With some exceptions, an influence resource is effective in some issue-areas or in some specific decisions but not in all 6. All the elements listed above must be thought of as potential resources. Such expertise is born of both a higher degree of motivation and the more time these individuals spend engaged in political pursuits. The average person uses only the smallest fraction of his resources to affect political outcomes. These objective and subjective factors are not unrelated.
Objective circumstances tend to influence and produce subjective tendencies.
It comes back to the principle of slack. It is this great uncertainly as to the resources that potential opposition might have in reserve that makes leaders circumspect and somewhat judicious in the forging of policy and their exercise of power. Dahl concludes with an examination of another factor contributing to the stability of the U.S. system, one that prevents it, despite the influence of the political stratum, from descending into totalitarianism. But this creed is inordinately abstract. When it comes to specific beliefs about the democratic process, consensus must not be seen as a static or unchanging attribute of the citizenry.