Crosby B.C., Bryson J.M. - Leadership for the Common Good (2005)(en)

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The third dimension of power appears in a forum as basic signification principles, or bedrock signification structures. A forum requires a speaker and an audience, at least a partly shared set of common linguistic rules and resources, and one or more shared worldviews or ideologies. Of course, language structures accumulate through many years of human interaction and carry within them numerous biases, including biases that favor certain groups

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of people. Language in large part constructs human beings and their interactions (Foucault, 1997; see also Hoffman, 1990). Take, for example, meetings among physicians, gay activists, and public officials in San Francisco in the early 1980s to consider what should be done about the evidence of a new virulent disease affecting gay men. These people shared the English language, and in some cases they shared medical jargon. They shared the view that local government was at least partially responsible for protecting the health of its citizens and that citizens had a right to present their views to public officials. They also generally accepted that individuals should not be discriminated against because of their sexual orientation. Many of the gay activists shared a gay liberation ideology; many of the politicians adhered to a “liberal” political ideology.

In a forum, the most important second-dimension ideas, rules, modes, media, and methods used to link desired outcomes with deep structure are communicative capability, interpretive schemes, relevance, norms of pragmatic communication, modes of argument, and access rules. Communicative capability is simply the capacity to create and communicate meaning. This capability includes rhetorical skill, the ability to catch the interest of print and electronic news media, mastery of storytelling, and the potential to pull together a supportive, chanting crowd on a moment’s notice. Examples would be Larry Kramer’s ability to pen forceful editorials and a highly emotional play, and the ability of people at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development to write highly readable books.

Interpretive schemes (Schutz, 1967) are intersubjective organizing frameworks or schemata that people use to understand events in a meaningful way and to guide action. They include shared beliefs, expectations, and rules through which people interpret personal experiences and social knowledge. An individual’s interpretation of new experiences or knowledge is thus based on the person’s understanding of his or her own and others’ cumulative experience; this understanding draws on ideologies, common sense, and even deeper cultural assumptions (for example, the belief, in many societies, in private property or respect for elders). In other words, each of us has a set of interpretive schemes, one or more of which are activated when we encounter and frame a new event or new information, such as evidence of a virulent new disease affecting gay

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men. Astute leaders think carefully about what type of interpretive scheme, or framework, they seek to activate in connection with a particular public problem (Bolman and Deal, 2003). For example, physicians and other health professionals articulated a problem frame that activated a public health framework for understanding the emerging AIDS crisis. Gay activists and bathhouse owners articulated a problem frame that activated a gay rights framework.

Inside a forum, competing, conflicting, or contradictory interpretive schemes must be partially mediated as a necessary condition for the emergence of concerted action. Norms of relevance and of pragmatic communication, as well as modes of argument and access rules, are crucial mediators among incompatible interpretive schemes. Norms of relevance were embedded in the argument between gay activists and health professionals. In San Francisco, the majority of gay activists in effect prevented concerted public health measures against the spread of HIV in the early stages by arguing that attempts to regulate sexual practices could no longer be considered relevant in an era of gay liberation (Shilts, 1988). On the other side, health professionals argued that regulation of a practice endangering a large number of citizens was certainly relevant, regardless of which groups were being regulated.

Norms of pragmatic communication include the expectation that messages will be comprehensible, sincere, appropriate to the context, and accurate. These expectations set the basic criteria for judging speech aimed at influencing the action of the listeners (see Habermas, 1979; Forester, 1989). If these criteria are violated, listeners feel confusion, distrust, lack of consent, anger, and disbelief (Forester, 1980, 1989) In the AIDS case, everyone expected the statistics produced by local health departments and the Centers for Disease Control to be reliable. Similarly, they expected truthfulness from hospitals and blood banks about the safety of the blood supply. When evidence mounted that blood bank officials and government administrators had not revealed evidence about contamination of blood supplies, public outrage mounted. An interpretive framework that accorded health professionals and administrators a high level of respect was diminished in power, as a framework emphasizing patient rights became more prominent.

Argumentation is another important means of mediating among differing interpretive schemes. William Dunn, drawing on

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the work of Stephen Toulmin and Austin Freeley, contends that policy arguments—those related to decisions, issues, conflicts, or policy preferences—have several elements (Dunn, 1994; Toulmin, 1958; Freeley, 1976):

•Policy-relevant information

•A policy claim, which is the conclusion of a policy argument

•A warrant, which is an assumption permitting the move from information to a claim

•Backing for the warrant, which consists of additional supporting assumptions or arguments, often based on scientific laws, the authority of experts, or ethical or moral principles

•A rebuttal, which indicates the conditions under which the original claim is unacceptable or in need of modification

•A qualifier, which expresses the degree to which the arguer is certain about the policy claim

Argumentation may be presented in a variety of formats, from reports to radio talk shows.

The design and use of forums influences which information is offered; which claims, along with which rebuttals, are accepted, and depending on which warrants and backing; how much weight is given to the qualifiers; and which formats work best (Throgmorton, 1996; Simons, 2001).

Finally, rules governing access to participation in a forum strongly influence who speaks what, where, when, why, and how, and who listens. Obviously, these rules strongly influence which decisions, conflicts, issues, and policy preferences get discussed and which do not. For example, having senior people speak first may inhibit discussion by those with less rank. Forcing people to talk about the issue at hand may make it difficult to redefine the issue. The most powerful rules are those that limit attendance at a discussion. For example, holding a meeting in a place or at a time (or at a cost) that makes attendance by interested parties difficult or impossible can silence some perspectives altogether. Formal and informal rules also govern the type of issue to be considered in a forum. National newspapers such as Le Monde or the New York Times can be expected to devote most of their attention to stories that affect a large number of people in their country or metropolis. A

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or economic. Political arenas include the U.N. Assembly, parliaments, legislatures, city councils, corporate executive committees and boards, policy-making mechanisms of public bureaucracies, nonprofit organizations, and interorganizational networks. The market is the basic form of economic arena. Determining which decisions are handled within the market is a crucial factor in the economic patterns of most societies (Lindblom, 1977; Giddens, 1984; Williamson, 1985). For example, in the United States, collection and distribution of blood for transfusions is handled mainly by nonprofit organizations, businesses produce plasma and other blood products for medical use, and government regulators oversee the safety of the blood supply. In the United States, the actual manufacture and sale of drugs is left to commercial companies, although the national government requires strict testing before a new drug can be widely marketed. The national government and pharmaceutical companies share in funding the development of new drugs such as those needed to treat or prevent HIV infection.

The first dimension of power is manifested in an arena when people interactively use their capabilities to obtain desired out- comes—that is, adoption and implementation of their preferred policies (see Exhibit D.3). Policy making in an arena characteristically involves establishing principles, laws, rules, policies, standards, norms, or prices that apply generally to a specified population or category of actions. In addition, plans, programs, budgets, or particular recommended actions may be adopted.

The third dimension of power, the deep structure, in policy making and implementation is shaped by principles of domination. These principles are embedded in, or rationalized by, unequal distribution of resources (social position, authority, skills, intelligence, status, money) within an institutional framework. These are often referred to as the “bases of power” (French and Raven, 1968). Unequal resources generate unequal individual or group capacity to make or implement policies. The third dimension of arenas also includes the requirement of a policy maker and at least one other participant; the policy maker must be able to affect a shared resource base that renders policy making necessary and possible. In the AIDS case, the physicians advocating for an aggressive public health campaign against the new disease could draw on the social status, professional authority, and relatively high

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income that U.S. society accords physicians generally. At the same time, they did not have much institutional authority; top administrators and elected officials drew on their much greater institutional authority in refusing to heed the doctors’ call for urgent action. Gay men, meanwhile, had low social status in U.S. society generally, but in places such as San Francisco and New York they had developed much higher status (thanks to their number, political activism, and prominence in the arts and professions). In San Francisco, they were able to draw on their political clout to have considerable effect on local government policies.

The vehicles of bias (the second dimension of power) used to link action with deep structure include decision-making capabilities; domains; agendas; planning, budgeting, decision-making, and implementation methods; and rules governing access to participation in the arenas.

The capabilities that a leader has available to influence a sequence of policy-related interactions depend on the rules and resources he or she can deploy. They range from verbal skill to the ability to hire and fire, to computer literacy, agenda control, and the threat of physical violence. Capability refers, in other words, to one’s potential to affect outcomes through drawing on ideas, rules, modes, media, and methods that offer any kind of advantage. Policy making and implementation refer to the actual application of some of these advantages. By exercising policy-making capabilities, leaders strongly influence which decisions, issues, conflicts, and policy preferences count (and how much) in particular arenas. In the AIDS case, Congressman Henry Waxman (D-California) and his aide Tim Westmoreland were able to put the growing epidemic on the congressional agenda in the early 1980s because of their positions. Waxman was chair of the House Subcommittee on Health and the Environment, and Westmoreland was the subcommittee’s counsel. Together they planned hearings on the epidemic and crafted Waxman’s public remarks. As chair, Waxman had ample opportunity to express his own views and orchestrate testimony from others.

Domains, agendas, and planning, budgeting, decision-making, and implementation methods are the means by which differing or conflicting capabilities in arenas are at least partially mediated. A domain is the spatial and substantive extent of an arena’s policymaking and implementation authority. Planning, budgeting, decision-making, and implementation methods are the rules used

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to govern the process of putting together policies, plans, and budgets; making decisions; and implementing them. The selection of methods thus constitutes one of the most important actions in any arena, because certain methods favor particular actors’ capabilities and purposes (Riker, 1986; Pfeffer, 1992; Flyvbjerg, 1998; Forester, 1999). Further, rules governing access to arenas strongly influence which persons, groups, organizations, and capabilities are admitted to an arena and thus indirectly influence which items are considered in the policy-making and implementation process.

Congressman Waxman’s subcommittee covered a specific domain: health and environmental issues within the federal government’s responsibility. To channel funding toward prevention and treatment of the epidemic then identified as Gay-Related Immune Deficiency (GRID), Waxman and Westmoreland had to understand the intricacies of the federal budgeting process. When President Reagan’s health budget was published in 1982, they focused on what was and was not included. Federal health programs were not to be immune from the Reagan administration’s determination to reduce spending. The Centers for Disease Control were given just enough increase to cover inflation, and no line item was specifically dedicated to GRID. Waxman used his ability to convene public hearings (forums closely linked to arenas) to highlight how few resources the federal health bureaucracy was devoting to combating the epidemic. Later he and Westmoreland teamed up with another powerful congressman, Rep. Phil Burton (D-California), and his aide Bill Kraus to put together bills earmarking millions of dollars to fight the AIDS epidemic. Although the Reagan administration opposed these additions to the federal health budget, once Congress approved them “the administration would not put itself in the politically indelicate position of actually vetoing it” (Shilts, 1988, p. 187). Funding ultimately flowed to researchers; as Randy Shilts notes, the administration “would never ask for it and insist it didn’t want it, but the money would be thrust upon the government anyway. It was a ritual of forced feeding” (p. 187)

Those who wanted to persuade Congress to provide more funding for AIDS research needed to understand congressional decision-making procedures and permitted methods for attempting to influence decisions. For example, funding proposals had to be put into appropriate language for bills that could be voted on.