On Inequality and Political Voice: Response to Stephen Earl Bennett's Critique

by Kay Lehman Schlozman, Boston College n the assembled critiques, the report of the APSA Task Force on Inequality and Ameri can Democracy is labeled simultaneously "dan gerous quackery" and a "timid document." Are we all reading the same report? At least when it comes to Stephen Earl Bennett's commentary (2006), probably not. The only plausible explanation for the con tent of his criticisms (and the page numbers to which they refer) is that Bennett read only the summary report of the Task Force (2004a) and neglected the three more extended reports that it distills. At a level of detail and complexity impossible within the brief confines of the summary report, the three longer reports raise a variety of additional issues and buttress their arguments with systematic evidence and refer ences to the appropriate scholarship. They have been, and still are, posted on the APSA web site, and every reference to the work of the Task Force-including the abbreviated report itself and the version printed and criticized in Perspectives on Politics-refers to the longer reports and specifies the appropriate web ad dress (www.apsanet. org/section_256.cfm).' Taken together, they have sufficient intellec tual heft that, in slightly condensed form, they have re cently been published as a book (Jacobs and Skocpol 2005). It is disappointing and puzzling that Bennett did not bother to read the full ma terials on which he comments. I have always respected his work, and his first-rate review of the participation literature (Bennett and Ben nett 1986) is cited in the longer report on "In equalities of Political Voice." I would have been interested in his reactions to the whole report instead of to an abbreviated version. I could use my allotted pages to demonstrate, point by point, how many of Bennett's criti cisms are, quite simply, off the mark when viewed in the context of the full report. Instead, because the issues on which he focuses are sig nificant, I shall attempt to return the discussion to the serious work of the Task Force and to the research that it reviewed so carefully summarizing briefly what the full reports actu ally said about these matters and suggesting how political scientists might devote ongoing attention to such issues. In so doing, I shall perforce elide the many details, subtleties, and qualifications of the extended discussions in the longer reports. The curious reader is encour aged to consult the longer reports and the polit ical science literature on which they are based. Bennett (2006) begins with a discussion of declining trust in government, a topic on which he is an expert. The erosion in trust in govern ment, and its association in public perceptions with undue influence by special interests, is tangential to the main concerns of the Task Force report. In fact, only four sentences are devoted to this subject. Still, Bennett makes the useful point that political scientists really have not been able to account fully for the drastic erosion in trust in government that began some time in the 1960s. He also cites data showing that, as a source of distrust in government, dissatisfaction with the way the government spends money figures even more importantly in the public mind than does concern with spe cial interest influence. He makes another point as well: that recent American National Election Studies (ANES) data show no relationship be tween family income and trust in government. However, he does not make clear why this finding is "troublesome for the Task Force's interpretation" (51). A substantial decline in trust in government, especially one tied in part to a perception that special interests wield too much influence, need not be associated with social class to be a worrisome development for democracy. That said, Bennett raises an impor tant area for continued inquiry in the disci pline: the roots of changing levels of trust in government and their consequences for the comportment of citizens and the effective func tioning of government in a democracy.