of the 19608 raisedonce again in dramatic fashion the issue of whether the

64 The Crisis o[ Democracy

pendulum had swung too far in one direction.The consequences of that surge will be felt for years to

come. The analysis here focuses on the immediate »- andsomewhat contradictory - effects of the democratic surge ongovernment. The basic point is this: The vitality 01democracy in the United States in the 1960s produced asubstantial increase in governmental activity and a substantialdecrease in govemmental authority, By the early 1970sAmericans were progressively demanding and receiving morebenefits from their government and yet having lessconfidence in their government than they had a decadeearlier. And paradoxically, also, this working out of thedemocratic lmpulse'"\vas associated with the shift in therelative balance in the polítical system between the decline ofthe more polítical, interest-aggregating, "input" institutionsof government (most notably, political parties and thepresidency), on the one hand, and the growth in thebureaucratic, regulating and implementing, "output"institutions of government, on the other. The vitality ofdemocracy in the 1960s raised questions about thegovernability of democracy in the 1970s. The expansion ofgovernmental activities produced doubts about the economicsolvency of government; the decrease in governmental au­thority produced doubts about the political solvency of gov­ernment. The impulse of democracy is to make governmentless powerful and more active, to increase its functions, andto decrease its authority. The questions to be discussed are:How deep are these trends? How can these seemingly contra­dictory eourses be reconciled within the framework of theexisting polítical system? If a balance is to be restored be­tween governmental aetivity and governmental authority,what are the consequenees of this restoration for the demo­cratic surge and movement of the 1960s? Does an inerease inthe vitality of democraey necessarily have to mean a deereasein the governability of democracy?

The United States 65

..

H. THE EXPANSION OF GOVERNMENTAL ACTIVITY

The strueture of governmental aetivity in the UnitedStates - in terms of both its size and its eontent - wentthrough .two major ehanges during the quarter-century afterWorld War n. The first change, the Defense Shift, was aresponse to the external Soviet threat of the 19405; theseeond change, the Welfare Shift, was a response to theinternal democratic surge of the 19605. The former wasprimarily the product of elite leadership; the latter wasprimarily the result of popular expeetations and groupdemands.

The year 1948 ts arrappropriate starting point for theanalysis of these changes in the strueture of governmentalactivity.* By that time governmental aetivity had adjustedfrom its wartime levels and forms; demobilization had beencompleted; the nation was setting forth on a new peaeetimecourse. In that year, total governmental expenditures(federal, state, and local) amounted to 20 pereent of GNP;national defense expenditures were 4 percent of GNP; andgovernmental purchases of goods and services were 12pereent of GNP. During the next five years these figureschanged drastically. The changes were almost entirely due tothe onslaught of the Cold War and the perception eventually

*In this analysis, governmental activity will be measured primarily interms of governmental expenditures. This indicator, of course, does notdo justíce to many types of governmental activity, such as regulatoryaction or the establishment of mínimum standards (e.g., for automotivesafety or pollution levels or school desegregation), which have majorimpact on the economy and society and yet do not cost very mucho Inaddition, the analysis here will focus primarily not on absolute levels ofgovernmental expenditures, which obviously expanded greatly both dueto inflation and in real terms, but rather to the relations amongexpenditures, revenues, and the GNP and among different types ofexpenditures.

66 The Crisis of Democracy

shared by the top executives of the government - Truman,Acheson, Forrestal, Marshall, Harriman, and Lovett - that amajor effort was required to counter the Soviet threat to thesecurity of the West. The key turningpoints in thedeveloprnent of that perception included Soviet pressure onGreece and Turkey, the Czech coup, the Berlin blockade, thecommunist conquest of China, the Soviet atomic explosion,and the North Korean attack on South Korea. In late 1949, aplan for major rearmament to meet this threat was drawn upwithin the executive branch. The top executive leaders,however, felt that neither Congress nor public opinion wasready to accept such a large-scale military buildup, Thesepolitical .obstacles were removed by the outbreak of theKorean war in June 1950.3

The result was a maior expansion in the U.S. militaryforces and a drastic reshaping of the structure ofgovernmental expenditures and activity. By 1953 nationaldefense expenditures had gone up from their 1948 level of$10.7 billion to $48.7 billion. Instead of 4 percent of GNP,they now constituted over 13 percent of GNP. Nondefenseexpenditures remained stable at 15 percent of GNP, thusmaking overall governmental expenditures 28 percent of GNP(as against 20 percent in 1948) and government purchases ofgoods and services 22 percent of GNP (as against 12percentin 1948). The governmental share of the output of theAmerican economy, in short, increased by about 80 percentduring these five years, virtually all of it in the nationaldefense sector.

- .With the advent of the Eisenhower administration and the

end of the Korean war, these proportions shifted somewhatand then settled into a relatively fixed pattern ofrelationships, which remained markedly stable for over adecade. From 1954 to 1966, governmental expenditures wereusually about 27 percent or 28 percent ofGNP;governmentalpurchases of goods and services varied between 19 percentand 22 percent; and defense expenditures, with the exception

The United States 67

Table 1

Governmental Spending in Relation to GNP

--

AH Govt. Defense Nondefense Purchase of Goods-

Year Expenditures Expenditures Expenditures and Services

1948 20% 4% 16% 12%

1953 28 13 15 22

1960 27 9 18 20

1965 27 7 20 20

1971 32 7 25 22

1973 32 6 26 21

1974* 33 6 27 22

Source: Economic Report of the President, 1975 (Washington: Govern­ment Printing Office, 1975).

*Preliminary .

of a brief dip in 1964 and 1965, were almost constantlystable at 9 percent to 10 percent of GNP. The basic pattemfor this period was in effect:

PercentofGNP

Governmental expenditures 28

Defense expenditures 9

Nondefense expenditures 19

Governmental purchases ofgoods and services 21

68 The Crisis 01Democracy

In the mid-1960s, however, the stability of this pattemwas seriously disrupted. The Vietnam war eaused a minordisruption, reversing the downward trend in the defenseproportion of GNP visible in 1964 and 1965 and temporarilyrestoring defense to 9 pereent of GNP. The more signifieantand lasting ehange was the tremendous expansion of thenondefense aetivities of government. Between 1965 and1974, total govemmental expenditures rose from 27 pereentto 33 pereent of GNP; governmental purehases of goods andserviees, on the other hand, whieh had also inereasedsimultaneous1y with total expenditures between 1948 and1953, changed ~nlY'u~odestly from 20 pereent in 1965 to 22pereent in 1974. This differenee meant, of eourse, that asubstantial proportion of the inerease in governmentalspending was in the form of transfer payments; for example,welfare and social seeurity benefits, rather than additionalgovernmental eontributions to the Gross National ProductoNondefense expenditures, which had been 20 percent of GNPin 1965, were 25 percent of GNP in 1971 and an estimated 27percent of GNP in 1974. Defense spending went down to 7percent of GNP in 1971 and 6 pereent in 1974. Baek in1948, defense spending had been less than 20 percent of totalgovernmental spending. At the peak of the defense build-upin 1953 it amounted to 46 percent of the total, and duringthe long. period of stable relationships in the 1950s and1960s, defense accounted for about 33 pereent of totalgovernmental spending. Under the impact of the WelfareShift of the late 1960s, however, the defense proportion oftotal governmenta1 spending again dropped down to less thanone-fífth of total governmental spending, that is, to therelationship which had prevailed in 1948 before the militaryimplications of the Cold War had become evident.

The extent of the Welfare Shift in the scope and substanceof governmental activity can also be seen by comparing thechanges in governmental expenditures during the two decadesof the 1950s and 1960s. Between 1950 and 1960, total

The United States 69

governmental expenditures rose by $81.0 billion, of which$29.1 billion or roughly 36 percent was for defense andintemational relations. Between 1960 and 1971, govern­mental expenditures increased by $218.1 billion,of which,however; only $33.4 billion or roughly 15 percent wereaccounted for by defense and international relations, whileexpenditures for domestic programs grew by $184.7 billion.This growth in domestic spending is also reflected in a changein the relative shares of federal, state, and local governments

Table 2

Governmental Reveauesand Expenditures [or Major Functions(billions of dollars)

1950 1960 1965 1970 1971 1972

Total Revenues

Total Expenditures

$66.7 $153.1 $202.6 $333.8 $342.5 $381.8

70.3 151.3 205.6 333.0 369.4 397.4

Defense and International 18.4 47.5 55.8 84.3 80.9 79.3

Education 9.6 19.4 29.6 55.8 64.0 70.0

OASI and Other Insurance .7 10.8 16.6 35.8 42.0 46.9

Interest on General Debt 4.9 9.3 11.4 1804 21.7 23.1

Public Welfare 3.0 4.5 6.4 17.5 2004 23.6

Health and Hospitals 2.8 5.2 7.7 13.6 14.8 17.0

Natural Resources 5.0 804 11.0 11.5 13.7 14.2

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistieal Abstraet of the UnitedStates: 1974 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1974), p. 246.

70 The Crisis ofDemocracy

in total governmental expenditures. In 1960 the federalgovernment share of total government spending, 59.7 per­cent, was virtually identical with what it had been ten yearsearlier, 60.3 percent. By 1971, .the relative growth in stateand - local spending had dropped the federal share ofgovernmental expenditures down to 53.8 percent of totalgovernmental expenditures.4

The rnajor increases in government spending during the1960s occurred in education, social security and relatedinsurance benefits, public welfare, interest on the publicdebt, health, and hospitals. In 1960, government at allleve1sin the Unit~d§tates spent about 125 percent more fordefense than it did for education; in 1972 it spent less than15 percent more. In 1960, defense spending was aboutfour-and-a-half times that for social security; in 1972 it was lessthan twice as mucho In 1960 ten times as much was spent ondefense as on welfare; in 1972 the ratio was 1ess than four toone. Even in terms of federal government spending alone, thesame trends _were visible. In FY 1960, total foreign affairsspending accounted for 53.7 percent of the federal budget,while expenditures for cash income maintenance accountedfor 22.3 percent. In FY 1974, according to BrookingsInstitution estimates, a1most equal amounts were spent forboth these purposes, with foreign affairs taking 33 percentand cash income maintenance 31 percent of the federalbudget. 5 Across the board, the tendency was for massiveincreases in governmental expenditures to provide cash andbenefits for particular individuals and groups within societyrather than in expenditures designed to serve nationalpurposes vis-a-vis the external environment.

The Welfare Shift, like the Defense Shift before it,underlined the close connection between the structure ofgovernmental activity and the trend of public opinion.During the 1940s and early 1950s, the American publicwilling1y approved massive programs for defense andinternationa1 affairs. When queried on whether the military

The United States 71

budget or the size of the anned forces should be increased,decreased, or remain about the same, the largest proportionsof the public almost consistently supported a greater militaryeffort. In March 1950, for instancerbefore the Korean warand the NSC 68 reannament effort, 64 percent of the publicthought defense spending should be increased, 7 percentthought it should be decreased and 24 percent thought itshould remain about the same. These figures were typicalresults of the early years of the Cold War. During the middleand later 1950s, after defense spending had in fact expandedgreatly, support for still further expansion eased somewhat.But even then, onlya .small minority of the public supporteda decrease, with the largest group approving the existing levelof defense effort. Popular support for other governmentprograms, including all domestic programs and foreign aid,

< almost always was substantially Iess than support for defensespending."

During the mid-1960s, at the peak of the democratic surgeand of the Vietnam war, public opinion on these issueschanged drastically. When asked in 1960, for instance, howthey felt about current defense spending, 18 percent of thepublic said the United States was spending too much ondefense, 21 percent said too little, and 45 percent said theexisting level was about right. Nine years later, in July 1969,the proportion of the public saying that too much was beingspent on defense had zoomed up from 18 percent to 52percent; the proportion thinking that too little was beinzspent on defense had dropped from 21 percent to 8 percentand the proportion approving the current level had declinedfrom 45 percent to 31 percent. This new pattern of opinionon defense remained relatively stable during the late 1960s.and early 1970s. Simultaneously, public opinion becamemore favorable to governmental spending for domesticprograms. When polled in 1974, for instance, on whetherspending should be increased, decreased, or remain about thesame for sorne twenty-three governmental programs, the

72 The Crisis of Democracy

composite scores (where 50 represents maintaining theexisting level) for domestic programs were aH in favor of anincrease, ranging from a score of 51 for welfare programs forlow income families up to scoresof-84 and 86-for helping the.elderly and developing greater self-sufficiency in energy. AHfíve foreign affairs programs rated much lower than anydomestic program, with their scores ranging from 39 for totaldefense spending down to 20 for military aid for allies. Forevery foreign affairs program, the weight of opinion was thusin favor of reduced rather than higher spending. The overallaverage score for domestic programs was 70, and for foreignpolicy and defense programs it was only 29. 7 During the1960s, a dramatic and large-scale change thus took place inpublic opinion with respect to governmental activity.

So far, our anaíysis has focused on the relations betweengovernmental expenditures and GNP and between differenttypes of expenditures. The growth in expenditures, however,also raises important issues concerning the relation betweenexpenditures and revenues. After the Defense Shift, duringthe 1950s and early 1960s, governmental expendituresnormally exceeded governmental revenue, but with oneexception (1959, when the deficit was $15 billion), the gapbetween the two was not large in any single year. In the late1960s, on the other hand, after the fiscal implications of theWelfare Shift had been felt, the overall governmental deficittook on new proportions. In 1968 it was $17 billion and in1971 $27 billion. The cumulative deficit for the five yearsfrom 1968 through 1971 was $43 billion. The federalgovernment was, of course, the principal source of theoverall government deficit. In nine of the ten fiscal yearsafter 1965 the federal budget showed a deficit; the totaldeficit for those ten years carne to an estimated $111.8billion, of which $74.6 billion carne in the five years for FY1971 through FY 1975.8

The excess of expenditures over revenues was obviouslyone major source of the inflation which p1agued the United

The United States 73

States, along with most other industrial countries, in theearly 1970s. Inflation was, in effect, one way of paying forthe new forms of government activity produced by theWelfare Shift. The extent of the -fiscal gap, its apparentinevitability and intractableness, and its potentiallydestabilizing effects were sufficiently ominous for theexisting system to generate a new variety of Marxist analysisof the inevitable collapse of capitalismo "The fiscal crisis ofthe capitalist state," in James O'Connor's words, "is theinevitable consequence of the structural gap between stateexpenditures and revenues." As Daniel Bell suggests, ineffect, the argu_m~p.t!~presents a neo-neo-Marxism: Theoriginal Marxism said the capitalist crisis would result fromanarchical competition; neo-Marxism said it would be theresult of war and war expenditures, the garrison state; now,the most recent revision, taking into consideration theWelfare Shift, identifies the expansion of social expendituresas the source of the fiscal crisis of capitalism.? What theMarxists mistakenly attribute to capitalist econornics, how­ever, is, in fact, a product of democratic politics.

The Defense Shift involved a major expansion of thenational effort devoted to military purposes followed byslight reduction and stabilization of the relation of thatactivity to total national producto The Welfare Shift hasproduced a comparable expansion and redirection ofgovernmental activity. The key question is: To what extentwill this expansion be limited in scope and time, as was thedefense expansion, or to what extent will it be anopen-ended, continuing phenomenon? Has nondefensegovernmental spending peaked at about 27 percent of GNP?Or will it increase further or, conceivably, decrease? Thebeneficiaries of governmental largesse coupled withgovernmental employees constitute a substantial portion ofthe publico Their interests clearly run counter to those groupsin the public which receive relatively little in éash benefitsfrom the government but must contribute taxes to provide

74 The Crisis ofDemocracy

governmental payments to other groups in society. On theone hand, history suggests that the recipients of subsidies,particularly producer groups, have more specific interests, aremore self-conscious and organized, and are .better ab1e tosecure. access to the political decision points than the moreamorphous, less well-organized, and more diffuse taxpayingand consumer interests. On the other hand, there is also sorneevidence that the conditions favorable to large-scalegovernmental programs, which existed in the 1960s, maynow be changing significant1y. The political basis of theWelfare Shift was the expansion in political participation andthe intensified commitment to democratic and egalitariannorms which-exisíed in the 1960s. Levels of politicalparticipation in campaigns have 1eveled off, and other forrosof polítical participation would appear to have declined.Sorne poUs suggest that fue public has become moreconservative in its attitudes towards government generallyand more hostile towards the expansion of governmentalactivity. In 1972, for instance, for the first time, as manylibera1s as conservatives agreed with the proposition thatgovernment is too big. At the same time, liberals continuedto be heavily in favor of new government programs, such asnational hea1th insurance, which conservatives opposed. If,however, the general skepticism about what government canaccomplish remains a significant component of publicopinion, the pattern of governmental activity which theWelfare Shift produced by the early 1970s could well remainrelative1y stable for the immediate future.

III. THE DECLINE IN GOVERNMENTAL AUTHORITY

1. The Democratic Challenge to Authority

The essence of the democratic surge of the 1960s was ageneral challenge to existíng systems of authority, public andprivate. In one forro or another, this challenge manifested

The United States 75

itself in the fami1y, the university, business, public andprivate associations, politics, the governmental bureaucracy,and the military services. People no longer felt the samecompulsion to obey those whorn- they had .previouslyconsidered - superior to themselves in age, rank, status,expertise, character, or talents. Within most organizations,discipline eased and differences in status became blurred.Each group claimed its right to participate equally-andperhaps more than equally-in the decisions which affecteditself. More precisely, in American society, authority hadbeen commonly based on: organizational position, economicwealth, specialized expertise, legal competence, or electoralrepresentativeness. Authority based on hierarchy, expertise,and wealth all, obviously, ran counter to the democratic andegalitarian temper of the times, and during the 1960s, all threecarne under heavy attack. In the university, students wholacked expertise, carne to participate in the decision-makingprocess on many important issues. In the government,organizational hierarchy weakened, and organizational sub­ordinates more readily acted to ignore, to criticize, or todefeat the wishes of their organizational superiors. In politicsgenerally, the authority of wealth was challenged andsuccessful efforts made to introduce reforms to exposeandto limit its influence. Authority derived from legal andelectoral sources did not necessarily run counter to the spiritof the times, but when it did, it too was challenged andrestricted. The commandments of judges and the actions oflegislatures were legitimate to the extent that they promoted,as they often did, egalitarian and participatory goals. "Civildisobedience," after all, was the claim to be morally right indisobeying a law which was morally wrong. It implied thatthe moral value of law-abiding behavior in a society dependedupon what was in the laws, not on the procedural due pro­cess by which they were enacted. Finally, electorallegitimacywas, obviously, more congruent with the democratic surge,but even so, it too at times was questioned, as the value of

76 The Crisis o/ Democracy

"categorical" representativeness was elevated to chal1enge theprincipIe of electoral representativeness.

The questioning of authority pervaded society. In politics,it manifested itself in a decline inpublic confidence and trustin p.olítical leaders and institutions, a reduction in the powerand effectiveness of polítical institutions such as the politicalparties and presidency, a new importance for the "adversary"media and "critical" intelligentsia in publíc affairs, and aweakening of the coherence, purpose, and self-confidence ofpoliticalleadership.

2. Decline in Public Confidence and Trust

In a democracy, the authority of governmentalleaders andinstitutions presumably depends in part on the extent towhich the public hasconfidence and trust in thoseinstitutions and leaders. Duríng the 1960s that confidenceand trust declined markedly in the United States. Thatdecline can, in turn, be related back to a somewhat earliertendency towards ideological and policy polarization which,in tum, had its roots in the expansion of politicalparticipation in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Thedemocratic surge involved a more politically active citizenry,which developed increased ideological consistency on publicissues, and which then lost its confidence in public institu­tions and leaders when governmental policies failed tocorrespond to what they desired. The sequence and directionof these shifts in public opinion dramatically illustrates howthe vitality of democracy in the 1960s (as manifested inincreased political participation) produced problems for thegovernability of democracy in the 1970s (as manifested inthe decreased public confidence in government).

During the 1960s public opinion on major issues of publicpolicy tended to become more polarized and ideologicallystructured, that is, people tended to hold more consistentliberal or conservative attitudes on public policy issues.

The United States 77

Between 1956 and 1960, for instance, an index of ideologica1consistency for the average American voter hovered about.15; in 1964 it more than doubled to .40 and remained atsimilar levels through 1972. 1 0 Thus, the image of Americanvoters as. independently and pragmatically making up theirminds in ad hoc fashion on the merits of different issuesbecame rather far removed from actualíty.

This pattern of developing polarization and ideologicalconsistency had its roots in two factors. First, those who aremore active in politics are also more likely to have consistentand systematic views on policy issues. The increase inpolitical participation in the early 1960s was thus followedby heightened polarization of political opinion in themid-1960s. The increase in polarization, in turn, ofteninvolved higher levels of group consciousness (as amongblacks) which then stimulated more political participation (asin the white backlash).

Second, the po1arization was c1early related to the natureof the issues which became the central items on the políticalagenda of the mid-1960s. The three major c1usters of issueswhich then carne to the fore were: social issues, such as useof drugs, civil libertíes, and the role of women; racial issues,involving integration, busing, government aid to minoritygroups, and urban riots;.military issues, involving primarily,of course, the war in Vietnam but also the draft, militaryspending, military aid programs, and the role of themilitary-industrial complex more generally. AH three sets ofissues, but particularly the social and racial issues, tended togenerate high correlations between the stands which peopletook on individual issues and their overall polítical ideology.On more strictIy economic issues, on the other hand,ideology was a much less significant factor. Thus, to predictpositions of individuals on the legalization of marijuana orschool integration or the size of the defense budget, onewould want to ask them whether they considered themselvesliberals, moderates, or conservatives. To predict their stand

78 The Crisis of Democracy

on federally finaneed health insuranee, one should ask themwhether they were Demoerats, Independents, or Re­publieans. 1 1

The polarization over issues in the mid-1960s in part, at. least, .explains the major decline in trust and eonfidenee ingovernment of the later 1960s. Increasingly, substantialportions of the American publie took more extreme positionson poliey issues; those who took more extreme positions onpoliey issues, in turn, tended to beeome more distrustful ofgovernment.I? Polarization over issues generated distrustabout government, as those who had strong positions onissues beeame dissatisfied with the ambivalent, eompromisingpolicies of government. Political leaders, in effeet, alienatedmore and more people by attempting to please them throughthe time-honored traditional polities of eompromise.

At the end of the 1950s, for instanee, about three-quartersof the American people thought that their government wasrun primarily for the benefit of the people and only 17

, pereent thought that it primarily responded to what "biginterests" wanted. These proportions steadily ehanged duringthe 1960s, stabilizing at very different levels in the early1970s. By the latter half of 1972, only 38 pereent of thepopulation thought that government was "run for the benefitof all the people" and a majority of 53 pereent thought thatit was "run by a few big interests looking out forthemselves." (See Table 3.) In 1959, when asked what theywere most proud of about their eountry, 85 pereent ofAmerieans (as eompared to 46 pereent of Britons, 30 pereentof Mexieans, 7 pereent of Germans, and 3 pereent of Italians,in the same eomparative survey) mentioned their "politicalinstitutions." By 1973, however, 66 pereent of a nationalsample of Amerieans said that they were dissatisfied by theway in which their eountry was governed."? In similarfashion, in 1958, 71 pereent of the population felt that theyeould trust the government in Washington to do what wasright "all" or "most" of the time, while only 23 pereent said

Tab1e 3

Government Run by Few Big Interests or for Benefit of AH

1958 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972-Pre 1972-Post

For benefit of al1 76.3% 64.0% 53.2% 51.2% 50.1% 43.7% 37.7%¡

Few big interests 17.6 28.6 33.3 39.5 40.8 48.8 53.3!

Other, depends 1.0 4.0 6.3 4.8 5.0 2.5 2.5

Don't know 5.1 3.5 7.2 4.5 4.1 5.1 6.5

Questions: (1) 1958: Do you think that the high-up peop1e in government giveeveryone a fair break whether they are big shots or just ordinarypeop1e, or do you think sorne of them pay more attention to whatthe big interests want?

(2) Other years: Wou1d you say the government is prettymuch ron bya few big interests looking out for themse1ves or that it is ronfor the benefit of all the peop1e?

Source: University of Michigan, Center for Political Studies, e1ection surveys.

80 The Crisis ofDemocracy

that they cou1d trustit on1y "sorne" or "none" of the time.By late 1972, however, the percentage which would trust thenationa1 government to do what was right all or most of thetime had declined to 52 percent, while that which thought itwou1d do what was right only sorne or none of the time haddoubled to 45 percent. (See Table 4.) Again, the pattern ofchange shows a high level of confidence in the 1950s, a sharpdecline of confidence during the 1960s, and a leveling off atmuch reduced levels of confidence in the early 1970s.

The precipitous decline in public confidence in theirleaders in the 1atter part of the 1960s and the leveling off orpartial restoration of confidence in the early 1970s can alsobe seen in other data which permit a comparison betweenattitudes towards government and other major institutions insociety. Between 1966 and 1971 the proportion of thepopulation having a "great deal of confidence" in the leadersof each of the major governmental institutioI1s was cut inhalf. (See Table 5.) By 1973, however, public confidence inthe leadership of the Congress, the Supreme Court, and themilitary had begun to be renewed from the lows of two yearsearlier. Confidence in the 1eadership of the executive branch,on the other hand, was-not surprising1y-at its lowest point.These changes of attitudes toward governmenta1 1eadershipdid not occur in a vacuum but were part of a generalweakening of confidence in institutional leadership. Theleadership of the major nongovernmental institutions insociety who had enjoyed high levels of public confidence inthe mid-1960s-such as large corporations, higher educationalinstitutions and medicine-also suffered a somewhat similarpattern of substantial decline and partial recovery.Significantly, on1y the leadership of the press and televisionnews enjoyed more confidence in 1973 than they had in1966, and only in the case of television was the increase asubstantial and dramatic one. In 1973, the institutionalleaders in which the public had the greatest degree ofconfidence were, in declining order of confidence: medicine,

Table 4

Trust in the National Government

1958 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972-Pre 1972-Post

.Just about always 15.9% 14.3% 16.9% 7.3% 6.5% 6.8% 5.3%

j

Most of the time 57.1 62.3 48.2 54.2 4~.3 45.3 47.8

Sorne of the time 23.4 21.9 28.2 36.4 44.2 45.1 44.3

Almost never - - 2.5 .2 .3 .5 .6

Depends - - 1.3

Don't know 3.6 1.5 2.9 2.0 1.7 2.2 2.1

Question: How much (of the time-1958, 1964) do you think we can trust the governmentin Washington to do what is right-just about always, most of the time,or only sorne of the time (or almost never-1966)?

Source: University of Michigan, Center for Polítical Studies, election surveys.

82 The Crisis ofDemocracy

higher education, television news, and the military.The late 1960s and early 1970s also saw a significant

decline from the levels of the mid-1960s in the sense ofpolitical efficacy on the parí of large numbers of people. In1966,- for instanee, 37 pereent of the people believed thatwhat they thought "doesn't eount mueh anyrnore"; in 1973a substantial majority of 61 pereent of the people believedthis. Similarly, in 1960 42 pereent of the American publiescored "high" on a political efficacy index developed by theMiehigan Survey Researeh Center and only 28 percent of thepopulation seored "low." By 1968, however, this distributionhad changed dramatically , with 38 percent of the peoplescoring "high" and 44 pereent of the population scoring"low."!" This decline in political efficaey coincided with andundoubtedly was closely related to the simultaneous declinein the confidenee and trust which people had in government.As of the early 1970s, however, the full impaet of this ehangein political effieaey upon the overall level of politicalparticipation had only partially begun to manifest itself.

In terms of traditional theory about the requisites for aviable demoeratic polity, these trends of the 1960s thus endup as a predominantly negative but still mixed reporto On theone side, there is the inereasing distrust and loss of confideneein government, the tendencies towards the polarization ofopinion, and the declining sense of political efficacy. On theother, there is the early rise in polítiea1 participation overprevious leve1s. As we have suggested, these various trendsmay well all be interrelated. The increases in participationfirst occurred in the 19S0s; these were followed by thepolarization over racial, social, and military issues in themid-1960s; this, in turn, was followed by the decrease inconfidenee and trust in government and individual politica1efficacy in the late 1960s. There is reason to believe that thissequenee was not entirely accidental. 15 Those who are activein polities are likely to have more systematie and eonsistentviews on polítical issues, and those who have such views are,

The United States

Tab1e 5

Proportion of Public Expressing "Great Deal of Confidence"in Leadership of Institutions

83

GovernmentFederal executive

Congress

Suprerne Court

Military

Social InstitutionsMajor cornpanies

Organized labor

Higher educatíon

Medicine

Organized religion

Media

Press

Te1evision news

1966

41%

42

51

62

55

22

61

72

41

29

25

1971

23%

19

23

27

27

14

27

61

27

18

22

1972

27%

21

28

35

27

15

33

48

30

18

17

1973

19%

29

33

40

29

20

44

57

36

30

41

Change1966-73

-22

-13

-18

-22

-26

- 2

-17

-15

- 5

+ 1

+16

Question: As far as peoplerunning these institutions are concerned,would you say you have a great dea1 of confidence, on1ysorne confidence, or hard1y any confidence in them?

Source: Louis Harris and Associates, Confidence and Concem: CitizensView American Govemment. Cornrnittee Print, U.S. Senate,Cornrnittee on Government Operations, Subcornrnittee on Inter­governrnental Re1ations, 93rd Congress, 1st Session, Decernber 3, 1973.

84 The Crisis 01Democracy

as we have shown aboye, likely to become alienated ifgovernment action does not reflect their views. This logicwould also suggest that those who are most active politicallyshould be most dissatisfied with the political system. In thepast, exactly the reverse has been the case: the active políticalparticipants have had highly positive attitudes towardsgovernment and polícies. Now, however, this relationshipseems to be weakening, and those who have low trust ingovernment are no more likely to be politically apatheticthan those with high trust in government.!"

The decline in the average citizen's sense of políticalefficacy could also produce a decline in levels of políticalparticipation. "In fact, the presidential election of 1972 didsee a substantial decline in the level of reported interest inthe election and a leveling off of citizen campaign activity ascompared to the levels in the 1968 election.!? There is, thus,sorne reason to think that there may be a cyclical process ofinteraction in which:

( 1) Increased political participation leads to increasedpolicy polarization within society;

(2) Increased policy polarization leads to increasingdistrust and a sense of decreasing political efficacyamong individuals;

(3) A sense of decreasing polítical efficacy leads todecreased political participation.

In addition, change in the principal issues on the políticalagenda could lead to decreasing ideological polarization. Thefire has subsided with respect to many of the heated issuesof the 1960s, and, at the moment, they have been displacedon the public agenda by overwhelming preoccupation witheconomic issues, first inflation and then recession andunemployment. The positions of people on economic issues,however, are not as directly related to their basic ideologicalinc1inations as their positions on other issues. In addition,inflation and unemployment are like crime; no one is in favorof them, and significant differences can only appear if there

The United States 85

are signifieantly different altemative programs for dealingwith them. Such programs, however, have been slow inmaterializing; hence, the salience of economie issues may giverise to generalized feelings of Iack iof .confidence in thepolitical system but not to dissatisfaction rooted in thefailure of govemment to follow a particular set of policies.Such generalized alienation could, in tum, reinforcetendencies towards political passivity engendered by thealready observable decline in the sense of polítical efficacy.This suggests that the democratic surge of the 1960s couldwell generate its own countervailing forces, that an upsurgeof political participation produces conditions which favor adownswing in politicalparticipation.

3. The Decay of the Party System

The decline in the role of political parties in the UnitedStates in the 1960s can be seen in a variety of ways.

(a) Party identification has dropped sharply, and theproportion of the public which considers ítself Independentin politics has eorrespondingly increased. In 1972 morepeople identified themselves as Independent than identifiedthemselves as Republiean, and among those under thirty,there were more Independents than Republieans andDemoerats eombined. Younger voters always tend to be lesspartisan than older voters. But the proportion ofIndependents among this age group has gone up sharply. In1950, for instance, 28 percent of the twenty-one to twenty­nine-year-old group identified themselves as Independent; in1971, 43 pereent of this age group díd.l" Thus, unless thereis a reversal of this trend and a marked upswing in partisan­ship, substantial1y lower levels of party identification amongthe American electorate are bound to persist for at leastanother generation.

(b) Party voting has deelined, and ticket-splitting hasbecome a major phenomenon. In 1950 about 80 percent of

86 The Crisis o[ Democracy

the voters cast straight party ballots; in 1970 only 50 percentdid.!" Voters are thus more inclined to vote for thecandidate than to vote for the party, and this, in tum, meansthat candidates have to campaign primarily as individuals andsell themselves to the voters in terms of their own personalityand talents, rather than joining with the other candidates oftheir party in a collaborative partisan effort. Hence they mustalso raise their own money and create their own organization.The phenomenon represented at the extreme by CREEP andits isolation from the Republican National Committee in the1972 election is being duplicated in greater or lesser measurein other electoral contests.

(e) Partisan consistency in voting is also decreasing, that is,voters are more likely to vote Republican in one election andDemocratic in the next. At the national level, there is agrowing tendency for public opinión toswing generally backand forth across the board, with relatively little regard to theusual differences among categorical voting groups. Four outof the six presidential elections since 1952 have beenlandslides. This phenomenon is a product of the weakeningof party ties and the decline of regionalism in politics. In1920 Harding received about the same percentage of thepopular vote that Nixon did in 1972, but Harding lost elevenstates while Nixon lost only Massachusetts and the District ofColumbia."? In a similar vein, the fact that the voters cast 60percent of their votes for Nixon in 1972 did not preventthem from reelecting a Democratic Congress that year andthen giving the Democrats an even more overwhelmingmajority in Congress two years latero

As the aboye figures suggest, the significance of party as aguide to electoral behavior has declined substantially. In part,but only in part, candidate appeal took its place. Even moreimportant was the rise of issues as a significant factoraffecting voting behavior. Previously, if one wanted topredict how individuals would vote in a congressional orpresidential election, the most important fact to know about

The United States 87

them was their party identification. This is no longer thecase. In 1956 and 1960, party identification was three orfour times as important as the views of voters on issues inpredicting how they would vote. In the-1964 and subsequentelections, -this relationship reversed itself. Issue politics hasreplaced party politics as the primary influence on masspolítical behavior." This is true, also, not only with respectto the public and electoral behavior but also with respect tomembers of Congress and legislative behavior. Party is nolonger as significant a guide as it once was to how membersof Congress will vote. In the House of Representatives, forinstance, during Truman's second term (1949-52), 54.5percent of the roIl caIl votes were party unity votes, in whicha majority of one party opposes a rnajority of the otherparty. This proportion has declined steadily to the pointwhere in Nixon's first term (1969&72), only 31 percent of theroIl call votes were party unity votes. Z2

The decline in the salience of party for the mass public isalso, in sorne measure, reflected in the attitudes of the publictoward the parties as institutions. In 1972, the public wasasked which of the four rnajor institutions of the nationalgovernment (President,' Congress, Supreme Court, andpolitical parties) had done the best job and the worst job inthe past few years and which was most powerful and leastpowerful. On both dimensions, the differences among thethree formal branches of the national government were, whileclearly observable, not all that great. Not one of the others,however, carne close to the political parties as the voters'choice for doing the worst job and being the least powerful.(See Table 6.) While these data could conceivably beinterpreted in a variety of ways, when they are viewed in thecontext of the other evidence on the decline of partisanloyalty, they strongly suggest that the popular attitudetowards parties combines both disapproval and contempt. Asrnight be expected, these attitudes are particularly markedamong those under twenty-five years of age. In 1973, for

88 The Crisis ofDemocracy

instanee, 61 percent of eollege youth and 64 pereent ofnoncollege youth believed that political parties needed to bereformed or to be eliminated; in comparison, 54 percent ofthe college youth and 45 per<~ent of the .noncollege youthbelieved big business needed to be refonned or elimínated.P

Table 6

Attitudes Towards Governmental Institutions, 1972

Best Job Most Powerful Worst Job Least Powerful

President ·39% 31% 11% 8%

Congress 28 32 7 6

Supreme Court 13 26 23 9

Polítical Parties 3 4 43 62

Questions: (1) Which of the parts of the government on this listdo you think has done the best (worst) job in thepast couple of years?

(2) Which part of the government on the list would yousay is the most (least) powerful?

Source: University of Michigan, Center for Polítical Studies, 1972postelection survey.

Not only has the mass base of the parties declined but soalso has the coherence and strength of party organization.The political party has, indeed, become less of anorganization, with alife and interest of its own, and more ofan arena in which other actors pursue their interests. In sornerespects, of course, the decline of party organization is an oldand familiar phenomenon. The expansion of government

The United States 89

welfare functions beginning with the New Deal, the increasedpervasiveness of the mass media, particularly television, andthe higher levels of affluence and education among the publichave all tended over the years to weaken the traditional basesof party organization. During the 1960s, however, this trendseemed to accelerate. In both major parties, party leadersfound it difficult to maintain control of the most central andimportant function of the party: the selection of candidatesfor public office. In part, the encroachment on partyorganization was the result of the mobilization of issueconstituencies by issue-oriented candidates, of whomGoldwater, McCarthy, Wallace, and McGovem were theprincipal examples on theriational level. In part, however, itwas simply a reaction against party politics and party leaders.Endorsements by party leaders or by party conventionscarried little positive weight and were often a liability. The"outsider" in politics, or the candidate who could makehimself orherself appear to be an outsider, had the insideroad to political office. In New York in 1974, for instance,fOUT of five candidates for statewide office endorsed by thestate Democratic convention were defeated by the voters inthe Democratic primary; the party leaders, it has been aptlysaid, did not endorse Hugh Carey for govemor because hecould not win, and he won because they did not endorse him.The lesson of the 1960s was that American political partieswere extraordinarily open and extraordinarily vulnerableorganizations, in the sense that they could be easilypenetrated, and even captured, by highly rnotivated andwell-organized groups with a cause and a candidate.

The trends in party refonn and organization in the 1960swere all designed to open the parties even further and toencourage ful1er participation in party affairs. In sornerneasure, theserefonns could conceivably mitigate thepeculiar paradox in which popular participation in politicswas going up, but the premier organization designed tostructure and organize that participation, the polítical party,

90 The Crisis 01Democracy

was declining. At the same time, the longer-term effect of thereforms could be very different from that which wasintended. In the democratic surge during the Progressive eraat the tum of the century, the direct primary was widelyadopted as a means of insuringpopular control of the partyorganization. In fact, however, the primary reinforced thepower of the political bosses whose followers in the partymachine aIways voted in the primaries. In similar fashion, thereforms of the 1970s within the Democratic party to insurethe representation of all significant groups and viewpoints inparty conventions appeared likely to give the party Ieaders atthe nationaI convention new influence over the choice of thepresidential-nominee.-

As we have indicated, the signs of decay in the Americanparty system have their parallels in the party systerns of otherindustrialized democratic countries. In addition, however, thedeveloprnents of the 1960s in the American party system canalso be viewed in terms of the historical dynamics ofAmerican politics. According to the standard theory ofAmerican poIitics, a major party realignment occurs, usuallyin conjunction with a "critical election," approximatelyevery twenty-eight to thirty-six years: 1800, 1828, 1860,1898, 1932.24 In terms of this theory, such a realignmentwas obviousIy due about 1968. In fact, many of the signs ofparty decay which were present in the 1960s have alsohistoricalIy accompanied major party realignments: a declinein party identification, increased electoral volatility, thirdparty movements, the Ioosening of the bonds between socialgroups and politicaI parties, and the rise of new policy issueswhich cut across the older cleavages. The decay of the oIdNew DeaI party system was clearly visible, and the emergenceof a new party system was eagerly awaited, at least bypoliticians and políticaI anaIysts. Yet neither in 1968 nor in1972 did a new coalition of groups emerge to constitute anew partisan majority and give birth to a new partyalignment. Nor did there seem to be any significant evidence

The United States 91

that such a realignment was likely in 1976-by which time itwould be eight to sixteen years overdue according to the"normal" pattern of party system evolution.

Alternatively, the signs of party decomposition could beinterpreted as presaging not simply a realignment of partieswithin an ongoing system but rather a more fundamentaldecay and potential dissolution of the party system. In thisrespect, it could be argued that the American party systememerged during the Jacksonian years of the mid-nineteenthcentury, that it went through realignments in the 1850s,1890s, and 1930s, but that it reached its peak in terms ofpopular commitment and organizational strength in the lastdecades of the nineteenth-century, and that since then it hasbeen going through a slow, but now accelerating, process ofdisintegration. To support this proposition, it could beargued that political parties are a political form peculiarlysuited to the needs of industrial society and that themovement of the United States into a post-industrial phasehence means the end of the political party system as we haveknown it. If this be the case, a variety of critical issues mustbe faced. Is democratic government possible without políticalparties? If political participation is not organized by means ofparties, how will it be organized? If parties decline, will notpopular participation also drop significantIy? In lessdeveloped countries, the principal alternative to partygovernment is military government. Do the highly developedcountries have a third alternative?

4. The Shifting Balance Between Government and Opposition

The governability of a democracy depends upon therelation between the authority of its governing institutionsand the power of its opposition institutions. In aparliamentary system, the authority of the cabinet dependsupon the balance of power between the governing parties andthe opposition parties in the legislature. In the United States,

92 The Crisis of Democracy

the authority of government depends upon the balance ofpower between a broad coalítion of governing institutionsand groups, which includes but transcends the legislature andother formal institutions of government, and the power ofthose institutions and groups which are committed toopposition. During the 1960s the balance of power betweengovernment and opposition shifted significantly. The centralgoverning institution in the polítical system, the presidency,declined in power; institutions playing opposition roles in thesystem, most notably the national media and Congress,significantly increased their power.

"Who governs?" is obviously one of the most importantquestions to ask corrcerning any political system. Even moreimportant, however, may be the question: "Does anybodygovern?" To the extent that the United States was governedby anyone during the decades after World War 11, it wasgoverned by the president acting with the support andcooperation of key individuals and groups in the ExecutiveOffice, the federal bureaucracy, Congress, and the moreimportant businesses, banks, law firms, foundations, andmedia, which constitute the private establishment. In thetwentieth century, when the American political system hasmoved systematically with respect to public policy, thedirection and the initiative have come from the White House.When the president is unable to exercise authority, when heis unable to command the cooperation of key decision­makers elsewhere in society and government, no one else hasbeen able to supply comparable purpose and initiative. Tothe extent that the United States has been governed on anational basis, it has been governed by the president. Duringthe 1960s and early 1970s, however, the authority of thepresident declined significantly, and the governing coalitionwhich had, in effect, helped the president to run the countryfrom the early 1940s down to the early 1960s began todisintegrate.

These developments were, in sorne measure, a resuít of the

The United States 93

extent to which all forms of leadership, but particularly thoseassociated with or tainted by politics, tended to loselegitimacy in the 1960s and early 1970s. Not only was therea decline in the confidence of the public in politicalleaders,but there was also a marked decline in the confidence ofpolítical leaders in themselves. In part, this was the result ofwhat were perceived to be significant policy failures: thefaílure "to win" the war in Indochina; the failure of theGreat Society's social programs to achieve their anticipatedresults; and the intractability of inflation. These perceivedfailures induced doubts among political leaders of theeffectiveness of their rule. In addition, and probably moreirnportantly, políticál leaders also had doubts about themorality of their rule. They too shared in the democratic,participatory, and egalitarian ethos of the times, and hencehad questions about the legitimacy of hierarchy,coercion,discipline, secrecy, and deception-all of which are, in sornemeasure, inescapable attributes of the process of govern­mento*

Probably no development of the 1960s and 1970s hasgreater import for the future of American politics than thedecline in the authority, status, influence, and effectivenessof the presidency. The effects of the weakening of thepresidency will be felt throughout the body politic for yearsto come. The decline of the presidency manifests itself in avariety of ways.

No one of the last four presidents has served a full courseof eight years in office. One President has been assasinated,one forced out of office because of opposition to his policies,and another forced out because of opposition to him

*And also, as my colleague Sidney Yerba comments at this point, onemust not forget that "disorder, distrust of authority, difficulties inreconciling competing claims on the government, conflict amonggovernmental branches, and yelling from the back of the room at citycouncil meetings are in some measure inescapable attributes ofdemocratic government."

94 The Crisis o[Democracy

personally. Short terms in office reduce the effectiveness ofthe president in dealing with both enemies and allies abroadand bureaucrats and members of Congress at home. Thegreatest weakness in the presidency in American history wasduring the period from 1848 to 1860, during which twelveyears four presidents occupied the office and none of themwas reelected.

At present, for the first time since the Jacksonianrevolution, the United States has a president and a vice­president who are not the product of a national electoralprocess. Both the legitimacy and the power of the presidencyare weakened to the extent that the president does not comeinto office througlran involvement in national politics whichcompels him to mobilize support throughout the, country,negotiate alliances with diverse economic, ethnic, and region­al groups and defeat his adversaríes in intensely fought stateand national electoral battles. The current president is aproduct of Grand Rapids and the House-not of the nation.The United States has almost returned, at least temporarily,to the relations between Congress and president whichprevailed during the congressional caucus period in thesecond decade of the nineteenth century.

Since Theodore Roosevelt, at least, the presidency hasbeen viewed as the most popular branch of government andthat which is most likely to provide the leadership forprogressive reformo Liberals, progressives, intellectuals haveall seen the presidency as the key to change in Americanpolitics, economics, and society. The great presidents havebeen the strong presidents, who stretched the legal authorityand political resources of the office to mobilize support fortheir policies and to put through their legislative programo Inthe 1960s, however, the tide of opinion dramatically reverseditself: those who previously glorified presidential leadershipnow wam of the dangers of presidential power.

While much was made in the press and elsewhere duringthe 1960s about the dangers of the abuses of presidential

The United States 95

power, this criticism of presidential power was, in manyrespects, evidence of the decline of presidential power.Certainly the image which both Presidents Johnson andNixon had of their power was far different, and probablymore accurate, if only because it wasself-fulfílling, than theímages which the critics of the presidency had of presidentialpower. Both Johnson and Nixon saw themselves as isolatedand beleaguered, surrounded by hostile forces in thebureaucracy and the establishment. Under both of them, afeeling almost of political paranoia pervaded the WhiteHouse: a sense that the president and his staff were "anisland" in a hostile world. On the one hand, these feelings ofsuspicion and mistrustledmembers of the president's staff toengage in reckless, illegal, and self-defeating actions tocounter his "enemies"; on the other hand, these feelings alsomade it all the more difficult for them to engage in thepolitical compromises and to exercise the politicalleadershipnecessary to mobilize rus supporters.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Congress and thecourts began .to impose a variety of formal restrictions onpresidential power, in the forro of the War Powers Act, thebudgetary reform act, the limits on presidential impound­ment of funds, and similar measures.

At the same time, and more importantly, the effectivenessof the president as the principalleader of the nation declinedalso as a result of the decline in the effectiveness ofleadership at other levels in society and government. Theabsence of strong central leadership in Congress (on theRayburn-Johnson model, for instance) made it impossible fora president to secure support from Congress in an economicalfashion. The diffusion of authority in Congress meant areduction in the authority of the president. There was nocentralleadership with whom he could negotiate and come toterms. The same was true with respect to the cabinet. Thegeneral decline in the status of cabinet secretaries was oftencited as evidence of the growth in the power of the

96 The Crisis 01Democracy

presidency on the grounds that the White House office wasassuming powers which previously rested with the cabinet.But in fact the decline in the status of cabinet secretariesmade it more difficult for .the.. president. re command the

. support and cooperation of the executive bureaucracy; weakleadership at the departmental level produces weakenedleadership at the presidentiallevel.

To become president a candidate has to put together anelectoral coalition involving a majority of votersappropriately distributed across the country. He nonnallydoes this by: (1) developing an identification with certainissues and positions which bring him the support of keycategorical groups-iéconomic, regional, ethnic, racial, andreligious; and (2) cultivating the appearance of certain generalcharacteristics-honesty, energy, prac ticality , decisiveness,sincerity, and experience-which appeal generally across theboard to people in all categorical groups. Before the NewDeal, when the needs of the national government in tenns ofpolicies, programs, and personnel were relatively small, thepresident nonnally relied on the members of his electoralcoalition to help him govern the country. Politicalleaders inCongress, in the state houses, and elsewhere across thecountry showed up in Washington to run the administration,and the groups which comprised the electoral coalition actedto put through Congress the measures in which they wereinterested.

Since the 1930s, however, the demands on governmenthave grown tremendously and the problems oí constituting agoverning coalition have multiplied commensurately. Indeed,once he is elected president, the president's electoralcoalition has, in a sense, served its purpose. The day after hiselection the size of his majority is almost-if not entirely­irrelevant to his ability to govern the country. What countsthen is his ability to govem the country. What counts then ishis ability to mobilize support from the leaders oí the keyinstitutions in society and government. He has to constitute a

The United States 97

broad governing coalition of strategical1y located supporterswho can furnish him with the information, talent, expertise,workforce, publicity, arguments, and political support whichhe needs to develop a program, to embody it in .Iegislation,and to see it effectively implemented. This coalition, as wehave indicated, must include key people in Congress, theexecutive branch, and the private establishment. The govern­ing coalition need have little relation to the electoralcoalition. The fact that the president as a candidate puttogether a successful electoral coalition does not insure thathe will have a viable governing coalition.

For twenty y~ars_ afterWorld War 11 presidents operatedwith the cooperation of a series of informal governingcoalitions. Truman made a point of bringing a substantialnumber of nonpartisan soldiers, Republican bankers, andWall Street lawyers into his administration. He went to theexisting sources of power in the country to get the help heneeded in ruling the country. Eisenhower in part inheritedthis coalition and was in part almost its creation. He alsomobilized a substantial number of midwestern busínessmeninto his administration and established close and effectiveworking relationships with the Democratic leadership ofCongress. During his brief administration, Kennedyattempted to recreate a somewhat similar structure ofalliances. Johnson was acutely aware of the need to maintaineffective working relations with the Eastern establishmentand other key groups in the private sector, but, in effect, in1965 and 1966 was successful only with respect to Congress.The informal coalition of individuals and groups which hadbuttressed the power of the three previous presidents beganto disintegrate.

Both Johnson and his successor were viewed with a certaindegree of suspicion by many of the more liberal andintel1ectual elements which might normal1y contribute theirsupport to the administration. The Vietnam war and, to alesser degree, racial issues divided elite groups as well as the

98 The Crisis of Democracy

mass publico In addition, the number and variety of groupswhose support might be necessary had increasedtremendously by the 1960s. Truman had been able to governthe country with the cooperation of arelatively smallnurnber of Wall Street lawyers and bankers. By themid-1960s, the sources of power in society had diversifiedtremendously, and this was no longer possible.

The most notable new source of national power in 1970,as compared to 1950, was the national media, meaning herethe national TV networks, the national news magazines, andthe major newspapers with national reach such as theWashington EosJan9.Jhe New York Times. * There is, forinstance, considerable evidence to suggest that the develop­ment of television journalism contributed to the underminingof governmental authority. The advent of the half-hournightly news broadcast in 1963 led to greatly increasedpopular dependence on television as a source of news. It alsogreatly expanded the size of the audience for news. At thesame time, the themes which were stressed, the focus on

*Suggestive of the new power relationships between government andmedia were the responses of 490 leading Americans when asked to ratea number of public and private institutions according to "the amountof influence" they had "on decisions or actions affecting the nation as awhole." Television came in a clear first, well ahead of the president, andnewspapers edged out both houses of Congress. The average ratings, ona scale from 1 (lowest influence) to 10 (highest influence), were:

1. Television 7.22. White House 6.9

Supreme Court 6.93. Newspapers 6.44. Labor unions 6.3

Industry 6.3U.S. Senate 6.3

5. Government bureaucracy 6.0U.S. House of Representatives 6.0

U.S. News and World Report (April 22, 1974)

The United States 99

controversy and violence, and, conceivably, the values andoutlook of the joumalists, tended to arouse unfavorableattitudes towards established institutions and to promote adecline in confidence in government, "Most newsmen," asWalter Cronkite put it, "come to feel very little allegiance tothe established order. I think they are inclined to side withhumanity rather than with authority and institutions." 25

And, in fact, public opinion surveys show that, even withcontrols for education and income, increased reliance ontelevision for news is associated with low political efficacy,social distrust, cynicism, and weak party loyalty.?" Tele­vision news, in short, functions as a "dispatriating" agency­one which portrays"tlieconditions in society as undesirableand as getting worse. In the 1960s, the network organiza­tions, as one analyst put it, became "a highly creditable,never-tiring polítical opposition, a maverick third party whichnever need face the sobering experience of governing. "27

Less dramatic but somewhat parallel changes also occurredin the política} role of newspapers. It is a long-established andfamiliar polítical fact that within a city and even within astate, the power of the local press serves as a major check onthe power of the local government. In the early twentiethcentury, the United States developed an effective nationalgovernment, making and implementing national policies.Only in recent years, however, has there come into existencea national press with the economic independence andcommunications reach to play a role with respect to thepresident that a local newspaper plays with respect to amayor. This marks the emergence of a very significant checkon presidential power. In the two most dramatic domesticpolicy conflicts of the Nixon administration-the PentagonPapers and Watergate-organs of the national mediachallenged and defeated the national executive. The press,indeed, played a leading role in bringing about what no othersingle institution, group, or combination of institutions andgroups, had done previously in American history: forcing out

100 The Crisis o/Democracy

of office a president who had been elected less than twoyears earlier by one of the largest popular majorities inAmerican history. No future president can or will forget thatfact.

The -1960s and early 1970s also saw a reassertion of thepower of Congress. In part, this represented simply the latestphase in the institutionalized constitutional conflict betweenCongress and president; in part, also, of course, it reflectedthe fact that after 1968 president and Congress werecontrolled by different parties. In addition, however, theseyears saw the emergence, first in the Senate and then in theHouse, of a newgeneration of congressional activists willingto challenge established authority in their own chambers aswell as in the presidency.

The new power of the media and the new assertiveness ofCongress also had their impact on the relations between theexecutive branch and the president. During the Johnson andNixon administrations the White House attitude towardexecutive branch agencies often seemed to combine mistrustof them, on the one hand, and the attempt to misuse them,on the other. II) part, no doubt, the poisoning of the relation­ship between White House and executive agencies reflectedthe fact that not since Franklin Roosevelt has this countryhad a chief executive with any significant experience as apolítical executive. The record to date of former legislatorsand generals in the presidency suggests they do not come tothat office well equipped to motivate, energize, guide, andcontrol their theoretical subordinates but actual rivals in theexecutive branch agencies. The growth in the power of thepress and of Congress inevitably strengthens the independ­ence of bureaucratic agencies vis-a-vis the president. Thoseagencies are secondary contributors to the decline of presi­dential power but primary beneficiaries of that decline.

The increased power of the national opposition, centeredin the press and in Congress, undoubtedly is related to and isperhaps a significant cause of the critical attitudes which the

The United States 101

publie has towards the federal as eompared to state and localgovernment. While data for past periods are not readilyavailable, eertainly the impression one gets is that over theyears the publie has often tended to view stateand localgovernment as ineffieient, eorrupt, inactive, andunresponsive. The federal government, on the other hand, hasseemed to eommand mueh greater eonfidenee and trust,going all the way from early ehildhood images of the"goodness" of the president to respeet for the FBI, InternalRevenue Serviee and other federal agencies having an impaeton the population as models of efficieney and integrity. Itwould now appear -.thatthere has been a drastic reversal ofthese images. In 1973, a national sample was asked whether itthen had more or less eonfidenee in eaeh of the three levelsof government than it had five years previously. Confideneein all three levels of government declined more than it rose,but the proportion of the publie whieh reported a decline ineonfidenee in the federal government (57 pereent) was farhigher than those reporting a decline in eonfidenee in state(26 pereent) or local (30 pereent) government. Corroboratingthese judgements, only 11 pereent and 14 pereent, respee­tively, thought that local and state government had madetheir life worse during the past few years, while 28 pereentand 27 pereent of the population thought that local and stategovernment had improved their life. In eontrast, only 23 per­eent of the population thought that the federal governmenthadimproved theirlives, while a whopping 37 pereent thought ithad made their lives worse. As one would expeet, substantialmajorities also went on record in favor of inereasing thepower of state government (59 pereent) and of local govern­ment (61 pereent). But only 32 pereent wanted to increasethe power of the federal government, while 42 pereent votedto deerease its power. 28 The shift in the institutional balancebetween government and opposition at the national level thuseorresponds neatly to the shift in popular attitudes towardsgovernment at the nationalleveI.

102 The Crisis 01Democracy

The balance between government and opposition dependsnot only on the relative power of different institutions, butalso on their roles in the political system. The presidency hasbeen the principal national governing institution in theUnited States; its power has declined. The power of themedia and of Congress has increased. Can their roles change?By its very nature, the media cannot govem and has strongincentives to assume an oppositional role. The criticalquestion consequently concerns Congress. In the wake of adeclining presidency, can Congress organize itself to furnishthe leadership to govern the country? During most of thiscen tury, the trendsjn Congress have been in the oppositedirection. In recent years the increase in the power ofCongress has outstripped an increase in its ability to govem. *If the institutional balance is to be redressed betweengovemment and opposition, the decline in presidential powerhas to be reversed and the ability of Congress to govem hasto be increased.

IV. THE DEMOCRATIC DISTEMPER: CONSEQUENCES

The vigor of democracy in the United States in the 1960sthus contributed to a democratic distemper, involving theexpansion of governmental activity, on the one hand, and thereduction of governmental authority, on the other. Thisdemocratic distemper, in tum, had further importantconsequences for the functioning of the political system. The

*There are, it rnight be noted, sorne parallels between Congress and theCornrnunist parties in Europe, as described by Michel Crozier. Bothhave long been accustomed to playing opposition roles; with the declinein authority and power of other groups, the power of both theseinstitutions ís increasing; and one crucial question for the future-andgovernability-of democracy in Italy, France, and the United States iswhether these oppositional bodies can adapt themselves to playresponsible governing roles. Professor Crozier appears to be somewhatmore optimistic about the European communists in this respect than 1am about the American Congress at this moment in time.

Tne United States 103

extent of these consequences was, as of 1974, still unclear,depending, obviously, on the duration and the scope of thedemocratic surge.

The expansión of governmental activity producedbudgetary deficits and a major expansion of totalgovernmental debt from $336 billion in 1960 to $557 billionin 1971. These deficits contributed to inflationary tendenciesin the economy. They also brought to the fore in the early1970s the entire question of the incidence of the tax burdenand the issues of tax reformo The major expansion ofunionism in the public sector combined with the difficulty, ifnot the impossibility.rofrrreasuring productivity or efficiencyfor many bureaucratic activities made the salary and wagedeterminations for governmental ernployees a central focusof polítical controversy. Unionization produced higher wagesand more vigorous collective bargaining to secure higherwages. Strikes by public employees became more and moreprevalent: in 1961, only twenty-eigh t strikes took placeinvolving governmental workers; in 1970, there were 412such strikes."? Governmental officials were thus caughtbetween the need to avoid the disruption of public servicesfrom strikes by governmental employees for higher wages andthe need to avoid imposing higher taxes to pay for the higherwages which the governmental employees demando Theeasiest and obviously most prevalent way of escaping fromthis dilemma is to increase wages without increasing taxesand thereby to add still further to governmental deficits andto the inflationary spiral which will serve as the justificationfor demands for still higher wages. To the extent that thisprocess is accompanied by low or negative rates of economicgrowth, tax revenues will be still further limited and thewhole vicious cycle still further exacerbated.

At the same time that the expansion of governmentalactivity creates problems of financial solvency forgovernment, the decline in governmental authority reducesstill further the ability of government to deal effectively with

104 The Crisis alDemocracy

these problems. The imposition of "hard" decisions imposingconstraints on any major economic group is difficult in anydemocracy and particularly difficult in the United Stateswhere the separation of powers-provides a-variety of pointsof -access to governmental decision-rnaking for economicinterest groups. During the Korean war, for instance,governmental efforts at wage and price control failedmiserably, as business and farm groups were able to riddlelegislation with loopholes in Congress and labor was able touse its leverage with the executive branch to eviscerate wagecontrola." AH this occurred despite the fact that there was awar on and thegovernment was not lacking in authority. Thedecline in governmental authority in general and of thecentral leadership in particular during the early 1970s opensnew opportunities to special interests to bend governmentalbehavior to their special purposes.

In the United States, as elsewhere in the industrializedworld, domestic problems thus beeome intractable problems.The public develops expectations which it is impossible forgovernment to meet. The activities-and expenditures-ofgovernment expand, but the success of government inachieving its goals seems dubious. In a democracy, however,polítical leaders in power need to score successes if they aregoing to stay in power. The natural result is to produce agravitation to foreign policy, where successes, or seemingsuccesses, are much more easily arranged than they are indomestic policy. Trips abroad, summit meetings, dec1arationsand treaties, rhetorical aggression, a11 produce the appearanceof activity and achievement. The weaker a polítical leader isat home, the more likely he is to be traveling abroad. Nixonhad to see Brezhnev in June 1974, and Tanaka, for similarreasons, desperately wanted to see Ford in September 1974.Despite the best efforts by political leaders to prop eachother up at critical moments, there remains, nonetheless,only limited room for substantive agreements among nationsamong whom there are complex and conflicting interests.

The United States 105

Consequently, politicians in seareh of bolstering theirstanding at home by aehievements abroad either have tomake a nonaehievement appear to be an aehievement (whichean be done suecessfully only a limited.number of times), orthey have . to make an achievement which may have animmediate payoff but which they and, more importantly,their countries are likely to regret in the long runo Thedynamics of this seareh for foreign poliey achievements bydemocratic leaders lacking authority at home gives todictatorships (whether eommunist party states or oilsheikhdoms), which are free from such compulsions, a rnajoradvantage in the conduct of .international relations.

The expansión -of-eipenditures and the decrease inauthority are also likely to encourage eeonomie nationalismin democratic societies. Each country will have an interest inminimizing the export of sorne goods in arder to keep pricesdown in its own society. At the same time, other interests arelikely to demand proteetion against the import of foreigngoods. In the United States, this has meant embargoes, as onthe export of soybeans, on the one hand, and tariffs andquotas on the import of textiles, shoes, and comparablemanufactured goods, on the other. A strong government willnot neeessarily follow more liberal and internationalisteconomic policies, but a weak government is almost certainto be incapable of doing so. The resulting unilateralism couldwell weaken still further the allianees among the Trilateralcountries and increase their vulnerability to economic andmilitary pressures from the Soviet bloc.

Finally, a government which lacks authority and which iscommitted to substantial domestic programs will have littleability, short of a cataclysmic crisis, to impose on its peoplethe sacrifices which may be necessary to deal with foreignpoliey problems and defense. In the earIy 1970s, as we haveseen, spending for all significant programs connected with thelatter purposes was far more unpopular than spending for anymajor domestic purpose. The U.S. government .has given up

106 1he Crisis of Democracy

the authority to draft its citizens into the armed forces and isnow committed to providing the monetary incentives toattract volunteers with a stationary or declining percentage ofthe Gross National Product. At thepresent time, this wouldappear - to pose no imrnediate deleterious consequences fornational security. The question necessarily arises, however,of whether in the future, if a new threat to security shouldmaterialize, as it inevitably will at sorne point, the govern­ment will possess the authority to comrnand the resourcesand the sacrifices necessary to rneet that threat.

The implications of these potential consequences of thedernocratic disternper extend far beyond the United States.For a quarter-century the United States was the hegernonicpower in a system of world order. The manifestations of thedemocratic distemper, however, have aIready stimulateduncertainty among allíes and could well stimulate adventur­ism among enernies. If American citizens don't trust theirgovemment, why should friendly foreigners? If Americancitizens challenge the authority of American governrnent,why shouldn't unfriendly governments? The turning inwardof American attention and the decline in the authority ofAmerican goveming institutions are closely related, as bothcause and effect, to the relative downturn in American powerand inf1uence in world affairs. A decline in the govemabilityof democracy at horne means a decline in the inf1uence ofdemocracy abroad.

V. THE DEMOCRATIC DISTEMPER: CAUSES

The irnmediate causes of the simultaneous expansion ofgovernmental activity and the decline of governmentalauthority are to be found in the democratic surge of the1960s. What, however, was in tum responsible for this sharpincrease in political consciousness, political participation, andcornrnitment to egalitarian and dernocratic valúes? As wehave indicated, the causes of the surge can be usefullyanalyzed in tenns of their scope and timing. Are these causes

The United States 107

country-specific or Trilateral-general? Are they transitory,secular, or recurring? In actuality, as we have suggested, thecauses of the democratic surge seem to partake of all thesecharacteristics.

The most specific, immediate, and in a sense "rational"causes of the democratic surge could conceivably be thespecific policy problems confronting the United Statesgovernment in the 1960s and 1970s and its inability to dealeffectively with those problems. Vietnam, race relations,Watergate, and stagflation: these could quite naturally lead toincreased polarization over policy, higher levels of politicalparticipation (and protest), and reduced confidence ingovernmental institutionsand leaders. In fact, these issuesand the ways in which the government dealt with them didhave sorne impact; the unraveling of Watergate was, forinstance, followed by a significant decline in publicconfidence in the executive branch of government. Moregenerally, however, a far-from-perfect fit exists between theperceived inability of the government to deal effectively withthese policy problems and. the various attitudinal andbehavioral manifestations of the democratic surge. Theexpansion of political participation was underway longbefore these problerns carne to a head in the rnid-1960s, andthe beginnings of the decline In trust and of the increase inattitude consistency go back befare large-scale Americaninvolvernent in Vietnam. Indeed, a closer look at therelationship between attitudes towards the Vietnam war andconfidence in government suggests that the connectionpetween the two rnay not be very significant, Opposition toU.8. involvement in Vietnam, for instance, becarnewidespread arnong blacks in mid-1966, while among whitesopponents uf the war did not outnurnber supporters untilearly 1968. In terms of a variety of indices, however, whíteconfidence and trust in governrnent declined much furtherand more rapidly than black confidence and trust during therniddle 1960s. In late 1967, for instance, whites were divided

108 The OisisofDemocracy

roughly 46 pereent in favor of the war and 44 pereentagainst, while blaeks were split 29 pereent in favor and 57pereent against. Yet in 1968, white opínion was divided 49.2pereent to 40.5 pereent on whether the gove!fiment was runfor .the benefit of all or a "few big interests," while blaeksthough that it was run for the benefit of all by a margin of63.1 pereent to 28.6 percent.:" Blaek eonfidenee ingovernment plummeted only after the Nixon administrationeame to power in 1969. While the evidenee is not ascomplete as one would desire, it does, nonetheless, suggestthat the actual substantive eharaeter of governmental policieson the war, as well as perhaps on other matters, was of lesssignifieanee Iorthedécrease in governmental authority thanwere the ehanges generated by other eauses in the attitudesof social groups towards government and in the intensítywith which social groups held to partícular political values.

At the opposite extreme in terms of generality, thedemoeratic surge ean also be explained in terms ofwidespread demographie trends of the 1960s. Throughoutthe industrialized world during the 1960s, the younger ageeohorts furnished many of the aetivists in the demoeratie andegalitarian ehallenges to established authority. In part, thisrevolt of the youth was undoubtedly the produet of theglobal baby boom of the post-World War 11 years whíchbrought to the fore in the 1960s a generational bulge whichoverwhelmed eolleges and universities. This was associatedwith the rise of distinetive new values which appeared firstamong eollege youth and then were diffused among youthgenerally. Prominent among these new values were what havebeen deseribed as "ehanges in relation to the authority ofinstitutions sueh as the authority of the law, the poliee, thegovernment, the boss in the work situation." These changeswere "in the direetion of what sociologists eall 'de­authorization,' i.e., a lessening of automatic obedienee to,and respeet for, established authority...." The newdisrespeet for authority on the part of youth was part and

The United States 109

parcel of broader changes in their attitudes and values withrespect to sexual rnorality, religion as a source of moralguidance, and traditional patriotism and al1egiance "to mycountry right or wrong.t""

As a result of this development, major differences oversocial values and political attitudes emerged betweengenerations. One significant manifestation of the appearanceof this generational gap in the United States is the proportionof different age groups agreeing at different times in recentdecades with the proposition: "Voting is the only way thatpeople like me can have any say about how the governmentruns things." In 1952 overwhelming majorities .of all agegroups agreed witlr thisrstatement, with the differencebetween the youngest age group (twenty-one totwenty-eight), with 79 percent approval, and the oldest agegroup (sixty-one and over), with 80 percent approval, beingonly 1 percent. By 1968, the proportion of every age groupsupporting the statement had declined substantial1y. Of evengreater significance was the major gap of 25 percent whichhad opened up between the youngest age group (37 percentapprova1) and the oldest age group (62 percent approval). 33

Whereas young and old related almost identically to politicalparticipation in 1952, they had very different attitudestoward it sixteen years latero

The democratic surge can also be explained as the firstmanifestation in the United States of the political impact ofthe social, economic, and cultural trends towards theemergence of a post-industrial society. Rising levels ofaffluence and education lead to changes in political attitudesand polítical behavior. Many of the polítical and social valueswhich are more likely to be found among the young thanamong the elderly are also more likely to be found amongbetter-off, white-collar, suburban groups than among thepoorer, working-class, blue-collar groups in central andindustrial cities. The former groups, however, are growing innumbers and importance relative to the latter, and hence

110 The Crisis alDemocracy

their political attitudes and behavior patterns are likely toplay an inereasingly dominant role in politics.P" What is truetoday in North Ameriea is likely to be true tomorrow inWestern Europe and Japan.

The single most important status variable affeetingpolítieal partieipation and attitudes is edueation. For severaldecades the level of edueation in the United States has beenrising rapidly. In 1940, less than 40 pereent of the po pula­tion was edueated beyond elementary sehool; in 1972,75 per­eent of the population had been either to high sehool (40pereent) or to eollege (35 percent). The more educated a per­son is, the more likely he is to participate in politics, to havea more consisténtand more ideological outlook on politicalissues, and to hold more "enlightened" or "liberal" or"change oriented" views on social, cultural, and foreignpolicy issues. Consequently the demoeratic surge could besimply the reflection of a more highly educated populaee.

This explanation, however, runs into difficulties when it isexamined more closely. Yerba and Nie, for instanee, haveshown that the actual rates of campaign activity whichprevailed in the 1950s and 1960s ran far ahead of the rateswhich would have been projected simply as a result ofehanges in the educational eomposition of the population,(See Table 7.) In part, the explanation for this discrepancystems from the tremendous increase in black politicalparticipation during these years.Before 1960, blacksparticipated less than would have been expected in tenns oftheir educational levels. After 1960, they participated farmore than would have been expected by those levels; the gapbetween projected and actual participation rates in theselatter years being far greater for the blacks than it was for thewhites. The difference in participation between more highlyeducated and less highly educated blacks, in turn, was muchless than it was between more highly educated and less highlyeducated whites. Black political participation, in short, was

The United States III

the product primarily not of increased individual status butrather of increased group consciousness.:" That politicalparticipation will remain high as long as their groupconsciousness does. A decline in the saliency of schoolintegration, welfare prograrns, law enforcement, and otherissues of" special concern to blacks will at sorne pointpresumably be accompanied by a decline in their groupconsciousness and hence their polítical participation.

Table 7

Mean Number of Campaign Acts: Actual and Projected

1952 - 1956"1960 1962 1964 1968 1970

Actual

Projected

.58 .66

.57

.83

.59

.69

.61

.77

.62

.73

.65

.83

.66

Source: Sidney Yerba and Norman H. Nie, Participation in America:Political Democracy and Social Equality (New York: Harper & Row,1972), p. 252.

In a similar vein, the assumption that increased attitudeconsistency can be explained primarily by higher levels ofeducation also does not hold up. In fact, during the 1950sand 1960s major and roughly equal increases in attitudeconsistency occurred among both those who had gone tocollege and those who had not graduated from high school.In summarizing the data, Nie and Anderson state:

The growth of attitude consistency within the masspublic is clearly not the result of increases in thepopulation's "ideological capacities" brought about bygains in educational attainment. ... Those with thelowest educational attainmerit have experienced thelargest increases in consistency on the core domestic

112 The Crisis o[Democracy

issues; and líttle signifieant differenee appears to bepresent between the two educational groups ineomparison to the dramatie inereases m eonsistencywhich both groups have experienced,

Instead, they argue, the inerease in ideologieal thinking isprimarily the result of the inereased salience which eitizensperceive polítics to have for their own immediate eoncerns:"The polítical events of the last decade, and the crisisatmosphere which has attended them, have eaused citizens toperceive politics as increasingly central to their lives." 36

Thus, the causes of increased attitude consistency, like thecauses of higlier political participation, are to be found inchanging polítical relationships, rather than in changes inindividual background characteristics.

AH this suggests that a full explanation of the democraticsurge can be found neither in transitory events nor in secularsocial trends common to all industrial societies. The timingand nature of the surge in the United States also need to beexplained by the distinctive dynamics of the American politi­cal process and, in particular, by the interaction betweenpolitical ideas and institutional reality in the United States.The roots of the surge are to be found in the basic Americanvalue system and the degree of commitment which groups insociety feel toward that value system. Unlike Japanese andmost European societies, American society is characterizedby a broad consensus on democratic, liberal, egalitarianvalues. For much of the time, the commitment to thesevalues is neither passionate nor intense. During periods ofrapid social change, however, these democratic and egali­tarian values of the American creed are reaffirmed. The in­tensity of belief during such creedal passion periods leads tothe challenging of established authority and to major effortsto change governmental structure to accord more fully withthose values. In this respect, the democratic surge of the1960s shares many characteristics with the comparable egali-

The United States 113

tarian and reform movements of the Jacksonian and Progres­sive eras. Those "surges" like the contemporary one alsooccurred during periods of realignment between party andgovernmental institutions, on the one hand, and social forces,on the other,37 The slogans, goals, values, and targets of allthree movements are strikingly similar. To the extent thisanalysis is valid, the causes of the democratic surge in theUnited States would be specific to the United States andlimited in duration but potentialIy recurring at sorne point inthe future.

VI. CONCLUSIONS: TOWARD A DEMOCRATIC BALANCE

Predictively, the irñplicatíon of this anaIysis is that in duecourse the democratic surge and its resulting dual distemperin government will moderate. Prescriptively, the implicationis that these developments ought to take place in order toavoid the deleterious consequences of the surge and torestore balance between vitality and governability in thedemocratic system.

Al Smith once remarked that "the onIy cure for the evilsof democracy is more democracy." Our analysis suggests thatapplying that cure at the present time could well be addingfuel to the flames. Instead, sorne of the problems ofgovernance in the United States today stem from an excess ofdemocracy-an "excess of democracy" in much the samesense in which David Donald used the tenn to refer to theconsequences of the Jacksonian revolution which helped toprecipitate the Civil War. Needed, instead, is a greater degreeof moderation in democracy.

In practice, this moderation has two major areas ofapplication. First, democracy is only one way of constitutingauthority, and it is not necessarily a universal1y applicableone. In many situations the claims of expertise, seniority,experience, and special talents may overríde the claims ofdemocracy as a way of constituting authority. During thesurge of the 1960s, however, the democratic principIe was

114 The Crisis o/Democracy

extended to many institutions where it can, in the long ron,only frustrate the purposes of·those institutions. A universitywhere teaching appointments are subject to approval bystudents may be a more democratic university but it is notlíkely to be a better university. In similar fashion, armies inwhich the commands of officers have been subject to veto bythe col1ective wisdom of their subordinates have almost in­variably come to disaster on the battlefield. The arenas wheredemocratic procedures are appropriate are, in short, limited.

Second, the effective operation of a democratic políticalsystem usually requires sorne rneasure of apathy andnoninvolvement on the part of sorne individuals and groups.In the past, every democratic society has had a marginalpopulation, of greater or lesser size, which has not activelyparticipated in polities. In itself, this marginality on the partof sorne groups is inherently undemocratic, but it has alsobeen one of the factors which has enabled dernocracy tofunction effectively. Marginal social groups, as in the case ofthe blacks, are now becoming full participants in the politicalsystern. Yet the danger of overloading the polítical systemwith demands which extend its functions and undermine itsauthority still remains. Less marginality on the part of sornegroups thus needs to be replaced by more self-restraint on thepart of al1 groups.

The Greek philosophers argued that the best practical statewould combine several different principles of government inits constitution. The Constitution of 1787 was drafted withthis insight very much in mind. Over the years, however, theAmerican political system has emerged as a distinctive case ofextraordinarily democratic institutions joined to anexclusively dernocratic value system. Dernocracy is more of athreat to itself in the United States than it is in either Europeor Japan where there still exist residual inheritances oftraditional and aristocratic values. The absence of such valuesin the United States produces a lack of balance in societywhich, in turn, leads to the swing back and forth between

The United States 115

creedal passion and creedal passivity. Polítical authority isnever strong in the United States, and it is peculiarly weakduring a creedal passion period of intense commitment todemocratic and egalitarian ideals. In the United States, thestrength of democracy poses a problem for the governabilityof democracy in a way which is not the case elsewhere.

The vulnerability of democratic government in the UnitedStates thus comes not primarily from external threats,though such threats are real, nor from internal subversionfrom the left or the right, a1though both possibilities couldexist, but rather from the internal dynamics of democracyitself in a highly educated.jnobilized, and participant society."Democracy never lasts long," John Adams observed. "Itsoon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was ademocracy yet that did not commit suicide." That suicide ismore likely to be the product of overindulgence than of anyother cause. A value which is normally good in itself is notnecessarily optimized when it is maximized. We have come torecognize that there are potentially desirable límits to eco­nomic growth. There are also potentialIy desirable limits tothe indefinite extension of polítical democracy. Democracywill have a longer life if it has a more balanced existence.

NOTES

1. Sidney Yerba and Norman H. Nie, Participation in America:Political Democracy and Social Equality (New York: Harper & Row,1972), pp. 251-52. The campaign acts measured included: urging othersto vote for a party or candidate; contributing money; attending ameeting or rally; doing other work for a candidate; belonging to apolítical organization; using a campaign button or bumper sticker.

2. See, for example, S. M. Miller and Pamela A~ Roby, The Futureof Inequality (New York: Basic Books, 1970); Christopher Jencks,Inequality (New York: Basic Books, 1972); Herbert J. Gans, MoreEquality (New York: Pantheon, 1973); Lee S. Rainwater, SocialProblems: Inequality and Justice (Chicago: Aldine Press, 1974);Edward C. Budd,Inequa/ity and Poverty (New York: W. W. Norton,

116 The Crisis ofDemocracy

1967); Murray Milner, The Illusion 01 Equality (San. Francisco:Jossey-Bass, 1972); David Lane, The End of Equality ? (Har­mendsworth, Middlesex, England and New York: Penguin Books,1971); "On Equality," Symposium, The Public Interest, Fall 1972;Frank Parkin, Class Inequality Óand Political Óúrder (London:MaéGibbon & Kee, 1971).

3. See Samuel P. Huntington, The Common Defense (New York:Columbia University Press, 1961), pp. 33-64.

4. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the UnitedStates: 1973 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1973), p. 410.

·5. Edward R. Fried, et al., Setting National Priorities: The 1974Budget (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1973) p. 5.

6. Huntington, Common Defense, pp. 23448.7. William Wáttsirid Lloyd A. Free, State of the Nation: 1974

(Washington: Potomac Associates, 1974); The Gallup Opinion Index,Report No. 112, October 1974, p. 20.

8. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract, 1973, p. 410;U.S. Office of Management and Budget, The UnitedStates Budget inBrief-Fiscal Year 1975 (Washington: Government Printing Office,1974), p. 47.

9. Daniel Bell, "The Public Household-On 'Fiscal Sociology' andthe Liberal Society," The Public Interest, no. 37, (Fall 1974), p. 41;James O'Connor, The Fiscal Crisisof The State (New York: Sto Martin'sPress, 1973), p. 221.

10. Norman H. Nie and Kristi Anderson, "Mass Belief SystemsRevisited: Politica1 Change and Attitude Structure," The Joumal ofPolitics, 36 (August 1974), pp. 558-59..

11. William Schneider, "Public Opinion: The Beginning ofIdeology?" Foreign Policy, no. 17 (Winter 1974-75), pp. 88 ff.

12. Arthur H. Miller, "Political Issues and Trust in Government:1964-70," American Political Science Review, 68 (September 1974),pp. 951 ff.

13. Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Yerba, The Civic Culture(Boston: Little, Brown, 1965), pp. 64-68; Gallup Survey, New YorkTimes,October 14, 1973, p. 45.

14. University of Michigan, Survey Research Center, Codebook,1960 Survey, p. 146, and Codebook, 1968 Survey, p. 310.

15. See Norman H. Nie, Sidney Yerba, and John R. Petrocik, The

The United States 117

Changing American Voter (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, forth­coming, 1976), Chapter 15.

16. Jack Citrin, "Comment: Political Issues and Trust inGovernment: 1964-70," American Political Science Review, 68(September 1974), pp. 982-84.

17. Nie, Yerba, and Petrocík, Changing American Voter, Chapter 15,pp. 2-10.

18. Gallup Survey reported in New York Times, October 17, 1971,p. 34; N. D. Glenn, "Sources of the Shift to Polítical Independence,"Social Science Quarteriy , 53 (December 1972), pp. 494-519.

19. Frederick G. Dutton, Changing Sources 01 Power: AmericanPolitics in the 1970s (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971), p. 228; RichardW. Boyd, "Electoral Trends in Postwar Politics," in James DavidBarber, ed., Choosiñg-the-uPresident (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:Prentíce-Hall, 1974), p. 185.

20. Boyd, ibid, p. 189.21. Gerald M. Pomper, "From Confusion to Clarity: Issues and

American Voters, 1956-1968," American Political Science Review, 66(June 1972), pp. 415 ff.; Miller, ibid., 68 (September 1974), pp. 951ff.; Norman H. Nie, "Mass Belief Systems Revisited," Journal ofPolitics, 36 (August 1974), pp. 540-91; Schneider, Foreign Policy, no.17, pp. 98 ff.

22. Samuel H. Beer, "Government and Politics: An Imbalance," TheCenter Magazine, 7 (March-April 1974), p. 15.

23. Daniel Yankelovich, Changing Youth Values in the '70's: AStudy ofAmerican Youth (New York: JDR 3rd Fund, 1974), p. 37.

24. Walter Dean Burnham, Critical Elections and the Mainsprings ofAmerican Politics (New York: W. W. Norton, 1970); James L.Sundquist, Dynamics 01the Party System (Washington: The BrookingsInstitution, 1973); Samuel Lubell, The Future 01 American Politics(New York: Harper, 1951).

25. Quoted in Michael J. Robinson, "American Political Legitimacyin an Era of Electronic Journalism: Reflections on the Evening News,"in Richard Adler, ed., Television as a Social Force: NewApproaches toTV Criticism (New York: Praeger-Aspen, 1975), p. 123.

26. Michael J. Robinson, "Public Affairs Television and the Growthof Polítical Malaise: The Case of The Selling o[ the Pentagon,"American Political Science Review, forthcoming, June 1976.

118 The Crisis 01 Democracy

27. Robinson, "American Political Legitímacy,' pp. 126-27.28. Louis Harris and Associates, Confidence and Concern: Citizens

View American Government (Cornmittee Prínt, U.S. Senate, Committeeon Government Operations, Subcornrnittee on _JntergovernmentalRelations, 93rd Cong., 1st Sess., December 3,1973), pp. 4243, 299.

29. Tax Foundation, Inc., Unions and Govemment Employment(New York, 1972), pp. 29,3941.

30. Huntington, Common Defense, pp. 271-75.31. See University of Michigan, Survey Research Center, surveys

1958, 1964, 1966, 1968 and 1970, on black and white "AttitudesToward Government: Política! Cynicism," and John E. Mueller, War,Presidents, and Public Opinion (New York: John Wiley, 1973), pp.14048.

32. Yankelovich, Changing Youth Values, p. 9.33. Anne Foner, "Age Stratification and Age Conflict in Political

Life," American Sociological Review, 39 (April1974), p. 190.34. Samuel P. Huntington, "Postindustrial Polítics: How Benign Will

It Be?" Comparative Politics, 16 (January 1974), pp. 177-82; LouisHanis, The Anguisb of Change (New York: W.W. Norton, 1973), pp.35-52,272-73.

35. Yerba and Nie,Participation in America, pp. 251-59.36. Nie and Anderson, Journal of Politics, 36 (August 1974), pp.

570-71.37. Samuel P. Huntington, "Paradigms of American Politics: Beyond

the One, the Two, and the Many," Political Science Quarterly, 89(March 1974), pp. 18-22.

CHAPTER IV

JAPANJoji Watanuki

I. JAPANESE DEMOCRACY'S GOVERNABILITY

There is no absolute governability or ungovernability.Governability is always a function of tasks, both imposedfrom the outside and generated from the inside, and ofcapabilities, of both the elite and the masses.

1. External Conditions Surrounding Japanese Democracy

Although there seems to be no impending externa1 threatof military aggression to Japan, there exist uncertainties of amilitary nature which, if they should be actualized, wouldimpose enormous strains on Japanese leaders. One is theinstability of the Korean situation and possible escalatingconfrontation between the Republic of Korea and thePeople's Democratic Republic of Korea. Another is thepossibility of Sino-Soviet military confrontation. In bothcases, if the conflicts should escalate enough, they wouldcause worldwide repercussions, and the United States, atleast, would inevitably be involved in them. If, however,the escalation should remain below certain limits and couldbe regarded as a local problem, it is possible that particularlystrong pressures to force Japanese decision-makers to make

119

120 The Crisis 01Democracy

difficult policy decisions would be generated from both sides'of the conflicto The former, the Korean problem, has aspecial significance for the problem of the internal governa-bility of Japan. __

Apart from such critical, and hopefully, improbable cases,there are two external factors which beset Japan and createtasks for the lapanese leadership. One is the well-knowninternational dependency and vulnerability of the Japaneseeconomy in terms of resources needed not only for industrybut also for feeding the Japanese people. According tooften-cited figures, Japan's ratio of dependency on overseasresources is: almost 100 percent in oil; 85 percent in totalenergy supplytfOñpercent in aluminum; and 95 percent foriron ore (1970 level). Of Japan's total food supply, 23 per­cent comes from abroad, and among vital foodstuffs, 92percent of the wheat and 96 percent of the soybeans con­sumed in lavan in 1971 carne from abroad. In comparisonwith the equivalent figures for the United States, thesefigures are impressive enough to show Japan's internationaldependency in the acquisition of resources.

Japan's dependency is, however, of the same level as thatof many West European societies. What distinguishes Japanfrom West European societies is the second externa! factor.lapan stands alone in its region with no equal partner forjoint action, which would share common interests due to asimilar stage of industrial development, combined with thesame degree of commitment to principles of politicaldemocracy. Of cOUI'Se, in spite of the European Community,West European countries are far from achieving completeaccord and being able to take united action to cope withtheir difficulties. And West European countries and theEuropean Community as a whole always have to take into,consideration the moves of other regions-those of the Sovietbloc, the Arab countries, and all other Third World countries.As the most economically advanced country in Asia andbecause of the historical backgrounds of lavan and the

Japan 121

countries of Asia, the Japanese elite and masses are tombetween a feeling of belonging to Asia and a feeling ofisolation from Asia, with an orientation to the United Statesand West Europe.! On the other .hand, the Asian countriesare alsoámbivalent toward Japan. The Japanese, includingthose in other Asian countries, are expected to perform apositive role because they are Asians; at the same time theyare often severely criticized for certain behavior which wouldbe permitted for Europeans or Americans. This delicateposition of Japan in the region can be made to serve as anasset linking the other Asian countries with advancedeconomies and those advanced economies with developingeconomies in the region. On the other hand, it could becomea liability which could confuse Japan's policy choices andaggravate the relationship between developing countries andeconomically advanced countries.

2. Domestic Conditions and Capabilitiesof Japanese Democracy After WorId War 11

(a) Consolidation of postwar democracy. In discussing thegovernability of democracy in Japan, the place to start iswith the reforms after World War II and the 1947 Con­stitution of Japan, which is the key political institution ofpostwar Japanese democracy. It has been argued that theJapanese Constitution of 1947 was prepared under the U.S.occupation. The draft was written by the staff of SCAP(Supreme Commander of Allied Powers) and General DouglasMacArthur, and handed to the Japanese govemment withstrong pressure in early 1947.

However, in spite of apparent record of such imposition orimplantation by the Allied-and actually American­occupation forces, and although there has been a tenaciousmovement by rightists both outside and inside the LiberalDemocratic party to abolish this "given Constitution'"and to make an "autonomous" constitution, the 1947

122 The Crisis 01Democracy

Constitution has been in operation for thirty years and willbe kept intact for the forseeable future, including its uniqueArticle 9 which forbids Japan to wage war as a nation and tomaintain armed forces. lt is a mirac1e of modem history andis a key to understanding and predicting Japanese society andpolitics.

The miracle occurred for three good reasons.? In the firstplace, the draft Constitution prepared by SCAP was notmade in a void. It had many ideas in common with a draftconstitution prepared by the Japanese liberals at that time.Besides the Constitution itself, many postwar reformsperformed under the American occupation were congruent- ---- .- _.

with (or sorne steps in advance 00 the proposals made by theliberals and even by the enlightened bureaucrats either thenor even in prewar days. Thus, many reforms made during theU.S. occupation helped to release and encourage "reformpotentials" which had already accumulated in Japan duringWorld War 11. Second, a positive role was played by theopposition-especially that of the Japan Socialist party in theperiod of 1952-1955, just after the end of occupation in1952. The Conservatives, at that time consisting ofthe JapanLiberal party and the Japan Democratic party, wanted to

.revise the "excessive" reforms made under the occupationand campaigned for rewriting the whole Constitution. Thekey parts of the Constitution which the Conservatives wantedin common to rewrite were those on the status of theEmperor, Article 9, and those concerning the family system.Extreme conservatives wanted more general deliberalizationconcerning the rights of labor unions, freedom of speech andassociation, and so on. If their attempts had been successful,what consequences would have followed for Japanese societyand politics? Since this is just a matter of sheer conjecture, itis open to various arguments. My argument, however, is this:The consequence would have been less stability in Japanesepolitics and the accumulation of more frustration andalienation among more-educated people and also among

Japan 123

younger people in Japanese society. A Japan with recognizedarmed forces but with more domestic political confrontationand more accumulation of frustration among the populace,and possibly with repeated attempts atconstitutional revisioninbothr.adical and reactionary directions, would have beenpossible. As it was, the Socialists, who at that time weredivided between the right-wing Socialists and the left-wingSocialists but who both agreed to preserve the 1947Constitution, succeeded in winning one-third of both Housesof the Diet in elections in the ear1y 1950s and blocked theConservatives' attempt to revise the Constitution, whichrequired the approval of two-thirds of the Diet. The legacy ofthe Constitutional disputeIn this period still remains in theusual way of thinking of the 1947 Constitution as onepackage, that is, thinking based on an either-or way so thatno part of the Constitution can be revised without rewritingthe whole. Third, the mainstream of the Conservatives-theLiberal Democratic party-is presently indifferent about thismatter and does not want to take the trouble to confront theSocialísts and the Komei party. Behind the Conservativeattitude not to take the trouble to alter the 1947 Constitu­tion is another factor which has contributed to the consolida­tion of that Constitution. In the process of economic growthin the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, with a numberof concomitant social changes, the 1947 Constitution andmost of the postwar reforms became necessary to theoperation of the Japanese economy and society. The issuesraised by the Conservatives, especially by the rightist wing ofthem, against the 1947 Constitution became obsolete. Forexample, the 1947 Constitution and the reform of the familycode assured the independence of family members. Youngerpeople, who were supposed to be under the control of thefamilyhead before the reforms, were given legal freedomfrom the family by the postwar reforms and actually receivedeconomic freedom because of the labor shortage and rise ofwages, From, the viewpoint of industry, also, voluntary

124 tne Crisis of Democracy

mobility oí younger people irrespective of the assent of thefamilyhead was welcome. To the expanding, rnore-educatedpopulation, which has contributed to the labor force withhigher quality, the idea and stipulation of the status of theEmperor as a symbol of the state in the 1947 Constitutionhas been more acceptable than either the idea of the Emperoras God in prewar days or the policy of the Conservatives. thatthe Emperor should have more substantial power. Laborunions recognized and protected by the 1947 Constitution,with their peculiarly Japanese form of "enterprise unions,"were found to be no obstacle to technological innovation andcontributed to the maintenance of commitment of the- ._- .- .... _....

workers to the company.Thus, the mainstream of the Liberal Democratic party and

the mainstream of Japanese economic circles have no seriousintention of revising the 1947 Constitution now or in thenear future. According to opinion polls, the majority of thepublic also supports the 1947 Constitution. In addition, theSocialists and the Komei party are firmly committed to it.The Japan Communist party has also declared itscommitment to defend the present Constitútion, at least inthe near future, although at the same time it does not hide itsview that at sorne future time the Constitution should berewritten in more socialistic style, a point which the Komeiparty has been fiercely attacking.

Thus, in comparison with the German Weimar Republic of1919-33 Japanese postwar democracy has a far firmer basis.A doubt remains about whether or not the Japanese peoplehave accepted the postwar democratic system primarilybecause of Japan's economic prosperity in the postwarperiodo However, even if this is so, the prewar system offersno competing attraction, especially to the younger genera­tion. There is little possibility of a powerful revival of prewarJapanese militarism or political traditionalism in the future.Rather, the problem is how, within the 1947 Constitution,Japan can handle the status of Japanese Self Defense Forces,

Japan 125

which have been regarded by the Socialist and the Cornmu­nist parties as unconstitutional on one hand, and on theother, have accumulated capability and de facto legitimacyduring their existence and developmént over twenty yearsunder the LDP government.

(b) The capability of the Liberal Democratic party, TheJapanese Conservatives, particularly the Liberal Democraticparty since its formation in 1955, have ruled Japan through­out the postwar period, except for the short and unsuccessfulcoalition of the Socialist and Democratic parties in 1947-48..The capability of the LDP is open to partisan disputes. LDPpeople and ardentsupporters of the LDP can say that underthe rule of the LDP's majority for twenty years, Japan'seconomic growth and its peaceful existence with othernations are the proofs of the LDP's high capability, Theaward of the 1974 Nobel Peace Prize to ex-Prime MinisterEisaku Sato seems to back up such an argumento But theopposition parties have naturally been critical of the LDP'scapability and actually expressed astonishment and criticismof the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Sato. Apart fromsuch partisan disputes, two observations can be made. First,the LDP's rule has carried with it both merits and demerits­in other words, functions and dysfunctions. Second, thesocial and cultural bases which have hitherto supported thefunctional side of the LDP have been declining. Thus, thechanging tides of Japanese society seem to be less congruentwith, or more beyond the adaptability of the LDP thanbefore,

As for the LDP's merits, 1 can cite three points. First, theclose coordination between the LDP, the higher elite eorps ofthe bureaucracy, and the economic elite (which have beencalled "Japan Incorporated" since Time magazine's story ofMay 10, 1971, invented the term), certainly contributed toJapan's economic growth and will also function positively infuture times of economic crisis through skillfu1 "consensuseeonomy." Certainly the LDP's capability for poliey forma-

126 The Crisis ofDemocracy

tion is high in the sense that it is fused with the bureaucraticelite. This group consists of ex-high-level bureaucrats, whobecame either LDP parliamentary members or top executivesof public and private corporations after their relatively earlyretirernent (around the ages of fifty to fifty five); of activesenior bureaucrats; and of successive generations of successfulcandidates in the higher civil service examination. Ex-high­level bureaucrats as LDP politicians contribute their know­ledge and experiences accumulated during their bureaucraticcareers to the formation of policies by the party. They canalso maintain communication with their ex-eolleagues inpublic andprívate__ corporations and, moreover, may utilizethe cooperation and assistance of their successors on activeduty in the bureaucracy.

Second, the LDP has build up skillful vote-getting ma­chines in its koenkai (associations supporting individualpoliticians), through which various demands-personal,regional, and occupational-of the vast populace have beenabsorbed and satisfied. AH LDP Diet members maintain theirkoenkai," which often comprise tens of thousands of"members" who rarely pay membership dues. Almost a11 theexpenses to maintain such koenkai are paid by the LDPpoliticians themselves, who therefore always badly needmoney. LDP politicians are very responsive to their koenkaiclients, especially to the key persons in them, who are oftenthe local influential persons in agricultural associations orsmall- and rnedium-sized trade associations. Therefore, inspite of its close coordination with big businesses and itsfinancial dependency on them, the LDP has not ignored theinterests of local leaders in agriculture, fisheries, sma11- andmedium-sized commerce, and manufacturing. The LDP at thegrass roots level has been loosely structured and has consistedof federations of hundreds of small partiese Therefore, it hasbeen able to absorb a variety of interests and demands. As iswell known, however, mainly because of the distribution ofmoney, LDP politicians are "aggregated" into several

Jopan 127

factions, and eventual1y, the formation of LDP policy ismade in close contact with the bureaucracy and big business­es. Here, in a sense, there is a beautiful pattern of wide inter­est artículatíon through individual LDP members and theirkoenkai, -wíth interest aggregation through factions, andeventual agreement by the triumvirate of big business,bureaucracy, and the LDP.

Third, although the LDP has been self-identified as aconservative party and many members of it have expressednostalgia for a number of aspects of the prewar system fromtime to time, and although a close tie with the United Stateshas been the LDP-'sefficial-line on foreign policy, still LDPDiet members have enjoyed a wide range of freedom toexpress divergent policy views and even behavior concerningboth domestic and foreign policies. In the sphere of foreignpolicy, members of the Asian and African Problem StudyGroup had visited the People's Republic of China a numberof times before Tanaka's visit to China, and also have beenkeeping in contact with the People's Democratic Republic ofKorea. However, the LDP still has strong Taiwan supportersand also a Korean lobby, composed of those who keep closeties with the Republic of Korea. In the sphere of domesticpolicy, a fairly wide divergence of opinions exists among LDPpoliticians. This ideological looseness and vagueness of theLDP is due to the independence of LDP politicians invote-getting and to the nonideologícal formation of factionswithin the LDP, and these characteristícs have, in their tum,contributed to neutralizing the party image against the attackfrom the opposition parties that the LDP is a reactionaryparty. These characteristícs have, moreover, given the LDPwider channels of contact and assets to be utilized in case ofpolicy change.

As has been pointed out, all three of these "rnerits," onthe other hand, carry demerits and involve dysfunctions.Onthe first, close contact and skillful coordination between thegroups in the triumvirate has meant their disproportional

128 The Crisis alDemocracy

predominance in policy formation. Powers to countervail andcheck that triumvirate have been disporportional1y weak. Asfor the second mechanism, the__koenkai whích have made theLDP _capable of absorbing various interests and demands,since the supporting groups of LDP are not distributedequally in terms of region, occupation, and generation,unavoidably sorne interests are systematically respected andothers are 'ignored. And, continuation of LDP rule for nearlytwenty years has generated a sense of alienation from powerand a feeling of ill-treatment in certain sectors of society. Tosupporters of the opposition parties, not only LDP rule, butalso the wlioléperíod of Japanese history under LDP rule, issubject to criticismo It has been their rule, and their period,not ours, from this perspective. This kind of feeling ofalienation was clearly expressed when ex-Prime MinisterEisaku Sato was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Third,concerning the looseness of ideological control within theLDP, there is the widely held fear of unpredictability of LDPbehavior. Sorne policies are formed on the basis of factionalfights or compromise within the LDP, and many others aremade upon consultation with, or according to the advice of,bureaucratic and business circles. Concerning the formerpolicies, especial1y from the viewpoints of opposition par­ties, the LDP is a party which can suddenly propose ultra­conservative, even rightist proposaIs. PartIy due to theresult of these features of LDP rule, and partly due to thenature of the opposition parties-especial1y the Japan SociaI­ist party which has been tightly committed to Marxistdoctrine-a lack of trust between governing party andopposition parties has been conspicuous. And also, thoseintel1ectuals supporting the opposition parties are morenumerous and vocal in their criticisms of the LDP thanexpected, gíven the stability and achievements of LDP rule.

Another source of vulnerability of the LDP is an ethicalone concerning its way of procuring and spending politicalfunds. AH LDP politicians have to constantly procure and

Japan 129

spend money in order to maintain their own koenkai. Theminimum necessary expenditure of LDP Diet Members is saidto be 3 million yen (10,000 U.S. dollars) per month in anoff-election periodo They raise part of this money thernselves,and part ·comes from their faction leaders. Faction leadershave to take care of the funds of their followers. And it hasbeen a well-known fact that the main part of these politicalfunds is given by business corporations. The points are: Arehuge sums of political donations by business corporationsreally pure and voluntary contributions, or is this implicitbribery? And is it fair political competition that the LDP andLDP factions corñbinedrare spending political funds fivetimes larger than the total political funds spent by all fouropposition parties together according to an official reportreleased by the government?" Moreover, it is widely believedthat the actual total of political spending by the LDP is morethan this official record.

It is a well-known fact that the LDP's share of the votes innational elections has been gradually declining. Although inthe case of the House of Representatives the LDP stillmaintained a 46.8 percent share of the votes in the 1972general election, the LDP share fell below 40 percent (39.5percent) ·in the Prefectural Constituency of the election ofthe House of Councillors in 1974. Partly due to theoverrepresentation of the rural districts in the Diet and partlydue to the split of the opposition parties, the LDP stillsucceeds in getting a majority of the seats in the Houses (271out of 491 in the House of Representatives, and 126 out of252 in the House of Councillors). The LDP's majority is slimin the House of Councillors, however, and the LDP lackssufficient majority legitimacy even in the House of Repre­sentatives due to rural overrepresentation and disproportionalspending of political funds.

(e) Quality of the Japanese bureaucracy. Although itdepends on the definition of governability, in any under­standing of governability as a synthetic capability relating the

130 The Crisis 01Democracy

governing and the governed, the quality of bureaucracy, asthe governing framework or as an intermediary between thegoverning and the governed or-as an autonomous third force,has special significance. In this respect, the Japanese bureau­cracy seems to deserve sorne attention. Historically, theJapanese bureaucracy was formed after the Prussian model,legacies of which remain even today in formalistic legalismand alleged neutralism which does not, however, prevent thehigh bureaucrats from committing themselves to partisanstands of the governing party, as representing the interest of'the state. MaIlY. high-level bureaucrats, after retirement, havejoined the LDP and, after their successful election, havebecome key figures in the governing party, The bureaucrats,on duty are, however, fairly autonomous under the controlof administrative vice-ministers and the elite bureaucraticcorps has a high degree of esprit de corps, similar to theBritish Civil Service. During the recent period of economicgrowth, mainly in the Ministries of Financef and ofInternational Trade and .Industry, and in the EconomicPlanning Agency, technocrats, consisting primarily of eco­nomic specialists, have been gaining power, and in thispredominance of technocrats, Japanese bureaucracy can becompared with the French bureaucracy.

Thus, the capability of Japanese bureaucracy can beevaluated as rather high. The members of the elite bureau­cratic corps, consisting of those who passed the higher civilservice examination-whose number is stilllimited to 4000rso annually in this age of expansion of higher education with,1.5 million university students, are really elite both in termsof their initial caliber and the opportunities for training andaccumulation of administrative experience given to thernduring their careers. This elite bureaucratic corps of about10,000 is still prepared today to work twenty-four hours perday and seven days a week if necessary, because of itsprivileged positíon of good care and faster promotion and theprevailing ethos of diligence and self-sacrifice in the elite

Japan 131

There are, however, dysfunctions and vulnerability in theJapanese bureaucracy. The top level of the Japanese bureau­cratic elite corps and alumni from this group have been toofused with -the LDP. Furthermore, with the expansion ofhigher education, a system designed to recruit only 400 or soper year to the elite bureaucratic corps cannot maintain itselfforever. Actually, many university graduates are takingexaminations for middle civil service positions which havebeen intended for high school or junior college graduates.The point is that in such a situation it will become difficultto give special favorto those who passed higher civil serviceexaminations and to discriminate against other members ofthe bureaucracy who are now also university graduates. Inthe near future the notion and practice of the elitebureaucratic corps will be forced to give way to moreegalitarian, less privileged forms. Local governments havebeen doing this already. For instance, the Tokyo metropol­itan government has been recruiting several hundred universi­ty graduates on an equal basis. In addition it has been anestablished practice for Japanese ministries to recruit theirown personnel, both elite and non-elite, as the personnel oftheir own ministries only. The aim has been to build up theministry's own bureaucracy of specialists on matters overwhich that ministry presides and to build up strong solidarityin the elite bureaucratic corps within a particular ministry.This practice has brought with it the pattern of ministerialbureaucrats acting to promote the interests of their c1ientelesand ardently promoting interests and demands within theirjurisdictions even in dispute with the governing party, thusserving as guardians of interests which might be neglected bythe governing party. But, the cost paid for this is bureaucraticsectionalism -and there is no bureau to take care of overallpolicy. To be sure there are the Prime Minister's office andthe Cabinet Secretariat, which are supposed to perform thisfunction, but these bureaucrats come from various ministries,serve for a couple of years, and go back to their home

132 The Crisis of Democracy

ministries; therefore, they are likely to remain committed tothe particular interests of their home ministries.

(d) The economy. As is well known, Japanese economicgrowth during the two decades before the oil crisis of Octo­ber 1973 was amazing, continuously maintaining an annualgrowth rate over 10%. GNP and also per capita income dou­bled every five years. Even considering the rise of commodityprices, real wages still nearly doubled between 1960 and1972.6 Japan's GNP is larger than that of any West Europeancountry and its per capita income or wage is roughly equalwith, or even slightly more than, that of Britain or France,according to tlie statistics. With this growth of GNP and in­crease of per capita income and wages, government revenueand spending have expanded enormously. From 1965 to1973, for instance, the government budget grew from 3,658billion yen to 14, 284 billion yen, that is, over three times."In other words, so far, with the growth of the Japanese econ­omy, the government has acquired tremendous amounts ofgoods and services which it can dispose, and this has made itpossible for the Japanese government to distribute goods andservices in response to the increased demands of the popu­lace. Under these circumstances, government has been able toavoid serious priority problems.

Again, as is well known, since the successive revaluation ofthe yen, the oil crisis and the subsequent jump of oil prices,the picture has been changing rapidly. The growth rate forfiscal year 1973 (April 1973 to March 1974) dropped sharplyto 5.4 percent, and that for the 1974 fiscal year waseventually found to be minus (-1.8 percent). According tothe Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), theexpected growth rate for 1975 is 2 percent. A1thoughsomewhat slowed, the rise of consumer prices as of March1975 in comparison with the previous year was still 13percent. The government target is to lower the rise ofconsumer prices to a single digit by the end of 1975. In thiseconomic situation, the national government could .stillincrease its budget to 17,180 billion yen in the 1974 fiscal

Japan 133

year and 21,280 billion yen in fiscal year 1975, withoutcreating serious deficits and increasing the rate of inflation,but local governments now face serious deficitsin their

. budgets. It is expected that the national government too willface a tighter financial situation and priority problems inbudget-making for next fiscal year, beginning in April 1976.

As for the longer economic perspective, the governmentdefines the period from 1974 to 1976 as an adjustmentperiod from rapid economic growth to stable economicgrowth or a "less accelerated" economy, as it is called. After1976, the MITI is expecting.an annual economic growth rateof about 7 percent. If so, this moderate growth can bringwith it sorne leeway for priority problems but that leewaywill be far more restricted in comparison with previous yearsof more than 10 percent growth of the economy.

(e) Mass media. Development of rnass media in Japan isquite conspicuous. The total number of copies of newspapersissued daily is 56 million copies, which is second only to thatof the United States (63 million copies). The estimatednumber of television sets currently in use is 48 million, andthere are five nationwide television networks-one is thepublicly operated NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation)and the other four areprivately owned (NTV, TBS, Fuji, andNET). 8 Besides the press and TV, the plethora of magazinesis a characteristic of the Japanese mass media scene. Inparticular, the variety of weekly magazines with hugecirculations (about fifty different weekly magazines areselling eight million copies per month) is striking.

What is the relevance of the Japanese mass media to thegovernability of Japanese democracy? Under the postwardemocracy, there has been no governmental censorshipexcept during the occupation period, and all the majornewspapers and TV networks have been avowed guardians ofdemocracy. Their quality is not bad, especial1y the five majornewspapers with nationwide circulation (Asahi, Mainichi,Yo m iuri, Sankei, and Nihon Keizai) , which are proud of

134 The Crisis ofDemocracy

being quality newspapers with circulations of several millionand which compete with each other in terms of theirexcellence.- Thus we can say that the Japanese mass media as a whole

are a positive factor in the maintenance and operation ofJapanese democracy. However, the Japanese mass media haveseveral characteristics peculiar to Japan, which function as akind of constraint, within which Japanese democracy has tooperate and which might make Japanese democracyvulnerable under possible changed conditions.

First, as has often been pointed out, Japanese newspapersare highly standardized, in the sense that they tend to refrainfrom presentingpartisan opinion, and allocate their space in aquite similar way to coverage of 'everything from on-the­street human interest stories to highbrow academic articles.

Second, alongside their nonpartisanship, anotherestablished characteristic of Japanese newspapers is what iscalled their "opposition spirit," which means critical of thegovernment, but within the limits of nonpartisanship. Theresult is that nonpartisan intel1ectual radicalism is treatedrather favorably in the newspapers and a tone of moralsensationalism colors the reports and articles in newspapers.

In the case of broadcasting, NHK clings more strictly tothe principIe of nonpartisanship and to a less critical spiritthan the newspapers. Other TV networks are more and moretied to particular major newspapers and show similarcharacteristics to these newspapers in their reporting.However, sensationalism is more obvious in several weeklymagazines, such as Shukan-Post, Shukan-Gendai and, al­though in a rather conservative tone, Shukan-Shincho , eachof which sel1s over 500,000 copies every week.

Those characteristics of Japanese mass media can haveboth positive and negative functions for the govemability ofJapanese democracy. The newspapers' and NHK's nonparti­sanship is good in preventing manipulation by the powerfulmass media. Sensationalism has helped to arouse the atten-

Jopan 135

tion of the public to poli tic s from issue to issue as they arise.Negative functions, however, also follow from these charac­teristics. Nonpartisanship of the mass media can bring with itthe loss of the function of stimulating polítical discussion,and the critical spirit and moral sensationalism can obstructnecessary mobilization of support by the government andencourage polítical distrust of the government.

(f) Education. Expansion of higher education in Japan hasbeen amazing during the past decade. The percentage ofthose enrolling in universities and colleges among the eligibleage group has doubled' durrng the decade and reached 30percent in 1974. Furthermore, it is expected that his trendwill continue and that enrollment will reach 40 percent by1980. From an educational standpoint, the Japanese uni­versity system has a number of problems to be solved,? butonly the polítical relevance of this expansion of highereducation will be considered here.

So far, university expansion has had relatively little directimpact on politics. Of course, there has been sporadic campusunrest, emergence of a variety of radical groups recruitedfrom university students, and participation of a number ofstudents in antipollution movements. Also, the Japan Com­munist Party has maintained its influence on student move­ments through its Democaratic Youth League, and theLeague's members are quite active in assisting JCP's electioncampaigns. However, a majority of the 1.5 million Japaneseuniversity studénts and the couple millions of recent grad­uates have been relatively calm political1y. One of the rea­sons for this calm has been the favorable situation of thejob market for rapidly expanding numbers of universitygraduates. The decade has witnessed an enormous expansionof tertiary industries and of professional, technical, andclerical jobs, which have absorbed a couple million universirygraduates. The shortage of young blue-collar workers resultedin the improvement of the wages of not only youngblue-collar workers but also of young white-collar workers. In

136 The Crisis ofDemocracy

spite of an ongoing change of values in the youngergeneration, organizational disciplines regulating the newrecruits in business or bureaucracy have persisted and havebeen successful in rnaking them adapt to organizationalnorms. Moreover, so far the expansion of higher educationhas coincided with the expansion of local governmentalactivities and personnel. The percentage of university gradu­ates among newly recruited civil servants on the localgovernment level has increased rapidly, which has certainlycontributed to upgrading the quality of the local civilservice.

Another aspect of higher education has been the increaseof social science specialists in the universities, sorne of whomhave begun to keep closer contact with governmentalpolicy-making than previous Japanese university professors.In the fields of econometrics, social engineering, and regionalplanning a number of specialists are giving more advice andkeeping close contact with the government. On the otherhand, expansion of higher education has also brought with itan increasing number of intel1ectual oppositíonists. In Japan'scase, however, intel1ectual opposition has a long tradition.What is new is the emergence of policy-oriented fields ofsocial science and policy-oriented intellectuals prepared togive advice to government.

The crucial question, however, is whether the Japaneseeconomy can continue to offer suitable jobs to universitygraduates who constitute over 30 percent or even 40 percentof the corresponding age group. And another crucial questionis the cost and quality of higher education. Government hasbeen increasing the appropriation of public funds to assistprívate universities. In the expected tight budgetary situation,whether government can and should expand such assistance isquestionable.

(g) Labor unions. In postwar Japanese dernocracy, laborunions have established their recognized position firrnly.

Jopan 137

Also, Japanese labor unions with their fonn of "enterpriseunion"-meaning that unions have been organizedcorresponding to the scope of each company, embracing allemployees in that company-have had no essential objectionto the introduction of technological innovations so long asthe company has guaranteed favorable treatment and offeredretraining to those who were transferred to new jobs in thecompany, unlike British unions based on a particular job orcraft. In spite of their basic form of "enterprise union,"Japanese labor unions have succeeded in building upfederations of unions within the same kind of industries, andeventually nationaL federations of labor unions. (Sohyo andDomei are two big national federations of labor unions whichhave been exercising fairly strong influence through theirjointly scheduled plan of wage-raise demands [the so-called"spring struggle"] and electoral campaigning in support ofthe opposition parties. Sohyo supports the Socialists andDomei supports the Democratic Socialists.)

Present-day democracy canno; exist without the recog­nition of, and support from, labor unions. Actually, theJapanese labor unions, especially the two big nationalfederations, have been the avowed guardians of postwardemocracy, a1though in different senses and directions. Sohyohas been in close cooperation with the Socialists, not corn­pletely unfavorable to the Communists, and definitely againstthe LDI? Domei has been supporting more moderate Derno­cratic Socialists. While definitely against the Cornmunists, ithas been prepared to cooperate with the LDP and LDPgovernment upon certain conditions.

The roles to be played by labor unions in a democracy,however, involve a number of delicate situations. In Japan'scase, even under the LDP government which has had no laborunion to support it, governrnent cannot ignore labor uniortsin labor administration and has had representatives of Soh­yo and Domei on a number of Deliberation Councils on

138 The Crisis of Democracy

labor administration and also on Labor RelationsCommittees. But essentially, the LDP has been on the side ofbusiness and more concerned with the interests of itssupporters-Tarrners, smalland mediurn-size manufacturers,.and all other miscelIaneous people organized into their ownkoenkai. One might argue that it has been rather a goodbalance since organized labor has had powerful say even ifit has not been respected by the LDP. The opposite argu­ment is that organized labor should have been respectedmore in order to counterbalance the influence of big businesson LDP governments. Sorne people argue that organizedlabor has been representing not only the interests of its mem­bers buf also allthose who have been unfavorably treatedunder LDP governments. The third view, which has beenemerging recently, does not trust either LDP governments orlabor unions. It insists that since labor unions represent theinterests of only a fraction of the total population (onlyabout 30 percent of the employed are organized into laborunions) and since the two national federations represent aneven smaller fraction (Sohyo, with its 4 million membership.,organizes 10 percent; and Domei, with its 2.5 million rnem­bership, 7 percent of the total employed), the interests ofordinary citizens should be respected more, that is, emergingconsumers' movernents and various citizens' movementsshould be respected more than, or at least alongside, organ­ized labor in order to increase the responsiveness and equityof Japanese democracy.

II. CHANGING VALUES, NEW GENERATIONSAND THEIR IMPACT ON THE GOVERNABILITY

OF JAPANESE DEMOCRACY

Since values determine the way people think and act, it isimportant to see how changing values, which are mostconspicuously observable in the younger generation and areexpected to accumulate in years to come, will affect the

Japan 139

governability of Japanese democracy.

1. Politic al Beliefs

Ca) The 1947 Constitution as a package as the key political. belief.. AH .the survey data collected in recent years reinforcethe point that there is no sign of weakening of the supportfor the 1947 Constitution as a whole. On the contrary,younger and more-educated people tend to support morestrongly the 1947 Constitution as a whole, including itsArticle 9 forbidding Japan to wage a war and to have armedforces for that purpose."? Therefore, the 1947 Constitutionhas become a given.

One argument against theConstitution is that the Japanese"warlike" national character will not change so easily;therefore, if international situations slightly change, theJapanese will easily change their minds and discard the 1947Constitution, especialIy its Article 9. But this kind ofargurnent, which is often found among overseas Chinesescholars, is highly improbable. Another argument stressesthat if sorne grave change should occur in intemationalrelations, in other words if sorne real threat of aggression toJapan by sorne foreign powers should occur, the Japanese"mood" would change rapidly to support rearmament andconsequent1y a revision of the 1947 Constitution. Thepossibility certainly exists, but this argument seems to bebased on assumptions of 10w probability.

At the same time, because of the recent activities of theJapanese Red Army abroad, there are continued possibilitiesthat minority radicals will resort to individual or small groupterrorism both abroad and at home. These incidents are notthe expression of general bellicosity of the Japanese people,but the expression of New Len minority radicals, also widelyfound in North America and West European countries, and ofJapanese ignorance of the Arabs and the lack of a connectionbetween Japanese radicalism and Jewish intellectuals, such asis found in North America or Western Europe.

140 The Crisis 01Democracy

It is undeniable that the radical minorities on the far leftwill continue to commit terrorism abroad in supporting theArabs (or, precisely, being utilized by the Arabs) and withinJapan by bombing the offices of suchcompanies as theMitsubishi Heavy Industries Company or the Mitsui Bussan

I

Company. The ultrarightists, too, will be able to recruit asmall number of new members constantly from the youthboth in and outside universities, and they might succeed inpolitical terrorism in the future too, such as the assassinationof the Socialísts' Chairman Inejiro Asanuma, which occurredin 1960. As a whole, however, the Japanese youngergenerations have the polítical belíefs congruent with, anddefinitely supporting, the 1947 Constitution.

(b)Emergence 01 "participation" and "protest" mo­tivations and movements. An ongoing change of políticalbelíefs is occurring, which is not incompatible with thebeliefs in the 1947 Constitution, but is not identical with it,and which will exercise a far-reaching influence on the futureof Japanese democracy. It is a change from submissiveness toauthority to active protest and demands for participation,that is, from "subject" political culture to "participatory"polítical culture. Thére are excellent data which show thischange. (Table 1).

Two comments are specíally warranted on this tableo Whenthe first survey was conducted in 1953, a majority of theJapanese over twenty years old were prepared to leave thingsto competent politicians, if such were available. In otherwords, at that time, the rnajority of the masses were preparedto obey a competent politician; therefore, the governabilityproblem was simply a problem of the politicians-that is,whether such competent politicians were available or notoDuring the period of economic growth, people have becomemore self-assertive and have come to dislike leaving thingseven to competent politicians. Then, the governabilityproblem becomes not only. the problem of the competence ofthe governing, but the problem of both the governing and the

Japan

Table 1

Responses to the question: "In order to improve theJapanese nation, do youagree or disagree to the statementthat, if a competent politician is available, it is better to

.leave things to him instead of discussing them amongordinary citizens?"

141

Agree Case by Disagree Others, Totalcase DK,NA

1953 43 - 9 38 10 100% (n=2,254)1958 35 10 44 11 100% (n=2,369)1963 29 12 47 12 100% (n=2,698)1968 30 10 51 9 100%(n=3,033)1973 23 15 51 11 100% (n=3,055)

Source: Institute of Mathematícal Statistics, Mínistry of Education, AStudy of the Japanese National Character-The Fifth Nation-wideSurvey-1973.

governed.Other transnational data show the existenee of the

phenomena of inereasing demands for participation in Japansimilar to those in West European and North Americancountries. Respondents in a poll were asked to ehoose twomostimportant values from "law and order," "encourage­ment of more participation in vital politieal decisions,""restraint of the rise of prices," and "freedom of speeeh,"values whieh were used in Professor Ronald Inglehart's sixWest European surveys.I! Japanese respondents reaeted inthe following way. Aeeording to the marginal distribution,"price restraint" was the first choice (70.4 pereent), and theothers followed with "law and order" (45.3 pereent), "par­ticípation" (35.1 pereent), and "freedorn of speeeh" (13.8pereent). The age and edueational differenees, however,

142 The Crisis ofDemocracy

were conspicuous. Among younger people in their twentiesand those with university education, the choice of "partici­pation" surpassed that of "law and order" and gained thesecond ranking after "price restraint." In combinationsof

. tWQ valúes, the combination oí "participation and freespeech," which Professor Inglehart assumed to be the puretype of "postindustrial value," was less popular in Japan thanin West European countries. Japanese responses, however,were more concentrated in the intermediary type of "pricesand participation." (Tables 2 and 3.) And again, the youngerand the more-educated clearly show their preference for thevalue of participation. (Among those in their twenties, about15 percentpréfér the combination of "participation and freespeech," and, if coupled with "participation and prices,"they are the top choice.)

The heightening of participatory motivation, however, isoften related to increasing distrust of institutionalizedchannels of participation-that is, elections and politicalparties. Thus, the other side of the coin is the decline ofpolitical parties and rise of various voluntary citizens' andresidents' movements which dislike and refuse to follow the1eadership of any political party and prefer protests insteadof institutionalized participation. Respondents in a recentnationwide survey'? were asked the question "which wouldyou prefer about the future of Japanese party politics-one,to back up the political party which can be relied on; two, topromote citizens' or residents' movements as they becomenecessary; three, 1 have nothing to do with political parties orpolitics at all?" The responses divided as follows: 57.0percent chose the first response, 17.3 percent the second, and5.3 percent the third. The distribution is not so bad from theviewpoint of political parties. Again, however, the younger(among those in their twenties, 22.4 percent prefer citizens'movements to parties and 6.5 percent are totally againstpolitics) and the more-educated (23.1 percent of the univer­sity graduates prefer citizens' movements rather than political

Table 2Japanese Choice ofCombination ofTwo Values

(percentage choosing each pair)

Order Prices FreeOrder Order and Prices and Speech and Noneand and Free Partici- and Free Partici- Partici- DKPrices Speech pation Speech pation pation Others' NA Total

¡

32.6 3.0 7.2 6.8 21.5 3.6 15.9· 9.3 100%(n=2,468)

Table 3"Pure" Value Pairs by Nations

(percentage choosing each pair within given national sample)

Pair Chosen: Italy France Germany BritainAcquisitive 35 38 43 36Postbourgeois 13 11 10 8

Japan384

Source for data on Italy, France, Germany, and Britain: RonaldInglehart, "The Silent Revolution in Europe: Intergenerational Changein Postindustrial Societies," American Politieal Scienee Review, Vol.65, No. 4 (December 1971), p 995.

144 The Crisis 01Democracy

parties) have less trust in institutional channels of partici­pation and are turning more to uninstitutional, protest-orien­ted movements.

Protest-oriented movementshave been spreading beyond. the- younger and more-educated people and beyond urbanand industrial areas to older, less-educated people and tolocal, agricultural, and fishery areas. The Mutsu, the firstJapanese nuclear-powered test ship, drifted for fifty-fourdays because of fierce protest actions of the fishermen of thebay in which the base for that ship was located. There werecomplicated reasons for this protesto Fear of nuclearaccidents and consequent possible contamination wascertainly one of thereasons. However, the antipathy of thefishermen, living in the "periphery" and ill-treated by the"center" for a long time, against the government wasreported to be another reason. The point of the driftingincident of the Mutsu was that, whatever the reasons for theprotest were, even the fishermen in remote local areas wereprepared to organize protest movements when they felt thegovernrnent was doing them an injustice. Also, farmers are nolonger silent and obedient to the government whenever theyfeel they are treated unjustly.

If "governability" involves the capacity of the governmentto impose policies or plans unilaterally which will affect theliving of the citizens concerned, certainly such govemabilityin. Japan has decreased. The Japanese government, however,because of its long tradition of Obrigkeit-staat, often violatesthe usual standard of democracy in its behavior vis-a-viscitizens. In order to talk about the govemability ofdemocracy in the Japanese case, sometimes democracyshould stilI be emphasized at the cost of governability.Moreover, the cost can be partly covered by learning andefforts on the side of bureaucrats to be more careful andhumane in doing their business. Fortunately, Japanesebureaucrats-both national and local-nowadays have such alearning capacity. Another factor which has worked so far in

Japan 145

recent years is the financia1 ability of government to affordadditiona1 spending in order to appease the protestmovements by compensating the alleged damage or promisingcostly changes of plans. It is certainly an easy solution,avoiding the priority problem, which will become difficult inthe approaching tighter governmenta1 budget situation.

2. Social and Economic Values

In a society such as Japan after World War 11, whereindoctrination from aboye with the threat of punishment wasnonexistent, where any kind of religious inhibitions afterthe separation of the Shinto from the state were virtuallynonexistent, and whére social changes, such as urbanization,rise of income, and change of consumption styles due to therapid economic changes, were so rapid, it would be natural toexpect that every aspect of social relationships and va1uesunderlying them wou1d change considerably. Again, the mostilluminating data showing the kinds of changes of socialrelations and their underlying values are found in the surveysconducted by the Institute of Statistica1 Mathematics,Ministry of Education every five years since 1953. Onequestion notes that "there are all sorts of attitudes towardlife. Of those Usted here (the list is shown), which one wou1dyou say comes closest to your feeling?" The percentages ofthose who picked "don't think about money or fame, justlive alife that suits your own tastes," have increased from 21percent in 1953 to 27 percent in 1958, 30 percent in 1963,32 percent in 1968, and 39 percent in 1973 by nationalaverage.!" People have come to prefer less strenuous, morerelaxed ways of life. The change has been most conspicuousamong the younger generation.

What are the effects of such value changes on Japaneseworking behavior? Other survey data'" show that theyounger workers have stronger demands for shorter workinghours, more holidays, and longer vacations, as well as moreopportunity for self-actualization on the jobo (Table 4).

Table 4

Demands Raised by Male Workers (M.A.)(in percentages)

Age -19 20-24 25·29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45·54 55-64 65-Item

Shorter WorkingHours 49.0 42.5 37.1 34.6 32.3 29.6 24.5 28.8 30.4

More Suitable Job 19.9 24.4 23.7 17.4 17.3 14.5 14.4 14.9 10.4

Lifelong Chancefor Improvement 12.7 16.4 15.6 15.0 11.9 10.3 9.9 6.3 7.2

Help for House-Property Building 12.2 17.5 23.7 27.9 27.5 26.4 22.7 20.2 15.2

Wage Increase 63.8 63.1 65.7 66.9 67.8 65.9 60.8 51.7 42.4

Extension of. Retirement Age 3.1 3.0 4.5 7.4 11.3 18.0 32.8 30.0 27.2

Welfare Measures 14.0 15.3 12.0 12.5 10.9 0.9 9.4 1K1 33.6

Prevention ofWork Accidents 13.1 8.9 8.0 8.4 10.6 13.4 14.7 14.2 12.8

Japan 147

However, the same table tells us about a number of otherfeatures of Japanese workers' demands. (l) Even among theyoung workers wage raises is still the most outstandingdemando Money is not the goal oflife as the survey datashow; however, wage increases are the gravest concern forworkers in all ages. (2) Middle-aged people, especially thosewith growing families, have an increased desire to own ahouse, particularly on their own land, which will serve assecurity in an age of continued inflation. (3) Senior workersare naturally more concemed about their retirement, healthcare, and other welfare measures.

In spite of th.e_cllal)gj_ng values of the workers, theJapanese organizations-both governmental organizations andprivate enterprises-have coped skillfully so far in maintaininga high level of motivation for work among their employees,as indicated by a very low rate of absence (2.12 percent in asurvey of February 1973 15

) . The reasons for this success are:(1) The workforce still contains a large proportion of oldergenerations who are committed to older values which layemphasis on dedication to hard work and loyalty to theorganizations. It is often pointed out that the middle-aged,middle-management people in particular have a generationalfeature of this kind. (2) Japanese big organizations with theirpaternalistic tradition have the capacity and resources toabsorb a variety of demands of the workers of variousgenerations including the youngest: better medical care,housing loans with lower interest, better recreationalfacilities, and of course, so far, large annual increases inwages. Moreover, they are now introducing a five-day workweek, longer vacations, and an extension of the retirementage from fifty-five to sixty-on these points, they are in aposition to make concessions to workers' demands. (3) TheJapanese younger generation is, in comparison with theprevious, older generation, less work-oriented, lessorganization-oriented, and more self-assertive. In comparisonwith West European or American youth, however, the

148 The CrisisofDemocracy

present Japanese youth still retains sorne virtues favorable tothe functioning of organizations if the Japanese organizationsare clever enough to make an improvement in theiroperations. For instance, according to national character

. survey-s, the preference of the Japanese for department chiefswho are paternalistic over those who are rationally specificremains unchanged.I" Many of them want "self-actualizationon the job." According to an eleven-eountry study ofyouthconducted by the Japanese government, the percentages ofJapanese youth who have chosen "a job worth doing" as themost precious thing in their lives are the highest among thecountries surveyed. In spite of signs of decline and lessdiffuse corrimitmentfo the organizations among Japaneseyouth, comparatively speaking, the Japanese youth arestill seeking more from the organizations, and, when or­ganizations are flexible enough to introduce an improve­ment to take care of more self-assertive youth, they canmaintain a fairly high level of work motivation amongthe youth, keeping the basic lines of Japanese organizationssuch as life employment, enterprise union, diffuse socialrelationships within the organizations, and so on. Forexample, so far there has never even been serious discussionof abolishing the belt conveyor system in assembly lines inJapanese factories.

AH the labor and business specialists seem to agree!? thatthe Japanese organizational structures with life employment,enterprise unions, relatively strong commitment to theorganizations, and higher motivation to work will survive atleast until 1980, as far as the internal factors within them areconcerned. Conversely, this means that in the first part of the1980s Japan will reach the critical point where theaccumulated changes of work ethics, attitudes toward life,and those toward company and union will necessitatecorresponding changes in the hitherto established institutionsand practices in labor relations. Therefore, it will be wiser forJapanese society to prepare for that period and preempt

Jopan

sorne of the anticipated refonns in advance.

149

111. CONSEQUENCES FOR AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVESON THE GOVERNABILITY OF

JAPANESE DEMOCRACY

l. Time Lag

Comparing the three regions, Japanese democracy seems tobe suffering less from various changes which have already hadthreatening effects on democracies in the other two regions.Japan seerns to be enjoying the time lag between causesalready occurred and the consequences to fol1ow, partlydue to the remaíníng.reservoir of traditional values.P andpartly due to the structure of its econorny.

2. Decline of Leadership and Delay of Decísions

Sorne of the consequences of these changes have, however,already emerged to weaken the leadership capacity ofJapanese democracy, and the world situation has beenchangíng in the direction of dernanding more positive actionof Japan, which will be generated only by a higher level ofleadership capacity.

As is well known, the LDP is facing the possibility oflosing its majority position in the Diet. The oppositionparties are split, that is, there is no cpposition party whichcan take the responsibility of governing by itself. Of course, amultip arty system and coalition formation are notintrinsically dysfunctional to the operation of democracy.Moreover, the LDP as the majority governing party for twen­ty years generated a number of dysfunctions such as a senseof alienation on the part of the supporters of oppositionparties, excessive fusion of the LDP with the bureaucracy andbig business, the ethical problem of political funds, andsporadic attempts to revive sorne part of prewar institutions,thereby causing unnecessary fríction.!" On the other hand,since coalitíon fonnation is quite a new experience to Japan-

150 The Crisis 01Democracy

ese politics on the national level, sorne confusion and delayof decision would be unavoidable. Especially in foreignpolicy decision-rnaking, any coalition-even the rnost moder­ate one of the LDP and the small Democratic Socialists-willbring with it a weakening of the Japan-U.S. alliance to sornedegree and probably recourse to a less positive role in inter­national affairs, from the U.S. viewpoint. In other words,coalition formation can bring a more drifting or flexibleforeign policy than that under the LDP's single rule. 20

Domestically also, a multiparty system and coalitionfonnation are good for interest articulation but not neces­sarily good for interest aggregation. Even under the LDP'ssingle rule, pressure groups have been rampant in gettingshares in the governrnent budget. Any coalition will be ex­posed to more diverse pressures in budget-rnaking and policyfonnation.

3. Vagaries of Urban, Educated Nonpartisans

A decade ago, the Socialists seemed to have a brightfuture, replacing the LDP and taking the position ofgoveming party at sorne time. The Socialists were thengetting the support of the more-educated in the urbanareas." Today, however, in the urban areas, not only theLDP, but also the Socialists are declining. The Komei, theCommunists and, a1though in less degree, the DemocraticSocialists are getting a larger share of the votes than before.But these parties are also uncertain about their futurebecause what exists in big cities is a vast number of floatingvoters with a nonpartisan orientation, whose educationallevel is high. It seems that no single party will be able to,organize this section of the voters as the solid basis ofsupport for it. Fortunately, the possibility is quite slim ornonexistent that these people will come to support theextreme rightists or extreme leftists even in the case of asudden international or domestic crisis. But they arevagarious in voting, switching their votes from one party to

Jopan 151

another, and they like to vote for a popular nonpartisancandidate if such a candidate can be found. Successfulcandidates in gubernatorial elections or mayoral elections inurban areas are those who can appeal to this kind of voter inaddition to gaining the support of more than one party. Theincreasing importance of urban, educated nonpartisans has apositive function in making politicians and polítical partiesmore responsive to the demands of the populace outside theirregular supporters. However, by encouraging excessivepopulistic responsiveness by the politicians and políticalparties, this can also lower their capacity for integration.

4. The Place oftheCornmunísts in the Multiparty System

The Japan Communist party (JCP) has been successful inrecent elections in increasing its votes and seats at both thenationa1 and local Ievel. To take the case 'of the House of.Representatives, the JCP's votes have increased frorn 2.2million votes (4.76 percent ofthe total votes cast) in 1967 to3.2 million votes (6.81 percent) in 1969, and to 5.5 millionvotes (10.49 percent) in 1972. EspecialIy in metropolitanareas, the JCP is now getting about 20 percent of the totalvote. And the JCP has more than 300,000 members (virtuallythe largest solid party membership in Japan) and itsdaily party newspaper has more than a million circulation. Anumber of prefectural governors and big city mayors wereelected with the joint support of the JCP together with theSocialísts, and, in sorne cases, the Komei party.

Does the JCP present any possible threat to thegovemability of Japanese democracy in near future? Most ofthe observations seem to support the negative, that is,optimistic answer, for the following reasons. First, the JCPseems to be approaching its ceiling in terms of share of thevotes. As a nationwide average 15 percent would be theceiling at least for the 19708, with 30 pereent in metropolitan'areas where the JCP is maintaining its strongholds. Second, amajor factor which contributed to the increase of support for

152 The Crisis of Democracy

the JCP is its soft and flexible domestie policies andnationalistic foreign policies independent from the Soviet andChinese Communist parties. Domestically, the JCP with anaverage of 15 pereent of the votes, or 30 percent in big cities,adopting soft lines would do no harm at a11 to Japanesedemocracy. Many domestic issues would be negotiable withthis kind of JCP. In the foreign poliey area, an independentand nationalistie JCP would funetion as a factor to enhanceJapan's isolation, not only from the United States but alsofrom China and other Asian countries. In this respect, it canbe said that the JCP would work dysfunctionally.

-S. -What-will Happen in the 1980s?

Japanese democracy is not in a serious crisis at the presentmoment. However, the time lag mentioned above means thatJapanese democracy will face the consequences of socialcnanges in a future, possibly tighter situation. In comparisonwith the United States, where the "democratic surge" ean beregarded as already having passed the peak, in Japan there isno sign of decline in the increasing tide of popular demands.On the other hand, financial resources of the government areshowing signs of stagnation. The reservoir of traditionalvalues of obedience, groupism, frugality, etc., which are stillworking to counterbalance the rising tide of popular demandsand protest, rnight be exhausted at sorne fu tu re time. Thus,the emergence of the time-Iagged consequenees and theexhaustion of the "traditional" reservoir will both come inthe early 1980s, as many people argue.

What will become of Japanese democracy after 1980?According to a survey on national goals.P a majority of theJapanese leaders surveyed believe that Japan will continue tobe committed to democratic principIes and to a "uniquelyJapanese democracy" in the future. But what this would beand how it can be built are still unclear.

Japan

NOTES

153

1. Joji Watanuki, "Conternporary Japanese Perceptions ofInternational Society," Sophia University,_lnstitute of InternationalRelations Research Paper Series A-B, 1973.

2. Joji Watanuki, "Formation and Survival of Japanese Democracyafter the Second World War," a paper presented to the VIII WorldCongress of Sociology, Toronto, Canada, August 1974.

3. As for koenkai, see also Joji Watanuki, "Japanese Polítics inFlux," in James William Morley (ed.), Prologue to the Future-TheUnited States and Japan in the Postindustnal Age (Lexington: D. C.Heath, 1974), pp. 77-79.

4. According to_th~LJepºrJ on the revenue of polítical fundscompiled by Ministry of Autonomy for the first half of 1974, out of aregistered total of 51.6 billíon yen ($172 million) in polítical funds, theLDP itself and LDP factions together got 40 billion yen. See TheYomiuri Shimbun, December 25, 1974. Moreover, it is widely belíevedthat, if we take "hidden money" into consideration, the LDP isspending more. For instance, it was pointed out that the actual sum ofmoney the LDP spent in 1972 was nearly 100 billion yen, although theofficial record for that year was 26 billion yen. SeeBungei Shunju,September 1974.

5. In a survey on Bureay and Section Chiefs in the Japanesenational bureaucracy, 37 percent answered that they are independentwhen asked about their party preference. EspecialIy in the Ministry ofInternational Trade and Industry and the Economic Planning Agency,the majority chose the position of independent. This is proof of thehigh polítical neutrality of technocrats. Nikkei Business Henshubu,Nippon no Kigyo Kankyo (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shimbun, 1974), pp.182-83.

6. Ibid., p. 72.7. These figures include the general account but exclude special

accounts and governmental investment; they inelude the starting budgetbut do not count any additional budget; and they are nominal values.

8. These figures are cited from Nobutaka Shikauch, "Nihon noMasukomi no Genjo to Fuji-Sankei-Group no Chosen," Seiron ,November, 1974. Also, I am indebted to this article in describing the

154 The Crisis o[Democracy

characteristics of Japanese mass media.9. For instance, see "Review of National Policies for Educatíon,"

Education Committee, OECD, November, 1970.10. For instance, see Joji Watanuki, "Contemporary Japanese

Perceptions of International Socíety.t'op. cit., table-a in appendix.11.-Japanesedata were gathered by Komei Senkyo Renmei in a

nationwide survey conducted in December 1972. European data werebased on a survey conducted by Professor Inglehart. See RonaldInglehart, ''The Sílent Revolution in Europe: Intergenerational Changein Postindustrial Societies," American Polttical Science Review, vol. 65,no.4 (December 1971), pp. 991-1017.

12. Komei Senkyo-Renmei, Sangiin Tsujosenkyo no Jittai, 1974.13. Institute of Statistical Mathematics, A Study o[ the Japanese

National Charaetet--The Fiftñ Nationwide Survey , Research ReportGeneral Series No. 38, 1974, p. 25.

14. From a survey conducted by the Ministry of Labor in 1971.Cited from Shokuken, 1974, Spring, p. 3.

15. From the survey on the illness and absence of workers,conducted by the Ministry of Labor, February 1973. Moreover,vacations are counted as absence.

16. Institute ofMathematical Statistics, op. cít., p. 55.17. Sadayoshi Okubo, Rodo no Miraiyosoku [Prediction of Future

Labor] (Tokyo: Teikoku Chihogyosei Gakkai, 1972).18. Since the oil crisis, many observers argue that we have to return

to traditional values. For instance, ex-Vice Minister of MITI, EimeiYamashita, answered a question by Bernard Krisher, Newsweek'sTokyo bureau chief, as follows: Question: What about the impact ofJapan's economic crunch on traditional values?" Answer: "1 see it as1eading to a return to traditional values rather than a departure fromthem. During the past decade, Japanese youth abandoned all ideas ofsaving. They spent lavishly on c1othes, electronics, and cars. But sincethe oil crisis, we have returned to more basic Japanese concepts. 1don'tthink we will revert entirely to the mentality of Tokugawa feudalism,but we will be able to strike a happy balance." Newsweek, November18, 1974, p. 15.

19. For instance, even today, under the Miki Cabinet, some LDPmembers are tenaciously trying to make the Yasukuni shrine-a Shintoshrine dedicated to those who died in battle since Meiji-a national

Japan 155

institution, despite fierce protest from not on1y opposition parties butalso Christians.

20. Whether Japanese toreign poJicy will be labeled "drifting" or"flexible" depends on whether we can establish our own principles ofdiplomacy under a multiparty system or nota -

21. Cf. Joji Watanuki, "Patterns of Politics in Present-day Japan," S.M. Lipset and Stein Rokkan, eds., Party Systems and Voter Alignments(New York: Tite Free Press, 1967).

22. Yasumasa Tanaka, "Toward a Multi-Level, Multí-Stage Model ofModernization: A Case Study of Japanese Opinion Leaders on thePresent and Future National Goals," Gakushuin Review o[ Law andPolitics, 9,1974, p. 27.

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

I. THE CHANGING CONTEXTOF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT

If ever there was a democratic success story, it was writtenby the Trilateral societies during the quarter-centuryfollowing World War 11. The components of that successincluded: generally positive and broadgauged politicalleadership within individual countries and by the UnitedStates for the community of democratic nations; sustainedand, for sorne countries, spectacular economic growth;widespread social and economic amelioration, involving alessening of class conflict and the assimilation of substantialportions of the population to middle-class values, attitudes,and consumption pattems; and successful resistance, on acollective and individual basis, to the challenges posedextemally by Soviet military might and intemally bycommunist party strength. During these years democraticinstitutions, mostly of a parliamentary nature, demonstratedtheir viability .in all the Trilateral societies; liberal,conservative, social democratic, and christian democraticparties competed with each other in regular elections andshared the responsibilities of government and theopportunities for opposition; individual citizens and

157

158 The Crisis ofDemocracy

organized groups participated more actively in the politicsof their societies than they had previously; the rights of thecitizen against the state became more finnly guaranteed andprotected; and new institutionsfor international collaborationamong democratic societies emerged in Europe for economicand política! purposes, between North America and Europe for'military purposes, and among Europe, North America, andJapan for economic purposes.

This happy congruence of circumstances for democracy.has come to an end. The challenges which democraticgovernments now face are the products of these pastsuccesses as well as of the changes in past trends. Theincorporationof substantial elements of the population intothe middle c1asses has escalated thejr expectations andaspirations, thereby causing a more intense reactíon if theseare not met in reality. Broadened political participation hasincreased the demands on government. Widespread materialwel1-being has caused a substantial portion of the population,particularly among the young and the "intellectuaI"professional c1asses, to adopt new life-styles and newsocial-political values. Intemationally, confrontation hasgiven way to - détente, with a resultant relaxation - oíconstraints within societies and of the impetus to collaborateamong societies. There has been a substantial relative declinein American military and economic power, and a majorabsolute decline in American willingness to assume theburdens of leadership. And most recently, the temporaryslowdown in economic growth has threatened theexpectations created by previous growth, while still leavingexistent the "postbourgeois" values which it engenderedamong the youth and intellectuals.

JI. CONSENSUS WITHOUT PURPOSE:THE RISE OF ANOMIC DEMOCRACY

Dissatisfaction with and lack of confidence in the

Conclusion 159

functioning of the institutions of dernocratic governrnenthave thus now becorne widespread in Trilateral countries. Yetwith a11 this dissatisfaction, no significant support has yetdeveloped for any altemative irnage of how to organize thepolitics of a highly industrialized society. Before World WarII both .right-wing and left-wing rnovernents set forthclear-cut polítical alternatives to the "decadent" institutionsof "bourgeois" parliarnentary dernocracy. Today thoseinstitutions are accepted even if they are not praised. Theactive proponents of a different vision of the political orderare, by and large, lírnited to small bands of radical studentsand intellectuals whose capacity to attract attention throughpropaganda and terrorism -"Ís heavily outweighed by theirincapacity to attract support frorn any significant socialgroups. In Japan, the 1947 "occupation" Constitution is nowaccepted as the way in which Japanese polítics will beorganized for the foreseeable future. In Europe, even theFrench and Italian cornrnunist parties have adaptedthernselves to the dernocratic garne and at least assert that ifadrnitted to power they will continue to play according tothe rules of that game. No significant social or political groupin a Trilateral society seriously proposes to replace existingdernocratic institutions with a nationalist autocracy, thecorporate state, or even the dictatorship of the proletariat.The lack of confidence in dernocratic institutions is clearlyexceeded by the lack of enthusiasrn for any altemative set ofinsti tu tions.

What is in short supply in dernocratic societies today isthus not consensus on the rules of the garne but a sense ofpurpose as to what one should achieve by playing the game.In the past, people have found their purposes in religion, innationalísm, and in ideology. But neither church, nor state,nor class now cornrnands people's loyalties. In sorne rneasure,dernocracy itself was inspired by and its institutions shapedby rnanifestations of each of these forces and cornrnitrnents.Protestantisrn sanctified the individual conscience; nation-

160 The Crisis al Democracy

alisrn postulated the equality of citizens; and liberalisrnprovided the rationale for lírnited government based onconsent. But now all three gods have failed. We havewitnessed the dissipation of religíon, the withering away ofnationalisrn, the decline-if not the end-of class-based ide­ology.

In a nondernocratic polítical systern, the top leadershipcan select a single purpose or closely related set of goals and,in sorne measure, induce or coerce polítical and social forcesto shape their behavior in terms of the priorities dictatedby these goals. Third World dictatorships can direct theirsocieties towards the "overriding" goal of national de­velopment; comrnúníst states can mobilize their populacefor the task of "building socialism." In a democracy,however, purpose cannot be imposed from on high by fíat;nor does it spring to life from the verbiage .of partyplatfonns, state of the union messages, or speeches from thethrone. It must, instead, be the produet of the collectiveperception by the significant groups in society of a majorchallenge to their well-being and the perception by them thatthis challenge threatens them all about equally. Hence, inwartime or periods of economic catastrophe, common pur­poses are easily defíned. During World War 11 and then thecold war, there was a general acceptance in the United Statesof the overriding priority of national security as a goal. InEurope and Japan, after World War 11, econornic reconstruc­tion and development were supported as goals by virtually allmajor groups in society. World war, economic reconstruction,and the cold war gave coherence to public purposes and im­posed a set of priorities for ordering government policiesand programs. Now, however, these purposes have lost theirsalience and even come under challenge; the imperatives ofnational security are no longer obvious, the desirability ofeconomic growth is no longer unquestioned.

In this situation, the rnachinery of democracy continues tooperate, but the ability of the individuals operating that

Conclusion 161

machinery to make decisions tends to deteriorate. Withoutcommon purpose, there is no basis for common priorities,and without priorities, there are no grounds for distinguishingamong competing priva te interests and claims. Conflicting

. goalsand -specialized interests crowd in one upon another,with executives, cabinets, parliaments, and bureaucratslacking the criteria to discriminate among them, The systembecomes one of anomic dernocracy, in which democraticpolitics becomes more an arena for the assertion ofconflicting interests than a process for the building ofcommon purposes.

111. THE DYSFUNCTIONS OF DEMOCRACY

Quite apart from the substantive policy issues confrontingdernocratic government, many specific problems have arisenwhich seem to be an intrinsic part of the functioning ofdemocracy itself. The successful operation of democraticgovernment has given rise to tendencies which impede thatfunctioning.

(1) The pursuit of the democratic virtues of equality andindividualism has led to the delegitimation ofauthority generalIy and the loss of trust in leadership.

(2) The democratic expansion of political participationand involvement has created an "overload" ongovernment and the imbalanced expansion ofgovernmental activities, exacerbating inflationarytendencies in the economy.

(3) The political competition essential to democracv hasintensified, leading to a disaggregation of interestsand the decline and fragmentation of political parties.

(4) The responsiveness of democratic government to theelectorate and to societal pressures encouragesnationalistic parochialism in the way in whichdemocratic societies conduct their foreign relations.

162 The Crisis 01Democracy

l. The Delegitimation of Authority"'-I

In most of the Trilateral countries in the past decade therehas been a decline in the confidence and trust which thepeople have in government, in their leaders, and, less clearlybut most importantly, in each other. Authority has beenchallenged not only in government, but in trade unions,business enterprises, schools and universities, professionalassociations, churches, and civic groups, In the past, thoseinstitutions which have played the major role in theindoctrination of the young in their rights and obligations asmembers oí" society have been the family, the church, theschool, and -{he'army. The effectiveness of all theseinstitutions as a means of socialization has declined severely.The stress has been increasingly on individuals and theirrights, interests, and needs, and not on the community andits rights, interests, and needs. These attitudes have beenparticularly prevalent in the young, but they have alsoappeared in other age groups, especially among those whohave achieved professional, white-collar, and middle-classstatus. The success of the existing structures of authority inincorporating large elements of the population into the·middle class, paradoxically, strengthens precisely thosegroups which are disposed to challenge the existing structuresof authority.

The democratic spirit is egalitarian, individualistic,populist, and impatient with the distinctions of class andrank. The spread of that spirit weakens the traditional threats

.to democracy 'posed by such groups as the aristocracy, thechurch, and the military. At the same time, a pervasive spiritof democracy may pose an intrinsic threat and undermine allforms of association, weakening the social bonds which hold.together fam ily, enterprise, and community. Every socialorganization requires, in sorne measure, inequalities inauthority and distinctions in function. To the extent that thespread of the democratic temper corrodes all of these,

Conclusion 163

exercismg a leveling and an homogenizing influence, itdestroys the bases of trust and cooperation among citizensand creates obstacles to collaboration for any commonpurpose.

Leadership is in disrepute in democratic societies. Withoutconfidence in its leadership, no group functions effectively.When the fabric of leadership weakens among other groups insociety, it is also weakened at the top political levels ofgovernment. The governability of a society at the nationallevel depends upon the extent to which it is effectivelygoverned at the subnational, regional, local, functional, andindustrial levels. In .the modern state, for instance, powerfultrade union "bosses" are often viewed as a threat to thepower of the sta te" In actuality, however, responsible unionleaders with effective authority over their members are less ofa challenge to the authority of the national politicalleadersthan they are a prerequisite to the exercise of authority bythose leaders. If the unions are disorganized, if themembership is rebellious, if extreme demands and wild-catstrikes are the order of the day, the formulation andimplementation of a national wage policy become impossible.The weakening of authority throughout society thuscontributes to the weakening of the authority of government.

2. The Overloading of Government

Recent years in the Trilateral countries have seen theexpansion of the demands on government from individuals .and groups, The expansion takes the form of: (1) theinvolvement of an increasing proportion of the population inpolitical activity; (2) the development of new groups and ofnew consciousness on the part of old groups, includingyouth, regional groups, and ethnic minorities; (3) thediversification of the political means and tactics which groupsuse to secure their ends; (4) an increasing expectation on thepart of groups that government has the responsibility to meet

164 The Crisis o/Democracy

their needs; and (5) an escalation in what they conceivethose needs to be.

The result is an "overload" on government and theexpansion of the role of government in the econorny and

. soeiety. During the 1960s governmental expenditures, as aproportion of GNP, increased significantly in all the principalTrilateral countries, except for Japan. This expansion ofgovernmental activity was attributed not so much to thestrength of government as to its weakness and the inabilityand unwillingness of central political leaders to reject thedemands made upon them by numericalIy and functionalIyimportant groups intheir society. The impetus to respond tothe demands which groups made on government is deeplyrooted in both the attitudinal and structural features of ademocratic society. The democratic idea that governmentshould be responsive to the people creates the expectationthat government should meet the needs and correct the evilsaffecting particular groups in society. Confronted with thestructural imperative of competitive elections every fewyears, politicalleaders can hardly do anything else.

Intlation is obviously not a problem which is peculiar todemocratic societies, and it may well be the result of causesquite extrinsic to the democratic process. It may, however,be exacerbated by a democratic politics and it is, withoutdoubt, extremely difficult for democratic systems to dealwith effectively. The natural tendency of the politicaldemands permitted and encouraged by the dynamics of ademocratic system helps governments to deal with theproblems of economic recession, particularly unemployment,and it hampers them in dealing effectively with intlation. Inthe face of the claims of business groups, labor unions, andthe beneficiaries of governmental largesse, it becomesdifficult if not impossible for democratic governments tocurtail spending, increase .taxes, and control prices and wages,

In this sense, intlation is the economic disease ofdemocracies.

Conclusion

3. The Disaggregation of Interests

165

A primary function of politics is to aggregate the variousinterests in society so as to promote common purposes andto create - coalitions behind policies and leaders. In ademocratic society thisprocess takes place throughcomplicated processes of bargaining and compromise withingovernment, within and between the political parties, andthrough electoral competition. The multiple sources of powerin a democratic society insure that any policy decision, whenit is made, usually has to have at least the tacit support of amajority of those affectedby and concerned with it. In thissense, consensus-building is at the heart of democraticpolitics. At the same time, however, the opportunities whichdemocratic politics offers to particular opinions, interests,and groups to be represented in the political processnecessarily tend to stimulate the formulation and articulationof such opinions, interests, and groups. While the commoninterest is in compromise and consensus, it is often beneficialto the particular individual or group to differentiate itsinterest from other interests, to assert that interestvigorously, and at times to be intransigent in defending thatinterest against others. In a democracy, in short, the toppolítical leaders work to aggregate interests; the politicalprocess often works to disaggregate them.

The most obvious political manifestation of thedisaggregation of interests and the withering away ofcommon purposes is in the decomposition which has affectedthe polítical party systems in Trilateral societies. In almostevery country the support for the principal establíshedpolitical parties has declined, and new parties, small parties,and antiparty movements have gained in strength. At onetime or another during 1974, no party had a majority in thelegislatures of Great Britain, Canada, France, the FederalRepublic of Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands,Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. And the functional

166 The Crisis ofDemocracy

equivalent to the lack of a majority existed in the UnitedStates with different parties in control of the executive andlegislative branches of the government. This failure of theparty system to produce electoral and parliamentary rnajori­tiesobviously had adverse effects on the ability of govern-

.ments to govern.A party system is a way of organizing the electorate,

simplifying choice, selecting leaders, aggregating interests,and shaping policy choices and priorities. The developmentof polítical parties in the nineteenth century went hand-in­hand with the expansion of the suffrage and the increasedresponsibility of'govemments to their citizens. Parties madedemocratic government possible. Throughout the twentiethcentury, the strength of democracy has varied with thestrength of the polítical parties committed to working with­in a democratic system. The decay of political party systemsin the industrialized world poses the question: How viable isdemocratic government without parties or with greatIyweakened and attenuated parties?

4. Parochialism in International Affairs

Just as the opportunities afforded by the democraticprocess tended to increase the strength and assertiveness ofparticularistic groups domestical1y, so they also tended toencourage a greater degree of parochialism in intemationalaffairs.

The seeming decline in the external military threatproduced a general slackening of concern throughout theTrilateral countries with the problems of security. In theabsence of a clear and present danger to security, it is verydifficult to mobilize support within a democracy formeasures which may be necessary to provide for security. Inthe European and North American countries, compulsorymilitary service has been reduced or abandoned entirely;military expenditures have declined in real terms and relativeto national product; antimilitarism has become the vogue in

Conclusion 167

intellectual and political circles. Yet détente presumably restsupon the achievement of a rough military balance betweenthe communist powers and the democracies. During the1960s the military exertions of th€- communist powersbrought such a balance into being and hence made détentefeasible. During the 1970s military passivity on the part ofthe democracies could well undermine that balance andhence the basis for improved relations with the communiststates.

By and large, the quarter-century after World War 11 saw aremoval of restrictions on trade and investment, and a generalopening up of the economies of the industrialized, capitalistcountries. In timesofé¿onomic scarci ty, inflation, andpossible long-term economic downtum, however, thepressures in favor of nationalism and neo-mercantilism mountand democratic political systems find themselves particularlyvulnerable to such pressures from industry groups, localities,and labor organizations, which see themselves adverselyaffected by foreign competition. The ability of governmentsto deal with domestic social and economic problems isreduced, as well as the confidence people have thatlegislatures will be able to deal with those problems. As aresult, the leaders of democratic governments turnincreasingly to foreign policy as the one arena where they canachieve what appear to be significant successes. Diplomatictriumph becomes essential to the maintenance of domesticpower; success abroad produces votes at home. Heath andthe Common Market, Brandt and the Moscow treaties, Nixonin Peking and SALT 1, and Pompidou in challengingAmerican leadership may or may not have done the best interms of securing the long-term interests of their countries,but their domestic political needs left them little leeway notto come up with something. At the same time, the impact ofinflation and domestic special interests engenders economicnationalism increasing the difficulties of cooperative actionamong the democratic powers. Given these pressures, the

168 The Crisis o[ Democracy

extent to whieh the demoeratie soeieties have been able toavoid the worst forms of beggar-thy-neighbor policies anddevise sorne eommon responses to the eeonomie and energyerises is, in many respeets, quiteremarkable. Yet the impaetof domestic polities still leads demoeratic leaders to displaygreater eagerness to eompromise when negotiating with theirenemies and to have greater diffieulty in eompromising whenthey negotiate with eaeh other.

While the processes of democratic politics inducegovernmental leaders to look abroad for victories to sustainthem at home, those same processes also tend to produce atendency Joward.~.~reater provincialism and nationalism intheir outlook. The parochialization of leadership is surelyone of the most striking trends of the past decade in theTrilateral democracies. Down through the early 1960s,leading statesmen in the democratic countries not only had(as was a prerequisite to statesmanship) a standing amongtheir own people, but they also often had an appeal and astanding abroad among people in the other industrializeddemocraeies. They were, in a sense, Trilateral statesmen aswell as national statesmen. The resignation of Willy Brandt,however, removed from the seene the last of the democraticleaders who had a stature, a reputation, and a following thattranscended his own society. This is not to say that thecurrent leaders are necessarily narrowly nationalistic in theiroutlook and policies. It does mean, however, that they arethe product of peculiar1y national processes and thatwhatever their qualities as leaders, the names of Gerald Ford,Takeo Miki, Harold Wilson, Giscard d'Estaing, and HelmutSchmidt do not inspire enthusiasm and commitment outsidetheir own societies.

IV. VARIATIONS AMONG REGIONS

The features we have deseribed aboye are found in all threerilateral regions. The relative intensity of the different

Conclusion 169

aspects of the problem varies, however, from country tocountry and from time to time within a country. The overallIegitimacy of govemment ís greater in Britain than inItaly. Confidence and trust in political institutions andleaders in the United States was much less during the 1960sand early 1970s than it was in the 1940s and 1950s and veryprobably considerably less than it will be during the comingyears. The differing cultures and polítical traditions of thevarious countries means that each problem conceming thegovernability of democracy manifests itself in different waysand has to be dealt with by different means. Each countryhas its own peculiar strtm~.t1.J.s and weaknesses. In continentalEurope and in lapan, for instance, there is a tradition of astrong and effective bureaucracy, in part because of thepolarization and fragmentation among polítical parties. This'bureaucracy furnishes continuity and stability to the systerri,functioning in sorne ways as both a gyroscope and anautomatic pilot. In Britain and the United States, on theother hand, there are strong traditions of citizen participationin politics which insure the vitality of democracy at the sametime that they may lower the competence and authority ofgovernment. If one were to generalize, one might say that theproblem in the United States is more one of govemabilitythan of democracy, in lapan it is more one of democracythan of governability, while in Europe both problems areacute.

The demands on government and the needs for govern­ment have been increasing steadily in all the Trilateral soci­eties. The cause of the current malaise is the decline in thematerial resources and polítical authority available to gov­

ernment to meet these demands and needs. These deficienciesvary significantly, however, from region to region. In theUnited States, the government is constrained more by theshortage of authority than by the shortage of resources. Inlapan, the government has so far been favored with a huge in­crease in resources due to rapid economic growth, and it has

170 The Crisis 01Democracy

been able to utilize the reservoir of traditional acquiescenceamong the people to support its authority. The growth in re­sources, however, is about to stop, and the reservoir of ac­quiescence is more and moredraining down. In Europe, gov­ernments seem to be facing shortages of both authority andresources, which is the major reason why the problems con­cerning the governability of democracy are more urgent inEurope than in the other Trilateral regions.

At the moment the principal strains on the governabilityof democracy may be receding in the United States, crestingin Europe, and pending in the future for Japan. During the1960s, the UnitedStates went through a period of creedalpassion, of intense conflict over racial issues and theIndochina War, and of marked expansion in the extent andforms of political participation. In addition, in the 1970s theUnited States suffered a major constitutional crisis in thewhole complex of issues involved in Watergate and theresignation of the President. At present, much of the passionand intensity has departed from American polities, leavingthe polítical leadership and institutions with the problem ofattempting to redefine their functions in altered circum­stances, to restore the prestige and authority of centralgovernment institutions, and to grapple with the immediateeconomic challenges. Japan, on 'the other hand, appears tostill have sorne time before the major challenges todemocracy will come to a head, which they probably will inthe early 1980s. Its organizational fabrie and patterns ofsocial control, moreover, provide advantages in giving controland direction to the new political forces and demands ongovernment. This gain in time will give the existingdemocratic institutions in Japan opportunity to consolidatethemselves further and will permit the party leaders in all themajor parties to adapt to a situation in whieh the LiberalDemocratie party no longer commands a secure majority.

Europe, in contrast, has to face current issues which makeit the most vulnerable of the three regions at the present

Conclusion 171

time. It must make long-term investments quickly inasmuchas it will not be able to handle its problems with the currentresources it has available. In addition, it must maintain tightenough control over short-run issues since it has to face acrisis from within as well as a crisis from withou1.

APPENDIX

APPENDIX 1: DISCUSSION OF STUDYDURING PLENARY MEETING OFTHE TRILATERAL COMMISSION

Kyoto, May 31, 1975

The study by Michel Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington, andJoji Watanuki, prepared for the Trilateral Commission, wasdiscussed during plenary meetings of the Comrnission inKyoto, Japan in May197S. This three-part appendix is airnedat advancing dialogue on the issues involved. The first partlists sorne "arenas for action" prepared as points of departurefor the Kyoto discussion; the second provides rernarks byRalf Dahrendorf, who opened the discussion in Kyoto; andthe third surnrnarizes discussion of the report arnong rnern­bers of the Commission.

A.ARENASFORAcnüN

While there is much to praise in the performance ofdemocratic government in the Trilateral societies, there arealso areas of critical weakness and potential breakdown. Theheart of the problem Hes in the inherent contradictionsinvolved in the very phrase "governability of democracy."For, in sorne measure, governability and democracy arewarring concepts. An excess of dernocracy means a deficit ingovernability; easy governability suggests faulty democracy.At times in the history of democratic government thependulum has swung too far in one direction or the other.

At the present time, itappears that the balance has tiltedtoo far against governments in Western Europe and theUnited States; in Japan, as yet, this problem is not acute,although it may well become so. The United States and

173

174 The Crisis of Democracy

Western Europe consequently need to restore a moreequitable relationship between governmental authority andpopular control, and Japan may face this necessity in thenot-too-distant future. The ~-steadily rising need forgovernment to manage the interrelations of a complexsociety is likely to require an increase in the materialresources and political authority available to government. Inthe United States and Western Europe, both have been inshort supply already. Even in Japan, both will be in shortsupply in the future. There are at least seven areas in whichthese problems can be tackled, which are relevantimrnediately t9 E~r?pe and the United States and in thenot-too-rernote future also to Japan.

l. Effective Planning for Economic and Social Development

The historical record indicates that democracy worksbest - indeed, that it may only work - when there is agradual but relatively constant increase in the economicwell-being of society. The record of the recent past suggeststhat in industrialized societies each additional increment inthe rate of economic growth tends to be distributed in orderto provide more benefits to the poor than the previousincremento Reasonable rates of economic growth andrelatively stable prices are essential for the achievement ofsocioeconomic equity. The control of inflation and thepromotion of economic growth, taking into carefulconsideration the effects of such growth on resourceexhaustion and environmental pollution, consequently musthave top priority on the agenda of democracy. In addition,poverty remains a problem in many parts of Europe and theUníted States, and governmental programs must give thehighest priority to establishing a minimum floor of_guaranteed subsistence for all citizens. The specific measuresby which governments can promote these goals must bedevised by economistsand planners, but critical considera­tion should be given to proposals such as that recentIy

Appendix 175

advanced in the United States for a new economic planningagency attached to the White House. It is necessary heresimply to underline the extent to which the governabílity ofdemocracy seems dependent upon the sustained expansion oftheecoriorny. Political democracy requires economic growth;economic growth without inflation depends upon effectivedemocratic planning. The opportunities for more effectiveplanning are not, moreover, simply confined to issues ofeconomic growth. The trilateral societies have an accumu­lation of social knowledge which could be used for solutionof sorne social problems. The governments in Trilateralsocieties have the possíbility of becoming "wiser" in allocat­ing scarceresources in the most effective way, searching foralternatives, and assessing the effects of policies, throughproper use of the social knowledge and skills which have beenaccumulated and rnay still be developed.

2. Strengthening the Institutions of Política! Leadership

In recent years, the publics in the Trilateral societies haveexpected much of" their polítical leaders. They have beenexpected to "deliver the goods" in terms of achieving policyoutputs and outcomes to which they have committedthemselves and their governments. In many instances,however, political leaders have been left deficient in theinstitutional resources and authority necessary to achievethese goals. A pervasive suspicion of the motives and powerof political leaders on the part of the public has given rise tothe imposition of legal and institutional barriers which serveto prevent them from achieving the goals which the publicexpects them accomplish. In the long ron the leadershipvacuum wilI be filIed in one way or another, and stronginstitutionalized leadership is clearly preferable to personal­ized charismatic leadership.

In the United States, the strengthening of leadershipinstitutions requires action with respect to both the Congressand the president. In Congress, for the past decade the trend

176 The Crisis alDemocracy

has been toward a greater dispersion of power in both theHouse and Senate. Yet if Congress is to play an effectivegoverning role as distinct from a critical and opposition role,it has to be able to forrnuláte overallgoals, determinepriorities, and initiate programs, Inevitably this requires sornecentralization of power within Congress.

The imperial presidency is rapidly disappearing intohistory, and there is clearly no need to bring it back. There isa need, however, to insure that the pendulum does not swingtoo far in the other direction. Proposed legislative restrictionson presidential power should always be judged by thequestion: If thepresident does not exercise this power, whowill? If Congress can exercise the power effectively, theremay be good grounds for restricting the president. But everyrestriction of presidential power does not necessarily redoundto the benefit of Congress. It rnay equally well increase thepower of bureaucratic agencies or private interest groups.

In Japan, the prime minister's leadership has been re­stricted by the bureaucratic sectionalism of each ministry.Budget-rnaking is done total1y by the Budget Bureau in theMinistry of Finance. The prime minister has no staff, andthere is no coordinating agency under his direct cornmand.The institutional strengthening of the prime minister's leader­ship through the transfer .of the Budget Bureau to the primeminister's office or the Cabinet Secretariat, the ereation ofpositions for high-level aides to the prime minister, and thereorganization and development of poliey researeh and eo­ordinating functions in the Cabinet Secretariat and primeminister's office, including various "Deliberation Couneils,"should be eonsidered seriously.

Under the LDP's single majority rule, the Diet has neverexercised any leadership role. The budget presented by thegovernment has been approved by the LDP majority withoutfail. Almost 100 pereent of legislation has been presented bythe government upon prior 'consultation with the governingparty and been approved by the majority in the Diet. In light,however, of the possibility of the loss of a majority by the

Appendix 177

LDP, the Diet should be prepared to take more initiative inlegislation and budget-making.

The European situation is extremely diverse and does notcall for common or even convergent remedies; The Frenchpresidency: for the time being is extremely strong, muchstronger than the American. If there is a problem it is toreintroduce democratic checks. If the problem is difficult, itis because very little margin has ever existed in the Frenchtradition between the predominance of the executive, whichmeans too few checks, and the predominance of Parliament,which means a rather impotent régime d'assemblée. TheItalian governmentpresents almost exactly the other side ofthe coin. Its decision-making capacity has almost disinte­grated and the problem is to restore conditions fordeveloping a stronger, more stable, more active executivewhich can at the same time be accepted by the political class.

Even if one does not focus on these extreme examples, onediscovers that each country has its own idiosyncraticproblems to which there is no common solution. Twocommon problems nevertheless emerge on which moregeneral recornmendations could be made. First of all, there isalmost everywhere a crisis of parliaments. It is due onlypartially to legal or constitutional evolution, since it developsequally within opposite setups. One could better hypothesizethat the divergent structural evolutions are just differentanswers tothe same probIem. This crisis involves the probIemof representation and the problem of expertise. Moderoparliaments do not have the necessary expertise to maintainan effective check on the executive and their memberscannot represent citizens adequateIy in policy-makingdebates since they have to rely on earlier, now meaninglesscleavages to be elected.

The second common problem area is that of implementa­tion and public administration. Everywhere one discovers acomplete dissociation between the decision-making system,dominated by traditionaI and often quite rhetorical politicaldebate, and the implementation system, which is the preserve

178 The Crisis al Democracy

of administrative systems quite often centralized and strong,but usual1y even more irresponsive when they are centralizedand strong. This dissociation is the main cause of políticalalienation arnongst citizens. It continually nourishes utopiandrearns and radical postures and reinforces opposition to thestate. The main effort in Europe should be, therefore, toreinsert democratic debate in administrative procedure, toprevent the monopoly of expertise by public administration,and to restore functions to parliament, by giving parliamentnew expertise and thus the possibility to debate on an equallevel with the civil servants. Finally, a general refonn ofpublic adminístration ..and especially of local implementationsystems should be a central practical concern that could beanswered by European countries in a genuinely comparativeand cooperative way.

3. Reinvigoration of Politic al Parties

Party loyalties, like loyalties to church, state, and class,have tended to weaken throughout much of the Trilateralarea. A more highly educated, more affluent, and generallymore sophisticated public is less willing to commit itselfblíndly and irrevocably to a particular party and itscandidates. Yet partisan allegiances, along with partyconflicts, have historical1y been the bedrock of democracy.Even today political parties remain indispensable to insureopen debate over meaningful choices, to help aggregateinterests, and to develop political leaders. To continue toperform these functions they will have to adapt themselves tothe changed needs and interests of the electorate, If the"post-industrial world" is a world in which knowledge isking, the polítical parties must increasingly devote thernselvesto supplying this commodity, just as in an earlier - andpoorer - age they focused on material benefits such as jobs,patronage, and social insurance.

To fulfill its political functions properly, a political partymust, on the one hand, reflect the interests and needs of

Appendix 179

rnaior social forces and interest groups and, on the otherhand, it must also in sorne measure be independent ofparticular interests and capable of aggregating them andworking out broader compromises among them, Changes inparty structure, membership, leadership, and activities shouldbe oriented towards increasing the ability of parties toperform these two conflicting but indispensable functions. InEurope, for instance, parties are still divided between partiesof notables and mass membership parties. Mass partiesemphasizing the defense of group interests and statuspositions prevent the aggregation of interests and the leamingof compromise. Not only..do they not train citizens for thedifficulties of choice and the understanding of govemment,but they condition them to misunderstanding and toalíenation. Nor do traditional parties of notables do a betterjobo They may emphasize aggregation much more in theiraction but keep themselves as narrow as possible and refuseto train citizens in real participation.

Nowhere are the horns of the dilemma of interestrepresentation versus interest aggregation more painfullyvisible than in the difficult area of party finance. Historically,polítical parties have in large part been dependent on thedues and subscriptions of individual members and supporterson the one hand, and on substantial contributions frombusiness corporations and labor unions on the other. But, inaddition, a number of Trilateral societies (inc1uding the fourScandinavian countries, France, Italy, Germany, and Canada)now appropriate publíc monies to cover party expensesbetween and during elections. In Germany the governmentprovides an estimated 35 percent of party funds.

The reinvigoration of political parties, needed for theeffective working of democratic politics, seems to require adiversification of the sources from which parties raise theirfunds. PolíticaI parties should not be dependent exc1usivelyupon either individual members or organized interests or thestate for the resources needed to perform their functions.They should be able to draw support from all three sources.

180 The Crisis al Democracy

The achievement of the appropriate balance among thesesources requires different action in different societies. In theUnited States, for instance, recent legislation providing publicmonies for presidential candidates represents a step in the

.proper direetion. So also is the movement during the pastdecade to broaden the base of party finance and to solicitsmall sums from a large number of contributors. On the otherhand, the laws prohibiting political contributions bycorporations serve little useful purpose and, as recentprosecutions make clear, have been regularly evaded. Thedesirability of repealing such restrictions should be carefullyconsidered.vThe -danger that politicaI parties will becomeunduly dependent upon and responsive to a few corporateinterests can best be countered by (a) requiring full publicityfor all political contributions and (b) insuring the availabilityof public monies as an alternative and balance to funds fromthe private sector.

In Japan, the amount of money contributed by businesscorporations to the LDP has been disproportionally huge andhas given rise to a sense of unfair competition and thesuspicion of implicit corruption between the governing partyand business. This unfairness might be attacked first of all bymeasures prohibiting all contributions by corporations, or atleast setting striet upper limits on them and also requiring fullpublicity for the contributions made. The LDP needs tosurvive such a trial in order to consolidate the legitimacy ofJapanese democracy itself. Even if such measures are destinedto fail, by evasion and utilization of loopholes, they will stillserve to create fairer eompetition between parties andstimulate individual contributions and involvement in partyactivities. Most difficult to achieve in Japan is an increase inindividual contributions. Politicians and political partiesshould do their utmost to stimulate them. For instance, thepersonal sponsoring associations Ikoenkai) of individualpoliticians should undertake to finance themselves bycontributions from their members.

Appendix

4. Restoring a Balance between Governrnent and Media

181

For well over 200 years in Western societies, a struggle hasbeen underway to defend the freedom of the press toinvestigate, .to criticize, to report, and to publish its findingsand opinions against the efforts by governrnent officials tocurb that freedorn. Freedorn _of the press is absolutelyessential to the effective working of dernocratic governrnent.Like any freedorn, however, it is a freedorn which can beabused. Recent years have seen an immense growth in thescope and power of the media. In many countries, inaddition, either as a result of editorial direction or as a resultof the increasing infll.lence

u

of th~ journalists vis-a-vis ownersand editors, the press has taken an increasingly critical roletowards governrnent and public officials. In sorne countries,traditional norms of "objectivity" and "impartiality" havebeen brushed aside in favor of "advocatory journalisrn." The

I responsibility of the press should now be increased to becornrnensurate with its power; significant measures arerequired to restore an appropriate balance between the press,the governrnent, and other institutions in society.

These recent changes in the press-government relationshipare perhaps most clearly marked in the United States. Theincrease in media power is not unlike the rise of the industrialcorporations to national power at the end of the nineteenthcentury. Just as the corporations enveloped themselves in theconstitutional protection of the due process clause, the medianow defend themselves in terms of the First Amendment.* Inboth cases, there obviously are important rights to beprotected, but broader interests of society and government

*The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United Statesdeclares that "Congress shall make no 1aw ... abridging the freedom ofspeech, or of the press." The due process clause is from the FourteenthAmendment - "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty,or property, without due process of law."

182 Tñe Crisis alDemocracy

are also at stake. In due course, beginning with the InterstateCommerce Act and the Sherman Antitrust Act,* measureshad to be taken to regulate the new industrial centers ofpower and to define their relations to therest of society.

. Sornething comparable appears to be now needed withrespect to the media. Specifically, there is a need to insure tothe press its right to print what it wants without priorrestraint except in most unusual circumstances. But there isalso the need to assure to the government the right and theability to withhold information at the source. In addition,there is no reason for denying to public officials equalprotection of'jhe }~~s against libel, and the courts shouldconsider moving promptly to reinstate the law of libel as anecessary and appropriate check upon the abuses of powerby the press. Journalists should develop their own standardsof professionalism andcreate mechanisms, such as presscouncils, for enforcing those standards on themselves. Thealternative could well be regulation by the governmeÍlt.

The Japanese press, especially the five nationwidenewspapers with several millions circulation each and thecommercial TV networks closely associated with each ofthem, have somewhat different traditions and problems fromtheir counterparts in the United States or in Western Europe.Nonpartisanship and an opposition attitude towards thegovernment have been the traditions of the Japanese press.The results are a policy of equal distance from all politicalparties, and a high sensitivity to the mood of the mass publicoThe functioning of Japanese democracy would be improvedif the individual newspapers took c1earer stands in support ofor opposition to the government.

In Europe, the more traditional and numerous press hasgiven way to fewer, stronger and less committed oligopolistic

*The Interstate Commerce Act, passed by Congress in 1887, wasaimed particularly at the majar railroad companies. The ShermanAntitrust Act, passed in 1890, was aimed more generally.

Appendix 183

papers. This change, which was viewed at first as a trendtoward depoliticization, in the end increased the politicalpower of the press as an independent institution, thusbringing it closer to the American andJapanesesituations.The same dangers therefore seem to appear with the need forthe same kind of difficult but essential counterbalance.

5. Reexamination of the Cost and theFunctions of Higher Education

The 1960s saw a tremendous expansion in highereducation throughout the Trilateral societies. This expansionwas the product ofincreasing affluence, a demographic bulgein the college-age group, and the increasingly widespreadassumption that the types of higher education open formerlyin most societies (with the notable exception of the UnitedStates) only to a small elite group should "by right" be madeavailable generally. The result of this expansion, however, canbe the overproduction of people with university education inrelation to the jobs available for them, the expenditure ofsubstantial sums of scarce public monies and the impositionon the lower classes of taxes to pay for the free publiceducation of the children of the middle and upper classes.The expansion of higher education can create frustrationsand psychological hardships among university graduates whoare unable to secure the types of jobs to which they believetheir education entitles them, and it can also createfrustrations and material hardships for nongraduates who areunable to secure jobs which were previously open to them.

In the United States, sorne retrenchment in highereducation is already underway as a result of slower growth inenrollments and new ceilings on resources. What seemsneeded, however, is to relate educational planning toeconomic and political goals. Should a college education beprovided generally because of its contribution to the overallcultural level of the populace and its possible relation to theconstructive discharge of the responsibilities of citizenship? If

184 The Crisis of Democracy

this question is answered in the affirmative, a program is thennecessary to lower the job expectations of those who receivea college education. If the question is answered in thenegative, then higher educatienal institutions should beinduced to redesign their programs so as to be geared to thepatterns of economic development and future jobopportunities.

In Japan, the expansion of higher education in the 1960swas achieved mainly through low-cost education by privateuniversities without much money from the government.Financially, however, the private universities are nowapproaching bankruptcy, and low-cost education has createddoubts about the quality of university education. An increasein public financial support to private universities is nowunder way. As for the employment of university graduates, atleast so far, because of rapid expansion of the tertiary servicesector, there has as yet been no problem of overproductionand unemployment. Major uncertainties, however, existconcerning the future of Japanese higher education. With thestagnation of the governmental budget, the increase of publicfunds for higher education will face a ceiling, and the choiceas to whether Japan should have "low-quality andhigh-quanti~' higher education or "high-quality andlimited-quantity" higher education will become serious. Inaddition, both employment and mobility of universitygraduates depend on the expansion of the tertiary sector,which is not unlimited. In this respect, also, Japan is nowrapidly approaching the point where sorne "retrenchment" inhigher education will be necessary.

European higher education, in contrast, needsconsolidation and rejuvenation more than retrenchment.Here again, it differs widely from country to country in itsstructure, modes of operation, and place in socíety, Buteverywhere it is parochial, conservative, and compartmenta­lized. With a few exceptions in sectors such as the profession­al schools and in countries such as Britain, it is chaotic,

Appendix 185

inefficient, operates extremely poorly, and develops opposi­tion and alienation among the students. One cannot overern­phasize the significance of such a state of affairs. By nowhigher education is the most important value-producingsystem in society. That it works either poorly or at cross­purposes with society should be a matter of great concern.Such opposition may be good and creative up to apoint, butit has become more and more sterile since it is now deprivingsociety of the necessary stimulus of the younger generation'screativity.

6. More Active Innovation in the Area ofWork

A long tradition exists in the West and in Japan ofgovernmental involvement in the broad area of labor andsocial policies. Such policies may be considered as one of thegreatest achievements of Trilateral democracies. Health,_hazard and security coverage, freedom of association,bargaining rights, the right to strike, and workers councils a11provide broad protection and broad possibilities for corree­tive action.

Two basic new problerns have arisen, however, which takeon more and more prominence as older ones recede. They arethe problems of, first, the working structure of theenterprise, and, second, of the content of the job itself. Bothof these problems call for a new kind of active interventionwhich is of great importance for each society's internalequilibrium and governability. These problems unfortunatelyare not amenable to easy legislative fiat or executiveintervention. They require a painful transformation of socialrelations, of cultural and authority patterns, and even ofmodes of reasoning.

Up to now the dominant social democratic or even liberalschools of thought have focused on proposals for industrialdemocracy modeled on patterns of political democracy. Theyhave rarelv succeeded, and when they did the proposals did

186 The Crisis ofDemocracy

not appear very effective, basica11y because they wererunning against the industrial culture and the constraints ofbusiness organization. This movement has found a newimpetus, especia11y in Western Europe, with strong popularpressure for self-management and the rediscovery by the leftof nationalization as a key argument in the political arena.

Many people advocate the more moderate course ofparticipation by labor in crucial decisions affecting output,productivity, and working conditions, such as developed inGermany under the name of codetermination. This would,they think, provide a strong incentive for unions to actresponsibly. Insomecircumstances this could indeed be theresulto On the other hand, however, codetermination hasbeen only partia11y successful in Germany, and it would raiseimpossible problems in many Western democracies, eitherbecause leftíst trade unionists would oppose it and utilize itwithout becoming any more moderate, or because employerswould manage to defeat its purposes.

A quite different, more promising, and more fundamentalstrategy is to focus on the second set of problems, those ofthe job, working conditions, and work organization. This is amuch more concrete field where deep resentment andfrustrations have developed, feeding back into the moreconventional aspects of labor-rnanagement bargaining. This isa problem area where basic change is becoming possible. Newthinking and experimentation has occurred, which should bewidely encouraged and subsidized. Industry should be givena11 possible incentives to move ahead and implementgradually new modes of organization. This is the only waynow to alleviate the new tensions that tend to markpost-industrial society in this area and which otherwisenourish irresponsible blackmailing tactics and new inflation­ary pressures. At the same time this is a necessary step torestore the status and dignity of manual work and therefore

Appendix 187

help solve the more and more acute problem of the immi­grant workers in Western Europe, which rnight otherwisebecome equivalent to the racial problems of the UnitedStates.

7. Creation of New Institutions for theCooperative Promotion of Democracy

The effective working of democratic government in theTrilateral societies can now no longer be taken for granted.The increasing demands and pressures on democraticgovernment and 1he- crisis- in governmental resources andpublic authority require more explicit collaboration. Onemight corisider, therefore, means of securing support andresources from foundations, business corporations, laborunions, political parties, civic associations, and, wherepossible and appropriate, governmental agencies for thecreation of an institute for the strengthening of democraticinstitutions. The purpose of such an institute would be tostimulate collaborative studies of common problems involvedin the operations of democracy in the Trilateral societies, topromote cooperation among institutions and groups withcommon concerns in this area among the Trilateral regions,and to encourage the Trilateral societies to learn from eachother's experience how to make democracy function moreeffectively in their societies. There is much which eachsociety can learn from the others. Such mutual learningexperiences are familiar phenomena in the economic andmilitary fields; they must also be encouraged in the politicalfield. Such an institu te could also serve a usefuI function incalling attention to questions of special urgency, as, forinstance, the critical nature of the problems currentlyconfronting democracy in Europe.

\,

188 The Oists ofDemocracy

B. EXCERPTS QF REMARKS BY RALF DAHRENDORFON THE GOVERNABILITY STUDY

1

Governability presumably refers to the ability ofgovernments to give direction to the economies, societies,and political communities in which they govern, and to do soeffectively. Could it not be argued that one of the traditionalcharacteristics of democracies is that we do not askgovernments to give direction to the economies, societies,and political communities, at least not to the extent to whichnondemocraticsocieties are doing this? Might it not beargued, therefore, that by raising the question of governabil­ity in relation to democracies, one is in fact raising thequestion of whether the power of government should beincreased rather than the question of whether the power ofgovernment should be restored? Is it not misleading to irnplythat governments in democracies had all those powers in thepast which are now demanded for them? Should we notperhaps check ourselves every now and then and rememberthat one of the things democracy is about is to enable peopleand groups to operate in what rnight be called a marketenvironment rather than an environment which is largelydetermined by directives issuing from government and politi­cal institutions?

11

In the "arenas for action"*, you find a number ofremarkable statements about the relationship between de­mocracy and economic growth. "The promotion of economicgrowth, taking into careful consideration the effects of suchgrowth on resource exhaustion and environmental pollution,consequently must have top priority on the agenda of

* See Part A of this appendix.

Appendix 189

democracy. . .. Polítical democracy requires economicgrowth; economic growth ... depends upon effective demo­cratic planning." Important, and, as you will admit, far-reach­ing statements. It is clearly desirable,at least that ismy view,thateconomic growth should continue. Yet there may be apoint in asking a number of questions in relation to thesestatements. And there rnay be a point in discussing them atsorne length. Why should it be so that dernocracy is to sorneextent dependent on economic growth? Is there anything inthe concept of democracy that relates it to economicgrowth? Is democracy unthinkable without it? Is it actuallytrue that those countriesinwhích economic growth was leasteffective were also the countries in which democratic institu­tions were least effective? Could it not be said that it is theone-party socialist states aboye aH which are in troublewithout economic growth. Is not the link between the as­surnption of economic growth and poJitical organization infact rnuch closer in the communist countries, and is that notone of the reasons why they are worried at a time when, forthem, too, economic growth is by no means a certainty?Does not perhaps Mr. Brezhnev have much more reason toworry about the future of economic growth than Mr. Ford? 1should have thought that it would be useful to examine thesequestions in the study, aIthough I am not at all sure that 1would be able to give a proper answer to them. If I were totry to give an answer, I would like to add another questionwhich I believe is and should be of major concern foranybody who is thinking about the future of industrialsocieties under liberal conditions. Is growth presumablygrowth of a gross national product? Is this the only kind ofexpansion of human life chances which we can think of infree societies? Are there not perhaps other forms of growthand irnprovernent of human líves? Is it really necessary toassume that we have to continue along the lines which havebeen characteristic for the last twenty-five years in order tomaintain democratic institutions? The important and primafacie plausible statements about democracy and economic

190 The Crisis of Democracy

growth would warrant and perhaps require a rather moreelaborate reasoning.

m-

My next point relates to governability more or lessdirect1y. The paper for discussion here is in rny view animportant and in many ways convincing analysis of a difficultand changing political, social, and economic situation. 1would like to underline an aspect of the problem which 1believe is of overriding importance.

1 start with threesimple things-simple to put in words butmuch less simple to cope with in fact. First, there is agrowing desire for more immediate participation on the partof many citizens in the developed countries, which confrontsnational governments with un familiar but extremely seriousproblems and makes it more difficult for them to givedirection to developments in their countries. This is, ofcourse, what Mr. Huntington in his chapter calIs thedemocratic challenge to authority. It is a development whichmay be regarded as a natural consequence of thedevelopment of citizenship over the last century or two. Thisdevelopment of citizenship has led more and more people inlocal communities and industrial enterprises and otherinstitutions to express a desire to be a part of the machineryof decision-making to a much greater extent than may havebeen the case in the past. And governments have in factfound it difficult to make decisions, even apparentIy simpledecisions such as those about the sites of nuclear powerstations. Participation is not merely the taking ofresponsibility but is very often an attempt to checkgovernment action or object to it.

The second aspect is that for many important problemsthe national political space has become evidently and largelyinsufficient, although at the same time we do not havesatisfactory institutions, let alone democratic ones, to cope

Appendix 191

with new problems as they anse in new, internationalpolitical spaces.

The third aspect is new for governments. Democraticgovernments find it difficult toicope with the -power ofextrap arliamentary institutions which determine by theirdecisions the life chances of as many (or in sorne cases more)people as the decisions of governments can possiblydetermine in many of our countries.· Indeed, theseextraparliamentary institutions often make governmentalpower look ridiculous. When 1 talk about extraparliamentaryinstitutions, 1 am essentially thinking of two powerfuleconomic institutions-sgiant companies and large andpowerful trade unions.,

AH three of these developrnents have a cornrnondenominator. The greater demand for participation, therernoval of effective poli tical spaces frorn the national to theinternational level, and the removal of the power todetermine people's life chances from political institutions toother institutions are all signs of what might be called thedissolution, perhaps the dilution of the general politicalpublic which we assumed was the real basis of democraticinstitutions in the past. Instead of there being an effectivepolitical public in democratic countries from whichrepresentative institutions emerge and to which representa­tives are answerable, there is a fragmented public, in part anonexistent publico There is a rather chaotic picture in thepolitical communities of rnany democratic countries. A pub­Iic of citizens who cast their votes from individual interestsand thereby influence the choice of representatives who inturn feel their responsibility to an identified public has tosorne considerable extent disappeared. To that extent, repre­sentative government has become very different indeed fromthe sort of creature that was described in The Federalistpapers, or by John Stuart Mill, or by rnany others before andafter.

1 would argue that the main thing to think about is what

192 The Crisis 01Democracy

we can do to reestablish an effective general political publicunder the changed conditions in which we are living today.One would have to discuss the ways in which the legitimatedemand for immediate individual participation can be linkedtonational and international decisions. One would have todiscuss what in this Commission has been called therenovation of the international system, not only in terms ofthe effectiveness of new international institutions but also interms of their democratic quality. This would raise familiarand yet new problems of the relation between representationand expertise, between democratic election and knowledge ofthose standingfor election.

1 am quite certain that a number of things must no!happen if we want to reestablish an effective political public(or perhaps establish an effective political public for a verylarge number of citizens for the first time in the history ofdemocratic countries). I for one believe that one of the thingsthat must not happen under any condition is a deliberatepolicy of educational retrenchment-a policy in whicheducational ínstitutions are once again linked to economicoutput and economic performance rather than to the need togive every individual a chance to take part in the politicalprocess. I also believe that one of the things that must nothappen is that we establish any greater dependence of themedia on governments. On the contrary, I believe that themedia in most of our democratic societies are in need ofprotection. They are endangered by a num ber of processes,sorne of them economic. At the same time I believe they aresorne of the main media of expression for what is left of ageneral political public, and we should keep them that way.

My main point here is that as we thinkabout a politicalpublic in our day,. we cannot .simply think of a politicalpublic of individual citizens exercising their common senseinterests on the marketplace, as it were. In rethinking thenotion of the political public, we have to accept the fact thatmost human beings today are both individual citizens and

Appendix 193

members of large organizations. We have to accept the factthat most individuals see their interests cared for not only byan immediate expression of their citizenship rights (or evenby political parties which organize groups of interests) butalso .by organizations which at this moment act outside theimmediate political framework and which will continue toact whether governments like it or noto And 1 believe,therefore, somewhat reluctantly, that in thinking about thepolitical public of tomorrow we shall have to think of apublic in which representative parliamentary institutions aresomehow linked with institutions which in themselves areneither representative nor parliamentary. 1 think it is usefulto discuss the exact meaning of something like an effectivesocial contract, or perhaps a "Concerted Action," or "ConseilEconomique et Social" for the political insitutions ofadvanced democracies. 1 do not believe that free col1ectivebargaining is an indispensable element of a free anddemocratic society. 1 do believe, however, that we have torecognize that people are organized in trade unions, thatthere are large enterprises, that economic interests have to bediscussed somewhere, and that there has got to be anegotiation about sorne of the guidelines by which oureconomies are functioning. This discussion should be relatedto representative institutions. There may be a need forreconsidering sorne of our institutions in this light, not toconvert our countries into corporate states, certainly not, butto convert them into countries which in a democratic fashionrecognize sorne of the new developments which have madethe effective political public so much less effective in recentyears.

IV

1 am not, contrary to many others today, pessimistic aboutthe future of democracy. Indeed, it seems to me that anumber of recent social developments are likely to make life

194 The Crisis ofDemocracy

much more difficult for the dictatorships of this world. Likemany of you, however, I notice with disrnay that it seems tobe difficult, perhaps even impossible, to liberalize adictatorship within a short period of time and convert it into

. a free- and democratic country. There is asad dialectic ofdictatorships in which any attempt to liberalize them rapidlyseems to lead to another kind of authoritarianism.

I do think that in order for democracies to cope with thenew types of problems with which they are faced, they haveto avoid a number of mistakes. They must avoid the beliefthat the very progress which they made possible for a largenumber of .citizens must now be undone because it feelsuncornfortable for sorne. They have to avoid the belief that alittle more unernployment, a little less education, a littlemore deliberate discipline, and a little less freedom ofexpression would make the world a better place, in which itis possible to govern effectively. Indeed, I think, this attemptto turn back the wheels of history to try to recreate the statewhich we have fortunately and deliberately left is in manyways as uncivilized, indeed primitive, as the belief that all weneed is nationalized ownership, public planning, and workercontrol. Either of these mistakes must be avoided if we hopeto manage to create dernocratic conditions and maintainthem, conditions which offer the largest nurnber the largestchance for their lives.

In rny view, what we have to do aboye all is to rnaintainthat flexibility of dernocratic institutions which is in sorneways their greatest virtue: the ability of democraticinstitutions to irnplernent and effect change withoutrevolution-the ability to rethink assurnptions-the ability toreact to new problems in new ways-the ability to developinstitutions rather than change thern all the tirne-the abilityto keep the lines of cornrnunication open between the leadersand the led-the ability to make individuals count aboye all.

We talk about the Trilateral societies, and certainly theyhave a lot in common, bu t there are many differences

Appendix 195

between them also, and sorne have so far managed betterthan others to cope with the problems which 1 haveindicated. 1 have to confess that at this time, at this time inparticular, 1 belong to those who believe that it. is the NorthAmerican societies aboye all which have managed to maintainthe kind of fIexibility which holds out hope for democracyeverywhere.

C. DISCUSSION OF STUDY

Discussion of the governability study in Kyoto openedwith the above-printed comments of Ralf Dahrendorf, nowDirector of the ron-don uSchool of Economics. These com­ments were followed by remarks from each of the threeauthors. Michel Crozier reviewed the thrust of his chapter onWestem Europe, including the judgrnent that democraticpolítical systems in Europe are now the most vulnerable ofthose in the Trilateral regions. The West European dernocra­cies have to carry through "a basic mutation in their modelof government and their mode of social control while facingat the same time a crisis from within and a crisis fromwithout." Samuel P. Huntington responded to sorne ofDahrendorf's cornments. Dahrendorf had raised the issue ofsomehow linking to parliamentary institutions such rnajorextraparliamentary institutions as large labor unions andbusiness organizations. Huntíngton expressed surprise thatthere was no mention in this analysis of political parties asaggregators of the interests of extraparliamentary organiza­tions. On the matter of dernocracy and economic growth,Huntington noted that the rather steady growth oí the lasttwenty-five years has created expectations of continuinggrowth, a growth which cannot now be assumed. This islikely to create problems. As for the effects of internationaldeveloprnents, Huntington stressed that détente has hadnegatíve implications for the cohesion of Trilateral societies.He argued that the growing importance and visibility on the

196 The Crisis 01Democracy

foreign policy agenda of international economic issues andinterdependence has involved problems for democratic gov­ernments, sensitive to domestic interests. Reaching for anoverall formulation of the govemability question, Huntingtonasked if there are inherently destabilizing forces at work indemocratic political systems or whether self-stabilizing, "gy­roscope" effects predominate. One could elaborate an "op­timistic scenario" based on the flexibility and openness ofdemocratic systems, but one could also elaborate a "pessi­mistic scenario" of self-destructive tendencies and a mount­ing accumulation of demands. We need to take advantage ofthe self-correcting opportunities that do existo In his intro­ductory remarks, Joji Watanuki noted that rapid growth inJapan has brought automatic large increases in governmentrevenues. This has greatly helped the government meet risingdemands. If there is a revenue shrinkage, a "higher degree ofgovernability" would be required to see the society throughthe necessary adaptations.

In the discussion which followed the introductory remarksof Dahrendorf and the three authors, the United Stateschapter aroused particularly lively discussion. The FoundingFathers of the United States, one North AmericanCommissioner stated, did not see their first problem as thatof creating a governable democracy. At least as important intheir minds was the guaranteeing of the rights of citizensagainst. the possible excesses of their governors. This Commis­sioner is particularly impressed after the Watergate episodewith the wisdom of an emphasis on the protection of rights.The study should emphasize the vitality of American demo­cratic institutions, particularly the press, the Congress, andthe courts. The authors, he stated, need to balance theirfocus on governability with an equal concem for protectionof the rights of citizens. Another Commissioner concurred,suggesting it might be more appropriate to examine the"excesses" of the "govemors" than those of the govemed.Another participant traced problems in the United States

Appendix 197

more to the failure of leadership than a "dernocratic surge."He argued that the decline of political parties is related to thegrowth of government bureaucracies, which are to sorneextent substituting for parties. More attention should begiven to the problems of big bureaucracy for democracy. ThisComrnissioner stated that it is "simply not true" that the pressis automatica1ly in opposition to the government in theUnited States. Congress is not always in opposition either,even though in the last eight years Congress has been undercontrol of the other party, with no obligation to back thePresident. Sorne of the remedies outlined in the "arenas foraction," this member concluded, would be "wrong, self­defeating, deadly."' According to another North- AmericanCommissioner, who disagreed that the need is for "lessdemocracy," the current relative deadlock in U.S. politics isnot unique. Contrary to the pessimists, he feels recentdevelopments indicate "triumph" and a "finest hour" forAmerican democracy. The disenchantment of the Americanpublic comes from the poor performance of the govemment,lurching from crisis to crisis. The country needs moreappropriate planning, carried on in such a way that thepeople are involved in helping to set goals. This is a preferredaltemative to sorne kind of technocratic elite model forprogress. A number of other Commissioners also associatedthemselves in general with the aboye points, arguing for"more democracy, not less" and expressing particular con­cero for maintenance of "absolutely free new media." Oneparticipant saw the Constitution and system of law in theUnited States as the principal "self-correcting" mechanismthere.

.A Canadian Commissioner argued the unhealthiness forCanada of a recommendation for reinvigoration of politicalparties. Parties are ways to control members, he stated. Theyalienate more capable young politicians and favorconformists. Issues are considered less on their merits thanthey should be. In Canada, this Cornrnissioner stressed, we

198 The CrisisalDemocracy

need institutions to "blue" and "mute" parties. Parliamen­tary committees are important here and should be strength­ened. The reinvigoration we should seek is of parliamentaryinstitutions, with decision-making done publicly to the great­est extent possible. This Commissioner was also troubled bythe recommendations on the media in the "arenas foraction." The press needs strengthening and _protection. InCanada, it has been more effective in opposing the govern­ment than the Opposition party. The Opposition gathersinformation from the press and uses the press to make itsviews known. These are very valuable functions.

Later inthediscussion, Huntington responded to critics ofthe chapter on the United Sta tes. As for the views of theFounding Fathers, Huntington quoted from a well-knowncontribution of James Madison tó The Federalist. Madisonstates that the "first" problem is to "enable the governmentto control the governed," and then to "oblige it to controlitself." Comments in the discussion had suggested,Huntington stated, that this "balance" is now tilted towardgovernment and not the citizens; but never before inAmerican history, he argued, have citizens and citizenorganizations been more assertive and effective. Huntingtonput much emphasis on the "balance" idea, and argued therehad been a shift against government authority which shouldnot be allowed to go too faro On the media, he stressed that-- --~-

their power has undeniably increased, and that this must betaken into account in our analysis. The comments made 011

the press in Canada, he added, also applied in the UnitedStates and indicate the power of the media. In conclusion,Huntington asked the two questions he thought most essen­tial. First, where is the proper place to draw the balance?Second, what is the state of the balance in the United Statesnow? Huntington sees overwhelming evidence that the bal­ance has shifted away from government.

A European Commissioner underlined the weakness ofconstitutional systems in sorne European countries, particu-

Appendix 199

larly those whose electoral systems encourage a multiplicityof parties without this being counter-balaneed by a strongexeeutive. He mentioned Denrnark, Holland, and Belgium.These countries might usefully learn from or perhaps adapteonstitutional features of other states like France, WestemGerrnany -or Britain, particularly for restoring exeeutivepower and gaining "a new lease on life" for their dernocraticsystems without loss of liberties. This Comrnissioner realizedthat systems for eonstitutional amendment were very diffi­eult in the eountries requiring change, but the effort shouldbe made. In closing, he expressed "anguish" and "despair"that European unification has not rnade more progress,progress essential fordemocracy's future in Europe. AnotherEuropean Commissioner reealled Dahrendorf's eornrnentsabout the insufficieney of national polítical space. Amongthe Trilateral regions, this is more true in Europe and Japanthan in North America, he stated. In Europe in particular theadequacy of national polítical space is very much in question.

Another European Commissioner noted that in mostWestern European countries there is not a chance that

.eornrnunist parties will come to power. Franee and Italy areimportant exeeptions. Change there would "create waves." Itwould erode the Comrnunity and Atlantie Allianee. OnBritain, this Commissioner .ernphasized its remarkabledemocratic resilienee and political resources. AnotherCommissioner eoneurred, terming comments about the"ungovernability" of Britain "completely nonsense." Henoted that Britain had been an industrial society much longerthan other states and was thus far ahead of the others in theproblems it now faces.

The future of tne Communist party in Italy was raised byanother European Cornmissioner later in the diseussion. Thiswas already the largest Cornrnunist party in Europe in theyears just after the war. 1ts election advances since then haveactually been quite limited, this Cornrnissioner stated. Whenthe Cornmunist party moves toward power in Italy, there is

200 The Crisis 01Democracy

an "allergic reaction" from the others which keeps the partyout of power. This Commissioner noted the municipal andregional elections coming up in Italy on June 15. He thoughtthe events in Portugal would help the democratic parties.Further European integration would also help keep theCommunist party in check.

One Commissioner noted that he found Dahrendorf'scomments "heartening," though they presented him with the"eternal liberal dilemma"-protection of rights is not possiblewithout effective government. He noted the success of"codetermination" in Gennany as an effective way tostabilize a systern under stress. Another Commissioner addedtwo poinfs "rélated to governability concerns. For one,democratic governments are ron by politicians who makedecisions for political reasons. This is a fact of life. Second,governments have assumed they could do the politicallyattractive thing for the majority and the minority would payoAnother European Commissioner cautioned that there be"elear-cut responsiblity" in any arrangements that would linkpowerful extraparliamentary institutions to parliaments, anissue raised by Dahrendorf.

The chapter on Japan is the most optimistic of the regionalchapters, one North American Commissioner noted. Japanhas not lost the ability to achieve a consensus and act on it,he stated. This may be attributable to a real difference invalues, including greater identification with the group. Thedrive for individual satisfaction must be balanced with suchconcern for the group.

One Japanese Commissioner related the cohesive strengthof the Japanese polítical system to the high quality ofmiddle-level leadership in the country, those in contact withthe people. This appears to be somewhat in decline, however.With the growth of the mass media, people have less need forthese middle-Ievel leaders in interpreting events and makingtheir views known. This also hurts the organization ofpolitical parties. As the middle level has less politicalresponsibility, its quality will decline.

Appendix 201

This Commissioner sees sorne of the recent social problemsof the Trilateral regions related to a temporary shift in thepopulation structure, with an extraordinarily large number ofyounger people, with different valúes, As this bulge in thepopulation structure moves on, problems will become lesssevere.

Another Japanese Commissioner recalled a statement ofLenin's that a revolution cannot be initiated by demandsfrom below, but only when the governing classes are dividedand dissatisfied. One might argue that goveming classes arenow in this condition. This Commissioner pointed to threeweaknesses of democracy. For one, human beings are weak.In a monopoly posítíon they will wield excessive power. Hementioned the press in Japan, whose decisions are sometimesmore importantthan the govemment's, and also associationslike the medical association, which is in a monopoly position,with the tax system rigged in its favor. The Diet is not doingmuch about these powerful organizations. Second, Japaneseintellectuals and students are being attraeted by radicalismo Ifthese fill the middle level of leadership later, Japan may betuming a comer toward a worse situation. Third, it seemsthat opportunists are the ones who gain and hold políticalpower. Tolerant individuals generally do not.

Another Japanese Commissioner emphasized thatdemocracy in Japan is working rather we11. He noted that ata11 levels there are about 80,000 elected political leadersthroughout the country. Certainly there are sornegovernability problems. This Commissioner mentioned thecontroversy over the Japanese nuclear ship which drifted inthe Pacific for sorne fifty days in August and September of1974, having been refused port facilities by local comrnuni­tieso He mentioned the railway unions, which must beconfronted. He noted the current dispute about the Constitu­tion centering on Minister Inaba, which held up Diet delibera­tions on other matters for a week. He mentioned uncertain­ties about the U.S. commitment in Korea after recent eventsin Indochina, and uncertainty about whether the Japan

202 The Crisis alDemocracy

Communist party could be excluded from a coalition formedwhen the LDP majority disappears. These matters add ele­ments of pessimism.

Another Japanese Commissioner also related internationalissues to governability concerns. The world is searching for anew system, he stated, and needs strong leadership in variouscountries. Govemability, however, is in decline. Even inJapan, the government does not have much room tomaneuver. In the long term this Commissioner was optimisticabout Japanese democracy, but can we wait for its problemsto be solved? On the U.S.-Japanese relationship after theIndochina war, Japan is not apprehensive about theadministration, butrather about Congress. Is the President incontrol? Is there a trend in the United States towardisolationism?

Looking over the whole discussion, one North AmericanCommissioner related it to discussion the previous day ofresources and global redistribution of power. He put it all inthe framework of "the central issue for the industrialdemocracies," namely the "apparent conflict between equityand effectiveness." With regard to developing countries, themain issue is that of equity, but "one can have no moreequity than one can afford." And the wealth of thedeveloped world, he argued, should not be too narrowlyconstrued. It is "not especially physical resources but ratherthe complex of spiritual, governmental, and political(capabilities), the way in which (the people) manage toattack and solve their problems." We see this most clearly inthe case of Japan, this Commissioner argued, which isrelatively "resource-less" in a physical sense. What could onetake away from Japan? What is its wea1th? What is it except acomplex of going institutions?

Another participant retumed to the issue raised byDahrendorf of somehow associating nonparliamentary groupswith the parliamentary process. It was suggested this mightbe seen in relation to international institutions, not just

Appendix 203

national political systems. This participant sees underway a"partial domestication of international society," with manydomestic problems of the nineteenth century finding theiranalogs in international problerns of the twentieth century."Partly civilianized international relations" must not becomeso turbulent that we lose societal openness and freedomwhile trying to achieve the equity that is necessary. TheTrilateral region, he argued, is a "vital core" in this effort.

A number of Cornrnissioners emphasized the irnportanceof the issues being raised in the study and discussion andhoped the Commission would continue work in this generalarea. One Commissioner expressed his support "veryconcretely" for the propesed institute for the strengtheningof democratic institutions.

APPENDIX II: CANADIAN PERSPECTIVES ONTHE GOVERNABILITY OF DEMOCRACIES

Discussion in Montreal, May 16, 1975

The rapporteurs of the Trilateral Commission Task Forceon the Governability of Democracies identified common"governability" problems in the three regions. These havebeen viewed as stemming from such factors as the "changingdernocratic context," the rise of "anomic democracy," vari­ous democratic "dysfunctions," the "delegitimization" ofauthority, "system overload," the "disaggregation" of inter­ests, and an increasing parochialism in international affairs.

Detailed background papers underlined the problems pe­culiar to Europe, Japan, and the United States in the area ofgovernability. To explore the Canadian scene, a colloquiumsponsored by the Canadian Group of the Trilateral Cornrnis­sion brought together in May 1975 approximately thirtyCanadians involved in both the analysis and the practice ofgovernment. Several of the Commíssion's Task Force mem­bers were 00 hand.

204 The Crisis alDemocracy

The participants identified particular Canadianperspectives on governability and, in dialogue with the Tri­lateral Task Force members, drew out significant compari­sons and contrasts in the experiences of Canada, the UnitedStates, and to sorne extent theother Trilateral regions.

Discussion was conducted around four major issue-areas:the problem of governability; social, economic and culturalcauses; components of stability; and domestic and foreignimplications, Several major themes emerged from the dis­cussion, treated in the following short report on the pro­ceedings.

AiThe Canadian Governability "Challenge"

Despite the numerous problems and strains that wereidentified with regard to Canadian institutions and values, ageneral consensus emerged that Canada's governability prob­lems were not insoluble and that, indeed,"governability"itself may be less of a problem than the "reality of participa­tion," the "accountability of governors," or as one partici­pant put ít, "the democratizability of governments."

Sorne felt that accountability was the real issue, both inthe context of governmental decison-making and from thepoint of view of expanding participation in decision-rnakingby such groups as organized labour.

While Canada shares with the United Sta tes sorne majorgovernability "challenges" (rather than necessarily"problems"), that is, an overload of dernands on the políticalsystem, a decline in traditional attitudes to authority,changing social values, increasing "dehumanization" of so­ciety, and labour/management conflicts, to name a few, thesechallenges do not appear to have attained the seriousproportions they are said to have reached in the UnitedStates. A few of the differentiating factors mentioned werethe racial problem in the United States, more extensive urbanproblems, and domestic disillusionment engendered by thedecline of the leadership role of the United States in world

Appendix 205

affairs. Such phenomena as Vietnam and Watergate could beseen as special focal points of long-term trends.

There remained a rather clear division of opinion amongthe participants as to whether or not there was evidence of"ungovernability" or a trend toward It in Canada.

B. System Overload

It was argued by sorne that the growing tendencies ofstudents and workers to challenge authority and the newvigour of union demands may even be seen as healthydemocratic phenomena and may be heralding the end of aperiod of "pseudo-democracy," providing the first realattempt at genuine and comprehensive democracy. However,sorne of those who tended to regard Canadian democracy asbecoming increasingly ungovemable viewed these trends asincreasing the overload of demands on decision-makinginstitutions, thereby decreasing their capacity to sort outpriorities, and as a part of the general decline of a coherent"public philosophy." One of the roots of disturbing trendson the labour front in Canada was identified as the fact thatunions have generally not been brought in a real way into thedecision-making process and are often treated implicitly as"outlaws." Such an attitude can only influence relationsbetween organized labour and the broader society in anegative way.

Another speaker asserted that "system overload" inCanada is a "fantasy," that the functioning of the systern hadnot changed and the structure was basically intact, for betteror for worse. Others expressed sympathy for the conditionsin which contemporary politicians operate and claimed thatthere was strong evidence for the case that too much wasasked of them. A maior criticism of the operation ofdemocratic govemments was their inability to sort outpriorities in the face of increasing demands and theirconsequent resort to incrementalism (extension of existingprograms) rather than creative policy-making.

206 The Crisis ofDemocracy

One or two participants suggested that the whole discussionof govemability distorted the real problems and was ofconcem only to an elite uneasy about its declining position insociety! They maintained that factors such as rising inflationand .the growth of public expenditure as a percentage of GNP(which were seen by sorne as causes or effects ofgovemability problems) had nothing to do with govemabilityand may, in fact, have produced more "positive" benefits byforcing better income distribution, via the "catch up" ofwages and social welfare benefits.

C. Institutions

Canadian institutions (federalism, the parliamentarysystem, the public service, the media) were identified asdistinctive and received particular attention by theparticipants. Were they a protection against or a cause ofgreater govemability problems?

It was pointed out that the expansion and proliferation ofbureaucracy at the federal, provincial, and municipal levelshas contributed to the strains on the Canadian politicalsystem because of diminishing clarity of direction andaccountability. There is a growing tendency, it was said, forthe bureaucracy to take over roles which were traditionallythe essential domain of the politicians-such as defining the"public good." This could be regarded as a dangerousdevelopment, particularly in light of the tendency of thefederal bureaucracy to become "Ottawa-centered" and notproperly representative of the regions of Canada.

There was a general consensus that more emphasis shouldbe placed on the democratically-derived institutions. It was

•recommended that the House of Commons be enlarged toprovide better constituency representation and that its pro­cedures be modernized to facilitate the handling of publicbusiness. The so-called "decline of Parliament" was seen asdue, in part, to the growing importance of federal-provincialrelations in the face of the increasing power of the provinces.

Appendix 207

Effective opposition comes from the provinces rather thanthe federal opposition parties, possibly attributable to thesituation of one-party dominance in Ottawa.

American participants concluded from the discussion thatthe Canadian brand of federalism-in its maintenance ofa relative greater degree of decentralization-was a "highlydesirable situation." Despite equally impenetrable provincialbureaucracies and the bargaining problems engendered by theequality ascribed to federal and provincial governments, itwas convincingly argued by Canadians that governabilityproblems were reduced by the flexibility built into theCanadian style of federal structure and parliamentary system.

It was noted- thát ínCanada, as in the United States, acertain trend toward fragmentation and regionalization ofpolitical parties could be observed, but there was no indica­tion that there is anything in Canada approaching what hadbeen called by American analysts "the decline of the partysystem" in the United States. It was held, however, by sorneparticipant noted that the governing Liberal caucus, dominatedby "ministerialists," is consequently not sufficientIy con­representation in all major areas of the country. This ten­dency toward decentralization was seen by others not only asinevitable but as desirable, as parties would presumablybecome more constituency- and region-oriented which wouldoffset bureaucratization among elected representatives. Oneparticipant noted that the governing Liberal caucus, dorninat­ed by "ministerialists," is consequently not sufficiently con­stituency-oriented. Another suggested that existing Canadianpolitical parties fulfilled an important role by effectingtrade-offs in nonideological terms.

D. Rhetoric/Performance Gap

Another major theme emerging from the discussion wasthe problem of the gap between rhetoric and performance ingovernment. Two views, whose consequences are perhaps

208 The Crisis ofDemocracy

equally damaging if true, emerged on this issue: (1) thatpeople tend to ignore or disbelieve the rhetoric andconsequently lose their faith in the system and refuse toparticipate (identified as an "apathy of despair"); and (2)that, as, a result of governmentfhetoric, expectations areraised to a point of no possible return or satisfaction,especial1y in regard to the al1ocation of benefits amongindividuals and groups.

E. Decline 01 a "Public Philosophy"

Labour groups are not impeded, it was said, from makingoutrageous demands-due to the absence of a strong publicphilosophy and to prevalent doubt as to whether fairnessunderlies the general allocation of influence and resources.The decline in "community" and a dehumanization of societyresult in the aggressive self-assertion of the individual orgroups. In the absence of a national ethos, governments arehamstrung in their efforts to cope with such prevalent diffi­culties as infiation and labour/management disputes. Thisphenomenon of declining cohesive values appears to be com­rnon to both Canada and the United States.

F. Communications and Governability

FinalIy, the theme of communications was identified asboth a cause and a result of the problems of governability. Itwas noted, even by journalists, that the press tends to provideshort-term, personalized, sensationalist pictures of politicalevents, thereby widening the rhetoric/performance gap. Itwas suggested that a strengthened periodical press is neededto give more long-term perspective on events, trends, andinstitutions.

Poverty of communication both within governments andbetween governments and other sectors was also identified asa governability problem. This was seen as resulting in a

Appendix 209

serious lack of knowledge as to how "the other side" takesdecisions, which tends to hamper desirable constructivebargaining within the industry-government-Iabour triangle. Itwas also suggested that parliament's capacity to achieve amediatingfunction has decreased due to partisan factionalismand its diminishing power over the bureaucracy.

G. Possible Conclusions

As identified by this col1oquium, Canada's foremost­govemability problems can be regarded as falling within fourmajor areas: the questionable ability of the evolving politicalinstitutions to aggregate-an increasing volume of demandsefficiently and at the same time to retain their accountabilityto the public; the increasing rhetoric/performance gap; thedecline of a "public philosophy"; and the problem ofcommunications. Several characteristics of the Canadian sys­tem were found actually to enhance Canada's governability,that is, its parliamentary and federal structures of govem­ment, a reasonable degree of decentralization of authorityand the absence of class-based political partiese However, ageneral consensus emerged that Canada's governability prob­lems (as redefined) while not insoluble are real and deserveurgent attention and remedial action.

CANADIAN GROUP COLLOQUIUM

LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

Doris Anderson, Editor, Chatelaine MagazineFrances Bairstow, Director, Industrial Relations Center,

McGill UniversityCarl Beigie, Executive Director, C. D. Howe Research

InstitutePierre Benoit, Journalist, Broadcaster, Former Mayor of

Ottawa

210 The Crisis al Democracy

Marvin Blauer, Special Assistant to the Premier of ManitobaRobert Bowie, Professor of International Affairs, Harvard

UniversityZbigniew Brzezinski, Director, The Trilateral Commission

Stephen Clarkson, Professor of Political Science, UniversityofToronto

Tim Creery, Editor, The Gazette, MontrealPeter Dobell, Director, Parliamentary Centre for Foreign

p 'fairs »nd Foreign TradeGordon Fairweather, Member of ParliamentFrancis Fox, Member of ParliamentDonald Fraser, UnitedStates CongressRichard Gwyn, Ottawa Correspondent, Toronto StarReeves Haggan, Assistant Deputy Minister, Solicitor General

DepartmentSamuel P. Huntington, Professor of Governrnent, Harvard

University

Robert Jackson, Professor of Political Science, CarletonUniversity

Pierre Juneau, Chairman, Canadian Radio-TelevisionCommission

Michael Kirby, Assistant Principal Secretary, Office of thePrime Minister

GiBes Lalande, Professor of Política! Science, University ofMontreal

Claude Lemelin,. Special Assistant to the Secretary of Statefor Externa! Affairs

Vincent Lemieux, Professor of Political Science, LavalUniversity

Claude Masson, Vice-Dean of Research, Laval UniversityJohn Meisel, Professor of Political Science, Queen's

UniversityGeoffrey Pearson, Chairman, Policy Analysis Group,

Department of External AffairsJean-Luc Pepin, Co-ordinator, Canadian Group, the Trilateral

Commission; President, Interimco Limited

Appendix 211

Simon Reisman, Chairman, Reisman and Grandy LimitedDonald Rickerd, President, The Donner Canadian

FoundationClaude Ryan, Editor, Le Devoir, MontrealGarth Stevenson, Professor of Political Science, Carleton

UniversityDale Thomson, Vice-Principal (Planning), McGill University

A The Triangle Papers

REPORTSOFTASKFORCESOFTHE TRILATERAL COMMISSION

The Crisis o/Democracy is one of a series of reports of task forcesof the Trilateral Commission. The preceding reports, all published

by the Commission itself, are listed below.

1. Towards a Renovated W-orld Monetary System (1973)Trilateral Monetary Task ForceRapporteurs:Richard N. Cooper, Motoo Kaji, Claudio Segré

2. The Crisis ofInternational Cooperation (1973)Trilateral Polítical Task ForceRapporteurs: Francois Duchéne, Kinhide Mushakoji, HenryD.Owen

3. A Turning Point in North-South Economic Relations (1974)Trilateral Task Force on Relations with Developing CountriesRapporteurs: Richard N. Gardner, Sabuco Okita, B. J. Udink

4. Directions for World Trade in the Nineteen-Seventies (1974)Trilateral Task Force on TradeRapporteurs: Guido Colonna di Paliano, Philip H. Trezise,Nobuhiko Ushiba

5. Energy: The Impera tive for a Tri/ateral Approach (1974)Trilateral Task Force on the Political and InternationalImplications of the Energy CrisisRapporteurs: John C. Campbell, Guy de Carmoy, ShinichiKondo

6. Energy: A Strategy for In ternational Action (1974)Trilateral Task Force on the Political and InternationalImplications of the Energy CrisisRapporteurs: John C. Campbell, Guy de Carmoy, ShinichiKondo

7. OPEC, the Tri/ateral World, and the Developing Countries: NewArrangements for Cooperation, 1976-1980 (1975)

Trilateral Task Force on Relations with Developing CountriesRapporteurs: Richard N. Gardner, Sabuco Okita, B.J. Udink

213

(As ofAugust 15,1975)

THE TRILATERAL COMMISSlüN

GERARD C. SMlTIINorth American OJaimuzn

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKIDirector

CHRISTOPHER J. MAKlNSDeputy Director

MAXKOHNSTAMMEuropean OIairman

FRAN~IS DUCHENEEuropean Deputy C1Jairman

TAKESHIWATANABEJapaneseOtairman

GEORGE S. FRANKLlNNorth American SecretaryTADASHIYAMAMOTO

JapaneseSecretary

Ñorcll American Members

*1.W. Abel, President, United Steelworkers ofAmericaDavid M. Abshire, Chairman, Georgetown University Center for Strategic and

International StudiesGraham Allison, Professor ofPoütics, Harvard UniversityDoris Anderson, Editor, Chatelaine MagazineJohn B. Anderson, House ofRepresentativesErnest C. Arbuckle, Oairman, We/ls Fargo BankJ. Paul Austin, Oiairman. The Coca-Cola CompanyGeorge W. Ball, Senior Partner, Lehman BrotñersRussell Bell, Research Director, Canadian Labour CongressLucy Wilson Benson, Former President, League 01 Women Voters of the

United StatesW. Míchael Blumenthal, Chairman, Bendix Corporation

*Robert W. Bonner, Q.C., Bonner & Fouks, VancouverRobert R. Bowie, Oarence Dillon Professor ofInternational Affairs,

Harvard UniversityJohn Brademas, House ofRepresentatives

*Harold Brown, President, California Institute of TechnologyJames E. Carter, Jr., Former Govemor 01GeorgiaLawton Chiles, United States SenateWarren Christopher, Partner, O 'Melveny & MyersAlden W. Clausen, President, Bank ofAmerica

tWilliam T. Coleman, Jr., Secretary, Department ofTransponationBarber B. Conable, Jr., House ofRepresentativesRichard N. Cooper, Frank Altschul Professor ofIntemational Economics,

Yale UniversityJohn C. Culver, United States SenateGerald L. Curtís, Director, East Astan Institute, Columbia UniversityUoyd N. Cutler, Partner, Wilmer, Cutler & PickeringArchibald K. Davis, Otalrman, Wachovia Bank & Trust CompanyEmmett Dedmon, Vice President and Editorial Director, Field Enterprises, lnc.Louis A. Desrochers, Partner, McOtaig and Desrochers

215

Peter Dobell, Director, Parliamentary Center for Foreign Affairs and ForeignTrade

Hedley Donovan, Editor-in-Oüef, Time, Inc.Daniel J. Evans, Governor of WashingtonGordon Faírweather, Member 01 PariiamentDonald M. Fraser, HouseofRepresentativesRichard N. Gardner, Henry L. MosesProfessor 01Law and Intemational

Organization, Columbia University*Patrick E. Haggerty, Ouurman, Texas InstrumentsWilliam A. Hewitt, OUlirman, Deere & CompanyMan Hockín, Executive Vice President, Toronto-Dominion BankRichard Holbrooke, Managing Editor, Foreign Policy MagazineThomas L. Hughes, President, Camegie Endowment for Intemational PeaceJ. K. Jamieson, Otairman, Exxon CorporationLane Kirldand, Secretary-Treasurer, AFL-CIOSol M. Línowitz, Senior Partner, Coudert BrothersBroce K. MacLaury, President, FederalReserve Bank ofMinneapoltsClaude Masson, Professor ofEconomics, Laval UniversityPaul W. McCracken, Edmund Ezra Day Professor01 BusinessAdministration,

Uaiversity ofMiehiganWalter F. Mondale, United States SenateLee L. Margan, President;·CaterpilJar Tractor CompanyKenneth D. Naden, President, National Council ofFarmerCooperativesHenry D. Owen, Director, ForeignPoliey Studies Program, The Brookings

InstitutionDavid Packard, Chairman; Hewlett-Packard Company

*Jean-Luc Pepin, P.C., President, Interimco, Ltd.John H. Perkins, President, Continental Illinois National Bank & Trust CompanyPeter G. Peterson, Chairman, Lehman Brothers

*Edwin O. Reischauer, University Professor, Harvard Universityt former u.s.Ambassador to Jopan

tElliot L. Richardson, United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom*David Rockefeller, Chairman, Cñase Manhattan Bank

Robert V. Roosa,Partner, Brown Bros., Harriman & Company*William M. Roth, Roth PropertiesWilliam V. Roth, Jr., United States SenateCarl T. Rowan, Columnist

*William W. Scranton, Former Govemor ofPennsylvania*Gerard C. Smith, Counsel, Wilmer, Cutler& Pickering

Anthony Solomon, ConsultantRobert Taft, Jr., United States SenateArthur R. Taylor, President, Columbia BroadeastingSystem, Inc.Cyrus R. Vanee, Partner, Simpson, Thaeher & Bartlett

*Paul C. Warnke, Partner, Clifford, Wamke, Glass, McIlwain & FinneyMarina van N. Whitman, Distinguished Publie Service Professor ofEconomics,

University 01PittsburgñCarroll L. Wilson, ProfessorofManagement, Alfred P. Sloan School 01

Management, MITArthur M. Wood, Otairman, Sears, Roebuek & CompanyLeonard Woodcock,President. United Automobile Workers

*Executive CommitteetCurrently in Government Service

216

European Members

*Giovanni Agnelli, President, FIA T, Ltd.Raymond Barre, Former VicePresident01 the L'ommission 01 the

European CommunityPiero Bassetti,-President 01 the Regional Govemment 01 Lombardy

*Georges Berthoín, Former Cñief Representative 01 the Commission01 the European Community to the UiK.

*Kurt Bírrenbach, Member 01 the Bundestag; President, ThyssenVermogensverwaltung

Franco Bobba, Company Director, TurinFrederick Boland, Chancellor, Dublin University; former President

01 the United Nations General AssemblyRené Bonety, Représentant de la CFDTlean-Claude Casanova, Director01Studies, Foundation Nationa/e des

Sciences Politiques, Paris .Umberto Colombo, Director.o] the.Committee lar Scientific Policy, OECDGuido Colonna di Paliano, President, La Rinascente; [ormermember 01

the Commission 01 the European Community*Francesco Compagna, Under-Secretary ofState, Ministry ofthe Mezzogiomo

The Earl of Cromer, Former British Ambassador to the United States;Partner, BaringBros. and Ca., Ltd.

Michel Debatisse, Présidentde la F.N.S.E.A.*Paul Delouvrier, Chairman, French Electricity Board

Barry Desmond, Member 01 the Lower House 01 the lrish RepublicFritz Dietz, President, GermanAssociation lar Wholesale and Foreign TradeWerner Dollinger, Member 01 the Bundestag

*Herbert Ehrenberg, Member'01 the BundestagPierre Esteva, Directeur Généralde l'U.A.P.

*Marc Eyskens, Commissary General 01 the Catholic University 01 LouvainM. H. Fisher,Editor, Financial TimesFrancesco Forte, Professor 01 Financial Sciences, University 01 TurinJacques de Fouchier, President, Banquede Paris et des Pays-BasMichel Gaudet, Président de la Fédération Francaise des AssurancesSir Reay Geddes, Chairman, Dunlop Holdings, Ltd.Giuseppe Glisenti, Director 01 General Affairs, La RinascenteLord Harlech, Former British Ambassador to the United States; Otairman,

Harlech TelevisionKarl Hauenschild, President, German Oiemical-Paper-Ceramtcs workers' UnionJozef P. Houthuys, President, Belgian ConfederationofOuistian Trade UnionsDaniel E. Janssen, Deputy Director General, Belgian Olemical Union, Ltd.Pierre Jouven, Présidentde Pechiney Ugine KuhlmannKarl Kaiser, Director01 the Research Institute 01 the GermanSociety for

Foreign PolicyMichael Killeen, Managing Director, Industrial Development Authority,

lrish RepublicAndré Kloos, Otairman ofthe Socialist radio and television network "V.A.R.A. ':.

former chairman01 the Dutch Trade Union Federation*Max Kohnstamrn, President, European Community Institute lar University Studies

Baron Léon Lambert, President, Banque Lambert, BrusselsCount atto Lambsdorff, Member 01 the BundestagArrigo Levi, Director, La Stampa, Turin

217

Eugen Loderer,President, German Metal Workers' Union*John Loudon, Otairman, Royal Dutch Petroleum Company

Evan Luard, Member ofParliamentRobert Marjolin, Former Vice President of the Commission of the European

CommunityRoger Martin, Président de la ae Saint-Gobain-Pont-a-Mousson

Reginald Maudling, Member ofParliament; former Cabinet MinisterF. S. MeFadzean, Managing Director, Royal Dutch Shell GroupCesare Merlini, Director, Italian Institute for International AlfairsAlwin Münehmeyer, President, German Banking Federation

tlvar Nergaard, Minister ofForeign Economic Affairs and Nordic Affairs, DenmarkMiehaeI O'Kennedy, Shadow Minister ofForeign Affairs, Irish Republic;

former Cabinet MinisterBernard Pagezy, Président Direc teur Général de la Patemelle- ViePierre Peseatore, Luxembourg; Member of the European Court ofJusticeSir John Pilcher, Former British Ambassador to JapanJean Rey, Former President of the Commission of the European CommunityJulian Ridsdale, Member ofParliament; Chairman of the Anglo-Japanese

Parliament GroupSir Frank K. Roberts, Advisory Director of Unilever, Ltd.; Advisor on

Intemational.AffairstoIloyds ofLondon*Mary T. W. Robinson, Member of the Senate of the Irish RepublicSir Eric Roll, Executive Director, S. G. Warburg and CompanyEdmond de Rothschild, Président de la Compagnie Financiére HoldingJohn Christian Sannes, Director, Norwegian Institute ofInternational AffairsGerhard Schróder, Member of the Bundestag; former Foreign Minister of the

Federal Republic ofGermanyRoger Seydoux, Ambassador 01 FranceAndrew Shonfield, Director, The Royal Institute ofIntemational AffairsHans-Günther SoW, President, Federal Union ofGerman Industry ; President of the

Board ofDirectors ofAugust Thyssen Hütte A.G.Theo Sommer, Editor-in-Cñief, Die ZeitMyles Staunton, Member of the Lower House of the Irish RepublicThorvald Stoltenberg, Intemational Affairs Secretary, Norwegian Trade Union

CouncilG. R. Storry, Sto Antony sCollege, Oxford (Far East Centre)J. A. Swire, Otairman, John Swire and Sons, Ud.

·Otto Grieg Tidemand, Shipowner; [ormer Norwegian Minister ofDefense andMinister ofEconomic Affairs

A. F. Tuke, Chairman, Barclays Bank IntemationalHeinz-Oskar Vetter, Chairman, German Federation of Trade UnionsLue Wauters, President, Kredietbank, BrusselsOtto Wolff von Amerongen, President, Otto WolffA.G.; President, German

Chamber ofCommerce*Sir Kenneth Younger, Former Director of the Royal Institute ofIntemational

Affairs; former Minister otState for Foreign Affairs·Sir Philip de Zulueta, OtiefExecutive, Antony Gibbs Holdings, Ltd.; fonner

OüefAssistant to the British Prime Minister

*Executive CornrnitteetCurrently in Governmenl Service

218

Japanese Members

Isao Amagi, Direc tor, Japan Scholarship Foundation; former Vice MtnisterofEducation

Yoshiya Ariyoshi, Chairman, Nippon Yusen KaishaYoshishíge Ashihara, Oiairman, Kansai ElectricPower Company, Inc.Toshio Doko, President, Japan Federation ofEconomic Organizations [Keidanren]Jun Eto, Professor, Tokyo Institute of TechnologyShinkichi Eto, Professor ofIntemational Relations, Tokyo University

*Chuji~o Fujino, Chairman, Mitsubishi CorporationShihtaro Fukushima, President, Kyodo News ServiceNoboru Gotoh, President, TOKYU CorporationToru Hagiwara, Advisor lo [he Minister ofForeign Affairs; former Ambassador

toFraneeSumio Hara, Chairman, Bank ofTokyo, Ltd.

·Yukitaka Haraguchi, Chairman. AIl Japan Federation ofMetal and MiningIndustries Labor Unions

Norishige Hasegawa, President, Sumitomo Otemical Company, LId*Yoshio Hayashi, Member ofthe Diet:Teru Hidaka, Otairman, Yamaichi Securities Company, Ltd.

*Kazushige Hirasawa, Radio-T'V news eommentator, Japan Broadcasting [neoHideo Hori, President, Employment PromotionProject CorporationShozo Hotta, Oiairman, Sumitomo Bank, LIdShinichi Ichimura, Professor ofEconomics, Kyoto UniversityHiroki Imazato, President, Nippon Seiko K.K.Yoshihlro Inayama, Oiairman, Nippon Steel CorporationKaoru lnoue, Oiairman, Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, LId.Rokuro Ishikawa, Exeeutive Viee President, Kafima CorporationTadao Ishikawa, Professor, Department ofPolitical Science, Keio UniversityYoshízane lwasa, Oiairman ofthe Advisory Committee, Fuji Bank, Ltd.Motoo Kaji, Professor ofEconomics, Tokyo UniversityFuji Kamiya, Professor, Keio University

·Yusuke Kashiwagi, Deputy President, Bank of Tokyo.Ltd.; former SpecialAdvisor to the Minister ofFinance

Ryoichi Kawai, President, Komatsu Seisakusho, LId.Katsuji Kawamata, Chairman, Nissan Motor Company, LId.Kazutaka Kikawada, Chairman, Tokyo Electrie Power Company, Ine.Kiichiro Kitaura, President, Nomura Securities Company, LId.Koji Kobayashi, President, Nippon Eleetrie Company, LtdKenichiro Komai, Chairman, Hitachi, LId.Fumihiko Kono, Counselor, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.Masataka Kosaka, Professor, Faeulty ofLaw, Kyoto UniversityFumihiko MakilPrincipal Partner, Maki and Associates, Design, Planning and

Developmen tShigeharu Matsumoto, Chairman. International House ofJapan, [neoMasaharu Matsushita, President, Matsushita Electric Company, LId.

tKiichi Miyazawa, Minister ofForeign AffairsAkio Morita, President, SONY CorporationTakashi Mukaibo, Professor, Faeulty ofEngineering, Tokyo University

*Kinhide Mushakoji, Director, Institute of International Relations, Sophia UniversityYonosuke Nagai, Professor ofPolitical Science, Tokyo Institute of TechnologyShigeo Nagano, President, Japan Otamber ofCommerce and Industry

219

Eiichi Nagasue, Member ofthe DietToshio Nakamura, President, Mitsubishi Bank; Ltd.Ichiro Nakayama, President, Janpa Institute ofLaborSohei Nakayama, President, Overseas Teehnieal Cooperation AgeneyYoshihísa Ohjimi, Advisor, Arabian Oil Company, LId.; former Administrative

Vice Minister ofIntemational Trade and Industry*Saburo Okita, President, Overseas Economic.Cooperation FU1!ct ..

Kiichi Saeki, Director, Nomura Researeh Institute of Teehnology and EconomicsKuníhiko Sasakí, Chairman, Fuji Bank, LId

*Ryuji Takeuchi, Advisor to the Ministry ofForeign Affairs; former Ambassadorto the United States

Eiji Toyoda, President, Toyota Motor Company, Ltd.Seiji Tsutsumi, President, Seibu Department Store, Inc.Kogoro Uernura, Honorary President, Japan Federation afEeonomie

Organizations (Keidanren)Tadao Umezao, Professor ofEthnology, Kyoto University

*Nobuhiko Ushiba, Former Ambassador ofJapan to the United StatesJiro Ushío, President, Ushio Eleetrie lne.Shogo Watanabe, President, Nikko Securities Company, Ltd.

*Takeshi Watanabe; Chairman,·T.rident lntemational Finanee, Ltd., Hong Kong;former President, the Asian Development Bank

Kizo Yasui, Oiairman, Taray Industries, Ine.

·Executive CommitteetCurrently in Government Service

220

Michel J. Crozier is the founder and director of the Centre de Soci­ologie des Organisations in Paris, France as well as Senior Research

Director at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. He is aregular consultant to the French government on matters of economicplanning, education and public administration and has, since 1964,spent several semesters as a visiting Professor at Harvard University. Heis the author of numerous important works in sociology his "La SociétéBloquée" having been translated as "The Stalled Society" by VikingPress in 1973. Prof. Crozier was President of the Société Francaise deSociologie in 1970-72.

Samuel P. Huntington is Frank G. Thomson Professor of Governmentat Harvard University and Associate Director of the Center for Interna­tional Affairs at Harvard, as well as editor of the quarterly journal,Foreign Policy . He is a Fellow on the American Academy of Arts andSciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and theInternational Institute of Strategic Studies. He was a member of theCouncil of the American Political Science Association (1969 - 1971)and a member of the Presidential Task Force on International Develop­ment (1969 - 1970), among many other high level posts. Another of hisbooks appearing this year is "No Easy Choice: Political Participation inDeveloping Countries." co-authored with Joan M. Nelson.

Joji Watanuki is Professor of Sociology at Sophia University inTokvo, Japan. Positions he has held include: Senior Scholar, Communi­cation Institute, East-West Center, Honolu lu, Hawai i; Professor, Insti­tute of International Relations, Soph ia University, Tokyo; RockefellerFoundation Fellow and Visiting Fellow at Princeton University; andResearch Associate at the Institute of International Studies, Universityof California, Berkeley. He is the author of numerous studies inpolitical sociology, published in Japan.

Jacket design by Paul Agule & Cato Johnson Associates