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Q. "The flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-class
accent."- Prof. E. E. Schattschneider
Comment critically on the statement in the light of Policy Making process. 15 marks
[this is not an answer but just an indication of what all I would written]
> what he said about conflict and participation - (people should participate to be powerful and their
voice be heard, else the "strong upper-class accent" will hog the limelight and political agenda space)
and the common people will remain "semi sovereign" by being important only for select few
issues(hence
semi-sovereign
and
not
fully
sovereign) ..
> about privatization and socialization of conflict - how the dynamics plays around and
how mobilization of bias takes place
Since 15 marks (~250 words) and critical examine .... so will also mentioned that this
Schattschneider's iron triangle view was later disputed by sub-system theorists like Heclo(issue
networks) and Sabatier (advocacy frameworks) .. and also highlight role of media (if Ambani makes
some secret deal about how to price KG gas, its in newspaper all over) !
Then finally praise the guy and say that .. Schattschneider's role in policy making was pathbreaking ..
he was the first .. who through his book "The semi sovereign people" .. in which he made this
famous statement about "heavenly chorus" .. said how conflict is exploited to favor some to get into
the political agenda (and finally policy outcomes) and others ignored .. so he in a way laid the
foundation stone for further studies of agenda setting in policy making .. which was explored in
detail later by people like Cohen/Olsen (garbage can), Kingdon(three streams) , B&J (punctuated
equilibrium) etc