Absolute-sovereignty theories

A second class of theories of political opinion includes those absolutist doctrines of sovereignty, both monarchic and popular, that view society as an abstract mass of individuals. In the absence of rulers, the people are able to act only chaotically or in compulsive unanimity, for example, as a mob. The abstract “people,” therefore, find it necessary to abdicate power to a no less abstract absolute ruler, monarch, leader, or party. These entities alone are capable of knowing and expressing the mystical, unifying will variously named volonte generate, Volksgeist, sovereign people, and mass proletariat. Interpreters of Hobbes, Rousseau, and Hegel can point to paragraphs and sections showing that these thinkers were aware that the social structure and opinion processes of society are more complex than the simple dichotomy of people and ruler; nonetheless, in answer to the question of where the source of supreme power in the political community is located, each postulated an unlimited governing authority, either in the mass-majoritarian consensus of the people or in the moral and political responsibilities of the state-ruler. None of the Leninist-Stalinist theories (or their adaptations by Mao Tse-tung) about the relations of the party to the masses overcomes the difficulty of the people-state dilemma. [SeeSovereignty].

Manipulative theories

Closely associated historically with the concept of popular sovereignty is the idea that people have to be educated, guided, induced, or persuaded. In practical terms, this has led to the notion that issues can be created and that new cleavages and changes in the mass distribution of opinion can be brought about by events and adroit acts of opinion leaders, politicians, prestige figures, or persons who control the content of the mass media. War propaganda during World War i, the tremendous increase in commercial advertising and public relations activities thereafter, the deliberate use of propaganda and agitation by totalitarian and revolutionary mass movements, and the conscious development of psychological warfare in World War n, all highlighted what may be called the mass-manipulation theory of political opinion. During the interwar period there was a tendency to overstate the degree to which modern “mass society” can be controlled without legal and political monopolies over the press and other mass media. However, there was also a clear realization that social forces and public opinion are not independent, exogenous variables in the opinion-policy process but are affected by, and indeed are sometimes produced by, leaders and events. [See, for example,Lippmann].

Constitutional-democratic theories

The fourth category of political opinion models contains those theories of representative democracy which postulate the idea of a covenant or agreement among people who, by giving up their prepolitical freedom of action, are enabled to establish a government of limited powers in order to secure certain values (union and independence, security of life and property, justice and liberty, the common welfare) that individuals without government cannot obtain by themselves. [See The Federalist; see alsoLocke; Social Contract]. The metaphorical notion of an “agency” contract allows the imposition of substantive and procedural restraints upon the legitimacy of discretionary acts by elective representatives and public officials. It also provides guarantees of personal and private rights, requirements for insuring conformity between governmental acts and majority opinion (free elections, freedom of speech and of the press, and the right of assembly and of petition), and a prescribed procedure for amending and revising governmental structures, procedures, and powers. Such widely varying theories of political organization as monarchy, minority or restricted majority rule, and populist democracy have been reconciled with representative-democratic forms, when they admitted prior legitimacy and loyalty to a political order based on the principles of limited powers and the consent of the governed [SeeLindsay].