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The “Populist” Films of Frank Capra

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Glenn Alan Phelps
Glenn Alan Phelps
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Government and Law at Nicholls State University, Thibodaux, Louisiana.
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Extract

What is the nature and distribution of power in American society? This question, as much as any other single issue, has been the source of wideranging debates among American social scientists throughout the last twenty-five years. The question is tantalizingly simple. In fact, the titles of two notable contributions to the debate, Who Rules America? and Who Governs?, put the issue even more succinctly while losing little of the flavor of the original question. The controversy is more than just a basis for scholarly esoterica politely parried back and forth in the professional literature for a limited audience. Indeed, the debate has been carried on with great passion and commitment because how one answers this question will largely determine one's perceptions about American politics.

For example, if one were to reply by saying that power is basically noncumulative and that it is widely distributed among many groups and individuals, then certain other conclusions would follow: the Constitution is essentially a democratic document which institutionalizes this broad distribution of power; elections are the means by which power is transferred among competing groups; public policy represents an accurate reflection of the general will through this inter-group competition; and the American political system is essentially democratic because opportunities for participation, and thus power, are open to all.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , December 1979 , pp. 377 - 392
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

1 Domhoff, G. William, Who Rules America? (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1967)Google Scholar; and Dahl, Robert A., Who Governs?: Democracy and Power in an American City (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1961)Google Scholar.

2 This terminology draws heavily from Dahl, esp. Chapters 7 and 8.

3 This “ pluralist ” view of American democracy is developed more completely in such works as Polsby, Nelson W., Community Power and Political Theory (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1963)Google Scholar; Truman, David, The Governmental Process (New York: Knopf, 1951)Google Scholar; and Dahl.

4 This “ elitist ” (or anti-pluralist) perspective is developed further in Mills, C. Wright, The Power Elite (New York: Galaxy, 1959)Google Scholar; Bachrach, Peter, The Theory of Democratic Elitism: A Critique (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967)Google Scholar; Connolly, William E., ed., The Bias of Pluralism (Chicago: Atherton, 1969)Google Scholar; and McConnell, Grant, Private Power and American Democracy (New York: Knopf, 1967)Google Scholar.

5 See, for example, Prewitt, Kenneth and Stone, Alan, The Ruling Elites: Elite Theory, Power, and American Democracy (New York: Harper & Row, 1973)Google Scholar; Ricci, David, Community Power and Democratic Theory (New York: Random, 1971)Google Scholar; and Connolly, William E., Political Science and Ideology (New York: Atherton, 1967)Google Scholar.

6 Capra, Frank, The Name Above the Title (New York: Macmillan, 1971), p. 240Google Scholar.

7 See, for example, Samuelson, Harold J., “ Mr. Capra's Short Cuts to Utopia,” Penguin Film Review, 7 (1948), 25–35Google Scholar; Ferguson, Otis, “ Mr. Capra Goes Someplace,” The New Republic, 1 11 1939, pp. 369–70Google Scholar; and Greene, Graham, review of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Spectator, 5 01 1940, p. 16Google Scholar.

8 In fact, it is difficult to attribute the origin of the phrase to one particular person because the term appears so widely. Capra even makes numerous references to it in his autobiography.

9 This thesis finds its most thorough defense in Richards, Jeffrey, “ Frank Capra and the Cinema of Populism,” Film Society Review, 7 (1972), 38–46 and 61–72Google Scholar.

10 A notable dissent is Robert Sklar's view that Capra is not a Populist, but is instead a Jeffersonian agrarian. Sklar, , Movie-Made America: A Social History of American Movies (New York: Random House, 1975), p. 210Google Scholar.

11 Glatzer, Richard, “ A Conversation with Frank Capra,” in Frank Capra: The Man and His Films, eds. Glatzer, Richard and Raeburn, John (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan, 1975). p. 39Google Scholar.

12 For further discussion of the problem of the variant endings of Meet John Doe, see below

13 The phrase “ critique of tolerance ” is used by Ricci to indicate that pluralists, in order to assert that their theory works, are willing to accept certain given social conditions as benign. Anti-pluralists argue that to accept these conditions pluralists overlook the most fundamental problems of American society and thus make the idea of equilibrium meaningless.

14 Easton, David, The Political System (New York: Knopf, 1953), p. 129Google Scholar.

15 Bachrach, Peter and Baratz, Morton S., “ The Two Faces of Power,” American Political Science Review, 56 (1962), 947–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 The concept of “ mobilization of bias ” first appears in Schattschneider, E. E., The Semi-Sovereign People: A Realist's View of Democracy in America (New York: Holt Rinehart Winston, 1960), p. 71Google Scholar, and receives a fuller exposition in Bachrach, and Baratz, , “ Decisions and Nondecisions: An Analytical Framework,” American Political Science Review, 57 (1963), 633–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Mills, p. 9 and passim.

18 Glatzer, p. 34.

19 This idea of democracy as an aspect of human self-development has a long tradition. See, for example, Rousseau's long discussion of the General Will and its public spirited-ness in The Social Contract, or Aristotle's great concern for participation in the Polis.

20 For example, McCloskey, Herbert, “ Consensus and Ideology in American Politics,” American Political Science Review, 54 (1960), 361–82Google Scholar; and Prothro, James W. and Grigg, C. M., “ Fundamental Principles of Democracy: Bases of Agreement and Disagreement,” Journal of Politics, 22 (1960), 76–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 An excellent defense of participatory democracy can be found in Kaufman, Arnold, “ Human Nature and Participatory Democracy,” ed. Friedrich, Carl J., Nomos III: Responsibility (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1960), pp. 266–89Google Scholar.

22 Among the more interesting of Kurt Lewin's works are Lewin, , “ Group Decision and Social Change,” eds. Macoby, Eleanor E., Newcomb, T. M., and Hartley, E. L., Readings in Social Psychology, 3rd edn. (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1958), pp. 197–211Google Scholar; Lewin, and Lipitt, Ronald, “ An Experimental Approach to the Study of Autocracy and Democracy: A Preliminary Note,” Sociometry, 1 (1938), 292–300CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Lewin, , “ The Practicality of Democracy,” ed. Ebenstein, William, Modern Political Thought: The Great Issues, 2nd edn. (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1960), pp. 91–99Google Scholar.

23 Kornhauser, William, The Politics of Mass Society (Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press, 1959)Google Scholar; and Lipset, Seymour Martin, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics (New York: Doubleday, 1960), esp. pp. 101–22Google Scholar.