Political Science Essay
Power in the United States is owned predominantly by those who have the power and money. The power elite involve themselves directly in the federal government by various processes, with each having a slightly different function in guaranteeing access to institutions of power such as Congress, the White House, departments, specific agencies and the executive branch’s committees. Although the same individuals get involved in all the processes, many pay attention to one or two. The processes include candidate selection, policy making and special interest, all of which help in understanding the role of the power elite in American governance.
The special interest is about processes used by industrial sectors, corporations and specific families to achieve there short run and narrow interests on subsidies, taxes and control in their operations with executive departments, regulatory bodies and congressional committees. Policy making involves processes for taking developed policies to congress and the White House. Candidate selection involves the influence of the elite group through funding campaigns for political candidates.
Domination of the power elite in governance is directly visible through the work of backroom super-lawyers, industry trade associations and corporate lobbyists that act on behalf of business sectors or specific corporations. This process of special interest comes in various forms including insider dealings, gifts, friendship and promises of private jobs for government officials who are compliant in the future. This represents the element of government-business associations described by social scientists and journalists in their studies.
Policies concerning the corporate world in its entirety are not the process of special interest’s province. On the contrary, the policies originate from networks of organizations that discuss policy, think-tanks and foundations. The discussed policies reach the government by various means. This can be through news releases, reports and interviews which are accessed and read by political officials as well as their staffs in the form of summary articles in the news papers or in form of pamphlets. Again, members involved in policy discussion give testimonies at congressional committees that are involved in writing of legislations or preparation of budget proposals. In a more direct way, leaders from policy discussion organizations are members of little known committees and subcommittees that give advice to given departments of governance on various policies, which basically makes them temporary government members who are unpaid. Such individuals are also prominent on the very important commissions that are appointed by the president to come up with recommendations on different issues. Members of policy discussion organizations also work in federal advisory committees, which for part of almost all departments of the executive wing of government. Lastly, and significantly, members of policy making organizations are always appointed to positions in government at a frequency that is way far more than it could be expected by chance. It is clear that top positions in the cabinet for both Democratic as well as Republican administrations are held by individuals from the upper class together with corporate executives who mainly head organizations involved in policy discussion.
The campaign finance, policy planning process and special interests process has always ensured that the power elite has numerous wins in terms of policy issues that are presented before the federal government. In the advisory committees of government, appointed positions and blue-ribbon commissions composed by the president, members of the elite group are overly represented. The power elite also dominate the government in terms of who governs and who wins.