Política Económica

the three approaches? What similarities anil |x>i111<>l cotiveiKfiiir an- sun
gested ?
Let us begin to answer these questions by focusing on the second approach, politics as public. The public refers to either the regulation of unintended consequences of private actions and market failure or to the sense of common interest, mission, identity, or conception of what it means to be acitizen of a community.
While the idea of the public provides an approach to politics, it does not stand alone. In one sense, it identifies the raw material out of which politics takes place. The activities of government are concerned with taking binding decisions for society as a whole. As such, government takes as its point of departure those matters that significantly involve “others.” It does nottry to legislate individual affairs ad seriatim. In this light, the public and government are not two unrelated approaches. Indeed, they need each other to complete their meanings. Without a public to serve as foundation, government is cut adrift. How can it devise policies to settle societal conflicts or to pursue harmonious social goals without a grounding in public society? “Politicking,” thestruggle for governmental office, and modern equivalents of court intrigue would still occur, but politics pure and simple would not.
Conversely, without a governmental structure the public is only an inarticulate mass of commonly affected interests, more or less privately held. The public in this sense is simply an aggregate, a set of persons neither cognizant of shared experience nor alert toits political potential. When these separate circumstances are collectively understood, and when individuals play a role in forging this collective understanding, the situation becomes political. When this occurs, collectively mobilized interests are brought to bear as pressures upon government, working through governmental channels, political parlies, the bureaucracy, legislatures, and courts.
Aithe intersection between government and society, the public is a crucial lever. I''mm the vantage point of government, it is the raw material, the subject matter of politics. From the public’s vantage point, government is both t hr arena for its expression and the instrument to achieve its aims, which may include, significantly, the desire for a particular sphere of society (child care, medicalinsurance) to be declared public.
The public does not simply use government as an instrument to its own ends. It is also constituted by government. In some countries the government charters and licenses interest groups, thus granting them public status and the acknowledged right to affect public policy. The public becomes politically articulate in part through government action.
In France, partof what is meant by the “strong state tradition” concerns the capacity of the state to constitute (that is, to organize, recognize, control) private associations. In pluralist theory, it is groups and group interests that
me lin- iIiiviiik loriTN, "lieely tiilllbmiiiK, ch v.ulviUKi ii i k I i ci umluiimn m nccordnncc with tlicir interest lines" (lientlev» 1008:359). By contrast, in France allprivate associations are required in register with the Ministry of Interior; the Ministry grants them legal status, and it may dissolve certain associations if they are deemed a threat to the state (Wilsford, 1989:132). This pattern is characteristic of many countries that fall into what Stepan calls the .“organic-statist” tradition (1978:26-45).
How does the focus on authority relate to governmentand the public? This focus takes us close to what we often mean by politics - commands binding on society as a whole and enforceable by a sovereign (in other words, an institution beyond which there is no legal appeal). However, unless we are to treat authoritative decisions as definitionally identical to politics, we cannot help feeling uncomfortable with authority as the exclusive focus. Its...