We know that people feel pushed out of the system by a professional political class of lobbyists, politicians, and the media. How could these professional politicians have amassed such power? The answer is that our political system functions the way it does, in part, because it was designed that way. When citizens express their anger at representatives who shield themselves from popular opinion, and at interest groups who turn politics into a contest over who gets what, they are reacting against established norms about how politics must work.

There is no doubt that the country values democracy. Yet, we have to remember that the government was constructed to guard against what were thought to be the weaknesses of popular democracy. The current anger has its roots in the relatively weak role given citizens in the design of republican government. So more is at issue than the character or competence of this generation of political professionals—those whom people like to blame for pushing them out of the system. Long before modern interest groups were formed, before there were sound bites and big government, some Americans worried that the political system was evolving into one that would lose touch with the average citizen and be easily corrupted by money. These Anti-federalists, so called because of their concerns about central government, feared we were creating a scheme for governing the country in which "the bulk of the people can have nothing to say to [the government]." [1] For these early patriots, the victory in the American Revolution meant an opportunity to create a political system in which self-reliant citizens managed their own affairs—not another empire where those who ruled felt little connection with the people. Such empires, it was believed, would always end in corruption, greed, and lust for power. [2] If the Anti-federalists in the eighteenth century could hear citizens two hundred years later, they might say, "We told you so!"

The virtue of governing through interest group competition was not only that it would protect against tyranny; the competition was also seen as serving the common interest. Even if interest groups were concerned only with what benefited them, their competition would ultimately result in the government doing what was best for the country.

The notion that competition is inherently beneficial, that the "best tend to win out," came from the economic theories of Adam Smith, who developed the theory of capitalism in England at the same time that Madison developed the theory of representative government. Smith wrote that an "invisible hand" produces a superior society out of the endeavors of unfettered individual enterprise. Even if the individual parties are self-interested, the common good would be served. "Every individual . . . neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. . . . He intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. . . . By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it." [6]

Smith's economic theory—or what was understood to be his theory—had a profound effect on the development of democratic theory. Ideas about the efficacy of self-interested competition were applied to political as well as economic behavior. Political competition was considered to be much like commercial competition. And democracy was redefined as a marketplace for free political competition. Citizens were understood to be consumers whose role was to buy, or not to buy, interest groups were selling.

Much of today's understanding of how politics works is based on this market model. Joseph Schumpeter, a modern economist turned democratic theorist, believed democracy could be effeceive only if it were understood as an "institutional arrangement. . . in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people's vote." [7] This kind of democracy is like intense economic competition made political. There need be few, if any, common ideals and values—only the beneficial force of political competition, the struggle for advantage. Political competition will cause the public good to be served. The best "products" (candidates and policies) will win out.

Now the established view is that, at most, a very small percentage of the population, perhaps as little as 5 percent, takes the responsibility of citizenship seriously. This elite core of citizens and the people they put into office act as everyone's guardians. Those who are serious and active are opinion leaders, and they control what the masses think and do. [8] Everyone else is just along for the ride, and there is no need to pay much attention to them except to be sure that their needs are met.

Today's arguments for guardians and against self-government are familiar. One is that self-government only works in small communities like the small city-states where it originated. America is too large to be a democracy. Another more recent claim is that our technological society is too complex for average citizens to direct. The most damning of all arguments is that Americans lack the moral character to be citizens. We are said to have lost respect for the civic values that citizens must have. We have even lost our capacity for civility. Finally, some scholars insist that the very idea of democracy is hopelessly flawed. Its principles are contrary to human nature and the nature of politics. [9] All of this leads to one conclusion: America needs guardians of the true public interest.

Those who have volunteered to serve as our guardians are often committed to a particular vision of America. They question popular rule, not because it does not lead to answers, but because it might lead to "the wrong answer." They believe guardians are needed to save America from itself. The public seems unpredictable and dangerous. So the American way of life cannot be assured by popular democracy. From this point of view, public talk is time-wasting babble—or worse. Widespread public discussion might confirm the public's deepest fears about the country's enemies and escalate conflict. So a degree of citizen indifference is essential. The public needs to be somewhat passive; if everyone were interested in everything, the political system would not work. Participation should not be overly encouraged. The danger is in having too much, not too little, public involvement in politics. Guardians see the public as a baby who, when it becomes upset, cries to alert its parental guardians. Although the "baby" public may know something is wrong, it can't provide solutions—only cry out.

Walter Lippmann gave the bluntest formulation of the case for guardians when he argued that citizens are like theatergoers who arrive in the middle of the third act and leave before the final curtain. They have neither the capacity nor the interest to direct public affairs responsibly. [10] The best citizens can do is to choose their best leaders.

Was Madison wrong in his assumptions that there would always be self-interests and that it would be better to control the "mischief of factions" than to destroy liberty or try to make certain that everyone would have the same opinions? Probably not. Today we may have even more reason to believe that economic differences ("the unequal distribution of property"), ideological differences ("a zeal for different opinions"), and various ambitions for power ("different leaders ambitiously contending for preeminence and power") produce mutual animosity. We could even add racial, gender, and ethnic differences to Madison's list of the sources of conflict. Furthermore, we need to remind ourselves that Madison said the purpose of political competition was not simply to produce winners but rather to advance the public good and ensure civil rights for all. [11] And Madison believed people had the capacity ("sufficient virtue") for self-government. [12] So the point is not that Madison was wrong or that the design of our representative system is fatally flawed. It seems more profitable to look at what modern circumstances have done to the character of factions and the nature of their conflict and to consider what these forces have done to representative government.

James Madison could not have imagined what would happen in two hundred years. Yet now we know that a system of representative, faction-driven government is very vulnerable to special interest control, lobbyist manipulation, the influence of money, and thirty-second commercials. It is relatively easy to push citizens to the back of the bus—particularly if citizens help the process along by accepting their roles as consumers or by opting out of the system.

The hope that all would be made right at the ballot box is not realized when money, not votes, controls who is elected and what policies are adopted. And today's interest groups are a far cry from Madison's factions. Madison would not have believed the enormous sums of money that interest groups raise to meet the equally enormous cost of campaigns. Nor were the factions he had in mind narrow, single-issue groups. His factions were "debtors" or "landed interest'' or "mercantile interests." He would not have realized that the ability to raise money to influence legislation is often greater with a single issue.

Neither could Madison have anticipated the degree to which lobbyists have become, in citizens' eyes, "the real representatives." It is quite a different maner to be represented by various lobbyists than to be represented by one person. We expect representatives to do what we do—balance carefully, give appropriate weight, and assign priorities to the various interests we have. We don't hire lobbyists to represent our balanced views.

Interest groups are created to represent one of our particular interests and pressure officials to respond to one particular concern. Even if many of our interests are being advanced by various lobbyists, we still may not feel that we (in the sense of our more integrated selves) are really represented. That may be why people say that the public interest is the only interest not represented.

To be fair, interest group competition does, just as Madison hoped, keep some balance in the system. And interest group politics has its own claim to being democratic, a claim that rests on two assumptions. One is that everyone is in—or can be in—an interest group and can, therefore, be "represented." The other is that everyone in an interest group understands his or her interest the same way. Both assumptions, however, are questionable. Everyone in an interest group is not of the same mind. And even with all our groups, large portions of our population are not members of any "faction." [13]

Even the claim that interest groups serve to make the public more aware of issues, and of what the options are, is open to question. Certainly, interest groups serve the public good by raising citizens' consciousness on critical issues. They offer policy options that go beyond those offered by politicians. The problem, perhaps not of their making, is that even the interest groups may not give the public all the valid options on a policy question. All the possible "products" don't necessarily get on the shelf for citizens to consider. The only options the public hears, so it is charged, are those that powerful interests have decided are appropriate. [14] Madison's assumptions about how representative government could work best have been unsettled most by what has happened to government itself in the last two hundred years. Probably the greatest change in our political circumstances since Madison's generation is the far greater role that government plays in our lives. Although the Federalists argued for a stronger central government than was laid out in the Articles of Confederation, they still wanted only limited government. Limited government was the passion of the eighteenth century. So in that century, when government had relatively few issues to address, a clash of interests seemed tolerable. Now, however, when government affects nearly every interest and every aspect of everyday life, that clash of factions has the sound of never-ending conflict.

Politics is now consumed by government, thus changing the very nature of politics. Politics has become narrowly restricted to one task, that of managing a multitude of very large governments, state and local as well as federal. Whether that change is good or bad is not the issue here. How it has affected citizens and their role is.

To a degree, our scheme for government, with the role given to interest groups and guardians, has become a substitute for a more complete theory of politics. As government has moved to the center of the political universe, the quintessential political act has become influencing government. That is what interest groups have always done and that is how the citizens' role is defined. Consider a modern textbook's interpretation of political participation: participation is an act of "influencing the government, either by affecting the choice of government personnel or by affecting the choices made by government personnel.'' [l5]

The implications of this definition are far-reaching. Citizens are not thought of as the legitimate authors of the public's interest. Instead, they are looked upon as supplicants trying to influence government on their own behalf, recruits for bringing group pressure, or consumers of the prefabricated opinions of others. The problem isn't that citizens have no role in this redefinition of politics; it is that their role demotes them from the first officers of a democracy to mere conscripts.

In this vision of politics as a special realm directed by governments and "professionals," ordinary citizens have to be drafted for political duty the way recruits are brought into an army. The idea is to make advocates of the supposedly apathetic. So "pols" enlist citizens in order to bring their influence to bear on a wide array of causes and to serve as cannon fodder for the factional warfare of interest group politics.

To increase their clout, interest groups naturally try to recruit more and more citizens. They bombard citizens with appealing images and sound bites to sell them a particular point of view or "solution" to a political problem. Of course, this changes the character of political debate. The purpose of the exchange is not to listen to people, to open up a two-way dialogue; the objective is to persuade.

by giving government the central role and making "influencing" the essence of political activity, interest groups and guardian politicians not only turn the political debate into a sales meeting, but they also create unusual, post-Madisonian, theory of representation. The basic unit of politics is no longer to be the individual citizen but a corporate body, a group of some type. Individuals are important only if they are represented by a group or are, themselves, representatives of a group. In a recent movie, Roger and Me, the principal character is denied entry into an office on the grounds that he "did not represent anyone." In that same sense, citizens as citizens don't have any standing or voice. [16] They don't represent anyone but themselves.

In this concept of representation, elected officials are presumed not to represent individuals; rather, they represent groups. The consequence is that citizens no longer feel they are represented by anyone. And in this kind of politics, they aren't.

The way modern factions and political leaders conduct politics sets a powerful example for others. Today, whether in a high school classroom or a senior citizen center, whether in a corporate boardroom or a low-income neighborhood, many believe that the only way things get done in politics is to sell the public on political solutions, the same way marketers sell the public on soap or cars. And "what is" easily becomes "what should be." Treating citizens as consumers, concentrating on telling them what is good for them, is much easier than really involving them in politics. Sitting back as a tax-paying consumer and criticizing government's guardians is much easier for people than taking the initiative themselves. And deciding matters in open factional combat has the assuring attraction of the free competition that Americans cherish. If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that government by factions and guardians has its appeal.

To make self-interest the cornerstone of our political system precludes any coherent sense of the common good, argues Benjamin Barber, a contemporary democratic theorist. Barber worries that no foundation for citizenship or civic virtue will be found in a political system based on maximizing self-interest. Politics becomes no more than "the conduct of public affairs for private advantage." [17] A democracy that operates like a marketplace for competing interests demotes politics to the regulation of passions with countervailing passions. "Modern political philosophy," the columnist George Will contends, "has transformed a fact (man's appetitive nature) into a moral principle." A society so constructed, he argues, cannot long endure because our sense of "shared fate" and duty to one another has become thin gruel. [18] Can we really believe that some "guiding hand" will produce a common good out of aggregated selfishness, that it is a substitute for a sense of shared fate and civic duty? No, say the critics; to believe that is to believe in political alchemy. After all, even Adam Smith believed that competition had to be carried on in a moral or ethical context.

What, then, could be a basis for an alternative to politics as usual? Can we assume that enough people are really unselfish and altruistic and, therefore, do away with our safeguards? Should we—can we—eliminate all kinds of interest groups? Are all interest groups promoting the narrow interest of their members? Should we expect less of our leaders than that they be dedicated to the public interest? No!

A basis for a different kind of politics is found in the Main Street study and other case studies that show that self-interest is not always selfish interest, that our interests can be broad and general, not just narrow. People have a self-interest in advancing the broader public interest.

What about the truism that we always vote our pocketbooks? At best, it is only partially true. Shared values, or what some call "macromotives," very much affect our political behavior. Moreover, successful reforms—from abolition to civil rights—have been based on widely shared values about what was thought to be in the larger public interest. [19] Of course we have differences over what is in our common interest, yet people have, and act out of, interests other than those that are narrow and particular.

Broader self-interests grow out of the varied relationships we have with other people. As the community organizer Ernesto Cortes points out, "I was born Mexican and I was born in San Antonio. Understanding my interests has to do with understanding also my history, my situation, my relationship with those people who are important to me, my children, my family, etc." The very word interests, he notes, refers to that which is among or between (inter esse), so his self-interests are constituted by those he is among and to whom he is connected. [20]

These broader interests include the community as a whole and such public goods as air and water. Common sense tells us that when a public good is threatened, we are all at risk—a hole in one end of the boat is going to bring water to the other. Repairing the boat is not an unselfish or noble act; it is simply the expression of self-interest in something common. People can appreciate their interdependence. Ernesto Cortes explains his own sense of interdependence: "I have three children, a wife, a house. And it is in my interest, for example, for my neighborhood to be secure. It is in my interest for my child to be able to go to school without worrying about being killed. . . . So I want to do something about the schools now, not just because I'm caring about other people's kids, but because I'm caring about my own child." Cortes knew that he couldn't protect his child by himself; he couldn't stop the violence in the schools alone. He couldn't get what he wanted without someone else. So he developed an "interest" in the others who could help him, and he learned to reciprocate in helping them in order to get the assistance he needed. [21]

Like Cortes, we reason that a healthy community is in our self-interest, so we should do what is needed to help our community—even if it is difficult. For example, members of a leadership group in Montgomery, Alabama, decided that they could not have the kind of community they wanted unless they acted together to improve race relations. One member of the group said, "I think we're talking about a bunch of interconnected problems. . . . But in our city, if we had to pick one, it would have to be racism. . . . racial politics goes to the heart of so many things that we consider problems." [22]

People will act to advance the public interest on such difficult long-term problems as race relations even when there is little immediate, personal benefit. Amitai Etzioni, a sociologist, finds evidence that even when people receive little or no tangible reward for their efforts, they make moral commitments to advance the public interest. Etzioni points out that many people vote and engage in a number of voluntary political activities despite the fact that they receive virtually no direct benefits. If immediate self-interests and a cost-benefit calculus controlled our behavior, we probably wouldn't vote at all. The cost of becoming informed on many issues and candidates, and of registering and getting to the polls, outweighs any possible direct benefit that one vote out of millions could bring. In other words, people do not act just to maximize private gain. They can act out of a sense of duty, a sense of obligation to do what is in the best interest of the whole. [23] When asked why she was involved in community politics, a woman from Seattle said, "Because it is needed—so I do it." "It is needed" is not the same as "I need it." Many of us volunteer for community activities because we sense that our community "needs it." People may not always be virtuous but that does not mean they are incapable of virtue.

In the final analysis, how people behave politically may be, in part, a function of what the political norms expect of them. A political system based on advancing the public interest may be more likely to prompt a sense of civic duty than a system based on advancing private interests.

Chapter 4: We, the People; They, the Government

Someone once said, half seriously, that the most significant moment in our history may have been when Americans stopped saying "We, the People" and began saying "They, the Government." We know a good deal about what citizens think of politicians and politics, but what about the way politicians see the public? What is their side of the story about why politics isn't what it could be?

The Great Divide

Decisions turn increasingly to complex scientific or technical considerations at both local and national levels. What is a safe level of chlorine in the water? Should there be any chlorine in the water at all? What role do the wetlands play in our environment? What are we sacrificing when we develop natural areas for commercial use? Should nuclear energy supplant our dependence on crude oil? What are the pros and cons of nuclear energy? What do we really know about the spread of the AIDS virus? Is the population at large at risk? Interest groups multiply on all these issues and produce gridlocks as impenetrable as the worst trafffic jams. Levels of government wrangle constantly over who has jurisdiction over what and who should pay for what.

While officials who face these problems on behalf of the public might expect some appreciation or respect, they don't often get it. Once elected, many find they become "instant SOB's." Overnight, friendly neighbors turn into outraged constituents. The press treats them with such obvious suspicion that they feel guilty until proven innocent. Although what they say is always suspect, the veracity of their critics is seldom questioned. Personal lives become an open book. Families suffer along with of ficeholders; their plight is greeted with an unsympathetic "it comes with the territory."

What sustains officeholders under these pressures, unless they are in politics for personal gain, is a deep conviction that they are servants of the larger public interest. They are trustees of their community or state or government. They are the guardians of the common good, the judges of public controversies. As fair arbitrators, they must be above the fray. Yet this very perception, this sense of being above the fray, is at the heart of their differences with equally conscientious citizens.

The troubled relationship between citizens and offficials is even more troubled when the officials are unelected—"bureaucrats," as they are called (they prefer to call themselves "professionals"). The public seems to get angrier with them than with elected representatives. The anger seems justified because unelected officials wield great power in ways the public believes is arbitrary.

The civil servants' defense is that they are also guardians of the public interest. Their intentions are the best, and professional administration is the best. However, the public doesn't quite fit into a vision of professional government. Professionals know what the public needs; citizens are more like patients or clients. Of course, not all civil servants buy into this paradigm, but it is thrust upon them by their profession.

As a scholar of public administration, Woodrow Wilson recognized that democracy and professional civil service were potentially inimical to one another. [4] Democracy is based on the premise that what the public decides takes precedence over what administrative practice dictates. Public administration operates on just the opposite principle; sound administrative practice is the controlling consideration. Put another way, bureaucracies operate according to what they believe is good administrative procedure, not what is good democratic practice. For example, in an administrative hearing on adherence to agency rules, a citizen is presumed guilty of having violated the rule until proven innocent. Unlike regular judicial proceedings, the burden of proof is on the citizen to show that he or she was not in violation of some ordinance or rule. The tavern owner who is locked in a bitter dispute over why he can't have a sign on both his front and back doors, and the homeowner who is fined because she painted her house a shade that was not exactly the shade stipulated in the ordinance for historic homes, are just two of many Americans who have run afoul of "good administrative practice."

Encounters of the unpleasant kind can touch every aspect of a citizen's life. Bureaucracies, large and small, promulgate more rules than legislative bodies pass laws. These rules, supposedly only applications of law, appear to the public to be interpretations of law. Certainly the rules have the force of law even though they were not created by elected bodies. Although there are requirements that notice be given of the intent to create a rule, and although public hearings are held, a bureaucracy is not bound by the public response it receives. There are no provisions for open debate, as there are in legislative proceedings.

The civil servants' defense is that the vagueness of laws often forces them to interpret their intent. (Vagueness or even ambiguity is often essential to getting a law passed because these qualities mute controversy.) Furthermore, most agencies do hold public hearings or invite written comment on proposed regulations.

Some civil servants, concerned about this tension between public administration and democracy, have been strong champions of public participation. They believe that encouraging citizenship is a professional obligation. [5] The very existence of public information officers or staff to governmentcreated advisory committees demonstrates that there are those in government who want to reach out to the public. Sad to say, however, when these "access professionals" attempt to get time to explain their work on the programs for training new civil servants, their efforts are rarely supported by their superiors. Moreover, at their best, efforts to involve citizens often grow out of a rather patronizing view of the public. As an advocate of public participation observed, "The reality is that if citizens are to be self-governing, they are going to have to be sustained, encouraged, spoonfed, and educated about public decisions by those who know what is going on." Career public officials are at the center of this democratic experiment; indeed, in this view, they now control the experiment. [6] While well intentioned, the quotation implies that the public doesn't have anything substantive to contribute. People only need to be "educated" about what the government is doing.

How Officials See the Public