Bachrach, Peter and Morton Baratz. "Two Faces of Power". The American Political Science Review, Vol.56, No.4 (1962): 947-952.

Bachrach, Peter and Morton Baratz. "Two Faces of Power". The American Political Science Review, Vol.56, No.4 (1962): 947-952.

• Despite a proliferation of studies regarding the definition of 'power' within political communities, there remains an essential disagreement in the literature between 'pluralist' political scientists claiming that power is diffused within communities and 'elitist' sociologists claiming that power in their communities is highly concentrated (947).
• The authors of this paper intend to bridge the gap between the political science and sociology conceptions of power by introducing a theory of power based on two 'faces', or aspects in which power is expressed. Drs. Bachrach and Baratz claim that each side currently only perceives one 'face', meaning that this theory should account for contemporary disciplinary differences (947).
• The 'elitist' concept of power implies that there is a natural power structure within communities as a precondition of its research. This leads to a major methodological flaw compared to the pluralists because the sociologists ask "Who is in power?", when then should be asking, "Is anyone in power?". Furthermore the elitist theory assumes that power remains constantly stratified -- ignoring obvious cases of social advancement -- and incorrectly equates 'rumored power' with actual power (947). For example, when people say bankers run the world, the elitists accept that as fact, without exploring whether that is actually true from a decision-making standpoint (948).
• In contrast to the methodology of the elitist school, pluralists study the exercise of power within communities, with that power being defined as participation in decision-making. One of the central limits of this model is that pluralists create a dichotomy between 'important' and 'unimportant' decisions to aid research, without providing criteria for these categories. The authors also take issue that the model does not recognize that power can be exercised by defining the limits of what issues will be open for decision-making (948).
• This last objection to the pluralist model is the central argument of the paper. There exist two ways in which power can be exercised: when A makes a decision which affects B, power is obviously being exercised, but this also happens when A creates norms and institutional practices which limit the scope of decision-making in a way that is beneficial to A, because in both systems B is unable to effectively participate in certain decision-making (948).
• The faults of pluralist model are clear in the critiques made against the elitist model by the founder of pluralist school, Robert Dahl. One of the central arguments Dr. Dahl makes is that a ruling elite can only be defined in terms of being able to make political decisions counter to the interests of the majority, something which is clearly not true if there are elite elements capable of controlling non-decisions as suggested by Drs. Bachrach and Baratz (949).
• Moreover, the fault within pluralist theory in failing to distinguish between important and unimportant decisions is because these distinctions are set by elite groups, a face of power previously unrecognized by pluralists (949-950).
• The authors test of their theory by applying it to the same study of New Haven conducted by Dr. Dahl and criticize the original study. In that study, Dr. Dahl looks at the influence of 'notables' in three areas: political nominations, public education, and urban redevelopment. In his article, however, Dr. Dahl recognizes that notables are actually indifferent about both the political parties and public education, because almost all of them live in suburbs away from the city (950). This means that only decisions regarding urban development are studied, and that only looks at voting processes, ignoring the indirect power in deciding what gets voted on (951-952).
• While Dr. Dahl is correct that notables do not have direct interests or control over political parties or public education in New Haven, they certainly do care about taxes on businesses based in New Haven and it would make sense that they would exert indirect power in control decisions through their positions on several related institutions (951).
• The authors lay out a framework for how power within communities should be studied within their model: first, the researcher should analysis the dominant norms and procedures, then look at who these biases benefit. Then the research would look at ways in which the actors benefiting from the status quo can influence or reinforce these norms, leading to insights into how decisions are classified as important or unimportant. After this process, the pluralist method of looking at participation should be used, with the final assessment of power including both decisions and non-decisions (952).