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Organized interests are such an essential part of the process by which policy makers in a democracy learn about the preferences and needs of citizens that barriers to entry into the political fray have potential consequences for the representation -- and, in particular, for the equal representation -- of citizen interests. Using a massive new data set that enumerates and categorizes the organized interests active in Washington politics in the quarter century between 1981 and 2006, this paper takes an empirical look at the shape of the organized interest system in contemporary national politics. While the range of politically active organizations contained in the data base is nothing short of astonishing, both the free rider problem and the resource-constraint problem have profound effects on whose voices are heard through the medium of collective representation. Longitudinal data show a great deal of continuity over the period in the kinds of organizations and a substantial increase in the number of organizations active in Washington politics. With the expansion of the pressure system, the proportion of organizations representing such traditional interests as corporations, unions, trade associations, and professional associations, while still substantial, has diminished somewhat. However, the share of organizations representing such traditionally underrepresented interests as broad publics and the economically disadvantaged continues to be very limited and has not grown. Instead, the proportion of active organizations representing state and local governments and the education and health sectors has increased markedly. In short, as the heavenly chorus has gotten bigger, neither its accent nor the mix of voices has been transformed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of the people as conforming masses has played a role in encouraging Nietzsche and Heidegger, and in this tradition of thought Michel Foucault as well, to reach extraordinary and transformative levels of criticism and alternative perspectives on the condition of modern western society. And while these accomplishments may have come at the expense of philosophies that acknowledge and address the positive aspects of the relational dimension of the self, they have been central to a deeper and more thoroughgoing understanding of the construction of knowledge, identity, and power. I use Jerrold Seigel's argument in his book The Idea of the Self as a way to explore this point. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An exploration of the role that the social sciences can play in a time of great political contestation, drawing on Weber’s seminal reflections. Not the same topic empirically as originally proposed, but the same basic theme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]