A theory that a few top leaders make the key decisions without reference to popular desires. The public is usually indifferent to such policies and must be mobilized through skilled leadership and the media. Emotional appeals using compelling symbols are frequently employed for this purpose. Government agencies created as a result of the policy are vulnerable to capture, with courts likely to intervene. Such policy proposals are generated by changing economic and social cleavages in society which force interests to organize.
Political parties are usually divided and play no role in the resolution of the matter.
The dispute over the policy will persist even after its passage or defeat, but in the bureaucratic or judicial arenas. Neither the president nor public opinion is a significant factor. This barrier has collapsed as politics has become involved in nearly everything. The president and his advisers play the dominant role, with debate expressed in ideological terms. The outcome of the debate is often the institutionalization of a new worldview.