Communicative Interaction, Power, and the State 9781487573911

Citation preview

COMMUNICATIVE INTERACTION, POWER, AND THE ST A TE: A METHOD

The work of early social scientists George Herbert Mead and Kenneth Burke has been buried beneath layers of theoretical discourse in the field of communication. In this book Frank Stark takes a fresh look at Mead's theory of communicative interaction and Burke's concepts of rhetoric and dramatism, and explores how these ideas can be applied to political analysis. The study begins with a review of the basic tenets of Mead's and Burke's theories, then goes on to apply those theories to an analysis of communicative interaction in relation to the state. In particular, Stark looks at the constitution of the state and other institutions; persuasion, propaganda, and public policy; and the implications of international communications for states. In all three areas, Stark draws on research pertaining to Canada and the African state of Cameroon. The last section introduces dramatism as a metaphor suitable for shaping empirical research. By returning to original sources, this book enriches contemporary discourse in communication. Stark has put together an intriguing study of the relationship between social communication and the state. FRANK M. STARK is a member of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Guelph.

FRANK M. ST ARK

Communicative Interaction, Power, and the State: A Method

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 1996 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada Reprinted in 2018 ISBN 0-8020-0658-2 (cloth)

ISBN 978-0-8020-7612-0 (paper)

Printed on acid-free paper

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Stark, Frank M. Communicative interaction, power, and the state : a method Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-0658-2 (bound) ISBN 978-0-8020-7612-0 (paper) 1. Communication - Philosophy. 2. Communication Political aspects. 3. Communication - Political aspects - Canada. 4. Communication - Political aspects - Cameroon. I. Title.

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council.

To Bea, Luke, Rachel, and Nicholas

Contents

PREFACE lX

Part 1: Communicative Interaction 1 Mead's Theory of Communicative Interaction 3 2 Communicative Interaction, Rhetoric, and Power

21

Part 1: Communicative Interaction and the State 3 Communicative Interaction and the State 4 5 4 Rhetoric and Public Policy 62 5 International Communication 84 Part 3: Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques 6 What Dramatism Is, and What It Isn't 109 7 Applying Dramatism 13 5 8 From Framework to Field-Work: Concluding Remarks 167

APPENDIX: NOTES

Explanation, Understanding, and Social Communication

193

BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

219

209

171

Preface

A 'method' combines an epistemology with appropriate research techniques. The purpose of this book, then, is to bridge the gap between theory and research. The conceptual part builds a theory of institutions and the state upon George Herbert Mead's concept of communicative interaction, Kenneth Burke's notions of rhetoric and dramatism, and Anthony Giddens's scrutiny of the relational conception of power. This book does not attempt to discuss all the theoretical issues involved, but rather to introduce a particular theoretical stance. 1 Similarly, it does not detail the findings of a major research project. Rather, it shows, by the use of examples drawn from my research, how a theoretical position based on Mead and Burke can be applied in practice. Until recent years most scholars assumed that newer scholarship was better scholarship. In the last decade, however, the notion of a linear progression of ideas built upon ideas has foundered. Postmodernism,postpositivism, and deconstructionism are all expressions of dissatisfaction with concepts and paradigms which have been dominant for a generation and more. Efforts are being made to think about empirical research in new ways, including alternative approaches to social 'science.' In order to build a framework for theory and research about communication, power, and the state it is necessary to strip away some of the layers of scholarship built upon both Mead and Burke, and to start almost afresh. For example, Mead is considered a founder of 'symbolic interactionism,' a school of sociological thought most often associated with 'micro' analysis. However, the term symbolic interactionism was in fact coined by Herbert Blumer, Mead's successor at the University of Chicago. Mead himself dealt with national and international communication in addition to the communication of small

x

Preface

groups. Talcott Parsons, Joseph Gusfield, Jurgen Habermas, and Anthony Giddens all cite Mead in their scholarship, but all alter or attempt to 'improve' his theory, or use it for their own purposes. Kenneth Burke is associated in textbooks with the concept of dramaturgy, but it is Erving Goffman's version of the drama as a metaphor for social action which is most dominantly in use, not Burke's. This is not to say that it would be wise to dismiss all scholarship that came after Mead and Burke's major works, or to pretend that it has never been written. Habermas was right, however, when he wrote, 'If we want to release the revolutionary power of the basic concepts of behavior theory, the potential in this approach to burst the bounds of its own paradigm, we shall have to go back to Mead's social psychology.'' Unfortunately, few scholars have trusted Mead's theory of institutions enough to give Mead his due. 3 I have attempted to build on Mead and Burke, not on those who have cited them. A separate volume is needed to show Mead's and Burke's relationship to contemporary social theory in a broader sense, and how my interpretation of these theorists is different from other interpretations in the past. 4 This book reviews the basic tenets of Mead and Burke as a first step. The techniques for application of Mead's and Burke's theories are based on experience in the 'field,' in the several senses of that word used in Chapter 7. My research has been primarily in the three areas discussed in Part 2, Chapters 3, 4, and 5, which relate to the constitution and reconstitution of the state - persuasion, propaganda, and public policy - and the implications of international communications for the state. My research in these areas was conducted in two geographical locations: Canada and Cameroon. Work in print or in progress is noted where appropriate throughout the text, and examples (in Chapter 7) are drawn from both countries. Chapters r and 2, in Part r, contain brief descriptions of Mead's concept of communicative interaction and Burke's notion of rhetoric, including the ways these concepts can be linked together. Part 2 then applies them to the state. In Part 3, the practicality of the approach is considered. The aim of all three parts is to describe a method for the explanation and analysis of the relationship of social communication and the state in relatively ordinary language, with social scientists as the perceived audience, and then to proceed from theoretical framework to practical research. I would like to thank Jean Becker, Jock Gunn, Catherine Schryer, and Franz Schryer for reading parts of this manuscript, and Jack Grove for his intellectual generosity and encouragement.

Preface

x1

I would like, as well, to acknowledge the contributions of Virgil Duff and Darlene Zeleney of the University of Toronto Press for making this book practically possible, and especially Patricia Thorvaldson for her editing skill. Finally, I owe my greatest debt of thanks to my family. F.M.S.

1

Mead's Theory of Communicative Interaction

George Herbert Mead has been described as the Atlantis of American social thought because his work has tended to be hidden beneath the ocean of theoretical writing that has followed it.' Therefore, it is appropriate that his theory is being rediscovered, not least because of the insights his writings can provide for social and political institutions.' This book takes as its starting point Mead's theory of communicative interaction and his idea of social communication. 3 'Communicative interaction,' a descriptor Mead used himself, serves to distinguish his work from Herbert Blumer's school of symbolic interactionism and Jurgen Habermas's notion of 'communicative action,' although both theorists owe much to Mead's approach. 4 Mead's theory of communicative interaction tends to be described as his 'theory of action.' It must be emphasized, however, that Mead's theory is one of interaction, that it is a theory of social communication which transcends classification as 'micro' or 'macro' analysis. Mead's approach is outlined in several books of lectures transcribed after his death - principally Mind, Self, and Society! - and in many short articles. My brief review of Mead's theory in the first part of this chapter assumes that readers already know something of Mead, and thus it simply sets out to refresh memories concerning some of Mead's major concepts, using his own language. These concepts include the notion of gestures and symbols, mind, self, and language and universe of discourse as perspective.6 The second part of the chapter discusses Mead's concept of society, and relates the major concepts of his theory to his institutional analysis, particularly his understanding of how institutions are constituted and reconstituted.

4

Communicative Interaction

A REVIEW OF THE MAJOR CONCEPTS

Gestures and Symbols Of critical importance in Mead's approach are the distinctions he made between different kinds of gestures. The concept of the gesture, which Mead took from Wundt, is concerned with the part of a social act that serves as a stimulus to other forms found in the same social act. Mead's innovation was to distinguish between two types of gestures. The first type involves an interaction of stimulus and response only - for example, in a dog fight or boxing match - where response to a stimulus may be akin to a knee-jerk reaction, which in turn produces another response. Mead writes ... 'we have a situation in which certain parts of the act become a stimulus to the other form to adjust itself to those responses; and that adjustment in turn becomes a stimulus to the first form to change his own act and start on a different one.' 7 This first type of gesture represents the beginning of a social action which is primarily a stimulus for further responses. Such gestures do hold meaning; they disclose the 'attitudes' (as incipient responses) of, say, an angry dog or a hostile man. In his identification of the second type of gesture Mead goes beyond Wundt's analysis, describing a social process of communicative interaction. For example, if an individual making a gesture is aware of its meaning for another, and if the gesture holds the same meaning for that other individual, the gesture becomes what Mead calls a 'significant symbol' (45). The significant symbol - often a vocal one - then assists the individual to adjust and readjust in social interaction, because 'it calls out in the individual making it the same attitude toward it (or toward its meaning) that it calls out in the other individuals participating with him in the given social act, and this makes him conscious of their attitude toward it (as a component of his behaviour) and enables him to adjust his subsequent behaviour to theirs in the light of that attitude' (46). Thus, only in terms of gestures which are significant symbols can thinking take place - thinking being 'simply an internalized or implicit conversation' by a person with himself or herself 'by means of such gestures' (47). In other words, the significant symbol 'calls out' an attitude among different participants, and, as a method of adjustment, creates what Mead calls a 'conversation of consciousness.' The question of consciousness leads to Mead's discussion of the 'mind.'

Mind Consciousness emerges in the social communication of people through

Mead's Theory of Communicative Interaction

5

significant gestures - often verbal language. In brief, the mind develops in reflexive interaction between individuals who are members of a society, but not in the individual who exists in isolation from other individuals. As Mead explains, Mind arises in the social process only when that process as a whole enters into, or is present in, the experience of any one of the given individuals involved in that process. When this occurs, the individual becomes self-conscious and has a mind; he becomes aware of his relations to that process as a whole, and to the other individuals participating in it with him ... It is by means of reflexiveness - the turning back of the experience of the individual upon himself - that the whole social process is thus brought into the experience of the individuals involved in it; it is by such means, which enable the individual to take the attitude of the other toward himself, that the individual is able consciously to adjust himself to that process, and to modify the resultant of that process in any given social act in terms of his adjustment to it. Reflexiveness, then, is the essential condition, within the social process, for the development of mind. (133-4)

An important aspect of intelligence might be described as the capacity to foresee what the response of the 'other' to one's actions is likely to be, while rationality could be described as intelligent action.

Self Mead shows how the reflexive self emerges in social communication. His concept of the self is explicit and full. In his formulation, mind as consciousness arises in the communication of significant symbols through the taking of the attitudes of the other. The self develops two aspects: the 'me' - the social self - and the 'I' - the innovative ego which challenges the accepted order and may change it. There is a dialectic between these two aspects of the self which both maintains society and reconstitutes it dynamically. Not only does the individual become aware of the meaning of significant symbols for herself or himself, as well as for others during social communication, but the individual also becomes an object to himself or herself, adding self-consciousness to consciousness. Only when a person adopts the attitudes and perspective of the organized social group to which she or he belongs - that is, adopts the organized, co-operative social activity, or the set of such activities, in which that group is engaged - does that person develop a complete self, or possess the sort of complete self that he or she has developed ( 1 55).

6 Communicative Interaction The community's perspective - the attitudes common to all members of the group - precedes an awareness of self. The community, which is an 'organization of the attitudes of those involved in the same process' and which 'gives the individual his unity of self,' is called by Mead 'the generalized other,' or the 'attitude' of the whole community. Mead's use of the concept of perspective in this sense avoids both subjectivism and dualism; the individual is a part of or belongs to a perspective (89). 8 The community 'controls' the conduct of its individual members, social institutions are created, and a 'universal discourse' is made possible. Therefore, the socialized individual that Mead is stressing here is a person precisely because he belongs to a community and takes on the institutions of that community, as indicated by his or her own conduct. Mead calls this phase of the self the 'me.' If this part of the self alone is emphasized, it is easy to see why Mead is sometimes perceived as a determinist or exclusively a methodological holist. But such an emphasis would seriously distort Mead's position. There is another aspect, or phase, of the self - namely, the 'I.' If the 'me' is the 'organized set of attitudes of others which one himself assumes,' the 'I' is the 'response of the organism to the attitudes of the others.' The response of the 'I' can be unpredictable, or in the words of that venerable philosopher Yogi Berra, the interaction 'ain't over till it's over.' Or, as Mead, the baseball fan, puts it, There is neither T nor 'me' in the conversation of gestures, the whole act is not yet carried out, but the preparation takes place in this field of gesture. Now, in so far as the individual arouses in himself the attitudes of the others, there arises an organized group of responses. And it is due to the individual's ability to take the attitudes of these others in so far as they can be organized that he gets selfconsciousness. The taking of all those organized sets of attitudes gives him his 'me,' that is the self he is aware of. He can throw the ball to some other member because of the demand made upon him from other members of the team. That is the self that immediately exists for him in his consciousness. He has their attitudes, knows what they want, and what the consequences of any act of his will be, and he has assumed responsibility for the situation. Now, it is the presence of those organized sets of attitudes that constitutes the 'me' to which he as an Tis responding. But what that response will be he does not know and nobody else knows. Perhaps he will make a brilliant play or an error. The response to that situation as it appears in his immediate experience is uncertain, and it is that which constitutes the 'I.' (175)

It is clear that the behaviour of the 'I' is not determined. Mead repeatedly stresses the lack of complete predictability of the actions of the 'I.' It is the

Mead's Theory of Communicative Interaction

7

'I' that is the creative actor in social life and history. The individual acts, but activity is not part of a person's experience until it takes place. While there may be a 'moral necessity' for acting in a certain way, there is no 'mechanical necessity' for an individual's action. The self, Mead says, is essentially a reflection of a social process going on with these distinguishable phases of the 'me' and the 'I.' If it did not have these two phases, there could not be conscious responsibility, and there would be nothing novel in experience. As we will see, the 'I' is the institution builder and challenger. The reflexivity which takes place in communication of significant symbols makes the self more than just the product of outside forces. Reflection makes it important for the individual to be the 'me' in some situations, and the 'I' in others. In a society which puts a high priority on private property, if an individual's property is stolen then it is important to be the 'me.' The 'I,' on the other hand, may appeal against the universal discourse to some wider discourse in a reaction to his own. As the 'I' reacts to the community, to the universal discourse, and to social organizations, it changes them. As Mead argues, The individual, as we have seen, is continually reacting against this society. Every adjustment involves some sort of change in the community to which the individual adjusts himself. And this change, of course, may be very important. Take even the widest community we can present, the rational community that is represented in the so-called universal discourse ... We know that as we pass from one period to another there have been fundamental changes, and we know these changes are due to the reactions of different individuals. It is only the ultimate effect that we can recognize, but the differences are due to the gestures of these countless individuals actually changing the situation in which they find themselves, although the specific changes are too minute for us to identify. (202-3)

Thus Mead demonstrates his faith in the individual, and asserts the importance of small incremental changes. Mead has been criticized by Anthony Giddens, however, on just these grounds: 'Mead's social philosophy, in an important sense, was built around reflexivity; the reciprocity of the "I" and the "me." But even in Mead's own writings, the constituting activity of the "I" is not stressed. Rather it is the "social self" with which Mead was preoccupied; and this emphasis has become even more pronounced in the writings of most of his followers.' 9 This is a surprising statement because Mead is concerned with the social side of the self, the 'me,' but he also places equal stress on the 'I,' the active innovative part of the self. In another example he writes,

8 Communicative Interaction Just as there could not be individual consciousness except in a social group, so the individual in a certain sense is not willing to live under certain conditions which would involve a sort of suicide of the self in its process of realization. Over against that situation we referred to those values which attach particularly to the 'I' rather than to the 'me,' those values which are found in the immediate attitude of the artist, the inventor, the scientist in his discovery, in general in the action of the T which cannot be calculated and which involves a reconstruction of the society, and so of the 'me' which belongs to that society. It is that phase of experience which is found in the 'I,' and the values that attach to it are the values belonging to this type of experience as such. These values are not peculiar to the artist, the inventor, and the scientific discoverer, but belong to the experience of all selves where there is an T that answers to the 'me.' (214)

Mead could hardly be plainer. He continues: 'The response of the "I" involves adaptation, but an adaptation which affects not only the self but also the social environment which helps to constitute the self. That is, it implies a view of evolution in which the individual affects his own environment as well as being affected by it.' 10 These remarks are not taken out of the context of the wider theory, but rather represent Mead's whole theory, one which attempts to cross old philosophical barriers of methodological individualism and holism, and idealism and materialism, with his interactive approach to social communication. Language and Universe of Discourse

Language is a part of a social process in which 'meaning' is not a physical addition or an 'idea' separate from social activity. It does not 'simply symbolize a situation which was there in advance,' but is part of the mechanism by which that situation or object is created. Social groups have gestures which come to stand for particular acts or responses, and these are the significant symbols for that group. Language carries a set of symbols answering to content which is identical in the experience of different individuals. Mead calls this a universe of discourse (89). Some discourses are more 'universal' than others. However, there may be a conversation of gestures in which there is cooperative activity without any symbol that means the same thing to all. Although it is certainly possible, Mead says, for intelligent individuals, under such conditions, to translate these gestures into significant symbols, 'a universal discourse is not at all essential to the conversation of gestures in co-operative conduct' (5 5). For intelligent conduct in which consciousness emerges, significant

Mead's Theory of Communicative Interaction 9 symbols are indeed necessary, and in social life organized systems of significant symbols - universes of discourse - form the basis for institutions. There are other points pertaining to Mead's idea of language and his notions of 'universe of discourse,' 'universal discourse,' and, indirectly, 'institutions,' that we might also consider. The first point is that Mead regards language as an important part of the social process, but not synonymous with or analogous to it. Mead sees language as included in a wider social process; he puts it in perspective. To Mead, 'understanding' is not simply or exclusively a semantic matter. This is one of the advantages of Mead's notion of communication, and of the concept of a universe of community discourse. For example, whether or not it is true that one can have a materialist view of discourse from a semiotic perspective, it is not true for Mead that Man (or Woman) may be seen as language, as semiologists Coward and Ellis insist. 11 Therefore, language emerges out of social communication but is not synonymous with it; and it is not sufficient to study language to study communication. In other words, the 'medium' is not the 'message.'12 As Mead himself puts it, 'Meaning can be described, accounted for, or stated in terms of symbols or language at its highest and most complex stage of development (the stage it reaches in human experience), but language simply lifts out of the social process a situation which is logically or implicitly there already. The language symbol is simply a significant or conscious gesture.' 1 3 The notion of a universe of discourse is an intriguing and important one. Defined by Mead as 'simply a system of common or social meanings,' or 'the reply which the rational world makes to our remark,' it seems a way of describing the web of societal meanings in as dynamic a manner as possible. A universe of discourse is a system of significant symbols as shared meanings. It is used in a way similar to the concept of perspective described above. As Mead explains it, The significant gesture or symbol always presupposes for its significance the social process of experience and behavior in which it arises; or as the logicians say, a universe of discourse is always implied as the context in terms of which, or as the field within which, significant gestures or symbols do in fact have significance. This universe of discourse is constituted by a group of individuals carrying on and participating in a common social process of experience and behavior, within which these gestures or symbols have the same or common meanings for all members of that group, whether they make them or address them to other individuals. A universe of discourse is simply a system of common or social meanings. (89)

10

Communicative Interaction

Mead then links the universe of discourse to the 'generalized other,' the former representing the shared attitudes of the latter: 'The very universality and impersonality of thought and reason is from the behavioristic standpoint the result of the given individual taking the attitudes of others toward himself, and of his finally crystallizing all these particular attitudes into a single attitude or standpoint which may be called that of the 'generalized other' (90). If a universe of discourse is a system of common or social meanings, can it be studied as a logical system? Mead gives no indication how it might be analyzed systematically, or whether it 1s possible to do so except through the concept of 'perspective,' which has already been introduced. Mead writes, In so far as the individual indicates [meaning] to himself in the role of the other, he 1s occupying his perspective, and as he 1s indicating it to the other from his own perspective, and as that which 1s so indicated is identical, It must be that which can be in different perspectives. It must therefore be a universal, at least in the identity which belongs to the different perspectives which are organized in the single perspective. And in so far as the principle of organization is one which admits of other perspectives than those actually present, the universality may be logically indefinitely extended. Its universality in conduct, however, amounts only to the irrelevance of the differences of the different perspectives to the characters which are indicated by the significant symbols in use, i.e., the gestures which indicate to the individual who uses them what they indicate to the others, for whom they serve as appropriate stimuli in the co-operative process. (89)

In relation to Mead's emphasis on universality of conduct, practical lessons might be taken from anthropology and its long experience with 'culture.' The concept of culture in practical terms is the same as Mead's definition of universe of discourse (and his notion of perspective); it is 'a system of symbols and meanings.' 14 We can use the notions of culture, universe of discourse, and perspective as synonyms in everyday use as long as we remember that culture is a manifestation of communicative interaction, and is not to be reified as a concept. Culture is neither determined in such a way as to make only 'interpretation' possible, nor so unrelated to habitual practice as to make the political manipulation in rhetoric the only subject of interest. 1 5 A universe of discourse as culture is not a 'perfect' logical 'system.' Victor Turner argues that it is difficult to study culture as such a system: 'Indeed, despair of finding systems in complex postindustrial cultures may

Mead's Theory of Communicative Interaction

11

well motivate a search for them "among the primitives." It is not a question of "back to nature," but back to [a] "cultural system." But such cognitive "pastoralism" (in the literary sense) is ill-advised. In no concrete society is "system" realized. "On earth the broken arcs, in heaven the perfect round." Both symbols operate among the "broken arcs" and help to substitute for the "perfect round."' 16 Clifford Geertz agrees that culture cannot be treated as a symbolic system by isolating its elements apart from the 'informal logic of actual life.' 'Nothing has done more,' he writes, 'to discredit cultural analysis than the construction of impeccable depictions of formal order in whose actual existence nobody can quite believe.' 17 Further, there may be conflicts between universes of discourse. Social meaning is not a given, but something to be struggled over, a kind of political and social prize of the utmost importance for the shaping of reality. Mead recognized this. 18 Since the universe of discourse is closely related to the generalized other, and the organized attitudes of generalized others are the institutions, the notion of universal discourse (as perspective) is a key link on a dynamic chain. For Mead, communication in which each took the attitude of the other would be both rational and democratic. This was his ideal. But Mead made no assumptions about all communication being either rational or democratic; indeed, in most 'action as communicative interaction,' it is neither. Mead preferred rational communication, and rightly or wrongly, even saw a developmental progression to rational action, or what Habermas calls 'rationalization.' In spite of his social optimism, Mead considered this progression a long way off, and did not see it specifically as an existing condition of capitalist economies or governmental institutions, as Max Weber did and Habermas does still. Thus Mead's theory of institutions, or institutional action, is not encumbered with rationality as an enveloping concept, although for him rationality does indeed arise out of communicative interaction in an evolutionary way. 19 It is also important to note that Mead does not use the terms norms and sanctions in his approach to symbols as part of discourse. The shared meanings of the generalized other in universes of discourse as systems of significant symbols serve as the referent for the individual's attitudes as incipient actions. Here the individual or group tests each action against that referent and usually follows it. Such shared meanings arise, as the self itself does, in communicative interaction. Shared meanings are not merely 'binding' or 'enabling,' but both. They, like other influences in men and women's activities, are social in origin; thus human agents control themselves while they create themselves.

12

Communicative Interaction

Finally, Mead has been criticized for not taking enough account of conflict between those holding different universes of discourse. This question needs to be considered carefully. Hugh Dalziel Duncan is complimentary about Mead's place in social theory, but he suggests that Mead's generalized other is a curiously benign other. Duncan argues that in the dialogue between the 'I' and the ' me' or between the 'I' and the generalized other (the group or the community) there seems to be no deception, no hate, no indifference, but rather an equating of the moral with the social. 10 A broader but related question might be, Is Mead's treatment of conflict in society adequate? Mead does discuss a range of conflicts between the 'I' and the 'me,' the 'I' and the 'generalized other,' and individuals and the state, as well as between and within communities and within political institutions. What Mead does not do is provide many detailed discussions of his examples, and he surveys his subjects rather than focus on any one part of them. The question of conflict between universes of discourse is discussed in greater detail in the next chapter. MEAD'S ANALYSIS OF SOCIETY : INSTITUTIONAL CONSTITUTION AND RECONSTITUTION

George Herbert Mead has been considered noteworthy chiefly for his theory of how the 'mind' and the 'self' emerge in 'communicative interaction,' not for his writings about institutions in society. Mead's work is sometimes subsumed by, and overidentified with that of his successor at the University of Chicago, Herbert Blumer, who coined the term symbolic interactionism, one identified with 'micro' analysis. Even in textbooks about sociological theory, Mead's approach is often confused with the views of his followers. For example, in their widely used textbook Contemporary Soaological Theory, Wallace and Wolf compare macro-sociological theories and microsociological theories. They note that 'in their subject matter, theoretical perspectives divide rather clearly between those perspectives that are concerned with the large-scale characteristics of social structures and roles, or macro sociology, and those concerned with person-to-person encounters and the details of human interaction and communication, or micro soaology.'11 For Wallace and Wolf, macro-sociologists 'pay most attention not to individual psychology, but to organizations and institutions within society and to the socially prescribed roles that individuals play in them. They spend little time analyzing the dynamics of individual action ... The perspectives of symbolic interactionism and phenomenology could hardly be more different, for they examine human interaction in the minutest detail.'

Mead's Theory of Communicative Interaction

13

Further, the 'micro' approach of symbolic interactionism (which Wallace and Wolf seem to assume is derived from Mead) is really outside the mainstream of sociology altogether. They do suggest that symbolic interactionism makes important contributions to sociology because of its emphasis on subjective meaning: We have discussed the basic premises and assumptions of the symbolic interactionist perspective as introduced by George Herbert Mead and his forerunners and as elaborated more recently by Herbert Blumer and Erving Goffman. The perspective's views of the self, especially Mead's stress on the 'I,' and discussions of selfinteraction, taking the role of the other, interpretation, gestures, and symbolic meaning, lead to an emphasis on studying processes of interaction between individuals and a methodology that is primarily inductive, qualitative, and geared toward micro-sociological analysis ... we can see that the perspective is basically a socialpsychological one, which focuses on Simmel's interactions among the 'atoms of society' ... Symbolic interactionism, with its negative view of social structure, is certainly not considered to be in the mainstream of sociology.ll

Mead's analysis of 'society' has been much neglected, underestimated, and inaccurately assessed. Micro- and macro-analysis have been unnecessarily theoretically separated. It would be unfortunate if Mead's theory of institutions was to be forgotten or ignored. Anthony Giddens writes that 'symbolic interactionism - Blumer's term for a diverse set of influences emanating from G.H. Mead-has from the beginning been hampered by an inadequate theoretical grasp of problems of institutional analysis and transformation.' Whether Giddens includes Mead himself in this assessment is not entirely clear.23 The attempt, however, of functionalists and neofunctionalists to enlist Mead in their cause makes a review of Mead's position on institutions necessary. 2 4 Mead provides the basis for a theory not only of institutions in general, but also of the state. Although there may be ambiguities and gaps in Mead's approach to the state, it does explicitly take into account institutional construction and reconstruction, production and reproduction. Mead's concept of institutions as organized forms of group or social activity in terms of common responses of all members of the community to a particular situation is introduced in the context of the self and the generalized other. It is further developed in the chapter entitled 'Society' in Mead's Mind, Self, and Society, where he establishes the foundations for an understanding of societal institutions, community conflict, leadership, and the state. Mead's approach to the state is discussed further in Chapter 3.

14

Communicative Interaction

Here, we will review his ideas on the self in relation to society, and then discuss the concepts of universe of discourse and universal discourse as the changeable systems of meanings in communicative interaction which lie behind institutional action. The discussion emphasizes the dynamic nature of institutional constitution and reconstitution - an important implication of the communicative interaction approach.

Self and Society Institutions are closely related to the concepts of the self and the generalized other. Men and women themselves actively build and change institutions, and it is in understanding the institution in this light that Mead's approach to understanding society may be seen. 25 Social institutions are based on the organized activities of men and women. 26 The self then becomes more complete at a second general stage, by taking the organized social group's attitudes towards the cooperative activities in which the group is engaged. Mead extends this point to include how particular individuals relate to the institution: This common response is one which, of course, varies with the character of the individual. In the case of theft, the response of the sheriff is different from that of the attorney-general, from that of the judge and the jurors and so forth; and yet they are all responses which maintain property, which involve the recognition of the property rights in others. There is a common response in varied forms. And these variations, as illustrated in the different officials, have an organization which gives unity to the variety of the responses .... Thus the institutions of society are organized forms of group or social activity - forms so organized that the individual members of society can act adequately and socially by taking the attitudes of others towards these activities. (261)

Mead is careful to state that there is 'no necessary or inevitable reason why social institutions should be oppressive or rigidly conservative,' but notes that they are necessary for the development of the self: 'Without social institutions of some sort, without the organized social attitudes and activities by which social institutions are constructed, there could be no fully mature individual selves or personalities at all' (262). Therefore, for Mead, 'A person is a personality because he belongs to a community, because the institutions of that community affect his conduct' (265). Institutions are for Mead a further stage of community, in which the whole community acts towards the individual under certain circumstances in an identical way

Mead's Theory of Communicative Interaction

r5

(265). He gives the example of politics, specifically that of party identifica-

tion. Mead is clear that such institutions are not necessarily subversive of individuality, and the social 'I' may, in conversation, change them by changing the system of shared meanings. Even the social 'me' can change institutions since internalized action may be interpreted as one's duty to do so, in order to prod the 'I' into action. If institutions are built upon universes of discourse, it follows that changes in universes of discourse are the key to an understanding of changing institutions. Mead claims that both universes of discourse and universal discourses are dynamic and constantly changing, in several senses. At one level Mead accounts for change from a logical perspective: 'The logician's universe of discourse lays plain the extent of universality. In an earlier stage that universality was supposed to be represented in a set of logical axioms, but the supposed axioms have been found to be not universal. So that in fact "universal" discourse, to be universal, has had to be continually revised' (269). The other argument, at the level of the individual, involves the innovative and even rebellious aspect of the 'I' phase of the self, which, in its conversation with the generalized other, changes the universe of discourse of which it is a part by an appeal to a wider community, even posterity, as noted above. To the extent that the 'I' can engage in communication with his or her community, he or she can change the universe of discourse and its organized application - the institutions of the community. The innovative 'I' of the self can change the organized attitudes of the generalized other by conversation with it, which of course changes the universe of discourse. The Universe of Discourse and Society

As has been shown, for Mead significant symbols signify shared meanings in communication, and meaning is not a physical condition or an idea external to the social, as traditionally conceived, but is 'already there' as a relation between certain phases of the social act. Significant symbols represent meanings which would not otherwise exist if there was no social communication. At the high level of language development at which significant symbols operate, language simply lifts out of the social process, logically or implicitly, what is there already. Thus the use of significant symbols in communication actually creates new 'objects,' which Mead calls 'objects of common sense.' To review, there is a conversation of gestures, such that 'the gesture of one organism and the adjustive response of another organism to that gesture

16

Communicative Interaction

within the social act brings out the relationship that exists between the gesture as the beginning of the given act, and the completion of the act, to which the gesture refers' (79). The existence of meaning depends on the fact that when the second organism adjusts his or her responses, he or she does so in a way which is directed towards the result of the act as both initiated and indicated by the gesture of the first organism. It is within this context of meaning, arising in a conversation of significant symbols or gestures, that Mead links such symbols to the generalized other. Several aspects of Mead's concept might be noted. First, he is suggesting that a universe of discourse is primarily a logical concept. Second, although we can relate universe of discourse to culture, Mead does not explicitly relate universe of discourse - or universal discours.e (which we learn later in Mind, Self and Society is simply a universal universe of discourse) - to the concepts of culture or ideology. Third, at least at this stage, he is not saying how these attitudes come to be shared, except by participation in a 'common social process of experience and behaviour' in a group whose members share common meanings. Because an individual belongs to more than one universe of discourse, perspective, or culture, he or she is part of a number of systems of symbols.17 Which of them make up his dominant culture? Is there a system of symbols with meaning in more than one universe of discourse? Anthropologist David Schneider seems to think so, while suggesting that, in the United States, kinship, nationality, and religion share 'diacritical marks' in a kind of 'pure domain.' On the other hand, there are all kinds of combinations and permutations of meanings 'with other pure domains, and at the conglomerate level.' 18 An individual may have many symbols at his disposal, including those which are significant in more than one of the universes of discourse of which he or she is a part. Perhaps a body of symbols which are significant in more than one of an individual's set of discourses is indeed a kind of special universe of discourse, 'a system of especially significant symbols' representing the 'more general' other. It is important to emphasize that this refers to a general culture, not a formal system of ideas. It may, however, be partially in relation to some wider societal discourse an apology for a social group, religion, or class. In this sense an 'ideology' may be seen first as a particular universe of discourse advertised as a universal one, or a set of significant symbols made into a 'partisan' system of symbols using meanings that are significant to people as apologia for a particular group. These two may resemble each other, since there can be significant symbols from one particular universe of discourse that are also part of the conglomerate discourses being stressed by partisans who support their own universe of discourse. However, ideology often also includes

Mead's Theory of Communicative Interaction

17

symbols from more than one universe of discourse, for the partisan advantage of a social group. Some light may be shed on the question of how attitudes might possibly come to be shared if we return now to Mead's ideas about universes of discourse. The several universes of discourse with which the individual identifies could include, for example, a political party, and the individual could espouse its attitudes towards the rest of the social community. Mead divides such groups into two kinds of social 'classes.' One of these he refers to as concrete social classes or subgroups, 'such as political parties, clubs, corporations.' They are functional social units in the sense that their members have direct social relationships. On the other hand, in abstract social classes or subgroups 'such as the class of debtors or the class of creditors,' members relate more indirectly to each other, and thus these classes function only indirectly as social units, giving the individual extensive opportunities for widening his or her social relations in society. 29 One of the latter, 'abstract' social classes, has special importance: The one which is most inclusive and extensive is, of course, the one defined by the logical umverse of discourse (or system of universally significant symbols) determined by the participation of communicative interaction of individuals for all such classes or subgroups, it is the one which claims the largest number of individual members, and which enables the largest conceivable number of human individuals to enter into some sort of social relation, however indirect or abstract it may be, with one another, a relation arising from the universal functiomng of gestures as significant symbols in the general human social process of commumcauon. (258-9)

Mead appears to be suggesting that one 'class' dominates the universe of discourse of a community more than others do. What does he mean by class? For Mead, the notion of class serves as a general classification device for social groups based on abstract or functionally indirect social groups, or 'classes of direct relations.' Individuals are likely to share more significant symbols with the relatively larger number of groups of individuals with which they are indirectly related than with the relatively smaller number of functional groups they may belong to. Therefore, any system of universal discourse is more likely to be based on a class of indirect relations - perhaps, for Mead, the more indirect, the more important. Mead indicates the kinds of groups he is referring to. He notes two 'universal forms' which have found expression: one in universal religious processes, the other in universal economic processes. The basis of religious groups is in the cooperative aspects of human beings, which are expressed

18

Communicative Interaction

in kindness, helpfulness, and assistance. As for universal economic attitudes, Mead suggests that surpluses create the conditions for economic exchange when individuals can communicate their mutual needs: We have a fundamental process of exchange on the pan of individuals arising from the goods for which they have no immediate need themselves, but which can be utilized for obtaining that which they do need. Such exchange can take place wherever individuals who have such surpluses are able to communicate with each other. There is a participation in the attitude of need, each putting himself in the attitude of the other in the recognition of the mutual value which the exchange has for both. It is a highly abstract relationship, for something which one cannot himself use brings him into relationship with anyone else in exchange. (258)

These religious and economic attitudes represent the most highly universal discourses, at least for the present. The process of communication is, however, more universal than either, because it serves both of these cooperative activities. There has to be something to communicate which can be socially utilized. To comment on Mead's view of the social basis for a universe of discourse and a universal discourse, it is evident that his idea of class is a very general one. Thinking does not take place by itself. Mead's notion of class coincides at least partially with Marx's. Neither Marx nor Mead satisfactorily elaborated their view of class. With respect to the universality of religion and economics, Mead seems to have presuppositions as to the nature of his 'social man' which lie outside social origins per se. He sees religion as a cooperative process to which man seems to have some natural affinity. Mead has particularly optimistic views concerning shared economic attitudes, which, he claims, stress the cooperative aspects of man because they are grounded in an identification of mutual needs rather than individual advantage. Mead thus undercuts Durkheim in making communication in society more primary than religious values and norms, though he also seems to see the impulse to cooperation as an implicit part of man's nature. It is true that Mead's view of economic exchange does not appear to entertain the idea of alienation or selfishness easily. While it might seem at first that Mead is applying his idea to a very 'primitive' level of economic activity, he also extends it to the international community. (This view is examined more closely in Chapter 5.) Mead specifically suggests that one economic universe does not try to displace another through propaganda, but that trade leads to closer relationships between communities. A related point which can be drawn from Mead's notions of universe of discourse and universal

Mead's Theory of Communicative Interaction

19

discourse is his preference for community based on what he calls ' rationality.' As noted, Mead stresses that a personal relationship is not essential for the organization of a community. His vision of an ideal democratic society is based on a functional differentiation in which there can still be leaders. The community can join in leaders' attitudes to the extent that those leaders can themselves enter into the attitudes of the community they undertake to lead (326). In such an ideal society, says Mead, there would be a truly universal discourse (since such discourse is the formal goal of communication). This universal discourse would be rational in the sense that each individual would take the part of others before acting, thus making it democratic as well. There is more to this vision of an ideal society than can be discussed here. For example, something resembling Mead's ideal rational universal discourse has attracted the attention of Jurgen Habermas, who sees in it affinities with Weber. Mead's optimism reveals itself, and deserves the kind of careful, critical analysis that Pfeutze and others have given it. 30 One final point: Mead also gives us the foundation for a theory of leadership. His theory relates the role of the innovative T to that of the media; to wit: some special individuals can assert themselves to the point where they make their experiences universal. Thus, such leaders draw others into a universe of discourse, and make communication possible between groups that might otherwise remain separate from each otherY Mead notes that monarchs take this role at the level of the state, as representatives of the people in a universal form . Groups communicate through the king, as a symbol, in a way that they could not do otherwise. This example applies equally to presidents of newly independent countries or to leaders of long-established nations in times of national crisis. The ways in which kings and presidents, not to mention popes, jealously guard this symbolic status is a study in itself, as Clifford Geertz has shown in an interesting study of how leaders assert themselves.32 I would argue that an individual becomes a leader through a greater ability than others possess to take in acts in process, to see such acts from the point of view of many of the participants in them, and, thus to put him- or herself 'in relation to whole groups in the community.' In politics, this capacity is the 'attitude of the statesman who is able to enter into the attitudes of the group and to mediate among them by making his own experience universal, so that others can enter into this form of communication through him.' 33 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Mead's theory of communicative interaction deserves to be studied in its

20

Communicative Interaction

own right, independent of some of the theories which, by processes of either accretion or erosion, have distorted its importance. Scholars have overlaid Mead's theory with their own interpretations of action and interaction in society, often influenced by other theorists, such as Parsons, whose approaches are different from Mead's in fundamental ways. Mead's theory has also suffered from erosion in that his approach has been consigned to micro-analysis, and thus has been removed from the mainstream of sociological theory. However, it is not necessary to accept the common view and to regard Mead as a follower of his successors; nor must we accept the revisions and reductions to his theory contained in textbooks. Mead's theory in fact does deal adequately with larger issues, including those of institution formation and the state. Mead's theory of institutions stresses the dynamic aspects of society, whereby institutions can be formed and changed through the emergence and re-emergence, the construction and reconstruction, of shared symbol systems. Institutions are constantly changing because of the activities not only of the 'I' part of the self, but of the 'me' as well. In a way, individuals have not only a right but also a duty to converse with the community, and to create changes. It is important to remember that, although the thinking self emerges within institutions of one kind or another, it can also change institutions. Readers will recall that the reflective self arises within organized social activity and then reacts to the institutions in which the activity takes place. In this sense, ideology can also be linked to the notion of power as the capacity to change the actions of others, organized or otherwise. It is argued in the next chapter that Kenneth Burke's notion of rhetoric provides a useful approach to communicative interaction, and that institutions can be changed through the use of words in conversation and debate, whether those words constitute persuasion or propaganda, or a combination of the two. Ironically, if those who effectively control symbol systems through propaganda or persuasion do not want institutions to change, existing structures may be reinforced by the relatively dominant societal discourses upon which they are built. In sum, this chapter has introduced Mead's concept of the self and his notion of universes of discourse, both of which have been shown to link organized communicative activity in communities to the formation of institutions. We have seen that changes in community discourses can change institutions, because institutions reflect shared attitudes and meanings. Such reconstructions within, and conflicts between, universes of discourse bear the promise of a fruitful approach to the study of social organizations at different levels.

2

Communicative Interaction, Rhetoric, and Power

In exploring how Mead deals with conflict, and how conflict might be studied using a communicative interaction approach, we can usefully consider the work of Kenneth Burke, which complements Mead's approach. Burke's understanding of communicative interaction is in fact based on his understanding of Mead's theory. If we combine Burke's notion of rhetoric with the idea of power, rhetoric can be seen as part of a contest for the control and definition of significant symbols and their meanings in the communicative interaction that brings a community's discourse into being. This ongoing contest takes place at various levels within or among individuals, groups, institutions, and states. The primary use of rhetoric is both pragmatic and practical: rhetoric is employed as a conceptual tool which illuminates how human motivations are expressed within communicative interaction; it is also a guide to the empirical analysis of communicative interaction. I will first discuss Mead's approach to conflict between universes of discourse, then Burke's notion of rhetoric, and, finally, how these ideas are related to Anthony Giddens's notion of power. In addition, I will consider the relationship of rhetoric and power related to ideology and to Gramsci's notion of hegemony. MEAD'S APPROACH TO CONFLICT BETWEEN UNIVERSES OF DISCOURSE

In considering conflicts between universes of discourse, Mead does not hesitate to deal with such subjects as the subjugation of one empire by another (which he considers preferable to what he calls 'extermination' of an opponent) or the implications of self-interest and self-protection for both individuals and collectivities. With reference to antisocial impulses

22

Communicative Interaction

Mead writes, 'Ordinarily, their most obvious and concrete expression in [an] organization lies in the attitudes of rivalry and competition which they generate inside the state or nation as a whole, among different socially functional subgroups of individuals - subgroups determined (and especially economically determined) by that organization.'' Mead also describes how conflicts are 'settled or terminated by reconstruction of the particular social situations' (308). This statement covers a multitude of messy situations, since not only is the notion of 'reconstruction' not described, but Mead does not tell us what happens if there is no reconstruction at all. A particularly interesting kind of conflict, which Mead mentions towards the end of Mind, Self, and Society, is the conflict between communities with different universal discourses, whereby, for example, one community's universe of discourse may be absorbed by another's. Mead refers to 'extermination,' 'subjugation,' and 'propaganda' as three levels of such 'competitions.' He suggests that subjugation is a more intelligent option for an empire than extermination. Why might this be so? It has already been noted that Mead prefers functionally based organizations (such as economic ones) to those which he views as based on emotions. He has a normative preference for 'rational' interaction over universals based on cooperative 'emotions.' Mead does not deal at length with propaganda or with the difference, if any, between propaganda and subjugation. He does claim, however, that propaganda is used by religious communities (he specifies Christianity and Buddhism) rather than by economic ones. Yet surely economic imperialism in Africa and elsewhere has used religion for its own purposes in the past, just as religion has used economic imperialism to access potential converts. It is important not to exaggerate Mead's lack of attention to conflict. He does not ignore conflict based on economic discourses, but he has an optimistic tendency to look at patterns of order rather than at possibilities for chaos. For example, referring to the conflict between subgroups (which include 'classes,' as the term is ordinarily used), Mead writes, 'selfprotection and self-preservation as human impulses also manifest themselves indirectly ... by giving rise, through their association ... with the "friendly" human impulses, to one of the primary constitutive ideals or principles or motives of [organizations] - namely the affording of social protection, and the lending of social assistance, to the individual by the state in the conduct of his life' (305). Mead refers to the 'vast importance' of mass media as a means of expanding universes of discourse by incorporating greater numbers of people. The journalistic media, Mead claims, play a role previously played by the theatre. He describes this function as follows:

Communicative Interaction, Rhetoric, and Power

23

'Journalism has picked out characters which lie in men's minds from tradition, as the Greeks did in their tragedies. The theatre then expressed through these characters situations which belong to their own time but which carry the individuals beyond the actual fixed walls which have arisen between them, as members of different classes in the community' (257). Thus Mead associates what he calls propaganda with both the media and the theatre. In general, Mead's description of how changes take place in universal discourse is not detailed, but he has provided clues for the development of his theory. When he speaks of religions or communities competing, Mead notes that individuals may act as a part of such institutions, in order to develop and expand them reflexively. This activity involves the possibility that members of an institution may attempt to control the meanings shared by other participants in it in order to control any change that takes place in the institution itself. COMMUNICATIVE INTERACTION, CONFLICT, AND RHETORIC

A primary difference between Mead and Burke is that, in his elaboration of Mead, Burke places a more persistent emphasis on conflict, on the stresses and strains that are ever present in society. Burke applies the concept of rhetoric to the contest for meaning within communicative interaction itself and, by extension, to the contests for definition of reality that occur in society and politics among men, women, groups, classes, and nations. He holds the general position that competition between points of view constitutes part of the 'action' of everyday life. For Burke, rhetoric is related to the nature of men and women as symbol users and communicators: 'For rhetoric as such is not rooted in any past condition of human society. It is rooted in an essential function of language itself, a function that is wholly realistic, and is continually born anew; the use of language as a symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that by nature respond to symbols.' 2 Let us stop and consider whether this statement about the nature of people in terms of their use of symbols is tautological, to the extent that it uses communicative interaction to explain the behaviour of human agents for which communication through symbols is described as the primary characteristic. This question can be addressed in two ways: ( r) from the perspective that all theories of human activity are based on their creator's understanding of human nature, expressed implicitly or explicitly, 3 and (2) from the perspective that this particular view of human nature is tautological in relation to communicative interaction. I would argue against the latter view. For Mead, men and women are innovative and constitutive in

24

Communicative Interaction

nature, based on his stress upon reflexivity as a primary characteristic of human agents. For Burke as well, men and women communicate for a purpose - most often, to 'induce co-operation' for good or ill, for courtship or conquest, or simply to make life easier. Burke makes his point vividly in the introduction to A Rhetoric of Motives: we can recognize that our anecdote [rhetoric] is in the order of killing, of personal enmity, of factional strife, of invective, polemic, eristic, logamachy, all of them aspects of rhetoric that we repeatedly and drastically encounter, since rhetoric is, par excellence, the region of the scramble, of insult and injury, bickering, squabbling, malice and the lie, cloaked malice, and the subsidized lie. Yet while admitting that the genius of our opening anecdote has malign inclinations, we can without forcing find benign elements there too. And we should find these; for rhetoric also includes resources of appeal ranging from sacrificial, evangelical love, through the kinds of persuasion figuring in sexual love, to sheer neutral communication (communication being the area where love has become so generalized, desexualized, 'technologized,' that only close critical or philosophic scrutiny can discern the vestiges of the original motive). 4

This is certainly different language than Mead uses, but is wholly compatible with his ideas. There are two concepts in particular which link Burke's theory of rhetoric to Mead's theory of communicative interaction: the reflexivity of human communicators, and their identification with those whom they would persuade. In describing the purpose of A Rhetoric of Motives, Burke explains that rhetoric refers to more than hostile aspects of human interaction: We sought to formulate the basic stratagems which people employ, in endless variations, and consciously or unconsciously, for the outwitting or cajoling of one another. Since all these devices had a 'you and me' quality about them, being addressed to some person or to some advantage, we classified them broadly under the heading of a Rhetoric. ... The Rhetoric deals with the possibilities of classification in its partisan aspects; it considers the ways in which individuals are at odds with one another, or become identified with groups more or less at odds with one another . ... The Rhetoric must lead us through the Scramble, the wrangle of the Market Place, the flurries and flare ups of the Human Barnyard, the Give and Take, the wavering line of pressure and counter pressure, the Logomachy, the onus of ownership, the Wars of Nerves, the War. It too has its peaceful moments: at times its end-

Communicative Interaction, Rhetoric, and Power

25

less competition can add up to the transcending of itself. In ways of its own it can move from the factional to the universal. But its ideal culminations are more often beset by strife as the condition of their organized expression, or material embodiment. (22)

And, he adds, We need never deny the presence of strife, enmity, faction as a characteristic motive of rhetorical expression. We need not close our eyes to their almost tyrannous ubiquity in human relations ... Yet we can at the same time always look beyond this order, to the principle of identification in general, a terministic choice justified by the fact that the identifications in the order of love are also characteristic of rhetorical expression. (20)

Are people as conflictual in their interactions as Burke claims? Certainly, human beings are argumentative, and if we do not assume rationality in their purpose in any predetermined sense - such as might be attached, for instance, to the public-choice model - Burke's account of everyday reality rings true. Burke's concept of rhetoric is concerned with language as a pragmatic means to social ends, rather than with formal argumentation itself. Burke defines rhetoric functionally (although not in functionalist terms) as 'the use of words by human agents to change the actions and attitudes of other human agents' (43). 1 Rhetoric has had shifting meanings, but let us concentrate on this practical one for our own pragmatic purposes. Burke's neutral understanding of rhetoric refers to all the uses of words which change action or attitudes. We can link these concepts to the notion of rhetoric by distinguishing between rhetoric as persuasion and rhetoric as propaganda. Based on whether reflexivity and identification are encouraged, we can then distinguish between persuasion and propaganda as qualitatively different kinds of rhetoric, and as different kinds of rhetorical power. If we change Burke's definition of rhetoric to read 'the use of words by human agents to form attitudes or induce actions while at the same time encouraging their [the human agents'] reflexivity and revealing choices,' we have defined persuasion; and when we alter the definition in a way to read 'the use of words by human agents to form attitudes or induce actions while attempting to restrict reflection and deny choices,' we have described propaganda. The distinction is not a simple bipolar one, but represents a gradient, depending on the degree of reflexivity encouraged, the amount of choice given, and the extent to which the interests of the 'persuader' are identified with those of the 'persuadee.'

26

Communicative Interaction

PERSUASION AND PROPAGANDA

Persuasion gives a person greater consciousness of him- or herself in relation to the society of which he or she is a part. Such exercising of consciousness, it may be suggested, is a means for the individual to establish his or her rationality - that is to say, rationality in the context of a set of societal meanings developed over time in reflexive communication, not imposed by an authority external to society. In Mead's theory, a man 'takes the attitude of the other' to guide his own action. In his discussion of the media, as cited above, Mead speaks of how the media extend universes of discourse by 'reporting situations through which one can enter into the attitude and experience of other persons.' 6 Burke's emphasis on identification in persuasion coincides with Mead's theory of the reflexive use of significant symbols in communicative interaction. Developing this point further, Burke suggests that a man persuades another man to action by identifying with him. Quoting Aristotle, that 'it is not hard to praise Athens among Athenians,' Burke suggests that 'you persuade a man only in so far as you can talk his language by speech, gesture, morality, order, image, attitude, idea, identifying your way with his.' 7 This kind of persuasion often takes place, not as one particular address to an audience, but as a 'general body of identifications' that owe their ability to convince to repetition more than to rhetorical skill. In his theoretical discussion of rhetoric Burke implicitly links the notion of taking the position of the 'other' with the principle of identification. 8 He is also explicit about rhetoric as addressed, 'since persuasion implies an audience.' He continues: 'A man can be his own audience, insofar as he, even in his secret thoughts, cultivates certain ideas or images for the effect he hopes they may have upon him; he is here what Mead would call an "I" addressing its "me"; and in this respect he is being rhetorical quite as though he was using pleasant imagery to influence an outside audience rather than one within' (38). The notion that men and women persuade themselves, deceive themselves, and are divided within themselves brings the argument full circle, back to Mead's point concerning an individual's reflexivity, his or her participation in a perspective. 9 Burke's elaboration of Mead's theory makes the point that rhetoric is an integral part of communicative interaction in the use of language and in all social activities. For Burke, identification compensates for division: 'If men were not apart from one another, there would be no need for the rhetorician to proclaim their unity.' 10 Persuasion can be viewed as a conversation within a community's discourse which may change that discourse. In such a conversation the per-

Communicative Interaction, Rhetoric, and Power

27

suader might identify with the system of significant symbols of the culture of the persuadee, using those symbols to make his point. In the process, rather than distorting the relationship of the symbols to one another, the persuader may succeed in offering alternative interpretations of them and hence of the community's discourse. In Aristotle's sense, persuasion is not amoral, but is rather for the good of society. If the rhetorician can anticipate the reaction of the other, there is a sense in which he identifies with the other's needs and purposes, and not only with his own. There are some positive uses, both old and new, of the word propaganda. The influential sociologists Alfred McClung Lee and Elizabeth Briant Lee defined propaganda in 1939 as 'opinion expressed for the purpose of influencing actions of individuals or groups.' 11 Some have associated propaganda with persuasion in the spirit of de propagande fide, the mandate of Pope Gregory's commission of cardinals in the sixteenth century. Many African countries have ministries of propaganda and culture. However, the word has generally had a negative connotation. For example, persuasion is not part of Jacques Ellul's focus when he deals with propaganda. His emphasis is less on changing the attitudes of others than on changing their actions. He argues that actions once performed are more easily rationalized, and that changes in attitude follow action. Techniques of survey research, he says, have perfected the means of stimulating men and women to action without thought, whether it be to buy certain products or to vote for certain candidates. He argues that 'the effectiveness of the rhetorical image may be subjected to 'pre-testing' on an audience or panel and corrected to assure that the device produces the desired emotional or attitudinal effect.' 12 Ellul calls this aspect of propaganda 'psychological violence'. 13 Harold Innis makes a similar point, stressing the role of commercial advertising techniques in German propaganda during both world wars: The influence of advertising in the United States spread to Europe, notably to Germany, before the First World War. Bertrand Russell has said with much truth that 'the whole modern technique of government in all its worst aspects is derived from advertising' ... (and] 'The intellectual level of propaganda is that of the lowest common denominator among the public. Appeal to reason and you appeal to about four per cent of the human race. You cannot aim too low. The story you present cannot be too stupid. It is not only impossible to exaggerate - it in itself requires a trained publicist to form any idea of - the idiocy of the public.' 14

Propaganda, as defined here, would (to use Mead's distinction between significant and non-significant symbols) seek to establish a more primitive

28

Communicative Interaction

communication of symbols as gestures rather than as significant symbols. Propaganda would be an effort to treat individuals as social objects to be manipulated. It would regard a person solely as an organism, relying for its success on the animal responses that are part, but only part, of the nature of men and women. Thus, in propaganda, rationality as self-consciousness is avoided, and symbols are used to trigger action which may be attitudinally rationalized afterwards. Such symbols are used ideologically, pulled into the foreground of the limited consciousness allowed, in a distortion of the universe of discourse (or culture) for the purposes of particular social groups. Propagandists, from this perspective, do not identify with or listen to the views of these groups, but simply wish to bring others' actions and attitudes into conjunction with their own. As Ellul points out, propaganda tends to discourage the reflexivity of the propagandist as well as of the audience. In this way it might be considered a kind of psychological violence which 'brutalizes' both parties. I must stress again that persuasion and propaganda are not a simple dichotomy. Psychological coercion or empathy may be present, to varying degrees, in rhetoric. Both the classical notion of rhetoric as 'good argument' and Ellul's notion of propaganda as psychological violence can be accommodated. At the propaganda end of the 'continuum,' no interpretation of shared meanings takes place at all, whereas at the persuasion end, the individual can choose among a host of alternative responses based on available significant symbols as shared meanings, and of options within the shared meanings of particular symbols. Robert Paine has offered his own approach to the relationship between persuasion and propaganda. In one article he argues constructively that social exchanges are not necessarily based on power relations (although most of them are). 15 And, in a chapter in Politically Speaking, he deals with what he calls the forces behind persuasion. Paine cites Burke in relation to his (Paine's) own theoretical interests in 'exchange' as a theoretical focus. 16 He also offers a conceptual approach to propaganda. Paine speaks of coercion and persuasion as 'positions on a gradient of perceived availability of choice,' because any 'universal rule as to where and how coercion takes over from persuasion has to take into account the cultural specificity of logic and apperception, and different levels of experience within a culture.' Giving up on this possibility, he decides that one is on safer ground in relating the distinction to the perception of 'situations of choice.' However, reflexivity in Mead's sense is not a culture-bound concept, and it provides a solid foundation for an understanding of rhetoric. Paine does not seem to have recalled Burke's relationship to Mead, espe-

Communicative Interaction, Rhetoric, and Power

29

cially when he argues that 'rhetoric and propaganda are themselves not distinguishable through reference to this variable of choice, and both occur in situations of varying degrees of choice. Propaganda is rejected rhetoric. Should there ever be a situation without any perceived choice, it would be sociologically pointless to speak of rhetoric. Though there is this important coda: rhetoric is itself devoted to the reduction of an audience's perception of choices.' 17 In taking this position Paine blurs the distinction between both perceived and real reflexivity and choice for the individual(s) being addressed. The impression of offering choices where in fact there are none, or fewer than perceived, would be a denial of genuine choice, and of consciousness. If all rhetoric is a reduction to perceived choices, then it is only a kind of psychological coercion. On the other hand, my distinction between persuasion as enhanced understanding of available choices, in the context of an identification of the rhetorician with the interests of his audience, and propaganda as denial of choices through discouragement of consciousness would allow Paine a way out of this dilemma. VARIETIES OF RHETORIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE

The opportunity for persuasion or propaganda is partly influenced by the agency used to communicate symbols back and forth between the participants. Harold Innis's notion of the 'biases' of different media of communication is pertinent here. The characteristics of face-to-face conversations are different from 'conversations' in written or televised form. The communication of symbols by the mass media may not be interactive at all; at best, it may be interactive to a very slight degree. Therefore the technology of the agencies used for rhetoric may affect where the latter lies on the gradient between persuasion and propaganda. When and if the distinction between persuasion and propaganda ceases to be important, a critical perspective on society and politics as the use and abuse of power will no longer exist. When the distinction between persuasion and propaganda no longer draws our interest, the differences between interaction and action, between enforced norms and shared symbols, and between men and women as subjects and objects will also fade away. While discussing rhetoric in terms of identification, and ideology in terms of rhetoric, Burke insists that he is remaining true to the tradition of the literature on rhetoric in its essentials. After making his own theoretical contribution he outlines, more or less explicitly, four stages of rhetoric, and then relates his own views to these four stages. The first is the classical stage. Cicero's basic definition of rhetoric, in his De Oratore, was 'speech

30 Communicative Interaction designed to persuade.' Three hundred years before, in The Art of Rhetoric, Aristotle had similarly defined rhetoric as 'the faculty of discovering the persuasive means available in a given case.' 18 More than a century after Cicero, in what Burke identifies as the second stage, Quintilian shifted the emphasis by defining rhetoric as the 'science of speaking well,' but he had in fact directed his system to the practical goal of the education of the Roman gentleman. Like Aristotle before him, Quintilian invested the orator with a moral purpose. Rhetoric, he said, was both useful and a virtue. However, neither Aristotle nor Quintilian 19 saw it as a skill to be used pragmatically for any cause. St Augustine's purpose was incitement to action, but since persuasion (to the classical theorists) involved choice, it was persuasion to 'attitude' as 'inducement to action.' 20 The emphasis, in naming the ultimate function of rhetoric, shifted from the word move to the word bend. Burke's third period, from the fourth to the fourteenth centuries, involves three aspects: (1) rhetoric as a part of logic, (2) rhetoric as the art of stating truths certified by theology, and (3) rhetoric as the art of using words in general. The pragmatic manipulation of groups after Machiavelli gave rise to a new, fourth stage of rhetoric and, in a sense, a new pragmatic era which may have contributed to the scientific revolution. We might also say, although Burke does not, that such a pragmatic viewpoint may also have contributed to a 'scientific' approach to rhetoric as propaganda in the present day. Burke marks out the fourth stage - that of the 'New Rhetoric' - from the nineteenth century to the present. Classical rhetoric stressed the element of explicit design in the rhetorical enterprise; that is to say, traditionally, an external audience was assumed, but a man or woman could constitute his or her own audience. Therefore, in traditional rhetoric the nature of the audience was given. In modern society it is possible to carve out one among many audiences using new media of communication. For example, it is possible to focus on one income group to 'sell' a product. Since Machiavelli, 'modern' rhetoric has been a pragmatic art, not a moral responsibility. Burke coined the phrase 'administrative rhetoric' to describe the kind of amoral state rhetoric that Machiavelli was a pioneer in advocating. Rhetoric is a concept generally ignored by modern (as opposed to post-modern, contemporary) social science, but Burke argues that, precisely at the time when the term rhetoric had fallen into greatest neglect and disrespect, writers in the social sciences were, under many guises, making good contributions to the New Rhetoric. As usual with modern thought, the insights

Communicative Interaction, Rhetoric, and Power

31

gained from the comparative study of cultures threw light upon the classical approach to this subject - and again as usual with modern thought, that light was interpreted in terms that concealed the true relation of modern thought to earlier work. 21 Others would go further than Burke in describing a new era of rhetoric. Hugh Dalziel Duncan states that 'the lack of money, technology and mass audiences in classical society creates many difficulties in the application of classical principles of rhetoric to our society.' 22 The scholar who makes this point in most forceful detail is Paul E. Corcoran, in his Political language and Rhetoric. 23 For Corcoran, it is impossible to discuss rhetoric in a contemporary context. He regards rhetoric as synonymous with persuasion, suggesting that its original social and political function was 'to inform and to persuade.' Technological change has made rhetoric obsolete, however. The 'end of rhetoric' arrived with the end of 'public address' as speech. 24 Corcoran makes only the most passing references to Marx, and does not mention Mead or Burke at all. His primary aim is to 'study the relationship between political language and communication technology, and the way that this interplay has been articulated in rhetorical theory'; in doing so, he makes an important contribution to an area that Burke neglects. Corcoran lists four propositions: ( 1) that the evolution of successive techniques of language communication has led to different forms of public discourse, with differentiations in social function and political importance at each technological stage of development; (2) that political rhetoric, as a technique of political expression, was a concomitant of literacy as a distinct language technology (subsequently, innovations in language technology, primarily mechanical printing and more recently other techniques of communication, have transformed the social function and the political importance of rhetoric); (3) that political rhetoric - understood as a public address, a speech - in the twentieth century is a technologically superseded form of communication; and is obsolete (its residual cultural aspect bears no resemblance to its original social and political function, that is, to inform and to persuade); and (4) that contemporary political language - as opposed to formal rhetoric - has assumed a peculiar and, in some senses, an inverted social function as a technique of linguistic expression. This is borne out by the uses to which political language is often put: to control, not persuade; to prevent thought, not to stimulate it; to conceal or distort information, not convey it; to divert or suppress public attention, not draw it. lj Thus, though Corcoran might agree with Burke's stages of rhetoric, his

32

Communicative Interaction

analysis of the contemporary period is much more radical. The advent of electronic media has changed the meaning of rhetoric as an art, a technique of persuasion. Changes in the age of print emphasized the elocutionary side of rhetoric - delivery and style rather than argument. The electronic age redefines the form of rhetoric even more. Corcoran points out that, in the electronic media, not only is there 'broadcast' as performance (with its own techniques), but there is also a creative mediating 'production' process that controls rhetoric in its own way. More and more, political communication is in the form of produced broadcasts - of advertisements, for example - rather than of 'actual' broadcasts - say, of live or taped formal speeches. While Corcoran does not have an explicit theory of the role of symbols in communication, he does point out that individuals in the 'post-literate culture' are less able than were people in earlier times to express shared meaning; thus, with his notion of 'symbolic indeterminacy' 26 Corcoran comes relatively close to Mead's position. He notes that electronic media such as television have instantaneous and universal audiences whose members need no skill to participate other than the ability to push a button or turn a dial - reading skills, for example, are not involved. At the same time, he says, audiences can be 'carved out' in a scientific way. This introduces another important point, also made central by Jacques Ellul in Propaganda - the role of the 'scientific method' in evaluating the effects of rhetoric. Technology also affects the verbal content of rhetoric. The attempt to make impersonal media more personal has led away from what we know as formal speeches; such media are considered to be primarily means of diversion and entertainment. In this context speeches become just another form of entertainment, signifying little; they are seen as 'just rhetoric.' Consequently, they tend to be replaced by a rapid succession of images, action, and sound - as in the example of political advertisements. Corcoran articulates his position as follows: Post-literate society is, therefore, characterized by symbolic indeterminacy: not only by an amnesia concerning the past and one's identity within a tradition, but also by a low capacity to use more than a narrow range of oral formulae - slogans, cliches, slang - to articulate ideas and interpret events. Public discourse, of course, supports and retains a stock of expressions and an idiom of popular speech. But as a means of communication, this level of oral discourse is increasingly remote from the symbol~, ideas, and information - to say nothing of the performing skills - communicated by post-literate techniques of electronic communication. In effect post-

Communicative Interaction, Rhetoric, and Power

33

literate society is a return to a distinction between the lingua franca - the vulgar tongue - and the learned official language - used skillfully only by those in the corridors of power.'7

Neil Postman takes a position similar in some respects to Corcoran's, but he goes further in arguing the extent to which the electronic media can reduce our reflective capacities. In Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, Postman compares the prophecies of Aldous Huxley in Brave New World and George Orwell in 1984. 28 He judges it more likely that Huxley was right than that Orwell was: 'Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.' 2 9 In another of his books, Postman describes Harold Innis as the 'father of modern communication studies.' 30 Postman sees Innis's notion of the clifferent 'biases' of media as a fundamental insight. Innis argued that each technology has its own characteristics. He wrote, 'I have attempted to suggest that Western civilization has been profoundly influenced by communication and that marked changes in communications have had important implications.' 31 Postman extends Innis's range of media to television, and argues that television has a built-in bias towards entertainment: Each of the media that entered into the electronic conversation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries followed the lead of the telegraph and photograph and amplified their biases. Some, such as film, were by their nature inclined to do so. Others whose bias was towards the amplification of rational speech - like radio were overwhelmed by the thrust of the new epistemology and came in the end to support it. Together this ensemble of electronic techniques called into being a new world - a peek-a-boo world where now this event, now that pops into view for a moment, then vanishes again ... T devision gave the epistemological biases of the telegraph and the photograph their most potent expression, raising the interplay of image and instancy to an exquisite and dangerous perfection ... We are now well into a second generation of children for whom television has been their first and most reliable teacher ... There is no subject of public interest - politics, news, education, religion, science, sports - that does not find its way into television. Which means that all public understanding of these subjects is shaped by the biases of television. 32

34 Communicative Interaction For other critics of media, the electronic media have created a new universe of discourse for elite groups only, one built on scientism. Alvin Gouldner sums up the point: People might now share information and orientations, facts and values, without mutual access and interaction. The problem now arises as to how persons can evaluate information. The shared beliefs people defined as true and worthy could now be controlled from a remote distance, apart from and outside the persons sharing the beliefs. Insofar as the control of media comes to be centralized and its reach becomes extended, competing values and definitions of reality no longer check one another; rational persuasion is then less necessary, and manipulation from a central source can substitute for voluntary persuasion.H

In sum, we have seen from Burke's, Corcoran's, Postman's, and Gouldner's points of view that, with contemporary electronic media, the possibilities for persuasion as the encouragement of reflective choice have been lessened, and the likelihood of propaganda has increased. Although Burke thinks of rhetoric in relation to persuasion as the changing of attitudes through reasoned argument and identification with the other, his definition of rhetoric encompasses some definitions of propaganda, both old and new. If, as Mead suggests, men's minds and consciousness develop through the mutual communication of shared significant symbols, it follows that a poverty of such symbols will lead to an impoverishment of reason (rather than to the expansion of reason for which Mead had hoped) and that society may truly become less human. It is important to consider the technology of communication in conjunction with a critical approach to contemporary society. Some actors and agents have more control than others over the technology that enables their voices to be heard. Since rhetoric is a kind of capacity to direct others' actions in a relationship, it may be considered a variety of power. ANTHONY GIDDENS'S CONCEPT OF POWER

Conflict is possible, even likely, in communicative interaction. Men and women seek to change political reality by shaping the consciousness of others, with varying willingness to let them think about it. The question of power enters as we consider the different capacities of people to change the actions of other people. The most famous definition of power is that of Max Weber, who called it 'the capacity of an individual to realize his will, even against the opposition

Communicative Interaction, Rhetoric, and Power

35

of others.' 34 It can be noted, however, that there is no necessary link between power and conflict in this definition. The key word in Weber's definition is the word even. 35 In not every case do others' wills have to be subdued, and even when they are not, power still may be exercised. In fact it is useful to place power in a more explicitly interactional context than Weber does, one which recognizes varieties of power according to the capabilities and resources that individuals and groups bring to them. Here Anthony Giddens offers a useful formulation: "'Power" in the narrower, relational sense is a property of interaction, and may be defined as the capability to secure outcomes where the realization of these outcomes depends upon the agency of others.' 36 This perspective implies a range of possible capabilities, and Giddens is explicit about them: The use of power in interaction can be understood in terms of resources or facilities, which participants bring to and mobilize as elements of its production, thereby directing its course. These thus include the skills whereby the interaction is constituted as 'meaningful,' but also - and these need only to be stated abstractly here any other resources which a participant is capable of bringing to bear so as to influence or control the conduct of others who are parties to that interaction, including the possession of 'authority' and the threat or use of 'force'. It would be quite out of place to attempt to set out an elaborate topology of power resources in this study.37

Our interest here is in the social creation of meaning in communicative interaction, and Giddens has something relevant to say about this as well: The reflective elaboration of frames of meaning is characteristically unbalanced in relation to the possession of power, whether this is a result of the superior linguistic or dialectical skills of one person in conversation with another; the mobilization of relevant types of 'technical knowledge'; the mobilization of authority or 'force,' etc. 'What passes for social reality' stands in immediate relation to the distribution of power; not only on the most mundane levels of everyday interaction, but also on the level of global cultures and ideologies, whose influence indeed may be felt in every corner of everyday social life itself. [original emphasisp 8

This argument leads us to a conclusion that rhetoric is a resource or capability of some in relation to others. Indeed, such a point of view is very close to Burke's definition of rhetoric as the use of words or symbols to change the actions and attitudes of other human agents. Like Weber's and Giddens's definitions of power, Burke's definition of rhetoric does not

36

Communicative Interaction

imply necessary conflict. It is in rhetoric that meanings are worked out in relation to power, conflictual and non-conflictual. Rhetoric from this perspective is one of the most important subvarieties of all 'resources' or capabilities of power. Defining this concept of power as the capacity of man to change actions in other human agents, and as a 'property of interaction' to rhetoric, it thus may be suggested that persuasion and propaganda (as depicted) represent different varieties of power. 39 If it is possible to understand power in terms of rhetorical capacity to change political reality through inducing others to act, power is dependent on the resources available to the agent, as Giddens points out. In particular, not only is skilful use of argument or language important for understanding the context for rhetoric, but so also are the medium employed, the financial capacity to gain access to a particular medium, technical expertise, and a degree of control over others' access to a medium or media. The use of power as psychological violence in propaganda is different in kind from the rhetorical capacity of persuasion. RHETORIC, POWER, AND IDEOLOGY

The characteristics of propaganda in its extreme form are the characteristics of ideology: lack of reflexivity, lack of 'rationality,' and lack of identification with others. The ideological use of symbols is reflected more in propaganda than in persuasion, involving as it does the partisan emphasis on some societal symbols at the expense of others. It is also reflected in the creation of new symbols that are portrayed (or mistakenly perceived) as being universal in their application to all discourses of society, but that in fact serve the purposes of some more than others. This is not to suggest that in propaganda we are used to seeing slogans printed on banners hanging across African roads, or on posters tacked to telephone poles, or declared in thirty-second television news clips. The practical manifestations of persuasion or propaganda in social communication, when symbols are ideologically employed, are the uses of the words as presented in rhetoric to the audience as 'other' (including the internal other). But persuasion and propaganda as varieties of rhetoric are different varieties of communicative interaction itself. Words can be taken out of context afterwards if the interaction is private, or can be displayed as part of the interaction itself (when general dissemination is the best way to reach that group) if the rhetoric involves all or part of the whole population. Persuasion and propaganda are dynamic interactions involving the use of symbols, including

Communicative Interaction, Rhetoric, and Power

37

ideological symbols. Ideology is a subvariant of rhetoric. It is also an important aspect of power. Kenneth Burke's pursuit of rhetoric intersects in part with Marx's notion of ideology as apologia for class interests. Burke, following Aristotle, broadly conceives of rhetoric as the art of persuasion, or as a study of persuasion for any given situation. 40 In this sense Burke suggests that Marx both studies rhetoric and uses it: 'Ideology is obviously but a kind of rhetoric (since the ideas are so related they have in them, either explicitly or implicitly, inducements to some social and political choices rather than others ).' 41 Contemporary Marxists tend to take Marx's view that there are dominant and subordinate ideologies, what Abercrombie, Hill, and Turner call the 'dominant ideology thesis.' For example, Bhikku Parekh accepts the thesis, without taking an extreme view, that there are no subordinate ideologies at all; that it is simply that these other discourses lack institutional or 'coherent' expression, and are 'intellectually overwhelmed.'4 ' Antonio Gramsci's writings from the twenties and thirties are a contemporary influence on important Marxist theory of the state, and they lead in a similar direction. Some of the most famous of Gramsci's statements are to be found in his Prison Notebooks. For example, 'The methodological contention on which our own study must be based is the following: that the supremacy of a social group manifests itself in two ways, as "domination" and as "intellectual and moral leadership." A social group dominates antagonistic groups, which it tends to "liquidate" or to subjugate perhaps even by armed force: it leads kindred and allied groups. A social group can, and indeed must, already exercise "leadership" before winning governmental power ... it subsequently becomes dominant when it exercises power, but even if it holds it firmly in its grasp, it must continue to "lead" as well.' 43 It is this intellectual and moral leadership that involves ideological domination. However, as Abercrombie, Hill, and Turner are willing to admit, Gramsci does not restrict the role of hegemony to such leadership, but includes other kinds of influences, such as force. For Gramsci there is a balance of coercion and consent. Consent is not automatic, but has to be produced - through a dominant ideology articulated by intellectuals. This ideology at least partially subordinates the working class, resulting in passivity. In contemporary capitalist society the rhetoric of powerful capitalist interest groups has a solid institutional base which helps maintain a 'relatively dominant' ideology. The role of advertising is particularly important, and perhaps underestimated in this regard. Innis and others have pointed out that the commercialization of mass media has led to a commercial-

38 Communicative Interaction ization of culture; that is, a relative acceptance of the ideology of those advertisers who on a day-to-day basis rhetorically encourage and reinforce the 'consumer society.' The commercial mass media system is primarily based on advertising, and readers or viewers are constantly exposed to skilfully constructed political propaganda based on sixty years of advertising experience, as well as to direct appeals in the form of advocacy advertising, by both private interests and the state itself, for particular government policies. Because of their importance to the media, advertisers also shape the program content of the commercial mass media system, including the news. When the representatives of such economic interest groups make public statements on the economy or the state, such statements are included in the news broadcasts of these media. Consequently it sometimes seems surprising that a relatively dominant ideology does not become absolutely dominant or universal. One can argue that Gramsci, in his effort to avoid economism, comes close to an understanding of society in terms of shared meanings. Gramsci's work is therefore compatible with the notion of rhetoric and power suggested in this chapter. Gramsci's philosophical roots may lie at least partly in the pragmatic tradition of the linguistic training he cites in his Prison Notebooks, a pragmatism which was closely associated with the Chicago School of Sociology, of which Mead was a part. 44 Gramsci does not refer specifically to Mead, but he does mention the philosophical school with which Mead was associated when he writes that 'the conception of language held by Vailati and other pragmatists is not acceptable. But it also seems that they felt real needs and described them with an exactness that was not far off the mark.' Gramsci seems to base his view on that of the pragmatic one: It seems that one can say that 'language' is essentially a collective term, which does not presume any single thing existing in time and space. Language also means culture and philosophy (if only at the level of common sense) and therefore the fact of 'language' is in reality a multiplicity of facts more or less organically coherent and co-ordinated. At the limit it could be said that every speaking being has a personal language of his own, which is his own particular way of thinking and feeling. Culture at its various levels unifies in a series of strata, to the extent that they come into contact with each other, a greater or lesser number of individuals who understand each other's mode of expression in differing degrees, etc. It is these historicosocial distinctions and differences which are reflected in common language and produce those 'obstacles' and 'sources of error' which the pragmatists have talked about.41

Communicative Interaction, Rhetoric, and Power

39

Gramsci does not attribute his thinking on issues of language, philosophy, and the individual completely to pragmatism; indeed, he suggests that Marxism influenced pragmatism rather than the other way around. Still, it may be suggested that pragmatism contributes in important ways to a theoretical conception which lies at the heart of his notion of hegemony. Certainly the notion of ideology mediating between society and the state takes a pragmatic position, for hegemony is a means as well as an end. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

In this chapter, I have traced the relationship of communicative interaction to conflict from Mead to Burke, employing Giddens's approach to the concept of power along the way, and including Gramsci as a Marxist variant. The approach outlined is based on the supposition that men and women are symbol users, and that all social activity, including economic activity, is based on communication (without assuming that such activity is 'rational' in terms that adherents of the 'rational choice theory' would recognize). 46 Rhetoric used in a practical sense recognizes the almost ubiquitous presence of conflict (or at least disagreement) within communicative interaction by groups, individuals, or formal organizations, based on a variety of motivations. The concept of rhetoric provides a way of explaining such contests of power for the interpretation of political reality. Indeed, such an extension of Mead makes Marx's notion of ideology more accessible. It also places in context Marx's theory of socially based conflicts of interests (in the form of apologia) and the insights of Antonio Gramsci. While Corcoran calls our time the 'age of positivism,' and Ellul brings our attention to the social control of rhetoric through scientific techniques, this chapter has utilized a critical theoretical approach which looks to models of reflexive (or relatively reflexive) action to best explain social and political activity. Rhetoric as a subvariety of power is concerned with the possible interaction of a plurality of voices rather than simply with the administration of a relatively dominant discourse by elites as experts in the employ of the state or commerce (including those elites whose role is to create and administrate stimulation of the populace through propaganda in the mass media). George Herbert Mead's communicative-interaction approach lies at the heart of the distinction between persuasion and propaganda. Self-conscious men and women act on the basis of their interpretations of the reactions of others to their behaviour. They use shared meanings to communicate this reaction to themselves, generally through language. Rhetoric involves a contest for

40

Communicative Interaction

the creation of attitudes as incipient action. This takes place when meanings of significant symbols are shaped in two ways: through enforced meanings of the symbols, and through reduced choice between them. The distinction between persuasion and propaganda rests on the question of the reflexivity encouraged in the audience, and the identification of the rhetorician with that audience. By this standard, persuasion involves the use of words as significant symbols to inspire in others a reflective reaction to one's own message. On the other hand, propaganda attempts to provoke action as an unthinking reaction to symbols designed as stimuli to provoke a response. In the context of what has gone before, the classical notion of rhetoric as good persuasive argument can be accommodated as an example of the persuasive aspect of rhetoric; and Ellul's notion of propaganda as psychological violence may be included as another, not excluding the possibility that rhetoric can be a mixture of the two in varying degrees. The degree to which the rhetorician identifies himself with the interests of his audience is related to his encouragement of the self-consciousness of its members. Persuasion, in Aristotle's sense, is not amoral; it is for the good of the rhetorician's audience. To put it another way, when a rhetorician uses persuasion he or she can anticipate the reactions of the other, and there is a sense in which he or she will identify with the other's needs and purposes as well as with his own. Thus the distinction takes into account the kinds of changes in media that Corcoran mentions, and their influence on the art or 'technique' of rhetoric. In Aristotle's Athens and Cicero's Rome rhetoric as persuasion was considered both desirable and technically possible. In the electronic age it may still be desirable, but it is much less possible, given the ecological impact of the dominant media, notably television. 47 The term rhetoric can be retained if it encompasses both persuasion and propaganda. Examples of rhetoric can be evaluated as to whether they are one or the other, or somewhere on the gradient in between, by evaluating the media used and the extent to which reflexivity is present. In this way one can evaluate the rhetorical efforts of those who represent institutions and interest groups. The distinction between propaganda and persuasion might play a role in a critical theory of society, based not on a normative model of rationality (perhaps ideologically defined in itself) but on the intelligibility of communication and action. A distinction between persuasion and propaganda also reflects an approach which looks beyond science as the control of society of communication as a social activity. Some voices are more readily heard than others, depending on the power that communities wield. Perhaps the dis-

Communicative Interaction, Rhetoric, and Power 41 tinction between persuasion and propaganda will also serve as a reminder that there is a difference between them, and that men and women are to be seen not only as objects subject to manipulation, but also as constitutive beings capable of consciousness.

3 Communicative Interaction and the State

As Everett Charrington Hughes put it, 'Institutions do not spring fully formed from the head of Zeus. Before they are institutions they are institutions in process.' 1 Among the institutions thus described is that of the state. Mead's theory of the state is a theory of the constitution and reconstitution of states, and it has been extended by Burke's notion of rhetoric and Giddens's approach to power in ways that are faithful to the spirit of Mead's original insights. Following on our earlier discussion, rhetoric is not related to the state merely in the pejorative sense of political talk without foundation, or only as advocacy of the policies of the state, but as a fundamental aspect of the formation and dissemination of the discourses of which state institutions and state policy are manifestations. Theories of the state need to include a conceptual approach to rhetoric, just as they need an adequate theory of communication. A theory of rhetoric is a 'necessary' but not sufficient 'condition' for an explanation of the state. UNIVERSAL DISCOURSE, IDEOLOGY, AND THE STATE

Mead, like Marx, did not address himself specifically to an integrated theory of the state, although he did use examples from the state to illustrate his theory of communicative interaction. Although he does not do so explicitly, Mead might say that the state acts as the reflection of the ideologies and cultures of the social groups and classes, both internal and external, which it comprises. Such ideologies and cultures are not merely sets of ideas, but concrete, socially created systems of meanings, the significant symbols around which society is shaped. The state is an institution of a particularly centralized kind. But there are

46

Communicative Interaction and the State

other varieties of political and social organization besides the contemporary liberal-democratic state. Among these political organizations one can identify the hunting and gathering bands of the Inuit or the Sunni of the Kalahari desert, the segmentary societies of the forest clans of West Africa, the more centralized clan-based chieftaincies, the monarchical states of Israel (or Europe at various periods in its history), and the collective party leaderships in socialist states. 2 Whatever form political organization takes, it is difficult to imagine a community where rhetoric (in the context of a contest of discourses) does not occur between groups and individuals. Certainly the contemporary social scientist finds a wide variety of potentially competing discourses both in Western industrialized states and in newly developing ones. The political system, with its competing ideologies, is engaged in a contest between organized and unorganized groups and between public and private interests, to form a 'relatively dominant' ideology. The pressure group system in Canada and the United States, for example, consists of organized private interest groups which attempt to affect the policies the state makes. 3 Powerful private interest groups also have political organizations, including political parties, representing their interests. In multiple, or two-party, systems, the party is a mediating body between the ideologies and the state, and the state reflects in large part the most powerful discourses and the rhetorical capacity of these groups. The national political party also provides a national or communal orientation, however superficial, to the interests of international corporations whose wealth may be greater than that of many countries. In one-party systems in Africa and elsewhere, the party has the difficulty of including within itself all the concerns of the various organized interests of society. Representatives of social groups and classes within a pluralistic system of liberal democracy also attempt to make their discourses the foundation for the ordinary perception of social and political reality, and pressure groups attempt to convince the government that their ideological positions are, or should be, the 'normal' symbols of society. Many politicians may accept this argument, but it cannot be assumed that they will do so automatically. While particular issues are usually acted upon according to the preferences of the most powerful political groups, there are battles to be fought before this happens, and concessions to be made occasionally to wider public attitudes. To put it another way, the holders of the 'dominant' ideology do not always succeed in making their meanings universally accepted, or in ensuring that the actions that flow from their ideologically used symbols appear to be 'common sense.' But while the ascendant partisan rhetoric is not always successful at the elite state level, given the financial and other

Communicative Interaction and the State

47

resources of these dominant interests and their capacity to change actions and attitudes of elites within the state system, and different groups and classes within the general population, it usually is successful. We can now look more closely at attempts at ideological dominance. I will suggest that the rhetoric of the state itself has a role in offsetting, if only slightly, the creation of a universal discourse based on absolute ideological hegemony. THE DIALECTIC OF STATE ACTION

The concept of the relative autonomy of the state arose in reaction to orthodox Marxist positions which held that the state was directly managed by the bourgeoisie as the ruling class. Concerning absolute capitalist ideological dominance, for example, it has been argued that because members of the state elite can possibly take their jobs more seriously than their class interests, this control is not complete. 4 Ideology may also serve to direct the state, and to structure its institutions indirectly. It is at this point that a part may be played by what I have called 'the dialectic of institutional action' or, more accurately, the dialectic of institutional 'interaction.' By institutional interaction l mean the interaction of institutions with the individuals, groups, and classes which constitute them. The dialectic of constitutional interaction refers to the formative effects of ideologies which reflect different institutional interests of the state system (of institutions) back upon the discourses of the classes which the institutions themselves reflect. 5 Whatever the intentions of the dominant economic group, and the ideological use of its symbols, it is the universe of discourse (i.e., the relatively universal discourse) as it is concretely expressed in organized social activities which serves as the foundation of state institutions. This activity is not absolutely determined. The innovative, creative, and even rebellious nature of the 'I' aspect of the self - in the leaders of the state and social groups of the political system, and in individuals as representatives of less powerful social groups and communities - may or may not accept the state and its activities as its representative. The state can reflect a universe of discourse which is slightly different from the most influential ideology. For example, state leaders in liberal democratic societies represent political parties which are themselves social groups, ones that may have ideological orientations which differ, if only slightly, from the relatively dominant ones. Second, interactions between elements such as subnational states or provinces within the state system may shift orientations to action away from the main societal universe of discourse to a greater or lesser degree. Third, government office holders are 'reflective,' 'constituting' individuals while they are

48

Communicative Interaction and the State

representing the state. They may react vis-a-vis the community or the state system in a way that does not exactly reflect the most important ideologies of society, or even that of their own social groups or class. Furthermore, since the state system has interests of its own, the state system's universe of discourse may also be ideologized. This institutional ideology also employs rhetoric, and it is part of the interaction of institutions in relation to the individuals, groups, and classes that constitute them. Parastatal media systems are employed in many countries, including Canada, and these can perform a public service as well as communicate the state's point of view. If the government's primary aim is propaganda, its advertising in the context of a commercial broadcasting system can be as efficient as direct control of its media content. Commercial broadcasting systems also direct resources to political supporters in the form of special advertising agencies catering to government needs. In Canada and other liberal democracies, public media systems may disappear or be financially stripped of their capacity to serve social-service functions. The state reinforces and re-creates itself as part of a dialectic of discourse. The discourse that the state promotes may differ slightly from the dominant ideology as state institutions subtly (or not so subtly) change that ideology. Because neither the rhetorical power of state institutions nor that of private organizations is absolute, the universe of discourse of the state may not be identical to that representing the dominant economic groups, but will combine many of them, some more inclusively than others. At least some ideological change is therefore possible. The changes in societal discourse can be monitored by research, but it is most important that such a dialectical approach to institutional discourse as the basis for state action and interaction avoids the pitfalls that Abercrombie, Hill, and Turner point out in what they call their dominant ideology thesis. 6 It is true that changes in the institutions of the state (reflecting changes in the relatively dominant discourse due to state rhetoric) are not likely to be great. Representatives of state institutions may check their attitudes against the universe of discourse of society and the international community before speaking or acting in a way that submerges reflexivity and the creative 'I.' Poll watching has become a government preoccupation. The recommendations of the International Monetary Fund may appear in a government budget almost unchanged. However, what a distant observer may see as minute changes in ideological emphasis can appear to the close observer to be larger in the very limited spectrum of the relatively dominant ideology. Therefore, I do not stress a monolithically dominant ideology here, but

Communicative Interaction and the State

49

rather the competition between ideologies in the state and in other social institutions - a competition which includes religious and other symbols. I do not suggest that the dominant ideology incorporates all the other, less powerful, social groups and classes, but rather that such groups have a plurality of discourses that powerful actors are attempting to combine. In other words, there may be a relatively dominant discourse, but not a universally dominant one. Groups are more likely to tolerate the state than to embrace its values. Social meanings in the communicative interaction of reflexive individuals are enabling as well as constraining, and therefore such ideologies do not simply constitute constraints or actions which produce cohesion, but _include a quest for a creative will that may gradually transform those ideologies. Social meanings are not functional 'prerequisites,' but characteristics of social interaction. Techniques of propaganda are effectively used for ideological purposes by both powerful social groups and the state. The public is susceptible to having the plurality of discourses available to it reduced because of the technology used. The argument here is not that pluralism is desirable per se {that is a different question, to be considered on its own). Even if the dominant ideology were a universally beneficial one for the society - perhaps some amalgamation of the ordinary individual's cultural values rather than controlling ones - that popular ideology is also likely to use the propagandistic techniques available to it under current economic and technologically ideological influences. The reflexive acceptance of a common rather than a dominant discourse would escape these problems, only to fall into others. Plural discourses are also subject to the same fashionable techniques. Therefore, the study of state action is not simply reducible to the direct action of dominant groups, economic or otherwise; it also includes the relationship of these groups to state institutions as the proponents of partisan discourses which express their particular purposes. These contests for meaning between individuals and groups are contests of power that involve the unequal resources that some groups have relative to others with regard to their capacity to change the actions and potential actions of others. Rhetoric may be considered a subclass of power and, in principle, individuals and groups can change societal institutions, at least in part, by their persuasive abilities in 'conversation' with the generalized other. On the other hand, those who wish to prevent change can also do so in part by controlling the 'systems' of meaning which support institutions. Since there is a dialectical relationship between discourse and institutions, it is important to stress that the state can influence the discourses of society with its own

50

Communicative Interaction and the State

rhetoric. The attempt to control the relatively dominant discourses of the state is constant and intense - for example, Machiavelli's amoral political philosophy, which sanctioned the manipulation of the opinions and actions of important groups in society. Indeed, scientific techniques of rhetoric as propaganda often are linked to the electronic media. It may be concluded that the study of the state needs a much more qualitative method than those in general use up to the present moment, and that models of society which stress stability and equilibrium are not theories of state action in any real sense. This viewpoint is not new. The method described here is one way of approaching the problem of explaining the state and its actions in a more holistic way. Gramsci is quite right when he stresses that constant effort is necessary to dominate the state. It is also possible to consider the truths of different theoretical positions without papering over their epistemological differences - by stressing the dynamics and dialectic nature of the interaction which takes place in the communication of reflexive human agents acting both as individuals and as representatives for social groups or the state, or at different levels. I would argue that a theory of the state which focuses on meaning is a theory of the state which includes communicative interaction and rhetoric.

COMMUNICATIVE INTERACTION AND CONSTITUTIONS

Underlying every constitution, Kenneth Burke argues, is a relatively dominant set of symbols used ideologically, or a 'constitution behind the constitution.' Burke makes a significant contribution to the literature of political science when he writes, 'Constitutions single out certain directives for special attention, and changes to the Constitution are ongoing attempts to do so.' 7 The opportunity to constitute and reconstitute the state is not given equally to everyone. The conflict between 'principles' that different groups might want to include in a constitution is determined by the interactions which produce them and the rhetoric which is a part of them. If constitutions are expressions of the form of the state at a given point in time, or the legally established wish for a certain structure for the state, they are also the result of communicative interaction of the kind that has been described - a contest of rhetoric and power. Some have more capacity than others to define the symbols to be included as founding principles. There is a legal application of the word constitution. According to Barkun, the law itself is the codification of custom, on one hand, and a device for the transformation of custom on the other. The law is composed

Communicative Interaction and the State

51

of a set of interrelated symbols as they relate to a symbol system as a means of conceptualising the social environment in communication. 8 In other words, the law is used to sanction innovation and change in human relations in the name of tradition, to apply the shaping of political reality to the law. Constitutions are the formalization of intergroup relations at the point in time of their framing. They are expressions of human motivations, the convergence of wills. 'We may, within limits, arbitrarily set up new constitutions, legal substances designed to serve as motives for the shaping or preserving of behaviour.'9 Burke strongly stresses these motivational aspects of constitutions: 'A constitution is a substance - and as such it is a set of motives' (342). He emphasizes constitutions of a purely natural sort for example, those geographical or physiological properties which affect motivation Yand which motivate our 'mental constitutions,' or temperaments. Thus, customs 'deduced' as forming a constitution 'may, within limits, set up new conditions, legal substances designed to serve as motives for the shaping or transforming of behaviour' (342). Particular terms 'God terms' in Burke's language - designate 'the ultimate motivation, or substance of a constitutional frame' (3 55). These terms are analogous to the significant symbols that play a central role in the language of interaction, terms which may be considered principles, that are intended to shape action. Burke continues: Now, a Constitution, as a 'substance' (hence as a structure of motivation) propounds certain desires, commands, or wishes. It is 'idealistic,' as we use the term, in that such attributes are properties of the term agent. Indeed in actual point of fact, a Constitution is addressed by the first person to the second person. In propounding a Constitution, Tor 'we' say what 'you' may or should and may not or should not do. If a Constitution declares a right 'inalienable,' for instance, it is a document signed by men who said, in effect, 'Thou shalt not alienate this right.' (360)

Constitutions become the formal rules of relationship that define political institutions and the nature of interaction between individuals, social groups, and the state, rules which are sanctioned by these interactions. Burke cites both the British and American constitutions as examples of constitutions that express political relationships in general, and power relations in communicative interaction in particular. The dominant principle, the 'constitution behind the constitution,' in the case of the United States, Great Britain, and Canada, is capitahsm. Burke observes that, with reference to the American Constitution, the 1939 edition of the Encyclopedia of

52

Communicative Interaction and the State

the Social Sources notes: 'It is a striking feature of American Constitutional guarantees that ... they afford protection only against the possibility of the abuse of governmental power, and not against the possibility of capitalist exploitation.' 10 Such a development was due to the social forces at work at the time of its creation, as Beard and others have pointed out. 11 These interactions have made certain symbols a greater part of American consciousness than others. The symbols of liberalism can of course be traced further back than the American Constitution. The Glorious Revolution of 1640 in England created an apology for wealth and property, most significantly in the work of John Locke. As Burke comments, Even in the case of the British Constitution, which is an undefined accumulation of customs, laws and judicial interpretations, certain charters formulated along the way stand out with greater prominence as featured acts, more thoroughly culminative or representative or critical than the general body, such as the Magna Carta wrested from King John in the early thirteenth century, the Petition of Right at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and at the close of the century the Bill of Rights confirming the results of Cromwell's Revolution. As for the United States, the Declaration of Independence is as typical of constitutional tactics as is the Constitution itself, in proclaiming a common substance or motivational basis, for the rebellious colonies. 12

Thus, constitutions can be used both as 'codifications of custom' and for their 'transformation.' Changes in the living conditions of Americans, and in race relations and other social and political changes of a 'revolutionary' nature, have of ten been, in part, the result of the efforts of expensive legal talent arguing against a conservative system in the name of tradition, and succeeding in getting its innovations sanctioned in its name. Therefore, it can be difficult to know whether a given legal enactment or judicial decision has performed a conservative or an innovative role in any given instance. 13 FEDERALISM AND FEDERAL CONSTITUTIONS

In a footnote to Mind, Self, and Society, Mead had some specific things to say about a federalism which focuses on a federal 'principle' as it applies to ancient Greece: Plato held that the city-state was the best - if not, indeed, the only practicable or feasible - type of state or social organization, and Aristotle agreed. According to

Communicative Interaction and the State

53

Plato, moreover, the complete social isolation of any one city-state from the rest of the world was desirable. Aristotle, on the other hand, did recognize the necessity for social interrelations among different city-states, or between any one city-state and the rest of the civilized world, but he could not discover a general principle in terms of which those interrelationships could be determined without disastrously damaging or vitiating the political and social structure of the city-state itself; and this structure he wished, as did Plato, to preserve. That is to say, he was unable to get hold of a fundamental principle in terms of which the social and political organization of the Greek city-state could be generalized to apply to the interrelationships between several such states within a single social whole, like the Alexandrian empire, in which they were all included as units, or to apply to that social whole or to empire itself; and especially to apply a social whole or empire even if it did not contain such city-states as its units. If we are right, this fundamental principle which he was unable to discover was simply the principle of social integration and organization in terms of rational selves, and of their reflection, in their respective organized structures, of the patterns of organized social behaviour in which they are involved, and to which they owe their existence. 14

The principle to which Mead referred may indeed be applicable to federalism in which political units are to be preserved and subsumed within larger ones. He describes it as 'simply the principle of social integration and organization in terms of rational selves.' Mead continues: The rational phase of it, that which goes with what we term 'language' is the symbol; and this is the means, the mechanism, by which the response is carried out. For effective co-operation one has to have the symbols by means of which the responses can be carried out, so that, getting a significant language is of first importance. Language implies organized responses; and the value, the implication of these responses, is to be found in the community from which this organization of responses is taken over into the nature of the individual himself. (268)

Therefore, according to Mead, what is needed for federal systems is an interactive language of federalism: 'If we can get the set of significant symbols which have in this sense a universal meaning, anyone that can talk in that language with intelligibility has that universality' (268). If we can explain the activities by which the definition of the meanings of these symbols are constantly changed, we may understand the communicative interactions of which the federal state as a social institution is a manifestation. We can then explain the activities of the particular federation through our understanding of the federalism prevalent there, both at a specific time and

54

Communicative Interaction and the State

as time passes. To the extent that the languages of federalism are compatible in different states, we can also understand federalism from a comparative perspective. Further, since the symbols in the language of federalism are objects of the struggle for definition, they can also be related to a comparative study of ideology in federal states. In sum, we can explain and understand the action of federal states through the study of communicative interaction around a language of federalism. This is an improvement upon the study of federalism as principle alone, or of federations as merely static entities as they relate to divisions of powers. It is important to include in our understanding of federalism the analysis of the interactions in which the language of federalism emerges, including the contests for the meaning of its significant symbols. It is also important to relate power to state action, particularly with respect to how the federal state is constituted and reconstituted over time. This task can be accomplished with concrete historical analysis. A model for such an analysis is suggested in Part 3. Does the language of federalism precede federation itself, or is it a product of federation? The answer is, both. Federalism as a symbol for the form of state structure must become dominant enough, in a set of circumstances previous to the creation to the federation itself, to be chosen as the label for the state system and as a guide to its organizational structure. The language of federalism continues to be shaped after the date of its creation in the dynamic rhetorical contests for the meaning of federalism on a day-to-day basis, as long as the state continues to call itself federal. The purpose of Preston King's Federalism and Federation is to find rules by which federations can be compared from a positivist point of view. What is more relevant to our purpose here is his statement that, before such rules can be created the nature of the language of federalism has to be studied, to discover how federalism is employed as what he calls a 'convention.''! Conventions, for King, represent the concepts 'in use,' or the operational definition of something. This approach applies to federalism, even though King suggests such conventions are generally ignored. King's concept supports an approach which depends on an understanding of the different meanings of federalism: 'Attempts to measure the behavior of federations (as of any other form of social organization) must inevitably involve some tacit or explicit conventions or agreements about what a federation actually is. But the most characteristic phenomenon in federal studies today is for observers to ignore or to deny the possibility of conventions (definition) while pushing on beyond this to attempt to say much of substance about - indeed to measure - the phenomenon' ( 11 ). For King,

Communicative Interaction and the State

55

conventions are linked to language: 'No empirical understanding of society can proceed without conventions: conventions are the price we pay for such understanding. No description of reality can proceed beyond the bounds of language: the concept of "reality" is itself linguistic. It is useless to imagine that all we need do to understand federation is to somersault into some description of the behaviour of federations' ( 11-12 ). Conventions about federalism are linked to the language of the actors involved, particularly 'those principles by which the subjects involved conceive themselves to be guided' (13). But while King places strong emphasis on the role of participants' views of the conventions of federalism, his concern with creating laws about federalism to serve as the basis of comparative analysis leads him to focus primarily upon the characteristics of the constitutions of federal states, and not on concepts in use: 'The rules governing federations cannot be exactly those professed by actors and proponents, since these rules are not altogether consistent, nor ranked in a wholly firm order of priority. But neither can the observer's criteria be totally at odds with those professed by actors and proponents within federations, since this would imply that federal constitutions involve no element of conscious self direction. It is in this regard that the acceptance of the constitutional character of federalism must prove so important, a constitutionality both written and unwritten, explicit and tacit' (14). Constitutions themselves are expressions of the interactions of participants, or 'actors,' and they may not serve as the basis for objective rules about federalism, as King says, any more than the 'principles by which the subjects involved conceive themselves to be guided.' King's approach to the ideological use of conventions is to divide them into positions that stress 'centralist' federalism, 'decentralist' federalism and 'federalist balance.' It would be equally possible to examine ideological positions of actors along Riker's continuum between centralized and peripheralized federalism. 16 There is a vast literature on federalism, including the implications for its different languages, in the views of Madison, Rousseau, and Mill. 17 Relatively contemporary interpretations of federalism as a principle is also explored in an interesting short article in the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, by Daniel Elazar. Elazar introduces his article by offering his own definition of federalism as 'the model of political organization which unites separate polities within an overarching political system so as to allow each to maintain its fundamental political integrity ... by distributing power among general and constituent governments in a manner designed to protect the existence and authority of all the governments.' 18 He then goes on

56

Communicative Interaction and the State

to suggest that 'no single definition of federalism has proved satisfactory to all students.' In terms of his historical interpretations of the objective basis for contemporary language about federalism, federalism as 'principle,' in philosophical terms, becomes expressed in particularly significant symbols in language - for example, as a 'covenant' or a federal 'spirit,' as Elazar and a nineteenth-century Canadian politician, Edward Blake, put it, respectively; or we could add, of 'real' or 'true' federalism in the rhetoric of federal-provincial relations in Canada. The idea of covenant in relation to American federalism is particularly interesting. The concept is historically based (by Elazar) on 'principles' first applied by the ancient Israelites, beginning in the thirteenth century B.C., to maintain national unity through linking their several tribes under a single national constitution, and at best quasi-federal political institutions. Covenant is described as having been the root of a broad federal principle. 'First formulated in the covenant theories of the Bible, ... this conception of federalism was revived by the Biblecentred "federal" theologians of seventeenth-century Britain and New England, who coined the term "federal" - derived from the Latin foedus (covenant)- in 1645 to describe the system of holy and enduring covenants between God and man which lay at the foundation of their world view.' 19 Secularized by nineteenth-century French and German theorists, and related to theories of social contract, it developed in part as a reaction to centralized authority and the desire to build society on the basis of coordination rather than subordinate relations. In Elazar's schema it is this later version that has become the prototype for other modern federal systems, and has made the American conception of federalism the definitive one. For example, Elazar writes, 'Though the American conception of federalism is today almost universally accepted as the most accurate usage, the confederal conception remains a living and legitimate aspect of the federal idea in its largest political sense.' 20 Such a 'principle' of federalism can and often has become detached from its historical meaning as derived from specific situations, and has taken on 'idealist' aspects. It also may take on an overarching, transcendental meaning. The federal principle as symbol may become ideological when particularly interested actors in the federal system - representing either central or subunit states or social groups wishing to be recognized politically - hold that particular meanings are accurate, true, and real, and that others must also, on principle, adhere to them in its name. This ideological point of view conveniently ignores or suppresses the notion that, socially, 'principles' are products of social and political interaction, and of conflicts (even struggles) for definition. If actors in this conflict can use the 'transcendental' nature of

Communicative Interaction and the State

57

their version of the federal principle, utilizing religious imagery such as the notion of covenant to reinforce its authority, they will; for in the battle of words, there are no holds barred. Thus, such a 'principle' of federalism may be applied to disguised unitary government in some states, or to the almost complete sovereignty of 'sub-units' in others. Ideological battles between levels of government may involve systems of ideologically used symbols related to federalism. As noted, words such as covenant and principle may take on special partisan meaning, as do national unity, national integration, or national reconciliation, and descriptions of the federal system such as a community of communities. These symbols will have specific shadings in a particular political context, one in which actors attempt to make their own language of federalism more universal, thus controlling the definition of political reality. There are many factors that influence the competing languages of federalism and how they are used in addition to the general context of world historical usage. Indigenous historical usage is also important, and the history of the federation to be constituted or reconstituted must be taken into account. A federation is a socially created institution that is not carved in stone, though its political relationships often are formalized in a constitution. Since constitutions are representative of the political capacities of different groups to define relationships in written political terms at a particular time, changes in the capacities of social groups and classes may in turn result in changes to the constitution (in its role as a guide for action), thus altering the nature of the federation. In A Grammar of Motives, Kenneth Burke equates 'principles,' including principles of federalism, with terms having a volitional element, such as ideals, commands, or wishes. 11 For example, to insert the 'principle of equality' into a constitution is to utter a hope that men may become equal, or may continue to become more equal. Federalism has been seen as a principle among others in this sense, and it is contained in King's topology of conventions already cited. Burke also has a second meaning for principle: the 'formulae for treating the state of mutuality or contradiction among the ideals or wishes, as revealed by the problem of arriving at judgments in specific practical cases.' Thus, he distinguished between principles 'in the volitional sense' as any clause announcing a right or obligation, and principles in the necessitarian sense as any statement that 'signalized a logical or practical conflict between clauses, or defined a procedure for arriving at "Constitutional" judgments despite such conflicts' (375). Federalism has been considered a principle or significant symbol as shared meaning, in the first sense. Burke also considers it explicitly, in the second:

58 Communicative Interaction and the State Let us consider, for instance, the 'principle' (in the second sense) that is implicit in the very name of our nation, which signifies a plurality acting as a unity (the pattern that is also quite accurately reproduced in the device e pluribus unum). As a union of states we can accept our nation either as the United States or the United States. The first accent would give us the Jeffersonian stress upon states' rights; the second would give us the Hamiltonian stress upon national federation. ' Ideally' as in the name of our country and in the pattern of its thoroughly accurate device, we can have both wishes (or 'principles' in the first sense) at once. (375)

Returning to Elazar's federal principle, it would seem it is meant in the first of the two senses of the word suggested by Burke. Federalism is created for more than reasons of simple necessity and compromise. The issue, however, becomes even wider than Burke's second notion of principle when we consider a third principle: the nature of the 'scientific' theories of federalism in sociology and political science which aspire to philosophical neutrality, and would disclaim any and all partisan use of symbols as 'principles' in their language. Let us take some examples. The first of these is the notion of federal society attributed to William S. Livingston. Reacting against what he considers a juridical approach, in the late 1950s, he writes that, 'the essential nature of federalism is to be sought for, not in the shadings of legal and constitutional terminology, but in the forces - economic, social, political, cultural - that have made the outward forms of federalism necessary."' The 'scientific' function of federalism is stated by Livingston in terms of a stimulus-response approach: 'It is true, on the whole, that federal governments and federal constitutions never grow simply and purely by accident. They arise in response to a definite set of stimuli; a federal system is consciously adapted as a means of solving the problems represented by those stimuli. ' 23 Livingston also imparts a voluntaristic aspect to the choice of federalism concerning whether to meet these external conditions. However, this is not so clear in this further statement: 'Institutional devices, both in form and function, are only the surface manifestations of a deeper federal quality of the society that lies beneath the surface. The essence of federalism lies not in the institutional or constitutional structure but in the society itself. Federal government is a device by which the federal qualities of the society are articulated and protected.' 24 Livingston's statements become even more deterministic. He writes, 'The real nature of society cannot be divined by an analysis of the institutions only. It is the operation, not the form, that is important; and it is the forces that determine the manner of operation that are more important still.' 2 5

Communicative Interaction and the State

59

For Mead, in contrast, it is the interpretation of others, and the adaptation to forces through reflective action dependent on significant symbols for meaning which mediates between social 'forces' and institutions. Constitutions, as Burke points out, are themselves expressions of human relations, and are not 'determined' expressions of societal characteristics. Divisions and differences are not, after all, synonymous with federalism. The kind of functionalist theoretical thinking represented by Livingston tends to justify a particular kind of political language by a subunit state politician - one, for example, who equates federalism with environmental factors in a causal fashion when he makes statements of this sort: 'This country is too big and diverse not to have a federal system.' Other countries are also big, and diverse, but are unitary both in form and in constitutional principle. In counterargument to Livingston's implied deterministic argument about federalism based on 'scientific' principles, 'federal' societies are those which, through communicative interaction, describe and interpret their divisions to be best dealt with through federalism as an institutional arrangement. Such societies consider federalism a social principle that, in one sense or the other, can motivate members to compliance, or establish a kind of relationship between the elements making up the state system. Different actors may argue for or against federalism as the best institutional approach before or after it is enacted, and they may change the definition of federalism that underlies the constitution of the state. Livingston's position is related to the inherent tendency within functionalism to emphasize of social 'adaptation' to an 'environment,' which relinquishes men's and women's historicity and constitutive abilities. The general approach to relations between 'parts and wholes' within functionalist theory is also relevant to a third 'scientific' principle in academic studies of federalism. As Giddens points out, for a particular kind of functionalist theorist such as Merton, the social whole can be analyzed as only a 'net sum of functional consequences' of the interaction of individuals and collectivities.26 This kind of implicit methodological individualism may distort the federal structures it attempts to analyze without realizing it is doing so. The bias of such an approach is a decentralized federalism, which explains in part the tendency of academics - particularly those Americantrained at the height of the ascendancy of the functionalist paradigm - to support relatively decentralized federalism. In Canada this may coincide with the increasing power of provinces, and the attachment of scholars to the Canadian constitutional industry as consultants to provinces, and a federal government anxious to relieve itself of fiscal responsibilities. These governments try to change the definition of federalism to meet their own needs.

60

Communicative Interaction and the State

'Principles' of federalism are socially created in contests of power in historical situations. Although they may be considered 'universal' by their proponents in later generations, these principles may be employed once again in ideological ways in contemporary conflicts over divisions of power in the federal state. Federal states, like other social institutions, are constituted upon social processes - and reconstituted as well. Their constitutions are dynamic entities, capturing human relations at a moment in time and rhetorically calling for action which reflects and reinforces that play of societal forces . Federalism as a principle may not appeal to all social groups equally, and it is directed generally towards elites in some forms of media and to the general population in others. References to 'real' or 'renewed' federalism may be accompanied, in speeches for 'mass' audiences by literary tropes of one kind or another, including metaphor, metonym, synecdoche, and irony - some of which stimulate the imagination and the emotions, and others which reduce issues to 'realism' and practicality. 27 In sum, this part of the chapter has served to relate the notion of language about federalism to the 'principle' of federalism in a number of senses, and as a reminder that such principles are socially created in history before they are applied as universal symbols or 'God terms.' As such, they are ideological uses of shared meanings in relation to power in the state; they are not forced on society by the environment as stimulus and response. States provide their own definitions of such principles, which enter political discourse as examples of the 'dialectic of institutional action.' Principles of federalism have been suggested by Mead, Elazar, Burke, and others in a voluminous literature on the subject; and it is the interpretation of federalism as symbol, in a language in which symbols are portrayed as principles, which mediates between the environmental reality and the dayto-day actions of the state. These principles are the foundation for the actions of federal states, including the division of powers on a day-to-day basis, the creation of constitutions, and the dialectic of state action. In Canada this dialectic takes place in the form of provincial government rhetoric for the purpose of expanding its role vis-a-vis the central government. As Harold Innis said, the practice puts strains on the Canadian Constitution. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Mead provides a theory of the state that is complemented by Burke's concepts of rhetoric, Giddens's notion of power, and what I have called (lacking a better label) the dialectic of institutional action. The theory provides an approach that does not ignore theoretical developments since Mead, but

Communicative Interaction and the State 61 rather attempts to strip away the theoretical baggage that has been attributed to him, while reasserting the parts of his theory which have been ignored. Mead's insights generally have been restricted in application to microstudies by his followers in social psychology or sociology, or they have been labelled as only relevant to microanalysis by functionalist critics. By focusing on the language of federalism, for example, and the contest for definition of the symbols of that language, Mead's theory of the state can be explored more fully. Mead's theory of the state opens the door to the comparative analysis of states. It is relatively easy to compare 'federalisms' in terms of the different symbols used in federations, as long as we are prepared to acknowledge that the symbols that are in use are being compared out of context. With the same constraint we can compare federations in relation to the employed principles of federalism. We can use simple descriptive comparisons of the characteristics of federal constitutions without pretending that this exercise is a science in any unique or exclusive sense. We can even posit hypotheses about attitudes of participants towards federations and their operations, based on conventional social-scientific theory which is concerned with nonreflexive human behaviour. It hardly needs to be stated that the nonreflexive side of men and women has been stimulated into action by every modern advertiser, from soap manufacturers to the state, and using the same techniques. In specific case studies the responsive actions of actors at different levels of federal states may also be created by propaganda and other techniques which are applied to the biological side of their natures - the side which responds to stimuli without reflection. But if our theory of the state is concerned with meaning, we cannot ignore the reflexivity of men and women in the creation of meaning itself, on the employment of rhetoric as an expression of such reflexivity.

4

Rhetoric and Public Policy

The literature on the relationship between rhetoric and public policy is quite limited. Thomas Dye, in Understanding Public Policy, is one of the few writers to take notice of the subject: Once upon a time politics was described as who gets what, when, and how. Today it seems that politics centres about who feels what, when, and how. The smokefilled room where patronage and pork were distributed has been replaced with the talk-filled room where rhetoric and image are dispensed. What governments say is as important as what governments do. Television has made the image of public policy as important as the policy itself. Systematic policy analysis concentrates on what governments do, why they do it, and what difference it makes. It devotes less attention to what governments say. Perhaps this is a weakness in policy analysis. Our focus has been primarily upon activities of government rather than the rhetoric of governments.'

This is as much as Dye says, and it is as far as the traditional theoretical literature on the subject goes. On the other hand, it is argued here that activities of government and rhetoric are not separate aspects of policy analysis, but integrally connected to each other. Rhetoric in Burke's limited sense may be seen as an aspect of social action in general, including state action in the form of policy. THE LITERATURE DEALING WITH RHETORIC AND POLICY

The theorists to be dealt with here are in one way or another concerned with rhetoric by the state, and with one or more of the institutions that make up the state system. By and large these theorists share a general agree-

Rhetoric and Public Policy

63

ment that we live in a world of symbols, a 'fog' of shared meanings, a perspective in which we communicate. They agree that these symbols are important for defining reality. At the same time, however, most of these theorists are more or less Parsonian and functionalist in their emphasis on 'order,' and on the role of symbols as norms. Unlike Mead, they are less interested in 'symbolic interaction' than they are in 'symbolic action.' They do not place rhetoric inside the act as one of its aspects, they look to rhetoric as a means to establish social control. They follow Erving Goffman's dramaturgical approach, the idea of policy as performance. 1 Therefore, the work of Duncan, Edelman, Gusfield, and Altheide and Johnson, to give some prominent examples, has a different emphasis than that of George Herbert Mead. For these scholars, Talcott Parsons's concern with Hobbes's problem of order is important because it is the foundation of their work, and is related to the concepts of legitimacy and authority. All concern with order is not Parsonian, of course, but such was Parsons's influence that he tended to shape the concerns of social science for generations of scholars. Consequently, such scholars are not primarily concerned with actors in reflexive interaction with each other; rather, they study symbols as norms. Gusfield's interpretation of sociology in his Culture of Public Problems is an example which reveals this emphasis: 'What I have been about in this book is the interpretation of actions, events, and words from perspectives other than those presented by the actors. I see this as a continuous line with the dominant sociological tradition since Marx, Durkheim, and Weber. The sociologist is interested in what is characteristic of creatures, societies, and groups, not individuals. This subject matter is the socially shared rules, understandings, and meanings by which social !ife is pursued.' 3 Thus Gusfield stops short of interaction. Yet his analysis and those of the other Parsons-influenced 'symbolic actionists' are useful if seen from an interactional perspective. The rhetoric of the state in its legal form is important as a social and political referent, to be sure. However, it is only part of the dynamics of social action, and of the intelligence of society that may be described as the dialectic of institutional action. I will start with Duncan, then briefly quote Edelman, Gusfield, and Altheide and Johnson. · Duncan is closer to the symbolic action school than to Mead's notion of symbolic interaction. His emphasis on symbols as inspirations, or 'principles of order,' is useful to us as an illustration of his approach: Symbolic integration is achieved through naming. We march to death in the name of God ('In this sign we conquer'), country, ideology, destiny, or way of life. We

64

Communicative Interaction and the State

organize our creative lives in the name of wisdom, holiness, or beauty. We discipline our daily lives in the name of family, work, or what we owe (our social responsibilities) to others. In the name of status honour we uphold styles of life as expressed in the drama of hierarchy ... Symbols, then, create and sustain beliefs in ways of acting because they function as names which signify proper, dubious, or improper ways of expressing relationships ... Men believe that if they uphold the purity of sacred names they uphold social order. Whoever or whatever threatens this purity must be destroyed ... In so far as symbolic action is social, it is an act of identification with good, dubious, or bad principles of social order. The structure of such actions is dramatic, but from a sociological view the function of this drama is the creation and sustainment of social order.◄

There is a fundamental insight here about one basis of rhetoric and how governments inspire their various audiences to action. It is through the identification of state (as government) action with social principles that action is justified and compliance inspired. Murray Edelman makes a similar point with respect to government action when he writes, 'A man's relationship to the state is complicated. The state benefits and it threatens. Now it is "us" and often it is "them." It is an abstraction, but in its name men are jailed or made rich on oil depletion allowances and defence contracts, or killed in wars. For each individual the political constitution condenses all these things, in all their ambivalence and ambiguity. In doing so it symbolizes the complication that the individual is himself, for man is a political animal.' 5 Thus Edelman, too, focuses on the 'symbolic elements of government proceedings,' or symbolic action. His fundamental position, explored in many different ways, is the hypothesis that symbols are used to create mass arousal and acquiescence: 'If politics is as complicated and ambivalent as the men who create it, it is to be expected that its institutions and forms should take on strong meanings: meanings that men cue and teach each other to expect and that are vital for the acquiescence of the general public in the actions of elites and therefore for social harmony. Political forms thus come to symbolize what large masses of men need to believe about the state to reassure themselves ... But political forms also convey goods, services, and power to specific groups of men.' 6 Analysts have difficulty describing and empirically analyzing the 'social cues' of which Edelman speaks. Positivist critic Lowell Dittmer assumes that Edelman sees the symbolic world as 'empty' of reality, and in frustration he cries out for a clarification of the empirical status of these cues.7 On the other hand, Edelman points out that interpre-

Rhetoric and Public Policy

65

tations and mediations, while real, may not be readily observable in any classic empirical sense. In the passage quoted above, Edelman seems to see political acquiescence as the action to be understood, and as such the symbols take on an explanatory role. Similarly, when symbols are mentioned at all he tends to focus on how symbolic uses of policy illustrate the making of policy. In this sense Edelman is in the main tradition of policy analysis as only explaining policy formation as an end in itself. While he draws on the symbolic interaction approach for an explanation of the meanings of symbols, he stops short of creating an interaction model of the state. He joins Gusfield in focusing on the normative basis for society, and like the other symbolic action theorists, he tries to show how policy is used deliberately to maintain power, specifically through 'arousal and acquiescence' by a manipulation of 'norms' and rules. Further, Edelman discusses 'leadership,' on the one hand, and institutions (in the form of constitutions) as the expression of social 'forces,' on the other, but he does not put the two together, nor does he draw any conclusions about how a contest for leadership might affect the drafting of constitutions and the shaping of institutions. Edelman's emphasis is on the relationship between the leader and the 'mass,' that is, the passive president disinclined to rock the boat, 'avoiding firm positions on controversial subjects while at the same time posturing as protagonist against an evanescent enemy.' While it is revealing and insightful, it attempts primarily to show the 'function' of leadership. 8 Joseph Gusfield also deals with state rhetoric and its government and legal elements. In his book The Culture of Soci.al Problems he poses three aspects of the 'structure' of society: ownership, causation, and political responsibility. 9 According to Gusfield, ownership is the ability to create and influence the public definition of an issue and its reality, or to resist the claims that the phenomenon is a problem at all or is someone else's problem if it cannot be avoided. 'Causation' looks to a causal explanation of events, and 'political responsibility' to the one charged with solving the problem. 'All three may coincide in the same office or person, but that is not necessarily the case' ( 1 5). The state, according to Gusfield, has a unique position that makes it a key figure in fixing responsibility. 'Before the Depression the state tended to play the role of broker to different demands ... and especially after the Second World War, the state appeared more often as a creative agent, the owner of the problem it sought to solve. Government officials and agencies operated to define public issues, developed and organized demands upon themselves, and controlled and moved public attitudes and

66

Communicative Interaction and the State

expectations ( 1 5).' In the past fifteen years the neo-conservative administrations in Britain, the United States, and Canada have often attempted to divest themselves of ownership and responsibility for many public issues. This is often done in the name of the need for fiscal restraint. However, the state remains an important actor in the influencing of public attitudes vis-avis societal issues. In this regard, Gusfield quotes Edelman, generally agreeing with his emphasis on arousal and acquiescence: 'To explain political behaviour as a response to fairly stable individual wants, reasoning, attitudes, and empirically based perceptions is therefore simplistic and misleading. Government affects behaviour chiefly by shaping the cognition of large numbers of people in ambiguous situations. It helps to create their beliefs about what is proper; their perceptions of what is fact; and their expectations of what is to be done.' 10 Gusfield places government rhetoric in the context of the dramaturgical perspective of Erving Goffman and Edelman. Unfortunately he does not go beyond Parsons to the dynamic and constitutive character of Mead's approach as outlined in Chapter 1. He uses Parsons's definition of a symbol system, which he quotes approvingly as 'an element of order imposed as it were on the realistic situation' (16). This approach only stresses the coercive aspects of symbolic systems, rather than the role of such systems in communication and in a theory of interaction. Gusfield is particularly concerned with 'law' as a stylized form of public drama, and as a cultural performance at both the levels of formal and routine activity: 'It creates a day-to-day authority and legitimates control through building the image of a social and natural order based on a moral consensus. The public drama creates a public culture whose relation to private culture is as problematic as the relation of the stage play to the life of the audience' (80). When we treat law as if it were literature, it becomes rhetoric. And, as Gusfield states further, 'The various statements alleged as "fact," as certain knowledge, have a status also of rhetoric,' and thus law creates an image of society ( 1 57). Gusfield is closely linked with other symbolic-action theorists. He also contributes the introduction to David Altheide's and John Johnson's Bureaucratic Propaganda. 11 Altheide and Johnson study 'official information,' and aim to 'extend the dramaturgical framework - the view that social order is accompanied through prescribed and institutionalized performances - to organizational analysis' (xii). Using case studies of different organizations as bureaucracies, both within and outside the state, they focus on 'what the members of the organization understand to be the practical significance of certain information for a particular audience,' and 'the

Rhetoric and Public Policy 67 actual procedures used in constructing official reports to reflect what the audience expects from any "legitimate" organization, and the discrepancies between the official view and what many members know to be the truth.' Gusfield, in his introduction, emphasizes the rhetorical aspect of their work: In using the concept of 'propaganda' as a metaphor for the created world of organizational and official fact, they follow in recent sociological footsteps. They extend and enlarge the critical view now developing in contemporary sociology of official records as created and constructed events. As the court gave way to newspapers, and the cultural patrons to the mass consumer, the audience of official action was now diverse and multiple in its origins, interests, and values. With the emergence of popular and participatory electorates, public accountability to voters, clients, and consumers became the order of the day. Records are not only, or even chiefly, matters of internal orderly organization. They are performances for an audience, and rhetorical rather that scientific. (4)

Altheide and Johnson also place propaganda in the context of rhetoric. In attempting to extend the notion of propaganda from what they describe as the traditional definition, they define it (with reference to organizational behaviour) as 'any report produced by an organization for evaluation and other practical purposes that is targeted for individuals, committees, or publics who are unaware of its promotive character and the editing procedures that shape the report' (4). They point out that, while accounts of propaganda have stressed mass audiences, the target for bureaucratic propaganda as they describe it is often an individual group or specific segment of the population. They also suggest that, while 'traditional propaganda' theorists emphasize mass media, bureaucratic propaganda utilizes a variety of mass media; also, that the purpose of traditional propaganda is to 'alter attitudes to make them correspond to those of the propagandist,' while the purpose of bureaucratic propaganda is to maintain the legitimacy of an organization and its activities. They then argue that, for traditional propagandists, propaganda is a 'tactic in the ongoing struggle to use the idea of truth for strategic purposes,' but that bureaucratic propaganda is the practical use of information, the systematic distortion of everyday reality in order to present official reports that present the organization and its members in favourable terms in other words, the use of truth for organizational goals (23). Therefore, of the six important elements of the state - government, bureaucracy, the military, Parliament, the judiciary, and the subunits of

68

Communicative Interaction and the State

states - the symbolic actionists may be seen to offer case studies of rhetoric by four of them already mentioned in the literature: government (Edelman, and Altheide and Johnson), administration (Altheide and Johnson), the military (Altheide and Johnson), and the judiciary (Gusfield). Thus only Parliament or National Assembly and subunits remain. In some state systems these are subsumed under categories already dealt with. For example, in parliamentary systems where Parliament has no separate balancing authority apart from government, there is a sense in which government rhetoric also applies to the assembly. This would have to be examined empirically. In federal states the subunits are states themselves, with all the institutions already mentioned. They are state systems within a state system, and the rhetoric of elements of the state will be comparable at each level. There are also other approaches to state rhetoric besides those described by symbolic-action theorists - some explicit, some implicit. On one hand, in Manipulating Politics, Robert E. Goodin includes rhetorical 'tricks' as a subclass of manipulation, which he sees as 'a slice out of [the] broader concept of power,' and as 'power exercised ... deceptively, and ... against the putative will of its objects.'" Goodin does not consider the role of power in relation to communication, however. He mentions symbols with no reference to their significance as shared meanings in language, or to the relationship between groups and classes in society. His perspective is not interactional per se, and it focuses on government. As stated earlier, because of the utility of communication to an understanding of action, power has been discussed in terms of its capacity to induce action or incipient actions in other human agents, thus giving it a close relationship to rhetoric itself. Marxist perspectives on state rhetoric focus on state ideology, and the literature here is both vast and complex. As outlined by Bob Jessop in The Capitalist State the theorists most closely related to the sort of communicative-interaction approach used here are Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. 13 Their approaches - like that of Gramsci, whose followers they would claim to be - do not involve specific case studies of the relationship of the 'rhetoric' of the different 'elements of the state system' to hegemony at the level of creation of meanings. A notable exception is Policing the Crisis, by Hall, Critcher, Jefferson, Clarke, and Roberts of the 'Birmingham School,' who relate some aspects of police and judicial 'rhetoric' in Britain without explicitly labelling it as such. 14 In trying to examine why and how the themes of race, crime, and youth - condensed into the image of 'mugging' - come to serve as the articulators of the crisis, as their

Rhetoric and Public Policy

69

ideological conductors,' and 'how these themes have functioned as a mechanism of an authoritarian consensus,' the authors point to the role of the police and the courts in relation to the media as making 'mugging' a symbol of racial criminality. This analysis has parallels to Gusfield's work on 'drunken' driving. But while it also emphasizes the traditional social control paradigm, Policing the Crisis is placed in the context of a wider Gramscian perspective. In brief, the symbolic actionists relate rhetoric to power by stressing the function of symbols - the role of policy as performance. On the other hand, Goodin takes a classic idealist perspective when he focuses on actors alone. Marxist approaches, when rhetoric is discussed at all, relate actors to economic settings deterministically, although Gramsci and his followers do make an effort to avoid a crude reductionism. In the Canadian literature on public policy, the first edition of Canadian Public Policy by Bruce Doern and Richard W. Phidd, published in 1983, deals in part with the relationship of ideology to public policy, including what they call 'exhortation' and its relationship to symbolic politics! 5 Doern is perhaps Canada's most influential policy theorist, and in several recent works he and his collaborators have offered theoretical concepts and hypotheses which serve as the basis of their own work, as well as that of several other scholars in the field. As far as their general approach is concerned, the closest Doern comes to stating the source of his theory in his writings is to quote Sir Geoffrey Vickers. The process of regulation, says Vickers, is a continuing transaction between the governors and the governed. It is 'a mutual transaction: persuasion, authority, bargain, and threat move from the governed to the governors, no less than from governors to governed.' 16 Ostensibly, it is in this context that Doern has expressed his notion of what he calls a governing instrument, and the continuum of governing instruments: 'To regulate is merely to choose one instrument of governing from a range of other instruments. A regulation can be viewed politically as a rule of behaviour backed up more directly by the legitimate sanctions of the state. It is a more directly coercive way of achieving objectives and can be distinguished in part from other more pleasant ways of governing, such as spending (offering an incentive) or exhortation (soliciting voluntary compliance) ... Subtle and not so subtle degrees of legitimate coercion are important.' 1 7 Doern suggests that politicians (especially the collective cabinet) have a strong tendency to respond to policy issues (any issues) by moving successively from the least coercive governing instruments to the most coercive. Thus, they tend to respond first in the least coercive fashion by creating a

70

Communicative Interaction and the State

study or by creating a new or reorganized unit of government, or merely by uttering a broad statement of intent. The next least coercive governing instrument would be the use of a distributive spending approach in which resources can be handed out to various constituencies in such a way that less attention is given to which taxpayers' pockets the resources are being drawn from. At the more coercive end of the continuum, a governing instrument would be a larger redistributive program in which the resources would be more visibly extracted from the more advantaged classes, and redistributed to the less advantaged classes. Also, at the more coercive end of the governing continuum would be the enacting of direct regulation in which sanctions or threat of sanctions would have to be applied directly. Once a policy issue matured and had been in the public agenda for many years, all or most of the basic instruments could be utilized. 18 Taking a critical look at Vickers's statement and Doern's hypothesis, I would say that Vickers is one of the scholars in the public policy and public administration literature who uses some sort of interactive approach, and whose theory has the potential for a communication theory of regulation. Doern and his other collaborators, Wilson and Phidd, depart from Vickers's understanding of regulation, and Doern's notion of governing is quite different from Vickers's conception of governance. In doing so they employ the notion of exhortation as such an instrument, but do not make it interactive. Doern and Wilson comment on Vickers's notion of transactive regulation: 'To treat it too generally is to make it impossible to develop a full understanding of the important features of other modes of governing.'19 Therefore, for Doern, exhortation becomes just another way of creating political order, albeit not a very coercive one - essentially one that is unidirectional. Having invoked Vickers's notion of transaction, Doern thus rejects its essentials. Specifically, in Canadian Public Policy, Doern and Phidd's main theoretical purpose seems to be to serve as an antidote to the portrayal 'in the age of media politics' of 'the making of policy as being dominated by key personalities or as the slow tortuous crawl of pragmatism, because of the decidedly unhealthy tendency of some commentators to separate ideas from leaders, and the failure to place modern policy issues in a historical context. ' 20 They do not address a school of theory explicitly to reinforce or refute; rather, their aim is to attack a public impression. They make a statement in their introduction which contains a reference to an interactive theory: 'Policies are neither the product of a powerless state automatically responding to powerful external, including capitalist forces, nor is it the behemoth that makes society march to its drum beat. There is ample evi-

Rhetoric and Public Policy

71

dence ... that constant interaction and influence of a two-way kind occur' (43). How does this happen? They note that their approach 'is on the interplay of ideas, structures, and process,' but do not explain in detail how ideas, structures, and institutions are linked theoretically over time. Doern and Phidd reveal an implicit theoretical orientation when they include ideology as part of the 'normative content' of public policy. 'Dominant ideas' are also linked to societal norms: 'while obviously related to the larger ideologies, these ideas often have a separate normative force in that, rather than being always grasped or combined into a larger ideological view, the idea may be combined or used to embody a particular normative preference in a particular policy field' (58). Such 'ideas' include efficiency, individual liberty, equity, 'national identity, unity, and integration,' and 'regional diversity and sensitivity.' Dominant 'paradigms' in particular policy fields are described as another type of policy idea; for example, Keynesian economics and 'monetarism.' A third level of normative content is a residual category they call 'specific objectives' (58). Doern and Phidd's link between ideas and institutions also needs more clarification. It is true that 'public policy both shapes and is influenced by institutions and the ideas which give these institutions life,' but the authors do not tell us how this takes place except to say that institutions such as 'Federalism, Cabinet-Parliamentary government, interest groups, and the mass media are forged on 'core ideas.' It is not clear how this forging takes place, or in which institutions, or whether core ideas are 'ideologies,' or 'dominant ideas,' or another concept they have not yet defined. Part of a communicative-interaction approach to the definition of ideas and symbols as outlined above is the concept of rhetoric, since rhetoric as defined by Burke is crucial to the definition of the meanings of the symbols involved. Doern and Phidd deal only with part of this subject, using the concept of exhortation, a term also introduced, like the rest of their conceptual framework, without explanation or theoretical context. They include it within the structural context of an 'instrument of government,' but not as part of an interaction approach. They define 'government by exhortation' narrowly, in terms of leadership, almost without mentioning the interactive aspects of leadership: 'To govern by exhortation is to engage in a whole series of potential acts of persuasion and voluntary appeals to the electorate as a whole or to particular parts of it. In this sense many would properly view exhortation as democratic government in its highest and most ideal form. It would be equated with the essence of leadership and of democratic consent, of legitimate government in its most pristine form. The concept would be equated even more broadly to governing

72

Communicative Interaction and the State

based on an appeal to common values. It would be government, in some respects, without coercion' (124). Symbolic policies or politics as mass arousal or quiescence are briefly introduced by Doern and Phidd as a variety of exhortation. But while exhortation is cited in the passage above as the closest thing to democracy, Doern and Phidd also express the view that the 'excessive use of symbolic policies and of exhortation can easily lead to the alienation of citizens from the state and from democratic government' (318). I might also mention another article in the Canadian literature, written by William T. Stanbury and Jane Fulton. Rejecting the word exhortation as a general label but placing 'suasion' in the same scheme of governing instrument as Doern and Phidd do, Stanbury and Fulton outline six types of suasion with illustrations, describe a number of its attributes, and apply it to Canada. 21 Since it basically coincides conceptually with the Doern and Phidd book, it will not be discussed further here. In sum, an approach to rhetoric and public policy based on an interactive approach seems to be missing from the literature. Gusfield and Edelman are proponents of what might be called a symbolic actionist approach that is concerned, as we shall soon see, with what might be called the social construction of public issues. The Canadian literature is even more based on one-way exhortation, and on normative values. VARIETIES OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RHETORIC AND PUBLIC POLICY

We can describe five different relationships between rhetoric and public policy - rhetoric about policy, policy in the name of rhetoric, rhetoric as policy, policy as rhetoric, and policy about rhetoric - summarizing each in turn.

Rhetoric about Policy Rhetoric about policy is not simply a question of advocacy for a particular piece of government legislation, proposed or enacted. Rather, it is concerned with a wider social interaction about the issue to which the policy is addressed, and how the issue came to the attention of the public and to government, and then remained there or faded . Accounts of the role of rhetoric are sometimes anecdotal. Oliver MacDonagh writes about how the nature of the state itself, in nineteenth-century England, was changed in response to rhetoric. He specifically refers to societal reactions to condi-

Rhetoric and Public Policy

73

tions during the early years of the Industrial Revolution, and his article is worth quoting at some length. MacDonagh writes, The change with which we are concerned is the transformation, scarcely glimpsed until it was well secured, of the operations and functions of the state within society, which destroyed belief in the possibility that society did or should consist essentially, or for the most part, of a mere accumulation of contractual relationships between persons, albeit enforced so far as need be by the sovereign power. The very powerful impulses towards such a change were generated by a peculiar concatenation of circumstances in the nineteenth century. In very general terms, these circumstances were as follows, 1. the unprecedented scale and intensity and the other novelties of the social problems arising from steam powered industrialisation, and from the vast increase, and the new concentrations and mobility, of population; 2 . the simultaneous generation of potential solutions, or partial solutions, to these problems by the developments in mass production and cheap and rapid transport, by the new possibilities of assembling vast bodies of labour, skills and capital, and by the progress of the technical and scientific discovery associated with this economic growth; 3. the widespread and ever-growing influence of humanitarian sentiment and of stricter views of sexual morality and 'decency'; 4. the increasing sensitivity of politics to public pressures, and the extraordinary growth of both the legislation and the degree to which its introduction became the responsibility of governments, with the corollaries of changes in parliamentary practice and of the rapid development of parliament's investigatory instruments in the new administrative system. The most common origin of the process of these factors working together was the exposure of a social evil. Sometimes the exposure was sudden and catastrophic, the consequence of an epidemic, a mine explosion, a railway calamity, sometimes dramatic in another sense, the revelation of a great philanthropist or of an altogether fortuitous observer. On the whole exposures were from the outside rather than as the result of administration of regular inquiry. Nor was sensationalism unimportant, for exposures were effective insofar as they directed public or parliamentary attention to particular dangers, suffering, sexual immorality, or injustice. Once this was done sufficiently, such scholars ensuing demand for remedy at any price set an irresistible engine of change in motion. Once it was publicised indefinitely that, say, women on their hands and knees dragged trucks of coal through subterranean tunnels, or that emigrants had starved to death at sea, or that children had been mutilated by unfenced machinery, these evils became intolerable, and throughout and even before the Victorian years, 'intolerability' was the master card. Neither ideology nor interest could permanently withstand that simple trumpet cry, all the more so as governments grew ever more responsive to public sentiment and public sentiment ever more humane. 21

74

Communicative Interaction and the State

This account of how issues were created and became the focus of a demand for governmental action leaves many questions unanswered, but it is a clear statement of a position which ascribes change to individual reaction to, or 'conversion with,' the institutions of society. More recently Joseph Gusfield has offered a more systematic attempt to deal with 'the culture of public problems,' which has already been cited earlier in the chapter in the review of the literature of rhetoric and public policy. Gusfield has pointed out how government or other groups may attempt to define or own an issue as important for policy, try to create an accepted idea of who is causally responsible for the situation, and attempt to define where political responsibility does or does not lie. 13 This is a useful perspective in spite of the misgivings already mentioned about Gusfield's general approach. First, Gusfield describes what he calls ownership of an issue, recognizing that all groups do not have equal power, influence, and authority to define the reality of a problem. Groups or individuals can lose this power or have it taken away from them, and thus the property metaphor is an appropriate one. Different groups and institutions have authority and influence for different problems at different times. For example, religion in the form of parish administrations in England had ownership of the poverty issue for many centuries. It must be pointed out that some groups, institutions, and agencies are interested in defining, affecting, and solving public problems. Others may be especially interested in avoiding the obligation to be involved in the problem-creating or problem-solving process, deliberately seeking to resist claims that the phenomenon is their problem (for example, brewers and alcohol use). The question of ownership and disownership very much concerns the power and authority that groups and institutions can muster, either to enter the public arena, to be kept from it, or to avoid having to join it. For example, American Senator Abraham Ribicoff stated this in one way at Senate hearings on highway safety: 'I think Detroit has fostered the idea that the whole problem was the nut behind the wheel, and they brainwashed Americans into thinking that the automobile did not have a real role to play in the safety field.' 14 The implications of this remark are pertinent. Public problems have a shape which is understood in the larger context of a social structure in which some versions of reality have greater power to define reality. The existence of open conflict and debate makes the politics of an issue obvious. The lack of conflict may hide the very features which prevent the opposite forms of consciousness from being observed. Ignoring the multiplicity of realities hides the political choice that has taken place. Ownership dictates whether or not one has the power to define and

Rhetoric and Public Policy

75

describe a problem, but it does not specify the content of the description and solution. The other aspects of responsibility - causal responsibility and political responsibility - do that. Causal responsibility asks the question How possibly does this problem exists? First, political responsibility asks the question What is to be done? Causal responsibility is a matter of belief, an assertion about facts. The second, political responsibility is a matter of policy in that it asserts that somebody or some office is obligated to do something about the problem. For example, to look to governmental agencies and action to reduce poverty can be to hold governmental officials politically accountable. Gusfield looks at the notion of responsibility both culturally and structurally. At the cultural level responsibility implies a way of seeing phenomena. At the structural level fixing responsibility implies different institutions and different personnel, both of whom are charged with obligations and opportunities to attack the problem. Changing from one set of causal definitions to another carries implications for institutions. The relation of causal responsibility to political responsibility is a crucial one. If it is unanimously decided that the poor are poor because of their bad character or personal laziness, this belief has different implications for institutional responsibility than one that says poverty is caused by cyclical economic conditions which are themselves the responsibility of the state. As perceptions of causes of issues such as poverty change, so do the cognitive conceptualizations of political responsibilities. As phenomena are susceptible to various modes of conceptualization as problems, so too is their public character open to various modes of resolution. Even in the United States, income security in old age has ceased to be left essentially to individuals and families. Social security legislation has established a public, governmental responsibility, as limited as that responsibility may be. This social construction of public problems implies an historical dimension. The same objective condition may be defined as a problem in one time period but not in another. But at any specific moment all possible parties to the issue do not have equal abilities to influence the public. They do not possess the same degree of authority to act as legitimate sources of the definition of the reality of a problem, nor can they assume they have legitimate power to regulate, control, or offer innovative solutions. All three senses of responsibility may reside in the same person or office, but this is not necessarily the case. Often those who own a problem are trying to place obligations on others to act in a proper fashion, and thus to take political responsibility for its solution - to do the right thing - for example, the churches and Native rights advocates in Canada,

76

Communicative Interaction and the State

and the Fabian Society and social security advocates in nineteenthcentury England. As noted in the previous chapter, the unique position of the state makes it a key actor in fixing responsibility. In some periods and for some issues, the state has received demands and turned them into policy. In others, government has taken a more active role and become the owner of the problem it seeks to solve. In some circumstances the state can create issues, make them urgent in the public mind, and then solve them. This is 'impression management' of an important kind, even if it is one-way communication. Murray Edelman writes about this third possibility: 'Government not only reflects the will of some of the people; it also creates public wants, beliefs, and demands. In recent years political scientists have begun to pay increasing attention to this latter aspect of the political process, for it has a powerful impact upon who gets what. If some of the most important demands and beliefs of mass publics are evoked by what the government itself does and what public officials say, then responsiveness to the will of the people means rather less than meets the eye.' 21 It can be argued, although this is not the place to do so, that the issue of the public debt (or deficit) is an issue government itself has created, owns, has responsibility for, and asserts the degree of responsibility it must take, usually in the form of cuts to public services. That is to say, in terms of public service as a symbol, government may decline responsibility in the name of the defici.t as symbol. 26 In other words, the deficit is raised above public service in the hierarchy of symbols used ideologically by the state. At another time and/or place the status of symbols may be reversed. Rhetoric about policy includes rhetoric encouraging government to create policy - for example, rhetoric by Native people, women's movements, and multicultural groups. In Canada some of this effort has been transformed by the Constitution Act of 1982, in particular the effort to make sure that the rights of groups such as these are recognized by the legislatures and the courts. Chaviva Hosek points out that this is an old tradition in the United States, but a relatively new one in Canada. Writing about the women's movement in Canada, she reflects: Until the spring of 1980, the women's movement in Canada had not focussed primarily on the fight for equal legal rights in the constitution. In this respect, Canada differed from the United States, where women's political energies were directed at the struggle to win passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) by Congress and the requisite number of states so as to entrench it in the constitution ... The status and power of the American constitution has made the history of social change in

Rhetoric and Public Policy

77

that country significantly different from that in Canada. Major social reforms in the U.S. have been won through battles over constitutional rights, and the political rhetoric of rights has a powerful appeal in its politics. American feminism has absorbed this culture of rights; indeed, the entire history of feminism there is deeply entwined with the abolition movement in the nineteenth century and the black civil-rights movement in the 1960s. In such a context, fighting for an Equal Rights Amendment made a great deal of sense. Even then, however, the tight focus on the ERA issue throughout the 1970s had high costs. It has, for example, led to a comparative neglect of economic, health, and social issues of concern to women on the national level, and so the failure of the ERA ratification effort may well presage a shift in the goals of American feminism. The decade to come may see the immense grass-roots organization, which the ERA struggle has created, mobilized for a much wider range of issues. Canadian feminism has developed along a different path. While the American example has undoubtedly a pervasive influence here, the Canadian movement has not developed in a political atmosphere highly charged with the rhetoric of political rights. From the outset, women's groups have pursued a wide range of economic and social objectives. 17

Following Hosek we can call this kind of rhetoric about policy the rhetoric of rights, a rhetoric well developed in the United States but only emphasized in Canada since 1980 and the creation of the Charter. Commercial companies may also use rhetoric to attempt to change public opinion. In the United States companies employ a sizeable proportion of their advertising budgets addressing the public as citizens rather than as consumers. Different media are used for rhetoric about policy. Political actors promote policies in verbal speeches in different locations using different media. This is the customary setting for state rhetoric, where the traditions of verbal argumentation of a persuasive nature are most relevant. Contemporary electronic mass media are also important agencies of rhetoric in this context. As has been discussed, each technology has its 'biases.' Television, for example, combines verbal performance and production techniques that provide double rhetorical layers: the politician makes a speech, but final control over the content of the message is in the hands of the technicians who produce the thirty-second government television (or radio) advertisements of one kind or another. Campaign advertisements may differ from ones advocating policy, insofar as one is financed by the party and the other by the state, although election campaign advertising does not tend to stress policy issues. Advocacy advertisements may tend to confuse party programs and state

78

Communicative Interaction and the State

policy. Both are produced by advertising agencies with commercial expertise who may cater largely to government or political-party clients. Policy in the Name of Rhetoric

There are two aspects of policy in the name of symbols. First, we go to war in the name of God and country;2 8 our domestic policy is made in the name of national unity or deficit reduction; the symbolic banners we bear are important motivational aspects of our activities; and we are inspired to action by them, sometimes begrudgingly, sometimes enthusiastically. Second, those who oppose dominant symbols, or even suggest alternative meanings for them, become scapegoats; those who oppose war against the godless must themselves be godless; those who do not embrace patriotism are labelled as traitors; opponents of national unity are separatists or subversives; and opponents of stringent spending cuts in the name of deficit reduction are spendthrifts and enemies of the country. In general those who are not inspired by or with a symbol are considered to be against it. This variation of the Nachamian heresy is moderated by the symbols that the representatives of state institutions often choose: symbols as acceptable as possible to as many as possible; and symbols that serve as umbrellas under which the whole population (or almost the whole population) may huddle. Let us take the term development as a symbol. The state uses development as a symbol with a relatively common meaning for relatively common agreement. Some, however, will say that the state's interpretation of development leads to undevelopment or underdevelopment. These opponents of the established meaning of the term are isolated and/or scapegoated as ideologically deviant. In addition, once a meaning for development becomes relatively accepted, government may also create subsystems of symbols relating to general symbols. For example, a subsymbol of development might be 'full employment,' or 'the road to resources,' or 'self-sufficiency.' 29 It might be 'low inflation,' or 'freer international trade,' which have different implications for employment and self-sufficiency. Whatever subsymbols are chosen to correspond with the meaning chosen for development, they are slogans of intent, attitude, and motivation with which most of the society can identify. Then specific policies are made in their name. If policies are made in the name of symbols which are portrayed as benefiting all of society, but the policies actually benefit only a limited number of specific groups, mystification, in Marx's sense of the ideological appropriation of symbols, may be present. The rhetorical power of symbols in public policy is not to be underesti-

Rhetoric and Public Policy 79 mated. Nor is the relationship of these 'names' to figures of speech such as metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony to be ignored. Metaphors employ images to expand the imagination. 'Metaphor is a device for seeing something in terms of something else. It brings out the "thisness" of this, or the 'thatness' of that, or the thatness of this.' 30 Politicians who wish to expand our vision might use metaphors when they use names that inspire policy. For example, they might describe development as the climbing of a mountain, in an attempt to stimulate our imagination to see rewards coming our way after a hard climb. Or if a politician describes public debt as analogous to private debt, our fears for public security might expand because of our personal need for financial survival. Metonymy attempts to bring us down to hard reality. It is a device of 'poetic realism,' a terminological reduction to practical questions. For example, government leaders who emphasize hard practical realities and a 'realistic' view of our problems do not attempt to expand the public imagination, but may try to shrink it to fit their status-quo program. Synecdoche, in the sense of meaning 'part for the whole' or 'whole for the part,' represents something larger through reference to a part, or some part through reference to the whole. The notion of something being a microcosm of a larger reality, or macrocosm, is one of synecdoche. The figure of speech 'community of communities' is a synecdoche referring to the whole - the wider community - as representing smaller communities contained within it. Synecdoche is related to the question of methodological holism and methodological individualism in which explanations of the action of a community, for example, are either reducible to explanations of the interactions of individual units within the community, or they are not. The phrase 'community of communities,' by this criterion, is one through which one can view the wider community in terms of the activities of smaller units contained within it. With reference to the use of irony as a figure of speech, if we were to say, with respect to deficit reduction of conditions for loans imposed on developing countries, that the cure was worse than the disease, we would be employing irony in relation to the symbols we use in rhetoric with respect to policy. Irony has a dialectical quality, and is a reference in this case to reversible pairs. 31 In short, such figures of speech are an important part of the rhetoric involving policy in the name of symbols.

Rhetoric as Policy, Policy as Rhetoric Rhetoric as Policy Governments can sometimes confuse policy with rhetoric, and it is useful

80

Communicative Interaction and the State

to explore historical cases in which national unity is used in a circular fashion in conjunction with other rhetorical symbols. Let us take as an example this hypothetical statement by a politician: 'We have honoured our commitment to the policy of national unity with our policy of "a community of communities."' There is reality to this kind of statement, but it is reality which rests on rhetoric alone as the relation of a symbol to a figure of speech; it does not necessarily relate to any actual deed of government. Ideology as an apologia for a particular discourse is one of the classic formative factors for public policy, but it is not always clear what the difference is between a policy based on an ideology, and the ideological use of a symbol to describe policy. For example, the term national unity is part of the panoply of ideological symbols used by the Liberal Party of Canada over a forty-year period, between the early forties and the early eighties. The term also takes on substantive aspects, for example, when it is interpreted as being synonymous with a national 'integration' which is usually (but not always) viewed as an analytical concept rather than an ideological one. The question arises whether a policy to promote national unity is one which has a substantive meaning, or one which expresses an ideologically based orientation towards the country. Policy as Rhetoric It is possible that the only action taken by a government is a mouthing of symbols as slogans, and that no actual policy exists. A policy can be announced in the name of self-sufficiency as part of development, but it is never put into effect. It is a rhetorical device designed to give the impression of action without any action, or, as reassurance, to indicate good intentions. This is an aspect of the symbolic uses of policy - of policy as symbol, or as the performance that Edelman describes, to promote quiescence and achieve authority while favouring limited interests. Policy which is announced as forthcoming, or even tabled in Parliament without any real intention of actually putting it into effect, might be considered policy as rhetoric. Such policy is designed to give the impression of action, without actually having to deliver. Bills introduced just before an election can sometimes fall into this category. The government can feel safe that, either they will be ousted from power, or if re-elected the legislation will die with the old Parliament, perhaps never to see the light of day again. Policy about Rhetoric

Policy about rhetoric is policy which concerns societal communication in

Rhetoric and Public Policy

81

one way or another. It therefore covers an enormous amount of territory for which there is a huge literature. Policy about rhetoric includes 'cultural policy,' for example, policy pertaining to 'cultural industries' such as broadcasting, book publishing, filmmaking, the press, companies granting licenses for fibre-optic cables, and a whole host of other technical and social influences on societal discourse that effects the symbols available in everyday social communication.31 Policy about rhetoric includes, for example, policy which creates a stateowned broadcasting system designed as an agency for the propagation of state rhetoric. Here, pressure on a nominally independent parastatal broadcasting system is exerted through tight controls of its budget, the kind of control that can inhibit criticism of government policies and encourage ideological adherence. Policy about rhetoric may also be policy that allows broadcasting to be pursued as a commercial business like any other. In the American system of advertising-based networks, the frequency spectrum becomes a commodity, and the messages and priorities of advertisers are paramount. This is not to deny the possibility of direct state rhetoric in commercial systems. Governments may use commercial broadcasting systems for institutional and advocacy advertising. The government of Canada is a leading advertiser in all Canadian media, and has been since the early seventies. Policy about rhetoric is closely related to the question of the relationship between rhetoric and power, when power is considered the capacity to make one's voice not only heard, but relatively more accepted than other rival discourses. On this ground is played out the relative power of state and society, of government and commerce. The important issue of whether a broadcasting system, for example, is to reflect public interest or private enterprise is a complex one, closely related to the establishment of relatively dominant discourses in society, and to what degree they will directly reflect the interests of the dominant economic classes. That they will reflect these interests to some extent is without question, just as there is no question that the state is involved in broadcasting and cultural policy. The uncertainty is, how much? The tendency seems to be for international commerce (in the form of multinational corporations) to become more powerful in relation to state institutions, and therefore to undermine the state's stress on national cultural symbols which could be rivals of those advocating international community and the open doors of trade. The language of nationalism may be the enemy of the language of free trade, and vice versa. The economic policies of the IMF, for example, discourage public services and include broadcasting as a public service. 33 The program-

82

Communicative Interaction and the State

ming content of commercial networks are part of a commercial trade pattern dominated by American products at discount prices. They are valuable not only for the revenue they bring but also as advertisements for American goods and the American way of life. The response (or lack of response of the state in the name of freedom of expression) to aggressive trade in television programming, film, and music will help to determine what cultural symbols are available for popular use. A perspective based on Mead's and Burke's theories shows that it is indeed possible for the discourse of the state to be altered by external symbol systems, although the cultures of different states may incorporate such symbols in different ways.34 If these varieties of the relationship between rhetoric and public policy are to be used as aids in empirical research, it would be useful to apply the distinction between persuasion and propaganda introduced in Chapter 2 to each one of them. Surely at least some rhetoric about policy is propagandistic, some is persuasion, and most is a mixture of both. However, in order to evaluate whether rhetoric about policy, policy in the name of rhetoric, or any of the others consist of persuasion or propaganda in a given situation, we must have a way of examining each case of rhetoric in the context of the communicative interaction of which it is a part. The encouragement of reflexivity, the offering of choices, and the identification with the interests of those addressed cannot be dealt with in the abstract. We need a qualitative method of analysis, one that deals with meanings and contests for definitions of reality in a way that can help us determine what kinds of contests these might be. Such a method is introduced later, in Part 3. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

This chapter has argued that policy is an act of the state filled with symbolic meaning and rhetorical intent. It is this foundation for our understanding of public policy that shifts perspective from simple decisionmaking, problem-solving approaches - and single tenet models of public policy (such as the public choice model) - to more holistic ones. The value of Mead's, and particularly Burke's, insights for the study of public policy has already been recognized in the American sociological literature and by political scientist Murray Edelman, who is closely related to that tradition. Although Gusfield and Edelman offer many insights, from the point of view of this volume theirs is a theoretical orientation gone somewhat astray, influenced overly much by the Parsonian tradition. As is the case of

Rhetoric and Public Policy

83

a theory of action in more general terms, part of my aim in this chapter has been to return to Mead and Burke themselves, with a critical analysis of the uses made of these scholars. This chapter has also suggested some relationships between rhetoric and public policy, which might serve as foundations for the different directions that the study of the relationship of rhetoric to public policy might take. The subsections concerning rhetoric and policy may all be useful in empirical analysis. A fundamental question concerns the close relationship between rhetoric as part of communicative interaction, with rhetoric as an integral part of social communication, institutional creation and recreation, and the actions of the state.

5 International Communication

Transportation is often confused with communication. This confusion may take place in the theory of the discipline of communication studies when it is concerned with individual and societal communication; in political science when national and international patterns in the circulation of goods, people, and ideas are related to concepts such as 'integration,' and, in general, whenever disciplines focus exclusively on quantitative approaches to communication. The existence of the facilities for communication have sometimes led to the optimistic assumption that communication actually takes place. I would argue that only a theory which deals with communicative interaction truly deals with communication between human agents, and helps to deal with the questions around international communication, including the relationship of external symbol 'systems' and discourses to national ones. The confusion between transportation and communication is related to the issue of the relationship of rhetoric and power (including physical coercion as an aspect of power) at national and international levels. Rhetoric can serve as an alternative to physical coercion, although there is no necessity that it do so. Much more can be said about this point, but I will simply say that the possibility for rhetoric exists, and that all power exercised in national and international interactions is not coercion. I begin this chapter with a brief discussion of our society's optimistic and idealistic expectations concerning international communication; move on to describe international circulation patterns and their importance for sociologists, political scientists, geographers, and economists; and end with an evaluation of the role of rhetoric in international communication as a variety of power, including its capacity to replace or alter community discourses with symbols imported from the international community.

International Communication

85

A MYTH OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION

As Herbert Schiller reminds us, there is a set of beliefs and myths about international economic and political relations which is a kind of folklore for the liberal-democratic countries that have spawned it. This mythology has two aspects: the common belief about commerce that 'diverse trading groups will be drawn together amicably and beneficially in the exchange of goods,' and the even stronger myth which insists that 'impersonal and intergroup communications, whatever their nature, must have a positive and benevolent impact on worldwide human affairs.' 1 These assumptions have their roots in a rationalist, liberal cosmopolitanism that is often endowed with a social optimism. George Herbert Mead was, ironically, one of these rationalists and social optimists. In a remarkable statement Mead says, If we look at the economic proceedings, there is no such propaganda as this, no assumption of a single economic society that is undertaking to establish itself. An economic society defines itself insofar as one individual may trade with others, and then the very processes themselves continue to integrate, bringing a closer and closer relationship between communities which may be definitely opposed to each other politically. The more complete economic texture appears in the development of trading itself and the development of a financial medium by means of which such trading is carried on, and there is an inevitable adjustment of the production in one community to the needs of the international economic community. There is a development which starts with the lowest kind of universal society and in which the original abstractness gives way to a more and more concrete social organization. From both these standpoints, there is a universal society that includes the whole human race, and into which all can enter into relationship with others through the medium of communication. They can recognize others as members, and as brothers.' Something seems amiss here. That there might be an integrating economic system, and even potential for a 'universal' society is one thing, but that the participants will tend to recognize others as brothers is quite another. It is worthy of notice that Mead used the word can when describing whether participants recognize each other, rather than that they necessarily will do so. Mead was personally concerned with local social reform in Chicago, but his writings do not deal with international inequality or imperialism as a practice or as a doctrine. If religion is an example of a universal discourse, can community expressions and institutions be worked out through a

86

Communicative Interaction and the State

religious interpretation of history in the way Mead suggests can be accomplished through integration of economic patterns? Indeed, religion's clear

interconnections with economic patterns (for example, in relation to imperialism in Africa) have been reported many times. But whatever we think of Mead's position on this subject, there is no fundamental incompatibility between his optimism with interpretations of interaction that include conflict between discourses, or the ideological use of symbols in various varieties of discourse. It is true that communication has integrating effects, but not all communication integrates. 3 There are indeed adjustments made by communities, some significantly more than others - adjustments that do not necessarily result in brotherly relations between communities, but often in the grossest of inequalities. Critics suggest that some of the premises of liberal reasoning have survived, but without the anticipated benefits. They argue that international industry and commerce have indeed dominated the world economy, that world-wide communications may bring about a cultural 'fusion' and 'homogenization,' and that national states are being undermined. It is argued by proponents of this liberalism, however, that things have not moved fast enough, partly because of nationalist movements that have blocked economic integration; also because of state authorities in the field of communications who have used the mass media to reinforce or attempt to create national cultures in citizens and national communities, and have thus accentuated ethnic antagonisms and heightened the visibility of national differences. 4 On the other hand, from a critical point of view it is possible to suggest that some form of nationalism may protect more vulnerable states, and could help create a 'brotherhood of states' rather than a hierarchical system of rich and poor. After the doctrine of the free market became important in the 1840s, states put in place protections against the ravages of unrestrained international commerce. This protection is being stripped away in the latest revival of free trade ideology, which of course includes the notion that trade should be unrestricted by the state. Before a protective role for nationalism can be evaluated, however, world economic and communication systems need to be studied in relation to the tension between national and international communication, a study that concentrates on communicative interaction around societal symbols. It is possible to ask (but not easy to answer) whether the power relations in international communicative interaction has reduced the need for more physical forms of coercion. If it is possible to change the attitudes and actions of other state communities through rhetoric, is force still necessary? This question might admit that coercion is still present, but that its

International Communication

87

more general expression is psychological violence of the kind which Jacques Ellul attributes to propaganda. There is plenty of evidence against such a position. Wars themselves can be a form of communicative gesture. The American invasion of Grenada can be viewed as grade B political theatre directed by a former grade B political actor - a symbol of the strength of the United States in a world fragmented into trading blocs. The war against Iraq also can be seen as the symbolic reassertion of the United States as world policeman, as a statement that no other states should try to imitate Vietnam. Furthermore, the people of Mozambique, East Timor, Bosnia, and a host of other shattered communities would greet the idea that physical warfare is passe as a cruel joke. I suggest, however, that rhetoric reduces the need for such physical forms of coercion by international actors powerful enough to dominate - to a relative degree - discourses at the national and international level. The action consummating international communication is the creation of an economic system which also defines political reality, attempts to create 'consciousness,' shapes what is 'normal' and 'just' in the sphere of interstate relations, decides what 'development' is, and what 'rights' are, and for whom. Such an approach might first examine the patterns of the circulation of goods and services, and the ideas between states that are based on the physical 'circulation systems,' using new and old communications technology followed by the content of the discourses of states. The relationship between technology and content must neither be forgotten nor exaggerated. The content is important, but without the act of communication itself there would be no sharing of meaning, and an important part of communication is the medium by which it takes place. But while every medium has biases, we cannot say that the medium is the message. Power as differential capacity to influence communication expresses itself in two ways: in relative domination over the means by which discourses are disseminated; and by a relative domination over which symbols are incorporated into the discourses of state and society as part of the web of meanings and the patterns of symbols that influence the daily lives and activities of individuals and institutions. PATTERNS OF THE CIRCULATION OF GOODS, SERVICES, AND SYMBOLS

The international community of states has been viewed as a system of interacting economic and political actors. According to this argument, now generally accepted, every state in the world is now more or less integrated

88

Communicative Interaction and the State

into this hierarchy of economic relationships, with antecedents in the European colonial empires of the mercantilist period (or connections to them). This system, which can be used as a general structural description of international circulation, has been related, directly or indirectly, to the rivalry of the United States and the Soviet Union as dominant super-states, and the more recent reassertion of the military and financial dominance of the United States.5 Developing countries tend to be attached to this rivalry through their subclientship, as in the case of the former colonies of Britain and France. Middle-range states have more direct economic and political relations with the United States. American 'links' with other states are, in fact, numerous. Contemporary international information patterns are based on two kinds of technologies: (1) land-based communication patterns; and (2) telecommunications, usually by satellite, although fibre-optic cable also plays an important part. Land-Based Technology

Land-based patterns of transportation and communication have been created over time in concrete metropolitan-hinterland relations. The United States was once part of the British mercantilist system, and it was America's reaction to this system that made the Boston Tea Party a major symbol of the American Revolution. Canada was a British colony for another 150 years after the United States created an infrastructure which included a transcontinental railway, partly to accommodate British foreign policy. The historical setting for contemporary trade with African states, to cite another example, is the trade which took place along the coasts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, then through penetration of the interior by river or railroad in the nineteenth century. Such ground-based circulation and transportation systems created colonies, and vice versa. These 'networks' remain in place today, from different points of view, as: obstacles to independent development, aids to development, or means to market international products. To the extent that Canada is still linked east to west, that link is based on a circulation system whose origins are in the fur trade. African countries are still struggling to complete the farm-to-market roads that fit the colonial pattern of trade and relative dependence. Infrastructure is one of the central features of most African five-year plans, and these plans invariably reinforce the old networks, which are strongly institutionalized and difficult to change. Externally, African mail and telephone services not yet provided by satellites are

International Communication

89

also still routed through London and Paris, and only then to other countries. Lately, however, the capitals of African states are becoming linked by satellites, both to each other and to the international telecommunications system. New ground-based networks of less costly cables made of fibre optics with digital capacity are also being planned. But where the old technologies still predominate, so do the old colonial patterns; and new technologies create new dependencies. Colonial infrastructural development, in particular, was discovered or at least stressed independently by a number of scholars in the fifties and sixties, as they focused on different geographical areas. Harold Innis discussed the relationship of staples to the transportation system in his conclusion to The Fur Trade in Canada: Peoples who have become accustomed to the cultural traits of their civilization what Mr Graham Wallas calls the social heritage - on which they subsist, find it difficult to work out new cultural traits suitable to a new environment ... The methods by which the cultural traits of a civilization may persist with the least possible depreciation involve an appreciable dependence on the peoples of the homeland. The migrant is not in a position immediately to supply all his needs and to maintain the same standard of living as that to which he has been accustomed ... If those needs are to be supplied he will be forced to rely on goods which are obtainable from the mother country. The migrant was consequently in search of goods which could be carried over long distances by small and expensive [sic] sailboats and which were in demand in the home country as to yield for the highest profit. These goods were essentially those in demand for the manufacture of luxuries, or goods which were not produced, or produced to a slight extent, in the home country ... The importance of metropolitan centres in which luxury goods were in most demand was crucial to the development of colonial Nonh America.... The economic history of Canada has been dominated by the discrepancy between the centre and margin of western civilization. Energy has been directed toward the exploitation of staple products and the tendency has been cumulative. The raw material supplied to the mother country stimulated manufactures of the finished product and also of the products that were in demand in the colony. Largescale production of raw materials was encouraged by improvement of techniques of production, of marketing, and of transpon as well as by improvement in the manufacture of the finished product. 6

Innis has little to say about the implications of this colonization process for the indigenous populations, in relation to the whole economy and society.

90

Communicative Interaction and the State

Andre Gunder Frank makes a point similar to that of Innis, using very different language. Frank discusses the implications of metropolis-satellite relations for Latin America: Most studies of development and underdevelopment fail to take account of economic and other relations between the metropolis and its economic colonies throughout the history of the worldwide expansion and development of the mercantilist and capitalist system. ... these metropolis-satellite relations are not limited to the imperial or international level but penetrate and structure the very economic, political, and social life of the Latin American colonies and countries. Just as the colonial and national capital and its expon sector become the satellite of the Iberian (and later of other) metropoles of the world economic system, this satellite immediately becomes a colonial and then a national metropolis with respect to the productive sectors and population of the interior. Funhermore, the provincial capitals, which thus are themselves satellites of the national metropolis - and through the latter, of the world metropolis - are in turn provincial centres around which their own local satellites orbit. Thus a whole chain of metropoles and satellites relates all pans of the whole system, from its metropolitan centre in Europe or the United States to the fanhest outpost in the Latin American countryside. 7

Frank makes the added point that the colonial experience actively creates underdevelopment vis-a-vis the rest of the international economic system. 'It is generally held that economic development occurs in a succession of capitalist stages, and that today's underdeveloped countries are still in a stage that is sometimes depicted as an original stage of history though which the now-developed countries passed long ago. Yet, even a modest acquaintance with history shows that underdevelopment is not original or traditional, and that neither past nor present histories of underdeveloped countries resemble the past of the now-developed countries in any important respect. The now-developed countries were never underdeveloped, though they may have been undeveloped. 8 There have been controversies and refinements with respect to both Innis's and Frank's approaches, but it is also important to remember the insights they provide for the setting of the basic structures of transportation and 'communication' in an international context. An article which presents a more limited and focused perspective on circulation 'systems' themselves was published by Taaffe, Morrill, and Gould in 1963.9 The model posits different 'phases' of transportation development, as a 'process' rather than a series of discrete historical states:

International Communication

91

The first phase (a) consists of a scattering of small ports and trading posts along the seacoast. There is little lateral interconnection except for small indigenous fishing craft and irregularly scheduled trading vessels and each port has an extremely limited hinterland. With the emergence of major lines of penetration (b ), hinterland transportation costs are reduced for certain ports. Markets expand both at the port and at the interior centre. Port concentration then begins ... Feeder routes begin to focus on the major ports and interior centres (c). These feeder lines give rise to a kind of hinterland piracy that permits the major port to enlarge its hinterland at the expense of adjacent smaller ports. Smaller nodes begin to develop along the main lines of penetration, and as feeder development continues (d) certain of the nodes ... become focal points for feeder networks of their own. Interior concentration then begins as [they] pirate the hinterlands of the smaller nodes on either side. As the feeder networks continue to develop around the ports, interior centres, and main on-line nodes, certain of the layer feeders begin to link up (e). Lateral interconnections should theoretically continue until all the ports, interior centres, and main nodes are linked. It is postulated that once this level is reached, or even before, the next phase consists of the development of national trunk lines or main streets (f). In a sense, this is the process of concentration repeated, but at a higher level. Since certain centres will grow at the expense of the others, the result will be a set of high priority linkages among the largest ... ' 0

The authors point out that, on occasion, phases can overlap or be collapsed together. The most important phase is the emergence of penetration lines from the sea coast to the interior. Some reasons cited for the penetration of the interior, in African colonies in particular, were: (1) the desire to connect an administrative centre on the sea coast with an interior area for political and military control; (2) the desire to reach areas of mineral exploitation; and (3) the desire to reach areas of potential agricultural export production. Typically, one or two ports in a country dominate both import and export trade, tapping the hinterlands of their neighbours in the developing network. In the advanced stages of high priority linkages, roads dominate over railways. Road transport first complements railroads, then competes with them, and finally overwhelms them. Penetration lines by road may appear in this last phase of development in hinterlands where penetration lines are still possible. This would be influenced by technological changes. Transport innovations are first applied to trunk routes. In the United States 'the best passenger rates, schedules, and equipment are usually initiated over high density routes such as New York- Chicago.' 11 The latter stages of the model also include the development of mass media and other forms of information technology based on the circulation system and urban network.

92

Communicative Interaction and the State

This model is not without its flaws. The disadvantages of a model that identifies stages of such patterns of communication and development are that it is likely to be deterministic and ethnocentric - deterministic if the stages are to be taken as rigid indicators of change, and ethnocentric if the model is based on particular countries as developed examples of the whole process. The authors write neither of the displacement of indigenous transportation and economic systems nor of the nature of the world economic and political system which created the transportation system in a specific colony. Development is not unidirectional. A state, or portions of a state, may be in a process of undevelopment, as Frank reminded us. The Taaffe, Morrill, and Gould model can deal not only with the external material and cultural dependencies of a colony under mercantilism or neomercantilism, but also with the patterns of internal dependency and colonialism that metropolitan areas seek to create as minimercantile systems within the colonial state itself. These patterns, both internal and external, tend to remain after the political 'independence' of the colonial state is established, unless a radical change takes place to reorient them. New cities were founded on these transportation routes, and the old ones connected to them flourished. For example, African cities .such as Lagos, Douala, or Dakar are new ports created by the colonial trade, while old centres such as Kano have taken on a new life because of their importance for contemporary trade. Further, the African urban network has become linked by ground-based telegraph, telephone, and mail services. Newspapers and broadcasting stations eventually have appeared in these centres as well. The patterns of external and internal communications that were developed were based on colonial transportation and communication networks, and reinforced after independence by a continuation of many of the same commercial relationships with former colonial powers. In addition, the structure of international press reporting of African affairs remained in place, inherited from the British, French, American, and other powers, with their news services, undersea cables, and broadcasting systems. In general, the groundbased infrastructure defined the relationship of colonizer and colonized within the imperial system. Network analysis has also been important in the analysis of transportation development, particularly in the early sixties. As used in geography, networks are created in space and time between people or places, and as such have certain observable characteristics. Geographers have developed notions of transportation networks at the macro level, as well as tools for studying them as systems (which simply means interrelated units). In particular, geographers have created a simplified visual representation of a

International Communication 93 network with a set of lines and points, attributing measures of various kinds to the links (edges), or points (nodes), and then connecting them to create a matrix. The identifiable patterns of transportation and communications networks, both in terms of the characteristics of the nodes and the links of the networks, and of the interaction over these links between nodes, have been identified as important for forty years. Geographers have also developed measures of the characteristics of circulation systems, including their 'connectivity.' In short, techniques for measuring the density of transportation networks and the effect of distance and other cost factors include simple density, or connectivity, and measures taking more 'cost' factors into account. The unit of analysis is usually the city or town within the state, each state assumed to be a closed system, although political scientists and anthropologists sometimes apply the same approach to individuals. The field of urban history also did considerable related work on patterns of the migration of goods, services, and capital. Such analysis has been done by Peter Goheen, James Simmons, and others working in Canadian urban development. 12 In the case of African urban network development, a good example is Akim Mabogunje's description of the changes to urban life in Nigeria following colonization.1 3 The application of network theory to anthropology and sociology, political science, and ultimately to communications studies, are all relevant to the questions concerning circulation of goods, services, and people, and the confusion of these circulation patterns with communication. The physical patterns were stressed, sometimes to the relative exclusion of interaction by the participants. Anthropologists study networks of friends in African cities and, based on the ethnographic tradition of research, are more likely to balance 'structure' with 'content.' On the other hand, political scientists in the sixties used network analysis in relation to the concepts of national integration and political cohesion almost exclusively in quantitative terms. For example, Karl Deutsch has been concerned with a systematic evaluation of the transportation and communication capacities of the Nigerian circulation system in relation to its quantitative characteristics. His studies have included measurements of the 'flows' and exchanges of goods, telephone calls, mail, and people as indicators of the salience of relationships between different political communities, or within them. In a general description of an analysis of national integration, Deutsch argued in 1952:

If we were to investigate the prospects for future national unity of an independent Nigeria, we might try to map the basic settlement and traffic patterns, areas of Ian-

94

Communicative Interaction and the State

guages, dialects and cultures, effective market areas for major commodities and services, together with the areas of predominance of important social institutions, classes or casts, and the distribution of the major concentrations of capital goods, skills and wealth. The result might well be a map of overlapping clusters, together with indicators of the volume ofactual communication and traffic between them ... The results of all these surveys together would not give us an answer about the future success or failure of political leaders or movements to unify Nigeria, but they would give us a background of conditions and a measure of the difficulties under which such movements would have to labour. ' 4

To introduce the use of network analysis to deal with patterns of transportation and techniques of measurement - in Deutsch's general statement about Nigeria, and in the analysis of cohesion that we have discussed - two aspects of cohesion are implied: (1) the physical possibility for communication: and (2) the actual use of the physical facilities for interactions (which may produce a psychological effect). With reference to the former, Deutsch included among some 'uniformities which have been found in the growth of nations,' the growth of basic communications grids linking rivers, towns, and trade routes. 'l The physical network may be described as a combination of 'links' and 'nodes.' Deutsch focuses on the communications between the nodes without placing too great an emphasis on the links, except to acknowledge that they are there. This focus on the nodes in a nation also deliberately ignores links with the outside world, the world beyond the 'closed system' of the network. In 1964, Deutsch compared the process of social communication to the human nervous system: 'The technology of self-containing systems has in some sense been the mother of general systems theory, and more specifically, of the study of communication and control called cybernetics ... If we look upon nations and government as a communications system, impersonal, verifiable evidence can be obtained to check general descriptive or quantitative assertions about nationalism, about sovereignty and about the merger of states.' 16 At the individual level this 'impersonal evidence' about human communication is claimed to be measurable. 'The study of quantitative densities of transactions is the first step towards estimating the degree to which people are connected with each other.'' 7 'Units,' exchange information, be they persons, groups, or cities. Deutsch describes such an exchange as a 'transaction.' Transactions, he says, are the first step towards mutual 'salience,' where salience is the maintenance of an image through a greater than expected flow of transactions. The study of this process, the study of 'covariance,' focuses on the examination of joint rewards and

International Communication

95

penalties arising from the transactions. Deutsch offers three propositions: ( 1) that the greater the level of transaction flow between areas, the greater becomes the chance for salience; (2) that salience produces a high level of mutual awareness, but that this can lead to conflict as well as integration; and (3) that the greater the positive salience, the greater the likelihood for cooperation and integration. 18 The integration theory of Karl Deutsch led to the consideration of a technique which measures flows of goods, people, and information over the transportation network of a country. If the network is considered a closed system and therefore some degree of distortion is expected, because it disregards transactions out of the country, I could argue that Deutsch did not go far enough in the application of a quantitative technique, and that the measurable characteristics of network links can be related to the transactions which flow between nodes in the system: a more informative 'index of salience' could be created. However, this is the kind of enjoyable theorizing that can easily sidetrack social scientists, giving an impression of precision which is more apparent than real. Let us illustrate the point. One empirical problem about connectivity or transaction flow analysis is how one defines nodes and links so that they correspond in a meaningful way to the nodes and links in an actual transportation or circulation system. It may be useful to define nodes as the intersections and terminals of links in a system. On the other hand, many rural road systems 'leak' traffic along their length, so that a listing of major junctions may not mean a great deal. 19 Another alternative is to define only cities of a certain size as vertices. In a developing country, however, the problem of census figures for town populations may arise. It is also possible in a developing state that there will be many places between which no direct links will exist. Quantitative analysis of networks is not currently sufficient for our understanding of 'communication,' either at national or international levels. Telecommunications

Telecommunications as a second and more recent basis of information flow between states, including former colonial ones, has been labelled informatics. As Thomas McPhail points out, there has been a shift in the 1950s and 1960s to a 'fourth current era of empire expansion.' It accompanied a 'shift to a service-based economy in the West which relies substantially on telecommunications systems.' 20 Information as transportation of data using telecommunications technology is intended first and foremost to be concerned with trade and

96

Communicative Interaction and the State

commerce, including messages between American-based and other multinational corporations world-wide. However, it goes much further than this. For instance, satellite systems can convey information of all types: mail; telephone messages; banking data, including monetary transactions; radio and television; news services; and all the internal messages of states should they choose to use the service. In addition, satellites are also capable of obtaining information unavailable to a state about itself. A knowledge of resources on the ground - weather and other observable data - may be useful to the country involved, but unavailable if the country does not have the hardware or an agreement to receive it. The technology of telecommunications depends on two world resources that have been dominated by the developed countries, which have been dominated in turn by the United States. 21 One is the electromagnetic spectrum - particularly those parts of it necessary for transmission of information to and from satellites. This spectrum is governed by the Geneva Radio Conference, a body which had allotted a preponderance of frequencies to the United States by 1963 (although some inequities have since been resolved). The other world resource is the geostationary orbit, which enables a satellite to remain over one point above the earth at a distance of 22,000 miles. These orbits are divided dominantly between American, Canadian, Soviet, Japanese, and many European satellites, although over the past decade developing countries have made their presence felt in negotiations with the International Telecommunications Union concerning the reservation of orbits for their use. An electronic circulation system based on telecommunications also allows direct broadcasting of entertainment and information programming for mass consumption from one country to another, particularly television programs direct from transmitter-to-individual receiving dishes, where such dishes are available. Since the development of the new generation of satellites with their powerful transmitters, these dishes need be only a foot or two in diameter. New fibre-optic cables can also bring a score of television stations into a national communications network for 'direct' broadcast via a cable network. For example, a branch of the fibre-optics branch line from Los Angeles to Japan could take twenty American television channels to Australia. While there are no certain plans to do the same for Africa, the technology is ready, and the cost is much less than the building and launching of satellites, which are accident-prone on launching and have a limited life. The Maitland Commission of UNESCO advocated an Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) that may serve as the basis for extending fibre-optic networks to some African countries. While existing television

International Communication

97

programming in Africa still tends to be routed indirectly through the local broadcasting systems, the possibility of many other channels at its doorstep is coming nearer to reality. Changes in the technology of transportation and 'communication' changes the notion of space. Forty years ago Harold Innis taught us lessons about space and time in his discussion of the relationship between 'empire and communication,' lessons which hardly need to be repeated here. 22 More recently, in Path of the Paddle, Bill Mason writes: Let's say you are hiking and come upon a beautiful pristine lake nestled among high hills. You estimate the lake to be about ten miles ( 16 km) long, and with great anticipation look forward to several days of a difficult but exciting journey of discovery around the shoreline. Before long a canoeist comes along and invites you to come aboard to make the journey easier. You gladly accept because the going is tough. Now you can get a better perspective on the shoreline and yet the pace is slow enough so that you do not miss anything. You are aware, however, that in accepting the ride the lake has diminished somewhat in size. You estimate that while hiking would have taken you at least four days, you will now be able to do it in an easy two. After a couple of miles, a motorboat comes alongside and you are offered a ride around the shoreline. The canoeist accepts, and while you are less than enthusiastic, you don't have much choice. As the 100 horsepower engine roars into action, you slowly become aware that the lake is beginning to feel very small. As the trees and cliffs race by, you realize that what you had hoped to discover in four days is now going to be revealed in a couple of hours.1 3

What is to be noted from this example is the space relevant to social activity, and not the area of the lake per se, or the measured length of its shore line. The social relevance of space is more or less important to men's and women's activities, depending on the technology of transportation they use, and so we can say that particular technologies have characteristics that involve physical aspects, and social characteristics that influence human behaviour, including human communication. For example, in Africa there are both pirogues and high-powered craft on the rivers, and both pushcarts and trucks on the roads. There is a strong argument that contemporary technology has made the notion of space obsolete, that data packeting systems have made space virtually meaningless over long distances.24 THE 'CONTENT' OF COMMUNICATION

It is not that social scientists have totally ignored the 'content' of the

98

Communicative Interaction and the State

'information flows' over 'networks' as 'channels' of communication. This concern preceded network analysis as such. Network approaches are cousins of the detailed work on the systematic development of transportation and 'communication' evident in Innis's writings. These include his lesserknown case studies, such as Settlement and the Mining Frontier, his betterknown ones, such as The Fur Trade in Canada, and his more theoretical ones, such as The Bias of Communications. Innis wrote in the thirties and forties, before the kind of analysis focusing on links and nodes, as described above, was fashionable, and his association of certain modes of communication media with the spread of certain kinds of values has continued to make him particularly important in communications research. These media of 'communication' include clay, the stylus, and cuneiform script from the beginnings of civilization in Mesopotamia; papyrus, the brush, and hieroglyphics and hieratic to the Graeco-Roman period and the reed pen and the alphabet to the retreat of the Empire from the west; parchment and the pen to the tenth century or the dark ages; and overlapping with paper, the latter becoming more important with the invention of printing; paper and the brush in China, and paper and the pen in Europe before the invention of printing or the Renaissance; paper and the printing press under handcraft methods to the beginning of the nineteenth century, or from the Reformation to the French Revolution; paper produced by machinery and the application of the printing press since the beginning of the nineteenth century to paper manufacturing from wood in the second half of the century; celluloid in the growth of the cinema; and finally the radio in the second quarter of the present century.1 1

'In each period,' writes Innis, 'I have attempted to trace the implications of the media of communication for the character of knowledge and to suggest that a monopoly or an oligopoly of knowledge is built up to the point that equilibrium is disturbed.' Innis's work has been recognized by more recent scholars, such as Neil Postman, as noted in Chapter 2. In American social sciences from the forties to the seventies, and even the eighties, a normative model of values was applied to a linear model of communication in conjunction with new emphases on order and administration. With the advent of more systemic network approaches, human resource development in rural areas was approached via the question of the flow of values and symbols, or in the language of the model, the 'diffusion of information' over the network in various ways. One of the most prominent of these has been the discussion of the effects of 'disseminating' values of one kind or other, from one point in the network to others, often in.

International Communication 99 terms of metropole to hinterland, or urban to rural. The linear model was not so much changed as forced to take account of the possibility of circular and more complex patterns, which messages could take in a complex network. It was considered implicitly, if not explicitly, that once the conditions for change were set, change would indeed follow. Each of the social science disciplines had its examples of this relative certitude. For example, with reference to transportation and communication Karl Deutsch's contributions have already been mentioned. In communication studies the 'first generation' of approaches to communication and development was led by Lerner, Pye, and Schramm, 16 who in the 1950s and early 1960s saw development as the communication of the technology and social institutions of the industrialized West to the elite, modernized sector of developing countries, and through the elites to the so-called backward hinterlands. However, the problems with an ethnocentric 'stages' model became increasingly evident. Dependence on the industrialized nations was reinforced. A Wes tern-oriented elite grew more powerful, and was often more interested in the exploitation of the peasant hinterland than in its development. Because of this mainly economically oriented modern. ization theory, national cultural traditions were threatened. 17 There were some objections from inside this modernization theory tradition. Everett Rogers attempted to shift the emphasis away from the old Weaver and Shannon approach to that of network analysis itself. In 1982 Rogers argued that the communication network should be the new 'paradigm' of communications research because of its interactive qualities. In his criticism of the Weaver and Shannon model, which had been the basis for much of modernization research, he stated, Such research mainly investigated the effects of communication messages from a source to a receiver, in a one-way, persuasive-type paradigm that is not consistent with our basic conception of the communication process as mutual informationexchange, as sharing meanings, as a convergence. Unfortunately, the dependence on individuals as the sole units of analysis in past communication research has severely constrained our capacity to study human communication as a process of mutual information-exchange. Our work here is guided by a convergence model of communication based on a cybernetic explanation of human behaviour from a systems perspective ... When communication is viewed in its full context, any particular 'act' of communication can only be understood in terms of what was said before, or in terms of the communication that follows. In other words, in real-life natural settings, communication can be understood better if it is not broken up into a sequence of source-

100

Communicative Interaction and the State

message-channel-receiver acts, but rather examined as complete cycles of communication in which two or more participants mutually share information with one another in order to achieve some common purpose. 28

Although he may have been offering something new for communications research, there is little new about Rogers's approach to networks as such. There are innumerable problems in describing how values 'flow' over a network of any size or scope. Simply counting items of mail or telephone calls does not tell us about the content of those messages. Nor does this approach tell us about how meanings are shaped in interaction between nodes, even if we could establish that nodes in networks of different levels were agents in the first place. In short, most of the approaches to the content of circulation-as-communication are extensions of network theories. Such approaches have no means of dealing with the meaning and the context of communicative interaction in space and time. Let us consider an important example: the electronic information that passes through the networks of telecommunications. Bits of information are transmitted electronically, at 648 million per second, as dots and dashes. These bits are 'coded' into 'languages' which then can be reassembled as pictures or words by the appropriate hardware. What of the 'information' that travels electronically by satellite, wire, or fibre cable over the Information Highway? The word information is used as a neutral concept in the extension of electronic communication networks which link together both 'developing' and 'developed' states. As information, 'data' are communicated and thus given a scientific and apolitical aura. The word information has a very strong ideological meaning in liberal philosophy. 'Freedom of information' is a central principle of liberal democracy, closely related to 'freedom of the press.' Moreover, the process of sending, receiving, and processing such data is a highly interactive one involving inequalities of wealth and access to information itself, depending upon the technical ability to make the hardware, or the financial ability to buy into the system. Therefore 'information' may be a neutral term on the surface, but it is in fact a cultural one which may be used ideologically. Such 'data' comes in such a range that 'information' as a symbol may itself be ideologically viewed in different ways - as a commodity, as a resource, or as raw material. These meanings all stress the economic aspects of circulation system content. In this discourse, 'information' may be understood as entirely economic in nature, and transmitted in a 'communication' system which is completely economically based as well. Here is the old myth and the old opti-

International Communication

IOI

mism replayed in a new technological context. It is tempting, for example, for African countries to entrust many aspects of both their internal and external communications to satellite systems. 'Information' is ordered data out of which gestures and significant symbols may or may not be built. It can be employed for intelligible communication, in Mead's sense, or not. But to lump data transmission and self-conscious communication together as 'information processing' is to understate the reflexive and conscious aspects of communication and its effects on other human agents, directly or indirectly. The electronic transmission of data to unreflexive individuals in the form of cultural symbols, or in any other format is, once again, better called transportation than communication. The effect of the transported symbols as commodities, however, may not be insignificant. The circulation of information may be understood in some of the same terms as the circulation of other manufactured goods has been in past mercantilist periods. The relationship between electronic communication systems and societal discourse is an important one. There are two basic theoretical approaches in the communication studies literature on the impact of communication content on states. These have been labelled the Bullet Theory and the Boomerang Theory by scholars, perhaps most recently by Rene-Jean Ravault.29 The first important paradigm of the cultural impact of international communication holds that there can be no real understanding of the media unless priority is given to the inequalities of the world economic system, which is seen to determine decisively the course of development within each nation. Often called the social control model, it suggests that one culture can obliterate another under intense bombardment of foreign symbols. Schramm coined the term Bullet Theory in the early I97os for such an approach: 'One must recall how frightening World War I propaganda, and later Communist and Nazi propaganda, were to many people ... The unsophisticated viewpoint was that if a person could be reached by the insidious forces of propaganda carried by the mighty power of the mass media, he could be changed and converted and controlled ... I have ... called this the Bullet Theory of communication. Communication was seen as a magic bullet that transferred ideas or feelings or knowledge or motivations almost automatically from one mind to another.'' 0 The effect of this approach is to widen the field of investigation to include, along with the media themselves, opinion polling, advertising agencies, market surveys, and technological development of new media such as home-terminal publishing, video texts, intercorporate competition, state propaganda, and so on. The social control model shows the political

102

Communicative Interaction and the State

and ideological nature of concepts of development, media, technology, and many other aspects of society. As Cees Hamelink puts it, 'Insofar as information processes are a reflection of existing power relations, they will in general follow a synchronic mode. In this mode, there is a great distance between sender and receiver; the receiver is supposed to synchronize with the input from the sender. The sender becomes the specialist who alone can select, process, and distribute the messages. Messages are "prescribed" to the passive receiver who is expected to register and store them in his "archives."' 3 ' The social control model has disadvantages. It can oversimplify, be deterministic, and ignore the effons of the national state. Critics like Ravault also stress the assumptions of the model about the passivity of the audience. The Boomerang Theory is based on more pluralist views. According to this argument, communication is mediated by opinion leaders and by other psychological and cultural factors. Rene-Jean Ravault looks to certain considerations, such as the strength of German and Japanese mediaproduct exports to the United States, as evidence that countries can turn the American media system against itself.32 Citing detailed studies of communications in Iran, Ravault claims that the casual appearances of the shah on Iranian television undermined his authority; that familiarity with American programming led to contempt rather than acquiescence; that the whole edifice of modernity, including the media system, was considered an affront to Muslim traditions, and had to be done away with. To properly evaluate these two approaches it is useful to review the relationship of communication to societal symbols in general, and to national cultural symbols and goals in particular, through Mead's theory of societal communication. In Chapter I we noted that Mead saw human communication as taking account of the reactions of others to linguistic or other kinds of action, and creating consciousness as this reflection takes place. Mead's notion of a universe of discourse is the basis for the organized social activity which he also considered the foundation of social institutions, including their home states. Therefore, in Mead's view, the state is the manifestation of communication around a system of social symbols, a plurality of discourses of all the groups and classes that comprise the contemporary state, from traditional cultures to urban industrial ones. The constant struggles to shape definitions for the commonly accepted meanings of political and social reality - struggles between societal actors representing one discourse or another - are crucial contests for meaning, because the use of the significant symbols of the most dominant discourses shapes the institutions of society, including those of the state. From this perspective the social con-

International Communication

103

trol model (or Bullet Theory) is partly right in placing stress on cultural domination. Gramsci's notions of hegemony, while diverse, are extremely useful. Religions and ethnic ideologies may also compete with and be mixed with economic ones. The ideological use of symbols in these discourses tends to include accepted symbols of the general society, stressing some in preference to others that are ignored or forgotten. In the colonial and post-colonial African state, traditional values are important in the contest for a dominant symbol system, along with ideologies of the implanted capitalist economy, paradigms of European nationalism, new notions of ethnic unity, world-wide religious movements, and others. The importance of television advertising, programming, and other forms of cultural 'trade' may now be re-evaluated. In Africa, for instance, these imports create a contemporary penetration of indigenous culture by American or European cultural symbols and values, which is comparable to the physical penetration of the interior of Africa by nineteenth-century traders, which in turn contributes to a dependence upon the goods and lifestyles of the metropolitan society. The immediate 'boomerang' result of the interaction may be different from the long term one. However, empirical studies do not yet exist which could confirm or fail to confirm these suppositions. In general, remembering the importance of the reflexive nature of the human communicator prevents an easy acceptance of a superficial social control model of rhetoric. We can reject the notion that there is any automatic or passive aspect to eliciting responses from other human agents. Circulation and transportation systems on a small scale, or for a continent, are products of history and the environment, of political and economic forces in time and space, and of myths and motivations. Some emphasize the association between circulation system development and religious and cultural values; other authors combine the two. Cultural purposes are included by authors who describe systems of circulation of goods and ideas in terms of the 'functional' needs and purposes of the economic system. As Robins and Webster put it, 'There is a sphere in which capital seeks to influence, not ideas or profits, but the very rhythms, patterns, pace, texture and discipline of everyday life. Within our wider focus upon power relations in society, this represents - to use Foucault's term - the terrain upon which operate the 'systems of micro-power.' For us, the 'communications revolution' is socially significant insofar as it represents a re-composition of the micro structures - and of the experiences - of everyday life.' 33 There can be an interactive and rhetorical aspect to the influences of capitalism. 34 For example, television in Africa has developed primarily as a commercial medium (on the American pattern). This format

104

Communicative Interaction and the State

links TV programming with advertising and the sale of goods, which is encouraged in the United States. Even where advertising is not present, because many African centres cannot afford television without taking a package of American programming at 'dumped' rates, it may be said that television programs are as important as films as a source of the image of the American way of life: 'American TV programs, for better or worse, are setting the tone of television programming throughout the world.' 3S Developing states are caught between accepting communications systems which will shape their economic development plans in different ways, or will by-pass their priorities, and the option of attempting to separate themselves from such systems, possibly losing control of their economic destiny. These were some of the concerns when developing countries made demands for a New Information Order within UNESCO countries in the early 1980s - concerns that were related to the power struggle there. The Group of 77 was a group of cooperating developing countries that put pressure on the United Nations within UNESCO. The point of view of its members was represented by President Ahmadou Ahidjo of Cameroon at the UNESCO Intergovernmental Conference on the Politics of Communication, which took place in Yaounde, Cameroon, in July 1980. He said, Our conviction is that the world of today has a need of modern systems of communication which instead of reinforcing dependence or the domination through ideological or cultural subordination, will contribute instead to encourage dialogue and communication between peoples, promote scientific, technological and educational development, encourage the adoption of technologies relevant to the realities and the needs of each nation, to permit the affirmation or the reaffirmation of national values based for their identity on a deep consciousness over a long history: in a word, to create the conditions of give and take, that is to say, to exchange freely and equally. It is this which places communication and information at the very heart of this great debate which will profoundly decide the future of humanity.J 6

Developing states are not the only ones that are very aware of an unbalanced exchange in programming. Middle-range states such as Canada have also been concerned about the possible relationship between imported cultural symbols and societal discourse. The state may wish to control the inflow of new symbols, and the defined meanings of old symbols from international sources, such as producers of foreign television programs and recordings, who may be unmindful of the needs of the receptor state, and only concerned with their own commercial or political ones. Second, the state has a discourse, reflec-

International Communication

105

tive in part of the most important symbol systems in the society, which it will reflect back to the population in the form of the rhetoric of various institutions of the state system. Thus, the question of national symbols and cultural goals reflects both a protective and a rhetorical aspect. In both these instances, the ability to control the discourse of the state is closely related to political power and to the concept of sovereignty. As Smith puts it, 'What is at stake today is nationhood.' 37 The reflexivity of the leaders of states interacting in the context of an international 'system' of states is no less desirable than the reflexivity of these individuals in relationship to their families or local communities. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Institutions, including the state, are built upon societal discourse. The state's discourse is reflective of the most important symbol systems in the society, which it will reflect back to the population in the form of the structure of the institutions of the state itself, and the rhetoric of those institutions. A change in the meaning of symbols, or their replacement by others, can shift the foundation of the state and its institutions. The ability to shape the discourse of the state is closely related to political power; therefore, the state may wish to control the inflow of new symbols and the defined meanings for old ones from international sources which may be unmindful of the needs of the receptor state and concerned only with their own commercial or political purposes. Nationalist intellectuals in middle-range states such as Canada, and in developing states such as those of Africa after independence, attempted to create a psychological revolution in order to transform colonial or traditional symbolic frameworks of their cultures, in turn creating a new national one that could shape a new social and political reality. Clifford Geertz described this as the 'fourth state of nationalism.' 'The men who raised this challenge, the nationalist intellectuals, were thus creating a revolution that was as much cultural, even epistemological, as it was political. They were attempting to transform the symbolic framework through which people experienced social reality, and thus, to the extent that life is what we make of it all, that reality itself.' 38 Many authors have stressed the importance of European paradigms for development among nationalist elites, among them Benedict Anderson in Imagined Communities.39 The symbols that African elites have used are devised largely from both the populism of Europe and its 'official' nationalism, in Canada from Britain, and then from the United States. For example, the symbols of 'national

106

Communicative Interaction and the State

unity' or 'development' or 'freedom' or 'dependence,' for both Africa and Canada, are based on value systems imported from other times and places. Such elites might have a plurality of universes of discourse, both scientific and technical: nationalist in terms of state loyalty, local in relation to ethnic loyalty, and religious as nationalism or internationalism. Each of these, including the cosmopolitanism of elite bureaucrats and the anxious insecurity of lower-level functionaries, is a 'subculture' to be considered in relation to communication media, including the implicit 'rhetoric' of an international lifestyle represented by particular symbols of wealth and sophistication. In the conventional literature on communication, the liberal assumptions concerning integration are still maintained. Most theories about values in relation to circulation systems are extensions of spatial notions about transportation that become confused with communication. What is required, and what the perspectives of Innis and Deutsch (among others) lacked, is a well developed conceptual relationship between media technology and the symbols that make up communication. Neither Deutsch nor Innis, for example, had a theory of communication which included the influences of the symbols that make up culture and provide the basis for social activity and institutional development. 40 The contemporary rediscovery of Mead provides that missing link. The confusion between transportation and communication originated when transportation analogies began to be used to describe communication itself. These transportation analogies include biological metaphors such as 'arteries,' or 'channels.' An alternative metaphor for human social life and communication is needed, one better suited to the analysis of communicative interaction at national and international levels. Such a metaphor would enable us to go beyond an analysis of the 'content' of communication as a 'process' to an analysis of meaningful communication by human agents - beyond the naturalistic side of men and women to the reflective and conscious parts of their natures. This alternative metaphor is discussed in Part 3.

6 What Dramatism Is, and What It Isn't

George Herbert Mead described social communication using significant symbols such as 'communicative interaction.' Communicative interaction, he said, is not confined to mutuality or rationality, but often involves contests for the meaning of the significant symbols currently in use, and struggles for the outcome of action through competitions for the definition of such symbols. In Part I I have argued that concepts concerning conflict and power, described by some as nonexistent or implicit in Mead's approach, are explicit and central, if muted; also that ideology, as the partisan use of symbols in communicative interaction, is quite compatible with Mead's theory, and equally compatible with Kenneth Burke's notion of rhetoric. I maintain that both rhetoric and ideology are important in the formation of institutions as dynamic contests for definition of reality, including the institutions of the state and the interactions of the international community. For the scholar doing empirical research, conflict and power in communicative interaction need to be made more accessible to analysis. The term method includes both the general approach taken to the subject - including theoretical emphasis (epistemology) - and research techniques. The term methodology can be used for either, but in ordinary usage it tends to refer to research techniques for explaining how institution are created, and for understanding how they 'function,' and how they may, at various times, prosper or die. We need an empirical way to unravel the complex communicative interactions at the foundation of institutions, to see in a practical sense how symbols in rhetoric as communicative interaction are used - by whom, under what conditions, with what purpose, with what attitudes, and by what means. Fortunately a model exists which provides an elaboration of Mead's notion of what he calls the act; as well as a guide to research

110

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

techniques for empirical analysis in both time and space. The metaphor that accomplishes all this is the drama . The drama has long been used as a metaphor for human action. Consider these lines from Shakespeare's As You Like It: All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. 1

This use of the metaphor of the drama has considerable insight and depth, not to mention its value as poetry, but in social science theory and research the poetic has generally been set aside. 1 The drama metaphor is used as a figure of speech by some scholars, but is not considered by many as a model which can guide analysis. I agree that there is utility in a superficial use of the dramatic metaphor, but its apparent ordinariness can be misleading. In fact, simplicity in a model is an advantage in any discipline. The question is whether drama as metaphor allows us to understand and explain reality better than other metaphors, such as the mechanical or biological ones which have tended to dominate social science in the past, and still do. First, this chapter argues that what Burke calls dramatism is a better model than more naturalistic ones. It argues that dramatism allows us to study communication as interaction, in turn allowing us to escape models which consider communication in terms of 'channels' for or 'transmission' of one-way messages.3 The drama as a metaphor for social life is based on a human activity which includes men's and women's reflexivity. Second, drama provides a method by which different philosophical positions can be related to each other. Third, drama as metaphor gives us a means by which rhetoric in communicative interaction can be studied, both at one point in time and over time. We will trace these advantages after a brief description of what Kenneth Burke calls the dramatistic model. One cautionary note, however: the drama is not to be reified in the sense of its being a mold into which reality must be poured. Burke intended that drama simply assist us, both in practical research and in understanding social action. Burke's use of what he calls the dramatistic analogy is an explicit elaboration of George Herbert Mead's notion of the 'act,' including its reflective and purposive aspects. 4 We may recall that Mead's theory is one of communicative interaction, a reflexive use of 'significant' symbols by human agents in communication. Burke says he uses the term dramatism in rela-

What Dramatism Is, and What It Isn't

111

tion to Mead's approach 'since it invites one to consider the matter of motives in a perspective that, being developed from the analysis of drama, treats language and thought primarily as modes of action.' 5 In sum, Burke's dramatistic analogy helps to articulate heuristically how Mead's notion of the present may be expressed in terms of various aspects of the act as communicative interaction considered holistically. Burke has made his meaning of the act clear in the following summary: every nomenclature has its implications, leading us to such and such observations rather than such and such others. And in that sense even the most empirical of term guided studies, and there can be no other kind, has a built in deductive aspect, by turning over observations in one direction rather than some ocher. Hence, instead of telling ourselves that we can dodge this inevitable terministic limitation, shouldn't we begin by asking ourselves what kind of terms might best reveal the complexity of the problem? This is a sense in which all key terms are reductionist, being related to a subject in much the way that the title of a book is related to its contents. But there is a vast difference between nomenclature that over-simplifies and one that is, rather, like a glimpse into the possible details of a panorama. Thus, Aristotle's word 'persuasion,' applied to rhetoric, is truly panoramic and opens things to a great wealth of paniculars. I am arguing that a Dramatistic model, as a heuristic tool for inquiring into the implications of the term 'act' serves this purpose.6

Burke also uses the term dramatism 'since it invites one to consider the matter of motives in a perspective that, being developed from the analysis of drama, treats language and thought primarily as modes of action.' 7 Dramatism is clearly and simply outlined in the introduction to Burke's A Grammar of Motives, written in 1945 and published most recently in 1969. 8 In this latter version it has five elements: the action being studied, the setting, the actors, the purposes and attitudes of the actors, and the agencies they use to obtain their ends: We shall use five terms as generating principle of our investigation. They are: Act, Scene, Agent, Agency, Purpose. In a rounded statement about motives, you must have some word that notes the act (names what took place, in thought or deed), and another that names the scene (the background of the act, the situation in which it occurred); also, you must indicate what person or kind of person (agent) performed the act, what means or instruments he used (agency), and the purpose. Men may violently disagree about the purposes behind a given act, or about the character of the person who did it, or how he did it, or in what kind of situation he acted, or

112

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

they may even insist upon totally different words to name the act itself. But be that as it may, any complete statement about motives will offer some kind of answers to these five questions: what was done (act), when or where it was done (scene), who did it (agent), how he did it (agency), and why (purpose).9

Burke added a sixth element, attitude, toward the end of his career. In an article entitled 'Dramatism,' written for the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, he noted that 'the pattern is incipiently a hexad when viewed in connection with the different but complementary analysis of attitude (an ambiguous term for incipient action) undertaken by George Herbert Mead (1938) and by I.A. Richards (1959).' 10 In 1972 he elaborated on this addition of 'attitude' to his pentad: 'Many times on later occasions I have regretted that I had not turned the pentad into a hexad, with "attitude" as the sixth term ... It is built around a distinction between I.A. Richards's concept of the attitudinizing that figures in a poem ... and George Herbert Mead's socio-psychological concern with ways whereby we transcend our isolation by "taking the attitude of the other,'' a kind of attitudinizing that may eventuate in the step from an attitude of sympathy with someone to the overt practical doing of an appropriate kind deed.' 11 Burke makes the important point that it is necessary to portray all these elements of action and relate them holistically to each other, which reminds us that no one of them is the only place to start in our consideration of the 'act' as action in the 'dramatic model.' 'Thus,' he reminds us, 'Mead called his pragmatism a philosophy of the act.' 12 Burke does allow, however, a focus on the possible relationships between different elements of his model as 'ratios': An agent's behaviour ('act') might be thought of as taking place against a polytheistic background ... such a loose yet compelling correspondence between act and scene is called a 'scene-act ratio.' All the terms are capable of similar relationships. A 'purpose-agency ratio' for instance, would concern the logic of 'means selecting' the relation of means to ends (as the Supreme Court might decide that an emergency measure is constitutional because it was taken in an emergency situation). An 'agent-act ratio' would reflect the correspondence between a man's character and the character of his behaviour (as, in a drama, the principles of formal consistence require that each member of the dramatus personae act in character, though such correspondences in art can have a perfection not often found in life). In actual practice such ratios are used sometimes to explain an act and sometimes to justify it .... Such correlations are not strict but analogical. Thus, by 'scene-act ratio' is meant a proposition such as: though agent

What Dramatism Is, and What It Isn't

113

and act are necessarily different in many of their attributes, some notable elements of one is implicitly or analogously present in the other. ' 3

Thus the relationship between the elements in the dramatistic model is kept in perspective by the model itself. For example, one cannot forget actors when considering material setting, and vice versa. Various approaches to communication have tended to stress only limited aspects of it. For example, McLuhan claimed that the medium of communication detached from the physical setting in time and space is the symbol and value-laden message, but this confuses each of the elements of the action of communication. 14 I also reject Great Man (or Great Woman) theories, as I do the environmentally deterministic approaches of what I consider vulgar Marxism. Those who are known as 'great' men and women are like other men and women in the complexity of their multiple voices those of their class, ethnicity and religion, and as well as their communities, which provide social discourse. This, in a nutshell, is Burke's model, one which uses a human activity, the drama, as a metaphor for human activities. It is an alternative metaphor to the mechanical and biological analogies which are the foundations for other theoretical approaches. In this light, dramatism includes elements of purpose, attitude, and reflexivity as characteristics of human agents that are otherwise not available in the models that guide our understanding of social action and interaction. THE ADVANTAGES OF BURKE'S MODEL

Now that Burke's model has been outlined, the advantages over naturalistic metaphors for human action mentioned in the introduction can be discussed at greater length. The first of these is the appropriateness of the dramatistic model as a metaphor for human activity. Burke suggests that the metaphors we use can change our fundamental understanding of our inquiry, and that it is inadequate to limit ourselves to the mechanical or biological when creating a model to explain social action. IS Naturalistic analogies for human action have been used in the past. Parsonian functionalism, for example, is based on the analogy of the biological organism. An important feature of dramatism is its humanist base - its foundation in the creative, reflexive, and communicative nature of men and women. A model for human action needs a human form. Burke comments that it is human beings who act and interact, and things which move or flow. Since Burke's model is based upon Mead's theory of the act, and Mead 's theory of the act

114

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

stresses the reflexivity of men and women and refutes Watsonian psychology (although the biological side of men and women is not denied), it is not considered sufficient to support explanations of human action and claims to exclusive scientific legitimacy and rigour. As discussed in the last chapter, naturalistic models stress one-way communication through 'channels.' In its classic form, the analysis of content focuses one such one-way communication as expressed in newspapers or other archival documents which primarily employ what Krippendorff describes as the 'association' model. 16 This technique calculates the degree of statistical association between words or phrases in texts, unfortunately without reference to context in time or more complex communicative interaction. For this reason Duncan complains about 'content analysis,' and compares it unfavourably to the analysis of symbols as meanings: American sociologists think poorly about communication because of their 'trained incapacity' in the use of non-mechanistic models. The reduction of all science in sociology to research models derived from the physical sciences makes it all but impossible for the sociologist to deal with meaning. Sociologists of the behavioural persuasion (and this includes a large number of American sociologists) must, if they are consistent, do away with consciousness, intention, and meaning in their research models ... It is impossible to talk about human relationships without saying something about meaning. And meaning, even when it is called 'pattern maintenance' is usually studied through the interpretation of symbols, for it is only in symbols that meaning (as attention and intention) can be observed.' 7

Some improvement can be made to the traditional 'content analysis' model. A Likert Scale can be applied to individual speeches to reveal attitudes which can then be aggregated in different time periods to give some idea of context. 18 Speeches, however, are one-way messages. How then do we study symbols used interactively? Burke's dramatistic model helps make the interactions around the rhetorical use of symbols between actors in specific social situations empirically analysable. The rhetorical use of symbols reveals purpose as an attempt to shape the ordinary discourse of society (or at least that particular societal meaning which defines the language to be used with reference to a specific policy or subject). To return to the example used in Chapter 3, when the shape of federalism in states is to be constituted and reconstituted, the dominant definition of federalism as a symbol at a given point in time helps to shape a country. In other words, it is through the analysis of the interactions involving power around the sym-

What Dramatism Is, and What It Isn't

r r5

bol of federalism which leads us to the political purposes of the actors and their 'vision' of the state. Burke's dramatistic model has another important capacity. A truly integrated holistic model such as dramatism can provide unity and elegance without danger of focusing on a single factor, or of mixing the epistemological assumptions of incompatible approaches which accompany more eclectic approaches to theory construction. Dramatism can bring together elements of approaches to social and political action not otherwise compatible with each other. Idealism (in the restricted sense of a stress on the creative and reflexive aspects of human agents - sometimes referred to as voluntarism), functionalism (in terms of the purpose of order and the agency of some state institutions to achieve it), and political economy (as the material setting for much social action) can be joined to utilize the insights of each. This is not a simple matter, since each is based on a different set of assumptions. ' 9 Sometimes theorists mix models, gathering theories together to explain state formation. In the dramatistic model, the relationship between the elements are kept in perspective by the model itself, both in each scene, and over time in the longer term. In more eclectic approaches, however, there are no guides as to the relative importance of different factors, nor are there rules or guidelines, even heuristic ones, for rigorous application of models gathered electically. As a result, distortion of their historical material follows all too easily. As well, present 'action' is viewed as part of the flowing temporal sweep of human conduct. An interaction at a given point in time and space may be considered as a particular 'scene,' and studied in detail. Ahistorical functionalist methods also attempt to do the same thing - examine a snapshot of reality at a given point in time - without the capacity to see the dynamic quality of interactions. Further, within drama as metaphor is the possibility of linking a number of such scenes together, each becoming the setting for the next. Thus, events can also be linked together over time on both short and medium terms using a number of levels of analysis, including the shortest event - the scene as part of acts in the drama as a linked series of scenes - and the drama as linked acts. Dramas themselves can be combined in series as well. Dramatism has been accepted in several disciplines as a method in the wider sense. For example, it served as the basis of the dramaturgical model in anthropology (Abner Cohen, James Fernandez, and Victor Turner); sociology Qoseph Gusfield); and political science (Murray Edelman).20 However, dramatism has been altered somewhat in the dramaturgical literature, and dramatism as used here is closer to Burke's original

116

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

intentions. In short, Burke's model goes beyond the superficial use of the analogy to extend Mead's theory of the act into a model for action . In this sense, even used informally, dramatism is more than a pleasant analogy for human action; it also reflects and amplifies the study of social events. Burke's model is a widely inclusive one which does not focus on one or another aspect of the act, but on human activity in all its depth and breadth. This is one of the characteristics which distinguishes dramatism from the method known as dramaturgy, which focuses on 'stage management.' The term dramaturgy has become more widely known than the term dramatism, and before dramatism can be applied to the state it is useful to make a distinction between the two terms as expressions of two divergent approaches. DRAMATISM AND DRAMATURGY: A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

There are different interpretations of drama as analogy for social action even of Burke's dramatism - which differ from the one presented above. Although dramaturgy is never mentioned by Burke in his theoretical writings, in fact it is dramaturgy and not dramatism which has become the dominant term in social science theory, especially in sociology and political science, and to some extent in anthropology. Both concepts refer to quite different models and are based on different theoretical assumptions. It is important to differentiate these usages in order to establish of a method for the analysis of communicative interaction that will explain social and political institutions. Dramatism provides the basis of such a methodology. Dramaturgy does so as well, although to a much more limited extent. To make things more confusing, some authors refer to dramatism in a different sense than that used by Burke, although they give Burke as the source. Authors sometimes refer to Burke as the creator of dramaturgy, sometimes not. Confusion reigns. As I see it, the basis of the difference in the concepts of dramatism and dramaturgy is that dramaturgy is often simply a narrowed version of Burke's dramatism as viewed partially through the perspective of Parsonian functionalism (not always; one exception is anthropologist Victor Turner). From this viewpoint there has been a shift in emphasis that is so important that dramatism and dramaturgy cannot be considered the same method. Some sociologists have retained a verbal commitment to Burke's work, even though they might have transformed it with a Parsonian overlay. In the broader conventional sociological and anthropological literature

What Dramatism Is, and What It Isn't

117

of the past few decades, however, Burke's writings - and thus the term dramatism - have largely disappeared from view. Dramaturgy remains as the dominant model. We can make the distinction between dramatism and dramaturgy clearer by tracing the use of Burke's dramatistic model from its inception in the 1940s to its transformation in the 1950s, 6os and 70s, and its virtual disappearance from the textbooks of the 1980s and 90s. Among those who were influenced by Burke but who recast dramatism through functionalism, we can count sociologists Joseph Gusfield and Hugh Dalziel Duncan (and perhaps Erving Goffman), who were writing in the 1950s, and political scientist Murray Edelman in the 1960s. More recently, sociologists Gusfield, Altheide, and Johnson, and anthropologists Fernandez and Cohen have adapted aspects of the same tradition. Thus, it will be useful here to discuss briefly the work of scholars from the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, and political science (on the subject of Burke, dramatism, and dramaturgy), which will provide a context for the use of Burke's original concept of dramatism for the empirical analysis of the state.

Dramatism and Dramaturgy in Sociology Goffman is the sociologist most associated with the concept of dramaturgy. His use of the concept tends to be viewed in contemporary reviews of sociological theory as a subvariety of 'symbolic interactionism.' Not only dramaturgy, but also the use of the drama itself as a metaphor, is often presented as Goffman's original theoretical contribution. For example, Wallace and Wolf write: 'In his early and often-cited work The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Goffman takes the familiar sociological concept role, and puts it "back on stage" by placing the analysis of human behaviour in a theatrical setting. He takes the dramatic situation of actors and actresses on stage and applies this theatrical representation to the everyday lives of ordinary women and men who are acting out their roles in the real world.' 21 In a similar vein, Ken Menzies writes: 'An important addition to symbolic interaction is provided by one strand in the early work of Goffman a dramaturgical analysis that appears to be based on a stage manager's experience of the theatre ... any social establishment can be usefully studied from the point of view of impression management.' 22 And, as a final example of this attribution, in a recent textbook, Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences, Bruce L. Berg uses dramaturgy as a methodological approach. 23 Berg attributes the term dramaturgy to both Goffman and

11 8

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

Burke. 'In this text, interviewing is perceived as a "social performance" (Goffman 1959) organized around the premise that interviewing is best guided by a dramaturgical model. (Burke 1957, 1966).' 14 Berg has merged the dramaturgical model with the dramatistic by juxtaposing Goffman and Burke without explanation, out of conceptual confusion. Since Goffman is so often granted the authorship of the concept of dramaturgy, it is necessary to examine more carefully the influence of Burke's dramatism on Goffman's dramaturgy. First, it has already been noted that Burke does not use the term dramaturgy in his theoretical writings, but only dramatism . Nor does Goffman use the latter term in his major work, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. It can be argued, however, that Burke's work lies beneath Goffman's theory as an important footing that is not explicitly revealed. 15 Goffman uses the term performance to refer to 'all the activity of an individual which occurs during a period marked by his continuous presence before a particular set of observers and which has some influence on the observers.' 16 He adds that 'it will be convenient to label as "front" that part of the individual's performance which regularly functions in a general and fixed fashion to define the situation for those who observe the performance.'17 Next, Goffman identifies what he calls the 'setting' in similar but more restrictive terms than does Burke: 'involving furniture, decor, physical layout and other background items which supply the scenery and stage props for the spate of human action played out before, within, or upon it.' 18 He then examines 'setting in relation to the "front" that an actor portrays.' His term personal front refers specifically to items of expressive equipment, those items that we identify most intimately with the performer himself, and that we naturally expect will follow the performer wherever he goes.19 Goffman goes on to divide 'personal front' into 'appearance' and 'manner,' noting that we expect some consistency between the two. He uses the stern and uncompromising look of a mandarin in China at the turn of the century as an example of such consistency. Goffman refers to Burke several times, and situates the relationship of his theory to Burke's dramatistic model relatively precisely.30 Goffman focuses his work on the restricted relationship of setting, appearance, and manner. This relationship is also the subject of his reference to Burke's 'scene-act ratio,' which Burke presents in a A Grammar of Motives.31 A further citation of Burke by Goffman, later in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, deals with the 'rhetoric of medicine' in terms of the 'roles that doctors play which give the patient a dramatic theatrical medical show for his (or her) money.' 31 From Goffman's comments, it seems his idea of

What Dramatism Is, and What It Isn't

119

dramaturgy is confused with Burke's notion of rhetoric. Or perhaps it is a deliberate, implicit conglomeration of Burke's concepts of dramatism and rhetoric. Goffman's definition of performance, as noted above, is very close to Burke's functional definition of rhetoric (the use of words by human agents to change the actions and attitudes of other human agents). Since Goffman also writes that 'if the individual's activity is to become significant to others, he must mobilize his activity so that it will express during the interaction what he wishes to convey,' 33 it seems that Goffman re-orients Burke's notion of rhetoric to say that performance is the use of actions to change the actions and attitudes of audiences. Burke includes such imagery in rhetoric, but it does not dominate his concept of dramatism so completely. 34 Why does Goffman make this conscious, or unconscious, change in emphasis, narrowing rhetoric and combining it with a limited dramatism? I suggest that Goffman has a different assumption about action and its role to a passive audience (hence the emphasis on the term audience itself). In an interaction, the other participant can be another actor, but when the receptor of any rhetoric is assumed to be passive, he or she (or a collection of people) is an audience in a difference sense than as an active participant in a conversation. Thus Durkheim's and Parsons's notion of norms seems to be an important foundation of Goffman's perspective, subtly changing the nature of communicative interaction to communicative action, and dramatism to dramaturgy.JS Interaction as reflective mutual experience based on reciprocal meanings is thus lost. For whatever reason, Goffman does not make his changes to Burke's emphasis or his differences from Burke explicit. What is clear, however, is that Goffman has come to dominate the metaphor of the social drama in sociology. Even Goffman's interpretation of dramaturgy has not been completely sacrosanct, however. How far contemporary reviews of Goffman have strayed, not only from Burke but from Goffman himself, is illustrated by another quotation from a textbook on contemporary sociological theory by Wallace and Wolf. They claim that 'Goffman's "impression management" is essentially a strategy for avoiding embarrassment or shame, and is inspired by pride, a desire to "look good." When Goffman asks, "Aren't we all con artists after all?" this points to one of the reasons why we want to control others' impressions of us - to avoid being embarrassed.'36 However, if we read carefully, the example of medical performance presented in Goffman's The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, we see that the rhetorical purposes of the dramaturgical had a number of inspirations, including material ones. Indeed, Goffman refers to mystifica-

120

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

tion (again citing Burke), which in its original Marxist meaning is concerned with portraying symbols that benefit the few as though they benefit the many. Murray Edelman's use of dramaturgy is also very much concerned with who gets what in the name of particular symbols.37 We can also consider what Burke has to say about Goffman's theory. A mention of Goffman is to be found in Burke's entry on dramatism, in the Interaction section of the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, published in 1968. Burke is generous in sharing his concept of dramatism: Strictly speaking ... dramatism is a theory of terminology. In this respect a nomenclature could be called dramatistic only if it were specifically designed to talk, at one remove, about the cycle of terms implicit in the idea of an act. But in a wider sense any study of human relations in terms of 'action' could be to that extent called dramatism ... Shifts in the locus and scope of a terminology's circumstance allow for countless subdivisions ranging from words like 'transaction,' 'exchange,' 'competition,' and 'cooperation,' or the manoeuvres studied in the obvious drama-like situations of game theories, down to the endless individual verbs designed to narrate specifically what some one person did, or said, or thought at some one time. Thus, Duncan (1962) has explicitly applied a dramatistic nomenclature to hierarchy and the sociology of comedy. Similarly Goffman (1956) has characterized in his study of 'impression management' as ' dramaturgicaJ.'3 8

While Burke pays tribute to Parsons in the same article, Burke's use of the dramatistic metaphor does not need to be taken, nor is it best taken, in a functionalist guise, or reified in the sense of being more important than the reality it attempts to describe, but rather as a method in the broader sense. It is not, for example, described as deterministic in A Grammar of Motives. Any true Parsonian overlay undermines the original theory and leads to dramatism as impression - and value - management without concern for the reaction of the agents to whom one is addressing rhetoric as performance. Interaction becomes ' communicative' action. Rhetoric as persuasion becomes propaganda. The shift from dramatism to dramaturgy can be documented in the work of another influential sociologist, Joseph Gusfield. In Gusfield's first major work, he specifically adapts Burke's dramatistic model in relation to 'a dramatistic theory of status politics,' and cites Burke's A Grammar of Motives: The distinction between political action as significant per se and political action as means to an end is the source of the theory underlying our analysis of the temperance movement. We refer to it as a dramatistic theory because, like drama, it repre-

What Dramatism Is, and What It Isn't

121

sents an action which is make-believe but which moves its audience. It is in keeping with Kenneth Burke's meaning of dramatism, 'since it invites one to consider the matter of motives in a perspective that, being developed from the analysis of drama, treats language and thought primarily as modes of action.' It is make-believe in that the action need have no relation to its ostensible goal. The effect upon the audience comes from the significance which they find in the action as it represents events or figures outside of the drama. Throughout the analysis of Temperance we have referred to the symbolic nature of Temperance goals. Our theory is further dramatistic in its perspective on political action as symbolic action, as action in which 'the object referred to has a range of meaning beyond itself.'3 9

In this study Gusfield closely identifies Burke's approach, which he clearly describes as dramatism. In a more recent book, however, Gusfield writes that 'the form of study now called dramaturgy' is based on Burke, whom Gusfield calls 'the seminal figure of dramaturgy,' although 'Erving Goffman's development of it in analyzing interaction has been the major source of its introduction into social science.' 40 Gusfield states: 'To see public action and public policies as theatrical is to emphasize the ritual, ceremonial, and dramatic qualities of action. It is to see public actions, like plays, as artistic, as constructed within conventions particular to that genre of actions, just as dramas are staged within conventional understandings between audience and performers.' 41 This is now the standard use of dramaturgy as impression management and ritual performance, and while Gusfield pays lip-service to Burke, he, like Goffman, loses the holistic and interactional depth of Burke's approach. It is not surprising that Gusfield separates himself from George Herbert Mead, acknowledging that he is only dealing with part of Mead's notion of communicative interaction. In a footnote to Symbolic Crusade Gusfield writes, 'Neither is our usage to be equated with the discussion of symbolic behavior used in the writings of the symbolic interaction school of social psychology, best represented by the works of George H. Mead. The idea of symbolic behavior in that context emphasizes the linguistic and imaginative processes as implicated in behavior. It is by no means contrary to our usage of symbols but the context is not specifically literary. The symbolic interactionists call attention to the fact that objects are given meanings by the systems of concept formation. We emphasize one aspect of this process.' 42 Once again, in keeping with functionalist influenced interpreters of Mead and Burke (who would not admit to being functionalist at all), Gusfield is explicitly 'actionist' rather than 'interactionist.'

122

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

The sociologist who sticks closest to Burke's original model is Hugh Dalziel Duncan. Duncan's books, however, also focus on both Mead and Burke, but with a distinct functionalist hue. In Symbols in Society, Duncan attempts to convert Mead's and Burke's work into propositional form along positivist lines. In Communication and Social Order and Symbols and Social Theory, Duncan outlines his theory of symbols as a review of the literature in terms of order and integration, respectively. However, Duncan does remain true to Burke's dramatism as a method, and does not change his terminology. Dramaturgy and Dramatism in Anthropology In anthropology the literature on dramaturgy has followed two different paths, one which traces descent from Burke and one which does not. Victor Turner has based his own approach on his more recent emphasis on ritual. Turner's model is founded on the case study approach stressed by his mentor, Max Gluckman. In his books Schism and Continuity, The Forest of Symbols, Drums of Affliction, and Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors Turner explored what he called 'social drama.' 43 His position converges in some respects with those of Mead and Burke. A section of the opening chapter of Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors gives a retrospective insight into Turner's approach. First, he distinguishes himself in some respects from the functionalists of the fifties and sixties while he was doing research in Africa. In the social process - meaning by 'process' here merely the general course of social action - in which I found myself among the Ndembu of Zambia, it is quite useful to think 'biologically' about 'village life-cycles' and 'domestic cycles,' the 'origin,' 'growth,' and 'decay' of villages, families and lineages, but not too helpful to think about change as immanent in the structure of Ndembu society, when there was clearly 'a wind of change,' economic, political, social, religious, legal, and so on, sweeping through the whole of central Africa and originating outside all village societies. The functionalists of my period in Africa tended to think of change as 'cyclical' and 'repetitive' and of time as structured time not free time. With my conviction as to the dynamic character of social relations I saw movement as much as structure, persistence as much as change, indeed, persistence as a striking aspect of change. I saw people interacting, and as day succeeded day, the consequences of their interactions. 44

Next, Turner describes how he came to associate these interactions with 'social drama', and how they could be analysable in terms of the metaphor

What Dramatism Is, and What It Isn't

12 3

of the drama. Like Burke, Turner identifies the drama as a human rather than a naturalistic metaphor. Turner also explores conflict in society in ways compatible with Burke's analysis: I then began to perceive a form in the process of social time. This form was essentially dramatic. My metaphor and model here was a human aesthetic form, a product of culture not of nature. A cultural form was the model for a social scientific concept ... One of the most arresting properties of Ndembu social life in villages was its propensity toward conflict. Conflict was rife in the groups of two dozen or so kinsfolk who made up a village community. It manifested itself in public episodes of tensional irruption which I called 'social dramas.' Social dramas took place in what Kurt Lewin might have called 'aharmonic' phases of the ongoing social process. When the interests and attitudes of groups and individuals stood in obvious opposition, social dramas did seem to me to constitute isolated and minutely describable units of social process. 41

Turner argues that the units of social dramas (which he later called processual units) may be considered universal, and usable in cross-societal comparisons: 'Not every social drama reached a clear resolution but enough did so to make it possible to state what I then called the "processual form" of the drama ... subsequent research ... has convinced me that social dramas, with much the same temporal or processual structure as I detected in the Ndembu case, can be isolated for study in societies at all levels of scale and complexity.' 46 Finally, Turner speaks about the applicability of social drama in political situations: 'This is particularly the case of political situations and belongs to what I now call the dimension of "structure": as opposed to "communitas" as a generic mode of human interrelatedness. Yet there is communitas, too, in one stage of the social drama, as I hope to show, and perhaps the capacity of its successive phases to have continuity is a function of communitas.'47 There seem to be some divergencies and convergencies between Turner and Burke. Turner is more closely associated with functionalism through the influence of Gluckman (in his work as a disguised equilibrium model). 48 The biggest similarity between Burke's and Turner's models is that, for both the drama serves as an all-inclusive metaphor for social interaction. Thus, Turner's views coincide with Burke's more closely than do others who focus on the term dramaturgy influenced by Parsons, and who only give lip-service to Burke. On the other hand, Burke deals much better with the contraditions of social interaction around significant symbols, and the relationship of those contradictions to societal institutions. Indeed, through

124

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

his use of the concept of rhetoric Burke places conflict at the heart of his model. Turner is not the only anthropologist who deals with drama as metaphor and method in anthropology. In his collection of essays, Persuasions and Performances, James Fernandez writes of being influenced by both Mead and Burke, and notes that the metaphor of life as a drama has 'long been compelling,' without making it the central feature of his analysis, or using the term dramaturgy. 49 His emphasis is more on the use of tropes in persuasion, and their implications for performance. Abner Cohen is another anthropologist who explicitly uses the dramaturgy label, for example, in the subtitle of The Politics of Elite Culture: Explorations in the Dramaturgy of Power in a Modern African Society.so Cohen also refers to the dramaturgy of power in his description of Creole society in Sierra Leone.SI Cohen is concerned with 'the topicality, the living immediacy and concreteness of the drama. No matter how old or traditional its script, it is an instantaneous event experienced in here and now reality, tackling current problems that are confronted by real people. The most formal, abstract and remote dramatic blueprint is authenticated in terms of live contemporary issues ... It is a vehicle in the social process, effecting continuity as well as change ( 1 57-8 ).' This description of social drama seems to take more from Turner than from Goffman. The power Cohen focuses upon is positional power in the social hierarchy, not the relationship of rhetoric to power as is the emphasis in Burke. However, Cohen does show how everyday symbolic events can be involved in major power struggles in society. Indeed, in an earlier volume Cohen refers to both Turner and Duncan (the latter is directly influenced by Burke), simultaneously invoking the two uses of the drama metaphor in anthropology. Thus, in his discussion of the symbolic distribution of power, Cohen comments on the role of the drama and the analysis of dramatic performances: Some of the answers to these problems can be found in the search for and analysis of key dramatic performances that are found in all societies. Social behaviour generally manifests itself phenomenologically in endless series of such performances which thus pervade the whole fabric of social life. These performances have been called 'social dramas' by Turner (1957) and 'sociodrama' by Duncan (1968). Both scholars have made significant contributions to the analysis of the structure and process of these symbolic events. Some of these dramas are more crucial than others for the development, maintenance and functioning of the organization of a group. It is in these dramas that the political and the symbolic orders interpenetrate and

What Dramatism Is, and What It Isn't

r2 5

affect one another. Each drama tries to effect a transformation in the psyches of the participants, conditioning their attitudes and sentiments, repetitively renewing beliefs, values and norms and thereby creating and recreating the basic categorical imperatives upon which the group depends for its existence. At the same time, some or many of the participants may attempt or manipulate, modify or change the symbols of the drama to articulate minor or major changes in the 'message' of the dramaY

This passage brings to mind Nigel Barley's assertion in Symbolic Structures: An Exploration of the Culture of the Dowayos, that there are several models of symbolism to choose from: 'representational' ones usually associated with Victor Turner, structural modes involving transformation, others concerned with connotation and communication, and rhetorical models. SJ As noted above, Cohen seems to be employing the first two of these simultaneously. The last sentence of Cohen's passage, cited above, seems to include the rhetorical perspective as well. Finally, Clifford Geertz cites Burke in his description of interpretative anthropology. He also refers to the work of ethnographic analysis in terms that might well apply to Burke. Geertz writes, 'Analysis, then, is sorting out the structures of signification - what Ryle calls established codes, a somewhat misleading expression, for it makes the enterprise sound too much like that of the cipher clerk when it is much more like that of the literary critic - and determining their social ground and import. ' 54 Geertz does not use the dramatistic metaphor in his research in any rigorous way. Dramatism, however, including Burke's dramatism, is becoming an important part of an approach to ethnography which emphasizes the 'poetic,' a conceptual cousin to postmodernism which also deals more with rhetoric and the poetic than with theoretical orientations in the past, and which is partly derived from Geertz. Explaining the Change from Dramatism to Dramaturgy

If dramaturgy has replaced dramatism as the dominant concept in use, relating the metaphor of the drama to social theory, how can we understand this shift? One of the most interesting aspects of the transition from the use of the term dramatism to the term dramaturgy is Gusfield's statement, cited above, that Goffman's development of dramaturgy in the empirical analysis of interaction has been the major source of its introduction into social science. It has also been noted how Victor Turner successfully developed his concept of social drama based on its explanatory

126

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

capacity in empirical case studies. In other words, the practicality of a theoretical model for actually doing research in the field is crucial for qualitative methods in sociology and anthropology. The application of dramaturgy in emperical analysis, including field-work, seems to have made it more accepted. On the other hand, the theoretical compatibility with functionalism of Goffman's notion of dramaturgy may have greatly assisted in this acceptance. Dramatism has lacked application in the field, although dramatism takes rhetoric as performance into account, and also includes the rest of Burke's and Turner's approaches. It is to be stressed that dramatism emphasizes the different aspects of interaction in society the whole 'act.' DRAMATISM AND THE STATE

If models stand a better chance of being accepted in research when they are seen to 'work,' providing a better 'fit' with reality in terms of the context of action and their degree of intuitive appeal than existing models; and if Burke's original model is to be demonstrated or tested as suitable for an analysis of interaction than dramaturgy from a theoretical perspective (that is, more than merely rhetoric considered as performance in paternalistic and normative ways); then the potential of Burke's dramatism in relation to techniques for empirical research must also be investigated. This is the subject of the next chapter. In the meantime, the relevance of dramatism for analysis of the state, considered in a general way, will put that discussion in context. Readers will recall that dramatism as an holistic model can integrate the contributions of several analytic approaches without mixing theories and incompatible assumptions; (it can include the creative individual of voluntarist approaches, the emphasis on order and institutions of the structural functionalist, and the material forces acting as environment for action which Marxists stress). The contest for definition of political meaning which takes place in rhetorical contests analysable though dramatism is also compatible with the cutting edge of Marxist theories of the state - for example, those based on the writings of Antonio Gramsci. 11 Burke's model includes elements of approaches to social and political action not otherwise compatible with each other, including idealism in relation to the actors in the drama; functionalism in terms of the purpose of order, and the agency of some state institutions to achieve it; and political economy as the material setting for all social action. 16 It does not, however, merely mix theories together in an eclectic manner.

What Dramatism Is, and What It Isn't

127

We can briefly illustrate the elements of the model in relation to the state, to show how they might be applied. Action The constitution and reconstitution of the institutions of the state can serve as an example of the 'action,' the activities which serve as the foundation of these institutions. Burke mentions constitution creation as a suitable example for his model. Burke considers a constitution a kind of metaphor for human relations: 'Let the reader grant this in our favour: that in featuring the Constitution as the model for our idiom, we shall have grounded a book in Human Relations upon the very Constitution of our country and what social philosophy could be more thorough in its patriotism?' 57 Burke also stresses the importance of the legal aspects of constitutions. To Burke a constitution is 'an act, a body of acts (or enactments), done by agents (such as rulers, magistrates, or other representative persons) of subsequent action, and designed (purpose) to serve as a motivational ground (scene) of subsequent actions, it being thus an instrument (agency) for the shaping of human relations.' 58 Setting As we have seen, the setting for communicative interaction takes place in space and time. The physical setting in space is the 'stage'; not only in terms of 'front' and 'back' stage, but the place in both space and time upon which the drama is played out, social situation by social situation, scene by scene. I have argued that the analysis of space - particularly the analysis of communication in spatial terms, and the transportation of ideas, data, goods, and people which is often confused with communication - is a specialized empirical study in itself, linked to the disciplines of geography and political economy. Social communication has been used in two senses in social science: Mead's, which is concerned with communication through shared significant symbols in communicative interaction; and those concerned with spatial patterns of transactions. Relating the two together as well as possible, we can say that the spatial setting for societal communicative interaction, especially between social groups and classes, lies in the physical patterns of transportation and circulation, and in the urban networks that grow up as the transportation network develops. The hierarchy of urban centres and the domination of the press, radio, and television media within a country is part of this analysis of setting for communicative interaction, but is not the main 'action' itself. While Mead's notion of social communication is primary, in the sense that there has to be something to communicate, there is also a physical requirement for some medium of com-

128

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

munication for significant symbols in interaction. We have already considered the work of Innis and Deutsch in this field. In general, setting refers to all the environmental factors which affect action, including time. Interactions that have occurred in the past serve as the setting for specific actions with respect to constitutional change in the present. Actors The actors in the drama are individuals who nonetheless are representative of various collectivities such as social groups, status groups, and classes. These actors include both elite actors and non-elites, although for much of its history Canada has operated on the basis of elite negotiation and accommodation. Ralph Miliband distinguishes between state elites and political elites, the former representing the institutions of the state and the latter, such as business, media, labour unions, and political parties, influencing the political process. 19 Five of the most important relevant actors may be identified in relation to the national state: international actors such as individual nations, and international organizations such as the United Nations or the World Bank; indigenous rural social groups and classes; urban social groups and classes; specific important urban based pressure groups in a political, economic, or other sense, which influence the actions of the state; and elements of the state - the different institutions which comprise it. 60 All levels included here are represented by individuals in their interactions, although not necessarily in an organized way. Religion, region, and social class are all represented here, sometimes in the same person. The pressure groups of the 'political' system, and the elements of the 'state' system will have selfconscious representatives of their organized institutions. 61 This is equally true of foreign economic interests and governments. In states where there is still a significant rural population, rural interests and ethnic groups may have such leadership as well. However, even in these cases, an economic determination of attitudes as incipient action for individuals representing social groups and classes is not to be assumed. A pluralist theory of elite interactions is not presented or advocated here; however, social groups and classes are made up of individuals, some of whom will speak for the group in any given interaction, and who will be conscious of their role to a greater or lesser extent. A classification of actors and interactions depends on an implicit or explicit theory about what interactions are important. Even a simple designation of 'levels' of actors is based upon a perceived hierarchy. In this case the theory is a synthesis of notions of cross-level dependencies of actors in

What Dramatism Is, and What It Isn't

129

unequal communication, using the various approaches that see the state as reflective of societal communications already described, the patterns for which were established in the colonial period primarily for economic purposes. It therefore combines the emphasis on metropole - the hinterland relations that Andre Gunder Frank stresses - with added concern for internal hierarchical relations between town and countryside, which utilize the colonial transportation and communication infrastructures created with the extraction of staples for external consumption in mind, as the economy is gradually converted from a precapitalist one to one utilizing wages and cash. The concept of internal colonialism is relevant here, as Havens and Flinn describe it: 'Internal colonialism refers to structural arrangements typified by a relatively small dominant group which controls the allocation of resources and a large subjected mass composed of various groups ... We differ from the more common usage of the concept as found in the writings of Gonzalez Casanova in that the subjected groups are not necessarily of different racial origins than the dominant group.' 61 The emphasis in this example is on geographic and other kinds of inequality, focusing on international-national, urban-rural, intergroup, and interpersonal hierarchy, including political and economic factors. The interactions and the rhetoric which accompany them can also be based on ethnicity or religion. To the levels of international metropole, rural communities, and urban centres can be added the additional subdivisions of the urban elite, the political system consisting of political social groups, and the state elites which make up the elements of the state system. Thus, the five levels that are included in this hypothetical analysis are the international level, the rural community, the urban centres as more politically and economically powerful than the countryside, the primarily urban based political groups, and the state elite as formally the most powerful of all. If the hierarchy of levels is indeed to be considered as a hierarchy of power, then this must be empirically established for each country, whether the international community is more or less powerful than the indigenous elite, and no matter which group in the country (or outside of it) has the rhetorical capacity to shape the definitions of meaning of political reality in day-co-day terms. To keep track of some of the interactions through which the state is 'constituted,' Table 6.1 lists several interrelated varieties of interaction. To further explore these interactions, Table 6.2 creates possible interactions between the elements of Burke's dramatistic model, including cell entries referring to the six different elements: (1) What kind of action or 'scene' is involved? (2) Who are the actors? (3) What environmental factors, including historical events and special features, serve as the setting? (4) What are

130

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

TABLE 6.1

Levels of Interaction between Actors in the African State Actors 1. International

I. 2. 3. 4. 5.

International Rural Urban Political elites State elites

1.1

2. Rural

3. Urban

4. Social elites

5. State elites

1.2 2.2

1.3 2.3 3.3

1.4 2.4 3.4 4.4

1.5 2.5 3.5 4.5 5.5

the purposes of the actors? (5) What are their attitudes as incipient action? and (6) What agency do they use to achieve their ends? The analysis of the political interactions of the state can thus proceed by a systematic review of the interactions deemed relevant, both by the theoretical model used to categorize levels of interactions and the elements of the dramatistic approach. Such an examination of the cell entries of Table 6.2, one by one, might begin to approach the complexity of politics, and would be relatively thorough and rigorous.63 It can be argued that interactions include several of our five levels at one period of time rather than two only. While this is true, a multilevel qualitative analysis akin to multivariate statistical analysis is a difficult task, simply in terms of effort. A more or less complete analysis of even the interactions introduced in Table 6.2 would consist of several volumes for any given state. Purposes and Attitudes Purpose is related to instrumental intelligence, and is one of the key factors which distinguishes this model from others. The dramatistic model allows for purposes to be included in the analysis, as well as attitudes as incipient actions. This is a major advance on models which see social activity in terms of mechanical or biological metaphors, ones which cannot, by definition, include these characteristics of human agents. The question to be considered here is how purposes and attitudes might be empirically analyzed in the context of the rest of the elements of the dramatistic model. The purposes of actors that seem self-interested are often assumed, in contemporary theory, to fall under the banner of the rationalchoice orientation. Indeed, Abner Cohen's approach to symbol use in symbolic interaction has been interpreted in terms of the rational choice approach. 64 However, self-interested choices cannot be reduced to rationally determined choices. Nor are all purposes self-interested, or state-

What Dramatism Is, and What It Isn't

131

TABLE 6.2 Levels ot Interaction between Actors, including Elements ot the Dramatistic Model, in the Hypothetical Example Elements of the Dramatistic Model

Int'I-Int'l Im'l-rural Im'l-urban Int'l-elites Int'l-state Rural-rural Rural-urban Rural-groups Rural-state Urban-urban Urban-groups Urban-state Groups-state State-state

Action

Actors

Setting

Purpose

Attitudes

Agency

LI.I 1.2.1 1.3.1 1.4.1 1.5.1 2.2.1 2.3.1 2.4.1 2.5.1 3.2.1 3.4.1 3.5.1 4.5.1 5.5.1

1.1.2 1.2.2 1.3.2 1.4.2 1.5.2 2.2.2 2.3.2 2.4.2 2.5.2 3.2.2 3.4.2 3.5.2 4.5.2 5.5.2

1.1.3 1.2.3 1.3.3 1.4.3 1.5.3 2.2.3 2.3.3 2.4.3 2.5.3 3.2.3 3.4 .3 3.5.3 4.5.3 5.5.3

1.1.4 1.2.4 1.3.4 1.4.4 1.5.4 2.2.4 2.3.4 2.4.4 2.5.4 3.2.4 3.4.4 3.5.4 4.5.4 5.5.4

1.1.5 1.2.5 1.3.5 1.4.5 1.5.5 2.2.5 2.3.5 2.4.5 2.5.5 3.2.5 3.4.5 3.5.5 4.5.5 5.5.5

1.1.6 1.2.6 1.3.6 1.4.6 1.5.6 2.2.6 2.3.6 2.4.6 2.5.6 3.2.6 3.4.6 3.5.6 4.5.6 5.5.6

ments of intention always to be taken at face value. People say they plan to act in ways they have no intention of fulfilling, perhaps .because of the demands of the moment, or because they think others in the conversation will want to hear them say these things, and will credit their good intentions. This 'saying without doing' has been called symbolic policy in some of the political science literature. 65 Therefore, partly for this reason, the quantitative analysis of communicative content (usually referred to as 'content analysis') is not appropriate for the analysis of purposes. This task of detailed analysis must be undertaken social situation by social situation, interaction by interaction, to reveal the whole interaction, actor by actor, part by part. The analysis of attitudes and emotions poses its own practical challenges. Perhaps the best empirical method for the analysis of emotions and attitudes in an individual over time is the 'life history' as used in anthropology as a subspecies of ethnographic studies. After all, when we are studying symbols in relation to each other, including the different meanings of a symbol in relation to other symbols, we are studying culture defined as a 'system' of symbols. Therefore, our study of interactions must be in the context of an ethnographic study of society, which serves as the foundation for the analysis of life histories that relates culture to individual attitudes.

1 32

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

Agency Agency refers to the means used to obtain the actors' ends. These can be coercion as physical force, or other varieties of power. In this book, the focus is on rhetoric as a variety of power in a given social situation, using words and symbols, including different figures of speech, to change the actions and attitudes of other human agents. It is suggested that rhetoric plays an important role in the state, in many instances making physical coercion unnecessary. The question of whether physical coercion, psychological coercion through propaganda, or persuasion are used to obtain political ends, needs to be examined on a case-by-case basis. While positivist epistemology calls out for generalizations, or even laws about which of these varieties of power is appropriate in a deductive model of explanation, or is likely to be used in a probability model of explanation, I am content to argue that rhetoric may possibly be used as an alternative to the more commonly assumed forms of power. 66 These elements of Burke's model are presented individually for discussion purposes, but it is important to stress that they are only useful in relation to each other, in each case study. Elements must also not be taken as rigid categories, but as guides to a research that includes different aspects of social and political action. Finally, it is useful to relate the dramatistic method to other approaches in qualitative research. When qualitative methods are mentioned, the writings of Anselm Strauss are often mentioned. My approach has some interesting parallels and significant differences to that of Strauss. It is interesting to note that Strauss wrote a useful and insightful introduction to a collection of George Herbert Mead's papers published titled, 'George Herbert Mead on Social Psychology,'67 but there is no obvious connection between this essay and his writing on practical research methods such as Basics of Qualitative Research, written with co-author Julia Corbin in 1990. 68 This latter volume, often used as a textbook in courses on qualitative methods, starts with positivist assumptions about the creation of general laws to be tested empirically, with qualitative research (concerned with the meaning rather than the measure of a phenomenon) primarily reserved for exploratory analysis, in order to prepare hypotheses which can later be tested quantitatively. I suggest that the results of qualitative research are useful for their own sake. This means that the urgency to structure the results of research for positivist purposes in Basics of Qualitative Research seems driven by a principle that now seems unimportant and even misguided. It may be necessary for research to be grounded, but it is not necessary to create grounded theory. Strauss has a fairly rigid structure for his system of collecting informa-

What Dramatism Is, and What It Isn't

1 33

tion, a structure that includes a number of steps. The first is coding of information, as in the asking of questions or the 'conceptualization of data' that include 'open,' 'axial,' and 'selective' coding (63). Open coding provides conceptual labels as identifications of phenomena which can be treated as 'data,' which can subsequently be grouped under 'categories' in the context of the activity being observed. This 'fracturing' of the data includes properties an dimensions (77). Axial coding refers to procedures that put the data together in new ways after open coding by 'making connections between categories' (96). This is done using a 'paradigm model' (99) that creates subcategories of a particular category or 'phenomenon' by searching out its causal conditions, in context (in terms of its specific set of properties), intervening conditions (its broader structural context), action/interaction strategies (as goals and purposes, sometimes reflexive, within action as process), and its consequences. Consequences of action/interaction at one point in time may become part of the conditions in another (106). Finally, selective coding refers to the integration of the data about a category or phenomenon by creating a 'story line' which conceptualizes it, a 'descriptive narrative about the central phenomenon of the study' (116), and then relates the paradigm model and the dimensions of categories to them, and filling in gaps in the narrative by 'filling in categories that may need further refinement' (188). Strauss's approach is noteworthy in that it includes motivation, even reflexive motivation, as part of this framework for analysis. This is a central feature of Burke's model, created decades before that of Strauss. In the second place, Strauss's framework includes viewing categories in terms of a narrative story line in order to integrate them. This has an obvious superficial resemblance to viewing social action through the metaphor of the drama. Third, Strauss allow that the consequences of one action can be part of the context for, as Burke puts it, the 'setting' for another. The difference between Strauss and Burke is the nature of the category itself. The category for Strauss is an abstracted one, suitable for 'operationalizing.' Following Mead, the focus for Burke is a social symbol. In Burke's approach, such symbols are identified and focused upon by researchers with particular interests, and then the contest for meaning of the symbol is described in a narrative way. Symbols as foci for analysis of social life are not treated by Burke as 'data.' Because Burke does not feel the need to create positivistic covering laws in order to explain particular phenomena, the more superficial and rigid aspects of Strauss's approach are laid over social reality like a net; there is no artificial barrier between analysis and meaning in social !ife.

1 34

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Burke's dramatistic model has been introduced and applied to the state as an alternative to the mechanical or biological metaphors for human activity which do not permit the analysis of communicative interaction in the state or anywhere else. As in the book as a whole, my theoretical task in part has been to strip away the accretion and erosion which have hidden Burke's approach and detracted from it. Dramatism takes rhetoric as performance into account, but includes the different aspects of action in society - the whole act. It has also been argued that dramatism is a holistic model which can integrate the contributions of several analytic approaches without mixing theories and incompatible assumptions. The dramatistic model, including concepts of rhetoric and power, can constructively combine a number of methods: idealism; the emphasis on order and institutions of the structural functionalist; and the material forces acting as context, which Marxists stress. Burke's model includes elements of approaches to social and political action not otherwise compatible with each other, including idealism in relation to the actors in the drama; functionalism in terms of the purpose of order, and the agency of some state institutions to achieve it; and political economy as the material setting for all social action. 69 It does not, however, merely mix theories together in an eclectic manner. I have also suggested that the success of dramaturgy as a model incorporating social drama was, like Victor Turner in anthropology, due to the appeal of dramaturgy as an aid to empirical research that was compatible with functionalism as a theoretical paradigm. The strength of dramatism as an aid to 'theory as aid to research' in addition to 'theory as theory' was transferred to dramaturgy, leaving dramatism as 'theory as theory' alone.7° But the dramatistic model can serve the role of 'theory as aid to research' in a more inclusive way than dramaturgy, without its functionalist assumptions. Dramatism provides a way of analyzing different kinds of reflexive communicative interactions in which relationships of power are present, and in which symbols are used ideologically in rhetoric. Dramatism can be used as a model at any level, but for our purposes it is useful for the analysis of the constitution and reconstitution of the state, the relationship of rhetoric and public policy, and international communications, to name only the topics touched on in this book. In brief, dramatism, incorporating Burke's pragmatic use of the concept of rhetoric, is an appropriate approach for analyzing the contests for meaning which take place between individuals, social groups, social classes, and the state.

7 Applying Dramatism

The general application of dramatism to the state in the last chapter has led us closer to empirical analysis. Burke had the application of dramatism to societal institutions, including the state, explicitly in mind. His discussion of dramatism in A Grammar of Motives focuses on constitutions as representative anecdotes, and federal constitutions as his specific example. In Chapter 6 I tried to show that dramatistic analysis can be employed as a device in which the rhetorical manipulation of symbols can be studied to reveal the contests for meaning and the contradictions in society; furthermore, that dramatism can be employed as a metaphor which enables 'scenes' to be linked together over time of long and short duration, and dispersed geographically. There is, however, another step to take in this argument: we can illustrate how practical 'techniques' may be used to analyze case studies empirically, as part of the general method. I will now apply the dramatistic model to specific social situations accessible through a variety of qualitative methods, particularly ethnographic field-work. Studying communicative interaction at the level of the state is a daunting undertaking, even if we were to focus only on the constitution and reconstitution of the state. Practically speaking, the task needs to be broken down into manageable elements, or units, of analysis. It has already been suggested that the dramatistic model provides one such manageable unit in the form of the 'scene'. The method of using scenes as units of analysis is based on reflections on my field-work in Cameroon. (This analysis of state and policy formation in Cameroon, and work in progress on Canada, will be used for illustration later in the chapter.) The main aim of this method is to attempt to make the phenomena which puzzle us more intelligible, utilizing a notion of explanation which emphasizes the rationale for human action, whether or not it seems rational to the researcher.' Clifford Geertz

136

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

uses similar terms. His notion of 'thick description,' borrowed from Gilbert Ryle, is claimed to be synonymous with 'intelligibility.' Asserting that the aim of analysis is not prediction, he uses an example identical to one Carl Hempel uses and William Dray critiques. 2 In general Geertz's approach reinforces a more explicit use of Burke's dramatism than that heretofore offered. Writing about generalizations from 'micro' case studies to societal questions, Geertz argues, To generalize within cases is usually called, at least in medicine, and depth psychology, clinical inference. Rather than beginning with a set of observations and attempting to subsume them under a governing law, such inference begins with a set of (presumptive) signifiers and attempts to place them within an intelligible frame . Measures are matched to the theoretical predictions, but symptoms (even when they are measured) are scanned for theoretical peculiarities - that is, they are diagnosed. In the study of culture the signifiers are not symptoms, but clusters of symbolic acts, and the aim is not therapy, but the analysis of social discourse. But the way in which theory is used - to ferret out the unapparent import of things - is the same.3

Dramatism, I would argue, provides a good example of the kind of 'intelligible frame' to which Geertz alludes, a frame not only intelligible in itself as an easily understood metaphor for human activity, but also one that makes complex 'clusters of symbolic acts' intelligible as scenes to the reader, and serves as an aid to ethnographic writing as 'poetics.' I do not burden dramatism with the label of postmodernism, but there is an affinity between dramatism and the analysis of scenes as units of analysis for studying the rhetorical contest of communicative interaction, and what Stephen Tyler describes as 'postmodern ethnography': For post-modern ethnography the implication is, if not clear, at least apparent that its text will be projected neither in the form of the inner paradox nor in the form of a deceptive outer logic, but as the tension between them, neither denying ambiguity nor endorsing it, neither subverting subjectivity nor denying objectivity, expressing instead their interaction in the subjective creation of ambiguous objectivities that enable unambiguous subjectivity. The ethnographic text will thus achieve its purposes not by revealing them, but by making purposes possible. It will be a text of the physical, the spoken, and the performed, an evocation of quotidian experience, a palpable reality that uses everyday speech to suggest what is ineffable, not through abstraction, but by means of the concrete. It will be a test to read not with the eyes alone, but with the ears in order to hear 'the voices of the pages.' 4

Applying Dramatism

137

In this book, scenes are linked together as a mosaic which tells the story of the action of the whole act, and the acts together, tell the story of the whole drama. Although the dramatistic model provides a kind of rational order for the analysis of discourse, the parts of the story are joined together, partly chronologically (each scene serving as the setting for those which follow it), and partly as an expression of the researcher's interpretation of the whole of the reality he or she is exploring, whether that interpretation is based on logic or on some other consideration. Rabinow's citation of Jameson in his chapter in Writing Culture is a relatively close approximation of the point I would like to make here.5 'The referents [of postmodern texts] are other images, another text, and the unity of the poem is not in the text at all but outside it in the bound unity of an absent book.' Dramatism helps to make the absent book into a real one through the linking of scenes. 6 These quotations and references are not meant as validations of Burke's approach in terms of anthropological theory or contemporary intellectual fashions, but rather as echoes of ideas, perhaps derived in part from Burke himself. Nor do I have any intention of dropping Burke's dramatistic model over time and space, like the kind of theoretical net Johannes Fabian wrote about so long ago, an epistemology which atomizes reality to fit its categories.7 There is no mould into which I would press my analysis. Dramatism is a metaphor for social interaction. A metaphor helps us to understand reality and expand our imaginations, but it is not infallible and is not to be reified. There is no one acceptable way of applying the dramatistic model which must be followed, and no rigid configuration of the elements of the model to each other. The aim is to understand and to make intelligible the interactions of the 'actors' with each other, while at the same time attempting to understand the interactions of the researcher with those whom he or she is studying. The structure of the model serves only as a means to drive the research forward, just as the mast and boom of a sail serve to gather the wind that the sail holds. It is the wind that is important, but we need something to catch it in, whatever direction we may steer. THE STUDY OF SOCIAL SITUATIONS AS SCENES

Social scientists are increasingly aware of qualitative analysis, whether or not they are familiar with dramatism (as distinct from dramaturgy). The distinction between qualitative and quantitative analysis is well developed, and it is useful for putting research in a context which focuses on the contest for meanings in communicative interaction. Dabbs makes a clear state-

138

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

ment of the difference between qualitative and quantitative approaches: 'Quality is the essential character or nature of something. Quantity is the amount. Quality is the what; quantity the how much. Qualitative refers to the meaning, the definition or analogy or model or metaphor characterizing something, while quantitative analysis assumes the meaning and refers to a measure of it. Qualitative research would define the being of fishing, the ambience of a city, the mood of a citizen, or the unifying tradition of a group.' 8 Thus, qualitative methods are ideally suited to the particular research needs required for studying the layers of symbolic content, and the rhetorical use of words and symbols in communicative interaction. A second point of contact between traditional social-scientific research and a dramatistic approach is the notion of social 'practice,' or 'situation.' According to Lofland and Lofland, the smallest possible unit of analysis of meanings in time may be termed a social 'practice,' which they describe as a recurrent category of talk and/or action which the observer focuses upon as having analytical significance but which the participants may regard as unremarkable.9 Social practices would seem to be compatible with the dramatistic model's focus on both talk and action. Second, Spradley speaks of a 'social situation' which consists of a place, with actors, and their activities. 10 To link Lofland's and Spradley's ideas together with dramatism, particularly important 'practices' in 'social situations' - ones which are remarkable and dramatic to the researcher, but which may or may not be significant to the participants themselves - are referred to in this chapter as 'scenes.' 11 Another aspect may be added to the notion of scene. Anthropologist James Fernandez outlines the notion of a 'revelatory incident' in his book Persuasions and Performances. Such incidents explicitly include a rhetorical aspect. Fernandez describes them as, 'events where tropes are actually at play, and where images are actually argued by, I hope, recognizable human agents, and where the figurative actually does something to these human agents, to their relationships with others, and to their relation to their world as the figurative helps them define that relationship and that world.' 11 It is possible to be more specific in Ferendandez's terms. His notion of revelatory incidents includes 'those especially charged moments in human relationships which are pregnant with meaning ... It is our task to describe them as accurately as possible and then, placing them in their multiple contexts, to tease out their multiple meanings. One emphasizes and repeats the word "multiple" because such events are inevitable multi-vocal and over-determined. This is what gives them their force and salience. 13 Therefore, combining the ideas of social practice and social situation, and Fernandez's notion of the rhetorical aspects of such events, leaves us with a

Applying Dramatism

139

definition of 'scene' which can be employed in practical research. Scenes are social situations which are 'specially charged moments in human relationships which are pregnant with meaning.'' 4 The analysis of such relationships involves what James Clifford calls 'cultural poetics,' which includes an ' interplay of voices' and 'positioned utterances,' notions akin to Burke's conception of rhetoric.15 CHOOSING SCENES, AND TECHNIQUES FOR ANALYSING THEM

As researchers we are concerned with how any method can be practically applied in everyday research. Dramatism must help in the creation of a research design, must be a mental map to tell us what to do and how to do it. As noted above, I found that in the analysis of the constitution and reconstitution of the state in Cameroon and Canada it was useful to break a general subject such as drama down into 'acts,' and further into scenes. The first phase of the application of the method is the selection of the scene itself as part of the wider drama being studied. The characteristics of a scene have been noted, and to a large extent, are the criteria for including a particular social situation. In other words, an interpretation of the researcher about the importance of a given situation decides whether it is to be included. 16 How does the researcher know whether or not an event is 'pregnant with meaning' for the subject she or he is studying? It can be said that all social situations are significant, and that some are simply more significant than others. It is better that the researcher studies social situations which he or she thinks might be significant to any extent at all. Later, the most important ones can be pulled into the foreground as the relationship between scenes is better understood. An event may be chosen as a scene because of its importance in the 'action,' or story, being studied before going into the field, but the researcher should be prepared to upgrade it or downgrade it in relation to other scenes not known about in advance, or previously not understood well enough. The scholarly context for presentation of a scene may be a study which focuses on one scene alone, or on one act or one drama. The amount of detail appropriate to the scene, and therefore the appropriate form for its analysis and depiction, depends in part on how important we think it is, how much information we have about it, and the context of the scene to other scenes - for example, a group of important short scenes may be linked together. My analysis of Cameroon includes a number of scenes in each of five acts over a forty-year period. 17 On the other hand, it is possible

140

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

to focus a whole study on one scene. For example, a single scene relevant to state formation in Canada is the debate about the location of Canada's capital, which has been studied by David Knight from the perspective of a political geographer in a substantial volume. 18 This raises the question of the relationship of the scene to traditional ethnographic analysis. What constitutes a scene in this sense? Can traditional ethnographic analyses be divided up into scenes, or is each ethnographic study a scene in itself? There are no rules except those imposed by the commitment to make human activity more understandable. The scene described in 2,500 words may be an encapsulated version of material which, if written in manuscript form, could be 100,000 words. A scene for one scholar might be broken down into several by another. The application of Burke's dramatistic model to each scene (as the unit of analysis) has a superficial simplicity to it.19 Each scene may be analyzed according to the elements of the model, including the action, setting, interactions of actors or agents, and their agencies and purposes at a given point in time, although they are linked to other scenes in both the past (or the more remote past) and to the future. In this way each scene may be linked longitudinally to form an act, a period of longer-term historical significance. However, in spite of the usefulness of the approach, it is likely to be not at all easy for a researcher to understand who is using what agency (including rhetoric) to change the actions or attitudes of whom, and with what purpose. If the interactions of the scene seem self-evident, it is possible and even probable that the researcher doesn't understand them, but may have accepted an interpretation of reality (including an acceptance of which symbols are significant in the interaction) presented to her or him by one or another of the actors; which may conflict in turn with the interpretations of reality of other actors. Analysis of state formation, public policy, international communications, the evaluation of development projects, or the general attempt to unify or 'integrate' 20 the state using rhetoric may involve both historical and comparative research in relation to ethnographic analysis. It may be only possible to study a scene after the fact. To understand present communicative interaction it is helpful to place that interaction in the context of the past as 'setting.' It is also advantageous to inquire whether the significant symbols used to attempt to 'integrate' one country are similar to those used in others. Canadians have been bombarded with the National Unity slogan for more than forty years. National unity is also employed in Cameroon as a symbol in state rhetoric in a way superficially similar to its use in Canada. Some rhetorical symbols also may be regional. African states bor-

Applying Dramatism

141

row from each other slogans which may have other word referents. For example, the Green Revolution slogan was adapted in Cameroon from its use on the Ivory Coast as a general developmental slogan for agriculture that was quite different from its origins in India. Historical and comparative research is best built upon field-work, including ethnographic field-work that is linked to other research techniques when at all possible. 21 There are at least three features of historical and comparative research in relation to field-work which need particular attention. These are the use of limited and indirect evidence, a need to be aware of the potential distortions of ex post facto research, and the relationship between specific cases and general situations. 21 Limited and Indirect Evidence This use of the 'scene' as a focus for analysis cuts across a number of disciplinary boundaries and categories. It cuts across 'micro' and 'macro' analysis. Ethnographic techniques, life histories, participant observation, hermeneutics, and literary criticism may be employed as techniques in the analysis of scenes in the present and the past. A variety of other qualitative techniques may also apply. Elite and specialized interviewing (as Dexter refers to non-standardized interviewing); 13 direct observational methods; the analysis of archival materials, including governmental decrees; the official and party presses; the private press; and politician's speeches are all direct evidence which can be used in such an analysis. No single technique is considered sufficient or infallible; a 'triangulation' of such methods may reveal more about a particular scene than one method alone. However, I prefer techniques generally thought of as applying to ethnographic research - techniques such as participant observation. The researcher cannot expect to analyze communicative interaction from an armchair, although under some circumstances library research may be both helpful and the only approach possible. To study the messy, untidy, and complex interactions of society and politics, researchers can expect to get their hands dirty while becoming acquainted with the situations they are studying.14 Because their interpretation of symbols in discourse is a second- (or third- or fourth-order interpretation)- unless the researcher is studying his or her own culture - the researcher is likely to be confused about what is really happening, much if not all of the time. 15 This confusion is likely to be even greater if the researcher relies completely on secondary sources, and lacks personal interaction with the cultures involved in the scene. There is, therefore, a hierarchy of research techniques. Field-work

142

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

through participant observation is the preferred general technique. As Van Maanen puts it, 'fieldwork is one answer - some say the best - to the question of how the understanding of others, close or distant, is achieved. Fieldwork usually means living with and living like those who are studied. In its broadest, most conventional sense, fieldwork demands the fulltime involvement of a researcher over a lengthy period of time (typically unspecified) and consists mostly of ongoing interaction with the human targets of study on their home ground.' 26 At least some of many different kinds of field-work are apt to differ from traditional ethnographic studies, especially when the subject of research is national-level politics. It must be stressed, however, that the method employed in ethnographic research means more than technique for the analysis of 'culture'; it is concerned with the analysis of communicative interaction. Second, our understanding of ethnographic methods has changed to a view in which the question of the subjective meaning to the researcher of the research situation has become much more important. 27 In the method presented here the reflexivity involved with Mead's notion of a perspective to be understood by the researcher in relation to his own, in an interaction with those holding the perspective, helps to put the subjectivity of the ethnographic experience into context, and prevents subjectivism and paternalism. This foundation also averts a kind of paralyzation of the researchers, and indecision as to whether the research is for themselves or for the community being studied. The explicit acknowledgment of rhetoric in dramatism helps researchers and their audiences, including the members of the communities they are studying, to understand the rhetorical task of the ethnographer in the portrayal of the action, in addition to the rhetoric within the action itself. 28 Writing at the level of the state, one does not always (or even often) have the luxury of being a participant observer of important political events, unless it is as a participant in the more general societal sense, viewing such events through the mass media with different eyes, or with eyes that seek to notice what they have seen for purposes of scholarly analysis. This relative lack of accessibility makes the researcher particularly aware of how privileged are the researchers who are in direct communication with those whose community they are studying - privileged to be able to deal directly with the actors with whom they are interacting, and privileged to have a personal relationships with them. 29 On the whole, my own relationships with political actors, particularly in Cameroon, have been reflections of particular individuals' interests and concerns (theirs) for another individual and his task (mine), and not actors who speak abstractly on behalf of society to someone who represents 'social science' personified. The extent to

Applying Dramatism

143

which I may represent my own government to them indirectly, even as an independent researcher, is another matter worthy of reflection. When participant observation is not possible, a second level of capability concerning techniques is necessary. Field-work may be used to gather information about the scene(s) being analyzed, but outside the particular location the communicative interaction in the scene may be studied through specialized interviews with participants, analysis of documents used or produced in the interaction, and the validation of more public reports in the press or other media. These techniques are useful even if accessibility to the 'scene' as a participant observer is practicable. Third, if it is not possible to go to the field at all, dramatism provides a means by which primary and secondary sources may be sorted and included if they are available. The elements of the dramatistic model provide a structure for the assembling of limited and indirect historical material, including the purposes and attitudes of the actors, the setting and so on, for events which may have occurred before the lifetime of the researcher. All these levels of research technique are capable of sustaining an analysis of a scene as a communicative interaction around significant symbols, an interaction in which rhetoric is used to shape the actions and attitudes of others to varying degrees of validity. All of them are capable of portraying this interaction in the form of a dialogue between actors, sometimes using the words of the actors themselves. Whether or not the scene analyzes a dialogue depends on a number of factors, including the research technique. Even ex post facto research of historical events which took place decades or even centuries before can be 'dialogical' in this basic sense. 30 What is possible in dramatistic analysis is a variety of dialogical analysis, which not only reports the dialogue between actors but provides the opportunity (or necessity) of a dialogue between the researcher and the actors in each scene. The description of the interaction around symbols invariably includes an interpretation of the meaning of significant symbols to each of the actors, and a commentary on those symbols at the same time. Not only is it the responsibility of the researcher to report this dialogue with the action he or she is studying, but it is very difficult not to disclose it.

The Distortions of Ex Post Facto Research There is a sense that even the ethnographic research of the researcher who has direct access to the society he or she is studying is historical, in that it is after the fact. Even yesterday's activities in a village need to be investigated

144

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

from a 'historical' perspective if not witnessed personally by the researcher. At the level of the state, yesterday's newspaper may be the only accessible source of information about an important interaction, as limited as that source might be. The problem of the distortions of ex post facto research is a serious one. The old tendency for the researcher to play the role of a godlike authority figure, reinforced by colonialism (or neocolonialism), is further enhanced when the researcher thinks he or she can view society from the perspective of a great sweep of history, and therefore understands what the members of society did not understand themselves at the time they were carrying out their interactions. The exact opposite is more likely to be true. The understanding of the actors at the time of their interactions is what is important, not the sense that the researcher makes of it afterwards.31 This tendency to play the all-knowing social scientist is akin to the temptation which has been described as a side-effect of functionalism in the analysis of so-called alien belief systems. The researcher thinks he or she knows what the real role or function of religion is, regardless of what its practitioners think.32 Dramatism places the emphasis on the meaning of symbols in the interaction for the actors themselves. It includes a place for the researcher, not as an omniscient figure but as a particular kind of actor who interacts with the society which he or she is studying. The dramatistic model allows for dramas within dramas - for example, the drama of research within the drama of the society. Just as the drama within a drama is used in film to illuminate both the practice of filmmaking and the society in which the film is being made, 33 so the drama of research within the drama of the society being studied can both illuminate the research process and shed light upon society as it interacts with the researcher. Specific Cases and General Situations

The dramatistic model, including the scene as the 'unit of analysis,' cuts across methodological holism and methodological individualism. While the interpretation of the 'whole' drama may be built upon the various 'scenes' involving individuals, the individuals in scenes represent the discourses of social groups and classes and their own internal voices. This point reflects the relationship between the individual and society, as described in Mead's discussion of the 'I' and the 'me' in that the 'I' can change society in conversation with it. Second, as already pointed out, analysis in terms of acts and scenes allows the scene to be related to the rest of the drama of which it is a part. Individual scenes may be descriptions of important interactions

Applying Dramatism

145

which together reveal the 'plot,' the 'story line,' and the 'action.' Therefore, a scene can also hold generalizations without being considered a microcosm of the drama as a whole.34 The scene-act-drama relationship can link microcosm and macrocosm without doubtful assumptions concerning its external applicability. Further, the symbols used in the rhetoric of scenes dealing with similar societal problems in different societies may be compared. EXAMPLES OF SCENES

My purpose in this chapter is to illustrate a method, and therefore to describe or sketch a scene during the period of the formation of the consti:.. tutions of the federal states for both Cameroon and Canada. 35 While important work by several scholars can be drawn upon in the analysis of both countries, these scholars have worked from different perspectives than the communicative interaction, rhetoric, and power perspective suggested here. In the Canadian case, several scholars have used the metaphor of the drama, but only as an illustrative device in the most basic sense. 36 One of the scholars writing about Cameroon has also used it as a simple figure of speech, but only briefly.37 My example will be based, therefore, on my own research. Let us start with the Canadian case, considering the Quebec Conference of 1864 as a 'scene.' The Quebec Conference

The immediate setting in time for the Quebec Conference, which began on October 10, 1964, was the previous scene, which concentrated on the Charlottetown Conference that had ended in August 1864. The colony of Canada, created following Lord Durham's report, had reached a point of political deadlock, in part because of its special characteristics, which gave equal legislative representation to the colonies of Upper and Lower Canada, while the primarily English-speaking population of what was formerly Upper Canada was growing faster than the primarily French-speaking population of Lower Canada. No other solution having been found, a compromise had been made among Canadian politicians John A. Macdonald (representing a party of English- and French-speaking progressive Whigs, called the Conservative Party, with their geopolitical base in Montreal) and George Brown (representing the liberal Reform Party, based in Toronto) to create a federation of the former Upper and Lower Canada, which would be based largely on proposals originally made to the British

146

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

government by Alexander Galt in r 8 58. Before proceeding with their own federation, a coalition of politicians of all stripes from Canada decided to attempt to persuade the other British North American colonies to join in a federal union. The latest conference on Maritime union (encouraged by the British government), in a continuing shaky effort, was scheduled for Charlottetown. The Canadians invited themselves to the Charlottetown Conference as observers. The principle that the British North American Colonies would federate, on general terms suggested by the Canadians, had been accepted by most of the colonies at Charlottetown, and now the task remained to settle on the details of the arrangement at a conference to be held in Quebec. The delegates from the different colonies made their way home after Charlottetown. The Canadians travelled by way of Halifax, Saint John, and Fredericton, promoting federation as they went. The setting in 'space' included the opportunity for the Montreal-based Conservatives to create a railroad based in Montreal, which would create a new hinterland in western British North America. The financing of such an undertaking would require a larger governmental entity than Canada alone, or any of the other British North American colonies by themselves. American expansion, and the Fenian raids by Irish nationalist forces, were reminders of the expanding commercial and political boundaries of the United States. The 'action' (interaction) in both the Charlottetown and the Quebec Conferences centred around the definition of federalism as a 'significant symbol.' There is some disagreement among scholars as to whether the American notion of federalism or some other definition was dominant. On one hand, Jennifer Smith writes, 'For the colonists living in British North America in the mid-nineteenth century, the rarefied concept of federalism was defined by its greatest example at hand. Federalism meant American federalism.' 38 On the other hand, Donald Creighton, Peter Smith, and others argue that the concept of federalism 'in use' at both Charlottetown and Quebec reflected John A. Macdonald's understanding of the kind of imperial, commercial federalism that Adam Smith thought might have prevented the American Revolution. From this latter perspective the problem was not the acceptance of an unpopular American notion as difficult medicine, but rather, Macdonald's setting out to redefine the concept itself. Macdonald wanted to make it compatible with his own centralized views of the local state, and with his class's commitment to and dependence upon the British connection, giving way as little as possible to American 'principle' as the accepted symbolic meaning in use. The definition of the federal 'principle' was precisely what the rhetorical contest was about.

Applying Dramatism

147

Macdonald's effort had been successful at Charlottetown, and the details of a federal union were to be worked out at another conference in Quebec. Actors in the Quebec Conference included representatives of Nova Scotia (Charles Tupper, William Henry, Robert Dickey, Jonathan McCully, and Adams Archibald); New Brunswick (Samuel Tilley, W.H. Steeves, J.M. Johnson, P. Mitchell, E.B. Chandler, John H. Gray, and Charles Fisher); Prince Edward Island (Col. J.H. Gray, E. Palmer, W.H. Pope, A.A. Macdonald, G. Coles, T.H. Haviland, and E. Whelan); Newfoundland (F.B.T. Carter and Ambrose Shea); and Canada (Sir E.P. Tache,, John A. Macdonald, George Etienne Cartier, George Brown, Oliver Mowat, Alexander Galt, William McDougall, D' Arey McGee, Alexander Campbell, J.C. Chapais, H.L. Langevin, and James Cockburn). Journalists, representatives of the railways, and others looking for contracts for the new railroad were on the periphery of the conferences. These lobbyists could not attend its private meetings, but were involved with the social events that accompanied the talks. For example, Mr Levesy of the International Contract Company escorted Mrs Tupper into the Government Ball. 39 The Canadians' purpose remained the same as that at Charlottetown: they wanted a federation based on absolute political necessity, but a federalism they could live with. The 'Mari timers' were aware of both their own provincial nationalities and the broader vision of the opportunities to be afforded by a British North American federation. They had less to gain politically, in the short term, and more to risk in terms of their individual careers. All delegates had the task of translating their provincial interests and ideological discourses into a new political reality. The 'Reformers' in the Canadian delegation had more American notions concerning federal institutions than those of the Tories, in spite of the centralist-oriented compromise to which Macdonald, Cartier, and Galt had persuaded them. Differences among the Canadians included the wider setting of the Tories' hopes for commercial expansion on the continent, upon which their class interests were grounded. George Brown had thrown in his lot with these wider economic interests, but from a Toronto perspective. Many of the Maritime delegates still preferred a legislative union based on the British model. Macdonald's own personal views also favoured legislative union, and his task was to obtain agreement for a federation which looked as much like a legislative union as possible. Such a federation rested on imitation of the British model, in the name of parliamentary democracy rather than republicanism, of federalism as a reflection of imperial relations rather than a federal principle based on American ideology and precedent.

148

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

Philosophically, in addition to class interests of 'court and country,' Donald Creighton points out that the delegates were men of their time in a different sense: The British Americans who sat waiting for Macdonald to begin his speech were as far away from the dogmas of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment as they were from twentieth-century obsessions with race, and with racial and cultural separatism. They were mid-Victorian British colonials who had grown up in a political system which they valued, and which they had not the slightest intention of trying to change by revolution. For them the favourite political myths of the enlightenment did not possess an even quaintly antiquarian interest. They saw no merit in setting out on a highly unreal voyage of discovery for first principles. They would have been skeptical about both the utility and the validity of abstract notions such as the social contract and the natural and inalienable rights of man. 40

As McGee put it, nothing was accomplished at the conference without full deliberation and hard work.41 The hard work (as agency) consisted of the Canadians once more employing rhetoric, from their position of relative power to define the shape of the new federation - motion by motion, clause by clause. 41 The most contentious issues concerned the Legislative Council {the Senate), the House of Commons, and the financial settlement to be given to the Maritime colonies. Of these, the first and most difficult was the question concerning the Legislative Council. The notion of regional rather than provincial representation in the Senate was accepted, but only after considerable debate. An alternative motion by A.A. Macdonald of Prince Edward Island, 'that each province should have equal representation in the Federal Upper House,' was defeated. Next came the issue of how many members to give each region. The numbers given to the Maritime Provinces continued an issue which was finally solved by a compromise resolution in which members of the first Legislative Council would be nominated by the provincial governments, all political parties to be fairly represented.43 Macdonald moved that members of the Legislative Council be appointed for life, and his motion was accepted. The debate about the Senate in relation to federalism as a symbol took about a week. This was not a legislative council that continued the practice of electing members in Canada and some of the other British colonies. It was an imitation of the British House of Lords in a state designed by Macdonald to be as compatible with the British connection as possible. Nor was each province represented equally, on the American model. The Canadians used their conception of federalism to create a new subunit -

Applying Dramatism

149

the region - in the formation of the Senate, and a new notion of federation in the shaping of the new state. Once this had been established, relatively speaking, all other arguments were out of order. For example, Haviland of PEI later argued, with respect to the House of Commons, that the principle of representation by population had been a 'mere suggestion thrown out by Canada for consideration,' denying that 'any proposition at Charlottetown was binding.' 44 This rebellious attitude against the Canadian principles established de facto at the previous conference was rejected by the delegates. Haviland's claims were described as 'perfectly absurd' by George Brown. 45 The next day, after discussions among the PEI delegation, A.A. Macdonald admitted that the Charlottetown Conference had indeed laid down the Canadian view of federalism as a principle, but asked for a deviation in order to obtain an additional seat. PEI was turned down flat. 46 On the issue of the division of powers there was another lengthy interaction in which the 'centralized' Canadian position also carried the day. At the very beginning of the conference Macdonald had cited the problems inherent in the American division of powers as an important reason for the civil war there: The various states of the adjoining Republic had always acted as separate sovereignties. The New England states, New York State, and the southern states had no sympathies in common. They were thirteen individual sovereignties, quite distinct the one from the other. The primary error at the formation of their constitution was that each state reserved to itself all sovereign rights, save the small portion delegated. We must reverse this process by strengthening the General Government and conferring on the Provincial bodies only such doers as may be required for local purposes. All sectoral prejudices and interests can be legislated for by local legislatures. Thus we shall gave a strong and lasting government under which we can work out constitutional liberty having a powerful central government.47

When Chandler of PEI disputed this notion of centralization, and argued, 'you are now proceeding to destroy the constitutions of the local governments, and to give them less powers than they have allowed them from England,' he was factually correct but virtually alone in his position. Gray of New Brunswick pointed out the British rather than the American model for the federal principle in the debate when he noted that 'the power flows from the Imperial Government. We propose to substitute the Federal Government for the Imperial Government.' But the Federal Government is itself subordinate to the Imperial Government. Once again, centralization was linked to the British model to create a particular variant on imperial

150

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

federalism. To give a different contemporary interpretation of the question than has been quoted so far, Gary Naylor writes, 'the essential fact of colonialism remained, and nowhere was it more evident than in the political structures created at the time of confederation. The British North America Act was derived from a political theory of branch-plant imperialism: lower levels of government, the colonial legislatures, were formerly weak and dependent on Britain; now they were to be weak and dependent on Ottawa, which in turn was ultimately answerable to Westminster.' Robert Vipond suggests that the problems over interpretation of the federal principle were because of Macdonald's lack of understanding of the symbolic importance of the American federal principle. 48 I would argue, on the other hand, that it is less a question of misunderstanding than of power. The contest was for definition of a principle in a concrete situation, a principle which Vipond defines ex post facto from the perspective of his preferred definition of the 'federal principle.'49 Macdonald understood full well the importance of the principle in question. His rhetorical depiction of the constitution as a 'happy medium' was as close to a centralized structure as he could manage, implying a purification of the constitution from a unionist perspective in future years. 50 The Canadians at Quebec rhetorically used their conception of federalism to shape political reality. That the other understanding of federalism, described by Vipond, would increasingly come to dominate the reconstitution of the Canadian state, is part of the ongoing drama of state formation. Thus ends the first example of a 'scene,' and a brief interpretation of it. The scene was based on historical records and secondary sources. Apart from my periodic visits to Quebec, which included conversations with both anglophone and francophone friends and acquaintances, there was no participant observation or field-work as such, for obvious reasons. Yet it is possible to reconstruct the communicative interaction to some extent by filtering through the historical records and secondary sources, including the interpretative revisions of our own day. The advantage of the dramatistic model in such historical research is that it forces the researcher to focus on what was actually said, in the context of the conditions in which it was said, and the purposes of those who said it. The dramatistic model forces a discipline on the research that eliminates a focus either on 'great men' alone, for example, Macdonald and Brown; or on political economy alone, for example, confederation as a railroad financing device. The scene entails both of these things, and before we can understand the federal principle as symbol rhetorically enforced by the Canadian delegation, we have to understand both. It is in the ideological uses of symbols in interaction that

Applying Dramatism

151

the symbol of federalism becomes apparent. It is in the interaction that any adherence of Macdonald to American precedents would become apparent, whatever his understanding of them might be. The Foumban Conference

Let us consider another 'scene' on a similar subject, this time from Cameroon. An important scene in the creation of the Federal Republic of Cameroon was the Foumban Conference, a meeting in August 1961 between representatives of the newly independent Republic of Cameroun and the representatives of the British United Nations Trusteeship Territory of the Southern Cameroons, to decide upon the shape of the federal constitution which would join them together. The general historical setting for the scene was the attempt to reunite the territory of the former German colony of Kamerun, which had been divided between the French and English governments after the First World War as League of Nations-mandated territories. After the founding of the United Nations in 1945, the French and English territories became United Nations Trusteeship Territories. The U.K. administered its separated portions - designated the Southern and Northern Cameroons - as integrated parts of the Eastern Region and Northern Region of Nigeria respectively. The Southern Cameroons became a separate region of the Nigerian state in 1954. France administered its Trusteeship Territory as a separate colonial entity called Cameroun. After an intense rhetorical campaign involving a call for a reuniting of the former German colony as an independent state by nationalist groups in both the Southern Cameroons and Cameroun, independence was awarded first to the French Trusteeship Territory of Cameroun in 1960. After a United Nations-sponsored referendum in the British Trusteeship Territory of the Southern Cameroons on a choice between remaining part of Nigeria or being joined (rejoined) to Cameroon, the Southern Cameroon population chose Cameroon. President Ahmadou Ahidjo of Cameroon, as a northerner, perhaps would have preferred that the Northern Cameroons, which adjoined his native area, would have voted for Cameroon. He might have preferred also that the Southern Cameroons join Nigeria, since the population of the Southern Cameroons reinforced the number of those who were ethnically related to members of a party in opposition to him, the Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC), which was still fighting a guerrilla war against Ahidjo. It was a bitter blow to Ahidjo, therefore, when the Northern Cameroons voted to join Nigeria, and the Southern Cameroons voted to join Cameroon.

152

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

The immediate concerns of the Foumban Conference were negotiations between Ahmadou Ahidjo, by now president of the Republic of Cameroun (including his advisors and trusted cabinet ministers), and John Foncha, prime minister of the Southern Cameroons (and his colleagues and advisors), on the one hand, and meetings among Southern Cameroonian political leaders themselves, specifically at the Bamenda Conference which had taken place a few weeks before. While Prime Minister John Foncha of the Southern Cameroons had won election on a platform of reunification of the British and French Trusteeship Territories, he in fact preferred independence for the Southern Cameroons. But in order to get support from Ahidjo for his electoral efforts in October of 1960, Foncha made a secret agreement with Ahidjo to create a very centralized federation. The time had come for the two reluctant political marriage partners to work out the final details concerning their future together. At a meeting of the Southern Cameroons' politicians - including the opposition parties - at the Bamenda Conference, Foncha had been unable to bring himself to reveal to the assembled group the nature of the agreement he had already made. Consequently the majority of Southern Cameroonian politicians who were to make up the all-party delegation to the Foumban Conference were anticipating discussions about a relatively loose federation on the model of the country of their previous federal experience: Nigeria. Ahidjo, on the other hand, imbued with an abhorrence of decentralization in government based on both traditional northern political organizational structure and French cultural preference for centralization, had no intention of allowing a debate on general principles. The Foumban Conference was one in which the actors played out their roles with all their strengths and weaknesses. As far as setting in space was concerned, the circulation systems of both the Republic of Cameroon and the Southern Cameroons were relatively undeveloped, but that of the Southern Cameroons was much more so. Its infrastructure had been ignored by Nigeria, and its road network was on the whole unpaved, and lacked access to markets. There was no railroad to the port of Victoria, and no access to Nigeria's railroad system. The Republic of Cameroun had a railway, but only in the southern part of the country around the main port of Douala, and between Douala and the administrative centre, Yaound,. Consequently the northern, Muslim, and ethnically separate part of the country was relatively isolated from the southern, Christian influenced, and equally ethnically diverse part of the country. Ahidjo had the capacity to make his definition of reality stick. After the vote in the United Nations plebiscite and its ratification by the United Nations, the Southern Cameroons as a trusteeship territory were forced to

Applying Dramatism

153

join the Republic of Cameroon whether they liked it or not. Therefore, both before and after the plebiscite Foncha was at a tremendous disadvantage in these discussions. As one high-ranking expatriate civil servant pointed out, Ahidjo had the legal strength after the plebiscite to refuse a federation altogether. Southern Cameroons was granted a federation when it could have had a unitary state inflicted upon it. The agreements of October 1960 were first signed by Ahidjo and Foncha, in their personal capacities as leaders of their political parties. Throughout the negotiations the October agreements stood both as a guarantor of Foncha's demand for a federation, and a thorn in his side when he dreamed of a loose federation. In spite of the centralized nature of the agreements Ahidjo had devised, the fact that the agreement that had been made to give the Southern Cameroons the federation they desired also may have been a political thorn in Ahidjo's side at home. Ahidjo was in the driver's seat. From the outset there was no suggestion of equality between Ahidjo and the representatives of the Southern Cameroons. While the latter's political elite considered what most thought could be its contribution to the future constitution, President Ahidjo was making plans to consult the Southern Cameroons' elite, not as a group but individually, in private audiences. The original schedule of the conference included private talks between the president of the new Republic of Cameroun and Foncha, and then with the delegates of the Southern Cameroons, one at a time. It was made clear beforehand that though Ahidjo would accept suggestions, he and his delegation would be the final arbiters. The conference at Foumban, the final scene of the act of reunification in the drama of Cameroon's formation, would be a revelation to the Southern Cameroonians concerning the realities of power and politics in the federal state. Ahidjo completely controlled the definition of federalism as a 'principle,' and as the symbol which represented the institutional structure of the reunified state of Cameroon. Having obtained the 'concession' that they could study the Republic's proposals together as a group, the anglophones forgot their own Bamenda recommendations, and then agreed to give their 'observations' concerning Ahidjo's proposals by way of a memorandum to the President. Ahidjo accepted the points he wished to accept, and ignored the rest. Thus, the confrontation between anglophone and francophone concepts of reunification and federalism was over almost before it began. The Southern Cameroonian delegation did not even have time, in the four days they spent together, to look over all of the Republic 's proposals. Ahidjo took a pragmatic approach to the question of federalism, as his opening speech to the conference shows:

r 54

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

Why this formula? It was because lingu1st1c, admm1strattve and economic differences do not permit us to envisage seriously and reasonably a State of the umtary and centralized type. It was because a confederal system on the other hand, bemg too loose, would not favour the close commg together and the mttmate connection we desire. A federal structure therefore, would be the only one which suits our particular s1tuatton for I want to emphasize here very strongly that tt is not our purpose to build, m the absolute, an ,deal State cut off from its roots, neither 1s tt to prepare a constttutton based on abstract theories. s'

In contrast to Ahidjo, Poncha placed emphasis on the continuation of differences of culture between the territories. He also carefully differentiated between culture and government. After receiving the memorandum of the Southern Cameroons delegation, Ahidjo finally took the floor to announce his decisions about their proposals: 'The principal amendments which have been proposed for the [Republics] draft can be classified in two categories: those which concern questions of detail, in which I do not think it necessary to insist, and those which concern questions of principle. With regard to the latter the Cameroun Republic delegation is in accord with the greater part of your views.' Ahidjo agreed to omit the word indivisible from the constitution, but rejected the notion of a two-level legislature on the grounds of cost and efficiency. He accepted the idea of the president being elected by universal suffrage rather than by an electoral college of the legislative assemblies of the states and central government 'meeting in federal congress.' Election of the president, he said, should not be considered an important concession to the Southern Cameroons' delegation - Ahidjo was under pressure in the Republic of Cameroun on this same point. The decision to change to the election of a president by universal suffrage actually strengthened the president, who emerged from Foumban with greatly enlarged powers. With the exception of a few minor points Ahidjo was not willing to make any further concessions. His clinching rhetorical argument for political and institutional dominance was his statement that 'it was incumbent on the Republic of Cameroon, which was already independent, to revise its constitution in order to make possible this union.' Thus, the agreements could be incorporated into an existing constitution. The Republic's proposals were to be the basis of discussion as the conditions of a pre-exisung state which the Southern Cameroons was joining. The final meetings between the delegations of the two parts of the new federation - one whose official shape was decided by Ahidjo - lasted only one hour and thirty-five minutes.P The rest of the four days of the confer-

Applying Dramatism

155

ence was taken up by the meetings of the Southern Cameroons' delegates. The opportunity for real discussion about the meaning of federalism never materialized. 53 The Southern Cameroonians may not have realized the extent to which their views differed from those of the delegates from the Republic of Cameroun. They had only known Nigerian federation. The representatives of the Republic had no experience of federalism at all. This misunderstanding was to persist, and would colour federal relations for the next thirty years, and more. Discord, resentment, and ultimately violence was the price for too smooth a triumph for Ahidjo's views and a lack of detailed interaction about the meaning of federalism. The Southern Cameroonians had tended to assume one definition of political reality, while the leaders of the new Federal Republic of Cameroon fashioned another from their position of power. In the end Ahidjo's vision of the shape of future institutional and political reality, according to the interpretation of federalism that he and his advisors favoured, prevailed. A federation controlled de facto, if not de jure, by a single authority was a contradiction in terms, and would not last forever. In fact, it lasted just ten years. This 'scene' also relies on historical documentation, including government documents, government press releases, and secondary sources. It is interesting in that the dialogue between Ahmadou Ahidjo and John Foncha before the Bamenda Conference has been virtually ignored by scholars concerned with Cameroon federation; it was precisely this previous interaction between the two leaders (in which Ahidjo had already used his power to define the federal agreement between them) which helps make the Fomban Conference so poignant. The representatives of the Southern Cameroons went to Foumban like lambs to the slaughter, unaware of what was to come. I argue that the emphasis on interaction present in dramatism as an analytical model has provided the guide to help search out the negotiations between Ahidjo and Foncha. This search for interactions that might have shaped federalism could not have taken place without my field-work in Cameroon, which was assisted greatly by my acquaintance with, and the friendly assistance of, some of the political actors who had attended Foumban and were part of the larger drama concerning state formation in Cameroon. I also conducted interviews with politicians, whom I did not come to know as well. The Constitutional Conference on Aboriginal Rights and Title

The third example of a scene is again an analysis of a conference, this time

156

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

the first Constitutional Conference on Aboriginal Rights and Title, which took place in 198 3. I also use this example to illustrate the role of ethnography in one's own society, in the daily creation of political life in a plural political environment, where different discourses belong to immigrant communities, women, and Native people. 54 It is not necessary to leave the country or even one's own living room to be confronted with issues demanding qualitative analysis, for which dramatism, I have argued, is the most satisfactory model. Part of the general setting for this scene is what I call 'the rhetoric of rights.'" The rhetoric of constitutional rights, like other rhetoric, is an important part of the definition of political reality as a subvariety of power. While there have been a wide range of strategies for reaching social and economic objectives in Canada in the past (including provincial legislation, for example), the passage of the Constitution Act an.d its Charter of Rights in 1982 created a new focus for social reform, the 'rhetoric of rights' vis-a-vis the Constitution. A new kind of contest, at least in the Canadian constitutional context, began for definition of symbols and definitions of rights to be included in the Constitution in the years preceding it, 1980-198 1, and for clarification and elaboration of rights included in the Charter afterwards. The 1982 Constitution not only formalized the relationship between the state and individuals and groups, but also provided a motivation for action itself. It is in that sense that we now speak about rhetoric in the formation of the Constitution, which then became, dialectically, an aspect of both societal and state rhetoric. This emphasis on the rights of social and cultural groups constituted a New Politics in Canada, against which, it may be argued, the emphasis placed once again on the French-English issue in the Meech Lake Agreement constituted a symbolic counter-attack. The televised portion of the first constitutional conference may be analyzed with reference to the activity of the conference from this point of view - as 'action' or plot, the actors involved, their purposes and attitudes as incipient actions, the means they used to obtain their ends, and the historical and environmental forces in society as the setting for the drama. All the quotations in the analysis of the 'scene' are taken from an analysis of the televised proceedings of the conference, not from official transcripts, in order to avoid the inevitable editing of reality that the cleaning up of transcripts might provide. A videotape of the conference was screened repeatedly to ensure accuracy.56 Part of the setting of the actior.. was the historically based, unequal relationship between the Native peoples and the federal government in

Applying Dramatism

157

Canada, which continued into the structure of the conference itself. It will be recalled that the setting for communication between the actors includes all the historical and other environmental factors, that affect the action, whether in space or in time. Thus, the setting is as old and as complex as the country itself, involving the domination of Native cultures by white ones, of Native economic systems by capitalist ones - of one way of life by another. The political setting for the conference included the 1968 White Paper on Indian Policy, the James Bay Agreement, and the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline debate. The 1973 legal claim to the Supreme Court of the Nishga in Calder versus the Queen was particularly important in establishing Aboriginal rights as an important legal concept, despite the Nishga's loss of the case on a technicality. The report of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland, in 1977, also contributed to the growth of public sentiment for some kind of fair settlement of Native land claims.17 This conference was also the first time that the Native peoples had to confront the provinces as well as the federal government in negotiations. Some of the provinces had opposed entrenchment of Aboriginal rights in the Constitutional Act of 1982, and entrenchment had been included in the Constitution only in the form of recognition of 'existing' rights. The immediate setting of the conference included the establishment by the Native peoples of certain principles in use that were important to them. To summarize these principles as simply and as quickly as possible, Native demands focused on land and on justice with regard to their claim for Native rights and land title. Since many Native people who signed treaties felt these had been friendship treaties, and large parts of the north and BC were not covered by treaty at all, the Native peoples maintained that their sovereign rights as nations and as peoples remained complete, with the right to self-determination within Canadian Confederation. Therefore, important symbols to the Native people at the conference included land, justice, Native (or Aboriginal) rights, title, sovereignty, and selfdetermination. The immediate physical setting was the Conference Centre in Ottawa, under the glare of television lights for the public sessions, and in meeting rooms for the private ones. The conference was, notably, not held in Yellowknife, as some of the Native peoples had requested. The actors at the conference were the Native peoples themselves, represented by the Assembly of First Nations; the Native Council of Canada (representing non-treaty Indians), the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, and the

1 58

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

Metis Association of Canada, the latter only invited belatedly. These Native actors had 'observer' status vis-a-vis the Constitution, but were not participants in the negotiated agreement for the continuation of an 'ongoing process' to describe how Aboriginal rights would be included in the Constitution. The voting actors, as far as entrenchment of these rights and any amendments to the Constitution were concerned, were the ten provinces and the federal government; the agreement of seven provinces, with 50 per cent of the population and the federal government, was necessary for any such amendment or entrenchment. The struggle for dominance in the interpretation of these symbols was complicated by the cultural differences of the 'actors.' English and French cultures contain partly divergent systems of symbols, but they are both distinctly different from those of the Native peoples, and from those of the Inuit and the Indian people in relation to each other. The debate about symbols was about their meaning in one language, English - the main language used on the floor of the conference - yet another reinforcement of the inequality of the interaction. The attitude of the actors with regard to each other was cautious suspicion, particularly on the part of the Native people. The purposes of the actors will be discussed after a brief description of some of the action. The medium used in the interaction was person-to-person communication, both public and private. The public discussions were broadcast by CBC television. In theory the television broadcasting could put indirect pressure on one or other of the actors depending upon the perceptions and reactions of the general public. Action centred around certain important symbols, each side attempting to define these symbols, and therefore enshrine its interpretation in the creation of the entrenched Constitution. It is important in this analysis that control of the meaning of key terms and symbols in the interaction be considered crucial to the outcome of the issue. The proposals for province-like entities in the north, based on the Dene and Inuit 'nations,' had been branded as racist as far back as 1976, in a statement by the Prime Minister's Office. More recently a federal government booklet entitled In All Fairness attempted to define fairness in terms that would lower the expectations of the Native peoples. 58 Justice 'in our time' in various places was spoken of, as well. The booklet juxtaposed the basic rights of other Canadians to Native rights, including the rights of persons of non-Native origin to land in the north, rights of access such as transportation corridors, rights of way for government purposes (undefined), and rights of access to holders of subsurface rights. These critical subsurface rights have been included in

Applying Dramatism

159

comprehensive land claim settlements in certain cases: for example, close to communities, and in critical wildlife habitats. The main attitude towards land has been that it is essentially for sale and that monetary compensation will nullify or 'extinguish' the claims, although existing claims were guaranteed by the new Constitution. The James Bay Agreement was the federal model for a successful Native land claim. In addition the federal government had another rhetorical weapon, the threat that if negotiations were not successful, the issues at stake would be decided by the courts. This has been a real threat, since the courts are based on the laws and concepts of white society. With respect to federalism, the federal government has distinguished between the process of constitutional change and the neglected settlement of a claim. This has been accepted by some Native groups and not others, who saw their land ownership as the base for provincial, or provincelike, political entities. 59 Some of these notions were expressed in an opening address by David Ahenekew, then national chief of the Assembly of First Nations: As I said earlier, we recognize the bogyman and the red herrings that are trotted out whenever the word sovereignty is used. We recognize, that it is the view of many that the word sovereignty defines an extreme on one end of the list of options available, and the word assimilation describes an extreme at the opposite end. We say there is a middle ground. Most people today would agree that Canada has rejected, at least in official public statements, an assimilationist policy for Indians. It can be inferred, then, that some measure of Indian Sovereignty and jurisdiction is accepted by Canada. The task that remains is to clarify, agree upon, recognize and constitutionally entrench that measure of Indian sovereignty and jurisdiction. When we say sovereignty, we are not talking about extremes, we are talking about recognition and entrenchment of Indian sovereignty and jurisdiction within Confederation. We are not establishing our own armies and our own foreign relations. We are, however, asserting that Indian governments have jurisdiction over Indians, Indian lands, and resources.

With reference to federalism Ahenekew said, 'Within Confederation ... Indian governments must be recognized as the first order of government in Canada. Indian governments must have exclusive sovereignty and jurisdiction over matters that belong within our powers, just as the other orders of government do.' To the demands of the Native peoples, then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau countered with other symbols, or interpretations of the same symbols. While he was willing to recognize Aboriginal rights in his open-

160

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

ing address to the conference, Trudeau laid heavy stress on the different interpretations of these rights by the Native peoples themselves. For example, with regard to self-government, he stated that 'such proposals range from those of some Inuit and Metis communities operating within a primal system of regional and local government to tentative models for some kind of Indian statehood within Canada ... It seems likely and not inappropriate that, given the known diversities that prevail across the country, that we will come up with different solutions from different communities in different places once we have begun seriously to discuss their preferences in a pragmatic way.' With regard to the notion of sovereignty he said that, while the government rejected the idea of assimilation, it also rejected the idea of complete independence and absolute sovereignty as a basis for a relationship with Aboriginal peoples or any government. Thus, he said, the options are circumscribed. After the opening statements had been made, strategy for the ongoing discussion was debated. Both the federal government and the Ontario government called for a consideration of principles to guide clarification of rights. George Erasmus, then one of the Dene representatives with the Assembly of First Nations and later its president, was concerned that a discussion of principles regarding details of entrenchment might in some respect undo the general recognition of Aboriginal rights in Section 35 of the Constitution. In other words, he was attempting to make sure that, in the definition of the important symbols used in the document, these rights would not fade away. This caveat was established, and general agreement was reached, that there would be an ongoing process concerned with the definition of those rights, the Inuit preferring the word elaboration of rights, the Alberta government preferring a more narrow meaning of the word. Trudeau made his case for such an 'ongoing process'; using the example 'Native title,' he said that title was entrenched but not defined, but that this definition would take place through the ongoing process: Take Aboriginal title. Will the courts, if you go to them, say that only refers to hunting or trapping, or to water rights or to subsoil rights? But the fact is, we are going to attempt, in the ongoing process, to define them more precisely. Same thing with self-government. Some of you this morning were using self-government, some of you were talking of self-determination. What do we mean by self-government? Certainly we don't mean self-determination, but we think there is some way traditionally in which the Metis, the Inuit, the Indian peoples have governed themselves with the tribes or groups or communities, but this is what we will try to define in the ongoing process. I can give you the assurance, as far as I am able, that you don't

Applying Dramatism

161

have to worry that the ongoing process will efface any rights. What it will do is define them with a precision that you may or may not agree with. If you don't agree with it, then I suppose you can always go to the courts. If you do, we'll have an agreement. The prime minister and the Native peoples, having spelled out their preliminary interpretations of Aboriginal rights and Native title, thus arranged the contest for dominance of their meanings. An example is the discussion concerning Aboriginal title which took place on the first day of the conference. George Erasmus suggested that this key idea for the Native peoples be included explicitly in Article 3 5. Trudeau responded that it had always been the position of the federal government to recognize title, but that he was not sure of the position of other delegates: 'If they want to include those words, well and good; if not, it would go into the ongoing process.' Erasmus took the battle of interpretation to his opponents, and asked for some of the opinions of the provinces. No response was forthcoming, except from the prime minister, who said, 'Well, I guess it really depends what you mean by title.' At this point there was a low general chuckle, which could be heard on the videotape, especially from Erasmus. Trudeau continued, 'I'm serious. I gave you an earlier example. If by title you mean hunting rights or gathering rights, its another kettle of fish than if you own the top and the bottom and what goes out to sea. And if it is the latter, then I'm quite sure that we, and certainly some of the provinces, will want to know what you mean by title before agreeing to it. You've already got words, Aboriginal rights, which are to be defined. If you are trying to define them further by putting in the word title, let's hear what you have in mind, and let's see if we can all agree.' The Native people had been asked what their interpretation of Native title was, and they proceeded to use this opportunity to explain it in detail to Trudeau and to the television audience. The first to give the Native view was Chief Jimmy Gosnell of the Nishga, the tribe that had fought the Calder Case in 1973. Chief Gosnell's definition led to a fascinating interchange: 'I think we're right to the point as to why we're here,' he said. He went on: What do we mean by Aboriginal title? First of all, who gave our title ... its a very important point ... It has always been our belief ... that when God created this old world he would give pieces of land to all races of people ... When we are talking about title, we are talking about our land ownership. You can't have Aboriginal rights flow from Aboriginal title ... God gave us our land ...

162

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

no one can take a title away except He who gave it to us in the first place. The Aboriginal title is our ownership of this land. And if you want me to put it, like, lock, stock, and barrel, or total ownership, whether its the mountain, inside the mountain, up in the air, the snow, the sea, you name it - subsurface rights and everything here on that land was given to us by God for our use to survive ... We are the true owners of British Columbia. No one has taken our title away ... In the nutshell, we are the true owners of the land, lock, stock and barrel. That's what it means.

It might be pointed out that the Native people are generally good television performers. They are warm and direct, and used to verbal argument before large numbers of ordinary people. Mr Gosnell's presentation made a considerable impact on me as a television viewer. At this point in the discussion Trudeau intervened and suggested that title for the Nishga be defined in negotiations with British Columbia, whose attorney-general then proceeded to outline the province's negotiations with the Nishga by offering his elaboration of the Nisgha interpretation of title: As you said, Prime Minister, [does title refer just to) hunting, fishing and gathering? Mr Gosnell says no, it is something much more fundamental than that, upon which the whole nation, their whole system exists ... No one has inquired what they mean. Before we can attempt to put that into the Constitution ... we also have to ask the question, do the Aboriginal peoples have the same or similar approaches to what Aboriginal title means? Does their whole system of self-government depend on the existence of this land base, this ownership? For British Columbia I can say, Yes it does.

By this time Prime Minister Trudeau appeared, on the television screen, to be visibly distressed with Mr Williams. Certainly Premier Peckford of Newfoundland thought the Native interpretation of Aboriginal title unbelievable, or not understandable: The problem we got here, Mr Chairman, is just simply that some of the Native groups are explaining in a very general way what they mean by title, and they want their Native or original idea of title incorporated into a Canadian, English, French, European constitution, which will be interpreted by white people to mean something different from the wording you meant when you wanted to put it in there in the first place. The Aboriginal peoples want land and resource rights. That means something to

Applying Dramatism

163

me. It might mean something extremely different to some of the Native groups, I don't know, but I think I know how the courts would rule upon that if that was in the Constitution, and I think that has serious repercussions for the people I represent. Therefore, I have great difficulty understanding what you mean by title; and, secondly, as I listen to you, and I think I know, I don't believe what you call Aboriginal title is going to be interpreted by the white men in the courts of this land.

At this point Premier Rene Levesque interjected to give advice to the Native people on negotiating. He said, bluntly, 'The whole thing is about power,' and that it 'was necessary to accumulate power and pressure to negotiate on an equal basis with the federal government. As we neared the end of this first day of the conference, Premier Lougheed of Alberta agreed with Premier Peckford that it had been a puzzling afternoon. He then denied Levesque's analysis of the ongoing negotiation as a power process, and said it was just the opposite - that it was a question of balancing Native rights against the rights of other Canadians implying that Native claims were threatening the rights of non-Native Canadians. On this point he quoted the federal government on the need for such a balancing of rights. To shorten the remainder of the proceedings somewhat, let me just say that the second day of the first conference, the entire second conference, and the third and fourth, were not able to move much past this point of definition of basic terms. In the end, among the last words were those of Sol Sonderson of the Assembly of First Nations, who illustrated the relevance of an approach that focuses on rhetoric and power when he said, 'The meaning of words is going to be the key as to how we see the results of this forum.' The written record of the conference drafted after these public discussions, and debated the next day, only entrenched the ongoing process without interpreting any of the symbols important to the Native peoples. This was left with 'the ongoing process,' itself a rhetorical symbol meaning continued interactions between the actors, and presumably reflecting the same interplay of social and political forces as those displayed at the conferences. What then of our interpretation of the 'scene'? If the purpose of the Native peoples was to achieve a fuller entrenchment of specific symbols in the Constitution than the Charter already provided, with interpretations favourable to them, they did not succeed. They did, however, succeed in entrenching additional meetings - more communication and interaction, and therefore other opportunities to express their views. Continuation of

164

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

an unequal process, however, where some of the actors avoided interaction on the issues, did not produce any agreement or political action except in the sense of continuing the status quo. Concerning the distinction between persuasion and propaganda, at least in the context of the Constitutional Conference of 1983, there was an interesting and significant contest for the meanings of symbols in use on the part of the Prime Minister and some of the Native leaders. The provinces were much less willing to enter into a real interaction, preferring, with the exception of British Columbia, to claim a lack of understanding of what the Native peoples wanted, and an unwillingness to express their own positions. It is not clear why Attorney-General Williams was willing to spell out the implication of the Native people's interpretations so clearly for a nationwide audience. Perhaps he was being generous and fair-minded. Or perhaps the Native conception seemed so unbelievable to him that he naively presented it. It is possible that he was not engaged personally in, or aware of, the tactics of controlling symbolic meanings. Later, Premier Bennett found it necessary to repudiate the first draft of the written accord with the Native people, a draft made in his absence with the assistance of Mr Williams. For unknown reasons Williams announced only ten weeks after the conference that he would be leaving Bennett's cabinet at the next election, giving rise to speculation that he had been fired for his conference performance. Premier Lougheed stressed the rights of all Canadians in juxtaposition to the minority rights of the Native people. Premier Peckford seemed not to be able to comprehend the Native people's definitions of symbols; his response to them has its contradictory aspects, but it seems that, for him, to understand was to accept, and therefore he could do neither. Although at first he suggested that the courts would recognize land and resource rights if they were written into the Constitution, Peckford then argued that the white courts would not find Native rights to be understandable or acceptable. Rene Levesque gave the impression of cheering the Native people from the sidelines, but did not take part in the definition of political reality, claiming that under the circumstances which created the 1962 Constitution he was there, but not 'there.' In short, both the federal government and one of the provinces (Newfoundland) held that the courts were an additional threat to enforced interpretation. We can say that the provinces certainly did not attempt to contribute to a wider consciousness of all the issues involved, and therefore came closer to the use of propaganda than Trudeau did. Trudeau at least offered his interpretation of title, and invited the Native people to disclose theirs. And David Ahenekew was willing to make some concessions on the question of sovereignty.

Applying Dramatism

165

This 'scene,' based on a public videotape of the public portion of a conference in the 'reconstitution' of Canada, would appear at first glance not to involve field-work at all; and to a great extent the definition of fieldwork, as cited above, does not apply here. While I had attended a Project North conference of northern Native peoples organized by the interchurch coalition in the late 70s, and had met and talked about Native rights and title with participants there - including a number of leaders of the Dene Nation, the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, and the Council of Yukon Indians, who participated at the conference described above (for example, George Erasmas) - I have not lived in the Northwest Territories or the Yukon, above or below the tree-line. I have, on the other hand, been a participant observer of southern Canadian culture and political life, and have watched and recorded, and I have read the transcripts of many federal-provincial interactions. I would consider my interpretation more valid if I had been able to do field-work in the 'conventional sense,' with all the actors in the interaction situated in their own locations. The public dialogue in the televised part of the conference is a partial picture of the interaction of the scene, which it is better to report than not, keeping the limitations of the research plain and open. Dramatism relies on the quality of the scholarship which goes into it (as other methods do), and does not rely for its relevance on its capability to reveal the theatricality of everyday social action and political life. It does use the metaphor of the drama to take the voices of actors seriously in relation to the rhetoric of the researcher in describing the scene to readers. SOME SUMMARY COMMENTS ON THE APPLICATION OF THE MODEL

In this chapter I have stressed the interactions that take place around meanings, in order to make those interactions more intelligible. The best way to deal with these interactions is through ethnographic field-work, although this is not always possible in every research situation. Indeed, ethnography itself is becoming harder to perform. In The Rebirth of Anthropological Theory, Stanley Barrett refers to the 'end of field-work' implicit in the emergence of neoevolutionism, funding cuts, suspicious governments, and the dwindling away of primitive society. 60 At the same time Barrett speaks of the possibilities of field-work for macroanalysis at the national level. Field-work in this sense will take a different form than that in the 'bush.' Dramatism as a method encourages, rather than discourages, field-work at different levels, including state and international ones.

166

Communicative Interaction and Research Techniques

I have used the dramatistic model to structure the organization and the presentation of my research material. In these examples I do not give the 'action,' 'setting,' 'actors,' and so on, specific headings, but each is separated by the beginning of a new paragraph and then identified in the text. Although headings might make the use of the model clearer, they might also reduce the readability of the material itself. This is entirely the researcher's decision and in many other situations headings may be appropriate. All three of the 'scenes' offered as examples are historical in the sense that I was not a participant observer recording the interactions as they took place (except perhaps in the third case, in which I was a participant through the mass media). Part of my reason for choosing these particular scenes was in recognition of the emphasis both Mead and Burke place on federalism and on constitutional formation, but they are also illustrative of the ordinary problems of historical and comparative research at the level of the state in an area which particularly interests me. The advocacy of any methodological approach raises both questions and apprehensions. In offering dramatism as a model, and scenes as 'units of analysis,' I do not attempt to make the research process more complex or demanding than it already is, but to offer a model that might bring research closer to the reality being studied, and, in that sense, make it easier to do.

8 From Framework to Field-Work: Concluding Remarks

The theory of George Herbert Mead is being rediscovered after a period of relative neglect. As the social sciences revalue the importance of his work in a period when meanings of symbols in comm~nicative interactions are taking a more central place in social and political theory, it is important that Mead's own theory is proclaimed in his name. Too often Mead has been reinterpreted in the service of theories not as insightful as his own, or placed in some corner outside the mainstream of social science. Kenneth Burke has based his understanding of social activity upon Mead, but has also made his own substantial contributions to social theory. Burke's metaphor of dramatism as a model for understanding social activities, tends to be hidden away from the mainstream as well. I have argued that the insights provided by Mead and Burke are more important than the recognition they have generally received would indicate. I have further argued that when the insights and Burke are joined together, they provide the foundation for a method which is well equipped to guide both our conceptualization of research and our research itself. This method links both theoretical framework and field-work. Chapters I and 2, in Part 1, outlined the theories of George Herbert Mead and Kenneth Burke, each in its own terms. Mead links the individual and society together without being a methodological individualist or a methodological holist. The self gains consciousness and intelligence in relation to his or her development within such universes of discourse, and the institutions which are the reflections of organized activities based on the significant symbols in these discourses. A man, or a woman, is not simply an 'object,' a 'me,' but also an active agent, an 'I.' In other words, the constitutive individual can change the communities and individuals of which she or he is a part, in the interactions, the 'conversations,' that a person has with them.

168

Communicative Interaction, Power, and the State

In Chapter 2, Mead's discussion of conflict has been made more explicit with the assistance of Kenneth Burke's pragmatic view of the concept of rhetoric. Rhetoric is considered a means by which the communicative interaction around symbols in communicative interaction may be understood. Rhetoric can be employed for moral, immoral, or amoral purposes, and in varieties of persuasion and/or propaganda. The degree of persuasion or propaganda in a given rhetorical use of symbols is to be made intelligible in terms of the reflexivity encouraged in other actors or agents in the interaction, whether the rhetorician identifies with the interests of those actors, and whether choices are provided. Power as the capacity to change actions in other human agents is also to be found in rhetoric, as is the use of words to change the actions or attitudes of other human agents. Part 2 applied this theoretical orientation to the state, encompassing the ways rhetoric can be used to study the formation of states, including federal states. The argument that the ideological uses of the discourses of social groups and classes may become the underlying discourses on which state institutions are built was outlined in Chapter 3. 'Principles,' or 'ideologies' (made up of symbols used ideologically), can serve as the 'constitution behind the Constitution.' Through their own rhetoric, the institutional components of the state have the capacity to change, at least to some degree, the relatively dominant discourse upon which they are themselves built. Thus, the state as a collection, or 'system,' of such institutions escapes from the determinism of societal forces as expressed in their discourses, and has relative autonomy. Federalism is considered by both Mead and Burke, and is used here as an example of an institutional form which is altered through rhetorical power struggle over the 'principle' or symbols of federalism in interactions between states, subunits of states, and social groups and classes in society. The relationship between the state and rhetoric was the subject of Chapter 4, which dealt with the relationship between rhetoric and public policy, based on distinctions between persuasion and propaganda. The chapter also offered different kinds of relationships between rhetoric and policy itself. After a review of the existing literature in English, which deals with the relationship between rhetoric and public policy, a topology of topics for the analysis of the relationship was suggested. These included rhetoric about policy, policy in the name of rhetoric, policy as rhetoric and rhetoric as policy, and policy about rhetoric. These can serve as a framework for the analysis of rhetoric and policy, including that in government advertising and broadcasting. Theory about communication in various disciplines has focused on linear models, which I have argued are in fact models of trans-

From Framework to Field-Work

169

portation or, more accurately, models of the circulation of people, goods, and ideas. I have also argued, in Chapter 5, that an approach to international communication based on communicative interaction and power can help to reveal the relationship of symbols imported through the international media to discourses at the national level. Part 3 introduced dramatism as a model which helps to analyze communicative interaction. Chapter 6 outlined Burke's metaphor for human social life based on a human activity, in the context of the confusion about the concepts of dramatism and dramaturgy exhibited by the literature of anthropology, sociology, and political science. The confusion between dramatism and dramaturgy is an instructive one; Goffman's dramaturgy, again, is part of an actionist rather than an interactionist view of society, in sociology particularly, though not resricted to sociology. The role of the social drama is slightly different in anthropology, where both Burke's and Turner's models are in use. The advantages of dramatism as a model include its capacity to deal with different aspects of the act, viewing the act holistically to include environmental forces as setting, the purposes of individuals with different voices, and the capacity to deal with time on the short and long term. Dramatism also reflects the way I would prefer to approach social 'science,' using a metaphor for human social action and interaction based on human activity and interaction themselves. Dramatism as a guide to research design is presented not only in the abstract, but in relation to my own research. It has helped me understand events and questions I have been puzzled or curious about. Some examples of the 'scene' as a unit of analysis, in Chapter 7, deal with the application of dramatism as a model to which qualitative methods can be adapted for analyzing communicative interaction, both on the ground and in the field. I have attempted to link a general theoretical model to practical empirical analysis. This task leads to further discussions concerning both theory and ongoing research. It is my view that the approaches of Mead and Burke stimulate both.

APPENDIX

Explanation, Understanding, and Social Communication

WILL THE MOST RIGOROUS SOCIAL SCIENTIST PLEASE STAND UP?

There is a continuing contest for the definition of 'science' and scientific explanation in social research. The quality of scholarship is judged on this basis. The rigour of research is also defined in relation to the definition of science. A set of norms that stresses a positivistic position is often applied, reinforced by the still potent influence of functionalism, which emphasizes norms, and norms about science in particular. The continued enforcement of a point of view that is close if not identical to that of the Vienna School is partly an expression of the usefulness of operationalism for bureaucratic evaluation, as Brian Fay has pointed out. 1 In the realm of research it is possible for one school to have the capacity to enforce its approach upon others as the university has become progressively rationalized.' There are, however, alternative legitimate approaches to social science. Some of these, it can be argued, are more appropriate for the analysis of human action than models based on mechanical or strictly naturalistic biological metaphors. It should not be necessary to make this argument again, almost forty years after the contributions of Dray, Winch, and others to our understanding of explanation in the social sciences. It may be useful, however, to relate the Dray-Hempel debate to more contemporary scholarship, on the one hand, and to the scholars whose works serve as the foundations for this book on the other, particularly George Herbert Mead. I will review the Dray-Hempel debate for those who are not already familiar with it, and then relate this debate to post-positivism. Finally, I will show how Dray and Mead's positions reinforce each other as alternatives to both positivism and post-positivism. This juxtaposition of Mead's and Dray's points of view is relatively novel. Its purpose is to

172

Appendix

establish a concept of explanation which focuses on the intelligibility of events by reflexive human agents. ALTERNATIVE VIEWS OF EXPLANATION

The debate about explanation is usually cast in terms of a dichotomy between interpretive and positivist approaches. 3 In this review, a range of approaches is offered which is based in part on the reflexivity assumed for the participants in the social activity studied, and in part on assumptions about the degree of fallibility assumed about the validity of tests concerning statements about social observations. After this review, the views of George Herbert Mead are explored in relation to a pragmatic approach to explanation that retains rigour and the claim to scientific status, while dealing with the reflexivity of men and women in a way that aids understanding of their actions. The review begins with Carl Hempel, perhaps the most important influence on the positivist paradigm of social research since the Second World War. Hempel's Positivism

In the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century the 'positivist' viewpoint was dominant, particularly the view that the study of social life was analogous to natural science. This view of positivism has, as Kaplan reminds us, a bias towards 'physicalism' in its empirical research applications.4 As a representative for the unity of the sciences on positivist foundations, Rudolph Carnap, put it in the twenties, 'we have characterized the scientific world conception ... it is empiricist and positivist: there is knowledge only from experience which rests on what is immediately given.'1 Carl Hempel was a philosophical descendent of Carnap and his school, and it is the argument in his classic 1942 article, 'The Function of General Laws in History,' which I will use to illustrate the positivist point of view. Hempel maintains that the only 'scientific' form of explanation is an application of a 'deductive-nomological' model, and he applies this idea specifically to history and social life.6 Hempel has been a leading spokesperson for the positivist account of scientific explanation applied to social life which is reflected explicitly or implicitly in works by many scholars and in many textbooks.7 When considering Hempel's article, I suggest three requirements for a science of social life implicit in his approach: ( 1) that there is an entity

Appendix

173

called society that is different from the sum of the individuals in it; (2) that the processes occurring in society and politics are not known; and (3) that society can be understood by the methods used by science. Taking these points in reverse order, Hempel is one of those who would say it is possible to explain society and history by using concepts and structures that closely approximate physical explanations. Hempel says that 'general laws' have analogous functions in history as they do in the natural sciences, and that they form indispensable instruments of historical research. They even 'constitute the common basis of various procedures which are often considered as characteristic of the social in contradiction to the natural sciences.' 8 By a general law Hempel means a 'statement of universal conditional form which is capable of being confirmed or disconfirmed by suitable empirical findings.' He describes their application to history as follows: The explanation of the occurrence of an event of some specific kind E at a certain place and time consists, as it is usually expressed, in indicating the causes or determining factors of E. Now the assertion that a set of events - say of the kinds C1C2 ... Cn - have caused the event to be explained amounts to the statement that, according to certain general laws a set of events of the kinds mentioned is regularly accompanied by an event of kind E. Thus scientific explanation of the event in question consists of, 1) a set of statements asserting the occurrence of certain events C 1 ... Cn at certain times and places 2) a set of universal hypotheses, such that a) the statements of both groups are reasonably well confirmed by empirical evidence b) from the two groups of statements the sentence asserting the occurrence of event E can be logically deduced. In a physical explanation, group (1) would describe the initial and boundary conditions for the occurrence of the final event; generally we shall say that group (1) states the determining conditions for the event to be explained, while group (2) contains the general laws on which the explanation is based. They imply the statement that whenever events of the kind described in the first group occur, an event of the kind to be explained will take place (34 5).

Hempel holds that the logic of the model applies to both explanation and

174

Appendix

prediction. He also makes the important statement that the symbols C, Cr, E, and so on, stand for kinds of properties of events rather than individual or unique events (34 5). It is Hempel's purpose to attack what he calls 'pseudo explanation' in history, or 'the attempt to account for certain features of organic behaviour by reference to an entelechy, for whose functioning no laws are offered ... they substitute vague analogies and intuitive plausibility for deduction from statements, which therefore are unacceptable as scientific explanations' (345). Hempel says explicitly that 'the preceding considerations apply to explanation in history as well as in any branch of empirical science. Historical explanation, too, aims at showing that the event in question was not a "matter of chance" but was expected in view of certain antecedent or certain simultaneous conditions. This expectation referred to is not prophecy or deviation but rational scientific anticipation which rests on the assumption of general laws' (348). Hempel is willing to make some concessions to human frailty. (Historians and social scientists cannot always state their laws vigorously.) He has some suggestions to modify the explanatory model in the light of practical historical difficulties. On page 3 50 of his paper he gives essentially a weaker version. He suggests that, for practical purposes, if you can cite generalizations that are more or less true, and make it more likely that they would occur, then to that extent you have explained them. Here we have an approximation to a complete explanations that is probably respectable. Judgments of degree have been brought in; the adequacies of laws and explanations can be 'more or less,' and 'better or worse.' Therefore, for what the historian (or social scientist) offers under these conditions, Hempel coins the term explanation sketch. The explanation sketch, he says, 'consists of a more or less vague indication of the laws and initial considerations considered as relevant, and it needs "filling out" to turn it into a fullfledged explanation'. This filling out requires further empirical research to determine which sketch suggests the direction. In sum, having stated what he meant by a covering law or universal hypothesis, Hempel has come to the point of saying that probability hypotheses based on statistical information will do. For Hempel, however, the deductive approach continues to apply to social life in spite of the particular problems of social research. Hempel uses a modified example of an explanation sketch, 'Tommy and the Measles' (described below), to illustrate how his model can still apply to the special conditions of social scientists and historians. He writes, 'the measles is the explanation, the contact is the condition, and the "law" is that most cases of contact do result in measles. Therefore, it is highly probable that Tommy caught the measles from his brother.' 9

Appendix

175

I have stressed that positivism, of which Hempel is an important representative, has been the dominant approach to 'social science.' This also applies to 'political science.' 10 The most important works with continuing influence which criticize this approach have been by Anscombe, Dray, and Winch, 11 particularly Peter Winch's The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy, and William Dray's Laws and Explanation in History. There are various possible rejoinders to Hempel's approach, particularly concerning the matter of 'covering laws.' One can hold that social science has failed to find any such laws. Alasdair MacIntyre notes that 'the salient fact about those sciences is the absence of the discovery of any law-like generalizations whatsoever.' 12 If there is to be a science of society in Hempel's terms, then one requirement is that the processes occurring in history and society are not known. Further, they can only be understood by the methods of 'science,' as Hempel defines it. 13 Let us review Dray's critique of Hempel in particular. Dray argues that such laws have to have some source if they are to exist, and he makes an argument about the difficulty of finding such sources. His primary approach, however, is to attack the claimed exclusivity of the covering law approach, in order to provide legitimate explanations of social and historical actions; that is, the sufficiency of the model in explanation. In the context of Hempel's article, Dray's argument states that, for Hempel, explanation has a single meaning. Explanation, however, may have many meanings. Citing an example of his critique, Dray gives us Hempel's example of 'Tommy getting the measles.' Hempel states that 'if Tommy comes down with the measles two weeks after his brother, and if he has not been in the company of other persons having the measles, we accept the explanation that he caught the disease from his brother.' Dray points out that there is no such law that says most cases of contact with measles result in measles; that, in fact, most cases of contact do not result in measles. The analysis must be in error, but since it is a good explanation, according to Dray, it is simply an explanation of a kind other than the deductive causal one Hempel insists is the only legitimate variety. In other words, it is a 'How possibly?' explanation rather than one that requires a covering law. 14 Dray's favourite example of a 'How possibly?' explanation of this kind, 'given in the ordinary course of affairs,' is drawn from a popular magazine: An announcer broadcasting a baseball game from Victoria, British Columbia, said: 'It's a long fly ball to centre field, and it's going to hit high up on the fence. The centre fielder's back, he's under it, he's caught it, and the batter is out.' Listeners who know the fence was twenty feet high could not figure out how the

176

Appendix

fielder caught the ball. Spectators could have given them the unlikely explanation. At the rear of centre field was a high platform for the score keeper. The centre fielder ran up the ladder and caught the ball twenty feet above ground.' 1

In what does such an explanation consist? Circumstances of the catch demand a different kind of explanation than one concerning a rational agent. As Dray continues, 'it would be easy enough to think of occasions on which a rational explanation of such a catch might be demanded and given. If the fielder had been "dragging his feet" all season, we might very well ask, in surprise: "Why this efficient display by Brown"; and in such circumstances the threat of a salary cut might significantly be mentioned.' To cite a covering empirical generalization, however, would be just as inappropriate. Dray argues that 'the problem which generates the demand for explanation here is not "What made that happen?" or "What was his motive for doing that?" but rather "How could that have happened in the light of so-and-so?" Explanation is called for because what happened seemed impossible under the circumstances' ( 158). He distinguishes this kind of 'How possibly?' explanation from 'Why necessarily?' explanations by suggesting that 'in why questions we rebut an assumption that it need not have happened by showing that in the light of certain considerations it had to happen. But in explaining how something could have happened, we rebut the presumption that it could not have happened by showing that, in the light of certain further facts, there is, after all, no good reason for supposing that it could not have happened' (161). In sum, Dray has demonstrated that explanation has different meanings, and he has used Hempel's own example, 'Tommy and the Measles,' to illustrate this. Dray also gives a 'How possibly?' explanation of his own. Dray, therefore, has cast doubt on the exclusive ability of the covering law model in the form of 'Why necessarily?' questions to explain social life. He suggests that if they could be found, such laws would be generally inadequate for the purposes of historians. However, Hempel is not just arguing for their existence, he is arguing that they alone offer legitimate explanations. When this assertion of exclusivity is successfully discredited, the idea of a science of history and society which explains the otherwise unexplainable is also discredited, including the derivative applications by other scholars and other disciplines such as Easton's application to political science. Noting the debate in the philosophical literature on Dray's critique of Hempel, Von Wright states that Dray succeeds in breaking 'the fetters of positivism in contemporary "analytic" philosophy of history' through his

Appendix

177

critique of the covering law model as a tool for historical explanation 'and "positively" through his insistence on the sui generis character of explanatory models for human action,' 16 and that 'Dray's criticism of the role of general laws in historical explanation ... leads to a complete rejection of the covering law model.' 17 The modifications to the notion of covering law are so great that it becomes unrecognizable, including the abandonment of explanation and prediction as logically parallel! 8 Post- and Neo-Positivist Approaches to Explanation

A good deal of time and scholarly effort separate the Dray-Hempel debate from the present day. Hempel was not the last of the positivists. While behaviourists such as Skinner continue an aspect of the positivist tradition of explanation of human individual and social behaviour that focuses on a model of stimulus and response corresponding to theories of animal behaviour, this form of naturalism has not been the primary path of positivism in the social sciences. Apart from those who have stayed loyal to the Vienna School as an article of faith, the most important response of positivism to attacks in the late fifties by Winch and Dray is represented by Karl Popper's theoretical modifications of the original positivistic doctrines (although Popper would not claim the label of positivism). 19 Popper's modification consists of the denial that laws of social life can be absolutely proven or considered infallible, including, for example, those 'universal generalizations' described by Hempel. 10 Such laws can only fail to be disproved. In some respects American social psychologist Donald T. Campbell has expressed and demonstrated Popper's ideas 'better' than Popper has himself. Campbell has listed a series of common 'rival hypotheses,' which threaten internal validity in experimental and quasi-experimental situations, and has sharpened the conceptual foundation of the approach.11 Having begun the discussion of mainstream positivism with Carl Hempel's attempt to adapt positivism to the conditions of social research, it is useful to examine Karl Popper's modification of Hempel's positivism, and then Donald T. Campbell's application of Popper to concrete research situations. Max Weber wrote before the positivist position became formalized, and did not take such laws as seriously as later positivists would. He was more concerned with laws as a first step in understanding and as educative devices, but he did not deal with the important qualitative issues of men's and women's actions in relation to their culture. He wrote that 'the analysis

178

Appendix

of the historically given individual configuration of these "factors" and their significant concrete interaction, conditioned by their historical context and especially the rendering intelligible of the basis and type of this significance, would be the next task to be achieved.' 11 Weber argues that it is useful, but not sufficient, to create laws based on recurrent sequences and elementary factors in hypothetical laws. We have to render them intelligible in relation to history and culture. Only then can we trace events back to their historical antecedents, in order to explain them historically, and ultimately to predict possible future 'constellations.'13 Karl Popper agrees that 'the scientist aims at finding a true theory or description of the world (and especially of its regularities or laws) which shall also be an explanation of the observable facts.' This means that a description of these facts must be deducible from the theory together with certain statements, the 'initial conditions' of which Hempel speaks. Where Popper differs from the ordinary positivist position is in his denial that the scientist can succeed in firmly establishing the truth of such theories beyond all reasonable doubt. 14 Donald T. Campbell and his various collaborators, including Julian Stanley and Thomas Cook, reinforce this argument beginning with the concept of cause. For example, Campbell and Cook, in Quasi-Experimentation, Design and Analysis: Issues for Field Research, note that the epistemology of causation and of the scientific method are more generally in a state of near chaos. Cook and Campbell implicitly relate causation to the question of explanation. 15 They note that when we discuss the effects of events or programs we fall into a casual, sometimes careless, use of the words cause and effect. But scientists and philosophers have encountered problems with these concepts for centuries. Testing the strength of arguments is the primary task of inductive logic. In discussing the positivist view of causation Cook and Campbell point out that positivism denies a dualism of evidence and reality. In positivism, the reality of the senses which can be translated into quantifiable terms is the only reality. This has led to the dogma of operational definitions for theoretical terms. For example, intelligence can only be defined by the measurable score of intelligence tests. Unfortunately, they argue, measurements as tests of reality are notoriously inaccurate. Campbell has long suggested using multiple operations, each recognized as fallible, rather than assume that a theoretical concept is valid when based on only one operationalization. Cook and Campbell's general arguments about causation and the testing of theory can be outlined under the headings of essentialism and confirmationism. These are approaches they would attack.

Appendix

179

Essentialism Cook and Campbell use the term essentialist to describe philosophers who argue that the term cause should only be used to refer to variables that explain a phenomenon, in the sense that these variables, when taken together, are both necessary and sufficient for the event to occur. The effect occurs simultaneously with the conditions. This position equates cause with a constellation of variables that necessarily, inevitably, and infallibly results in the effect. This implies a closed system of variables, with absolutely controlled circumstances. In social-scientific field research, however, we have to expect that outside variables will always impinge on a dependent variable, making the results susceptible to factors in the external environment. Therefore, observed causal relationships in the social sciences are seen as fallible rather than inevitable. The connections between antecedents and consequences will be probabilistic rather than certain. This position is similar to Hempel's position, as noted above. Hempel backed down from the rigid essentialist covering law position for the study of history. For Cook and Campbell the task of social science is to reduce the amount of infallibility of a causal assertion, at best. Their concern is less with understanding the causal determinants of a phenomenon than in assessing how reasonable it is to assume that particular manipulable causes usually produce a given result. The essentialists' insistence on infallibility and necessary causal relations leads one to confound high correlation with cause. This insistence is also concerned with the reversibility of the causal relationship. This reversibility was noted in Hempel's claim to the bidirectionality of the deductive model. Cook and Campbell argue, however, that in practice 'bidirectional causes lead to problems, at least in the short run.' 26 Cook and Campbell sum up their argument about essentialism as follows: In their different ways, both positivists and essentialists aspire to a level of explicitness that we find unrealistic at the present time. The positivists sought to replace non-explicit links in the process of knowing with completely explicit observations (be they atomic sense data, protocol sentences, or observational sentences) and with completely explicit deductions from these observations. Essentialists seek to understand completely the multiple causal determinants of a particular effect so that they can be explicit about the factors that necessarily and inevitably produce the effect. Against such explicitness and induction we would like to counterpoise our own position which echoes that of Campbell and Stanley (1963), who, emphasizing the inevitable ambiguity and equivocality of experimental results which depend on

180

Appendix

many deep seated unproven presumptions, claimed that experiments probe but do

not prove causal hypotheses.

Confirmationism Popper accepts that deductive knowledge is logically possible, although he accepts Hume's critique of induction, which is to say that, the fact that night has always followed day does not logically justify the inductive conclusion that night will always follow day. Data from a scientific proposition can be tested by comparing the deduced pattern of relationships with the observed pattern. If the data fit the pattern, it supports the theory to the provisional extent that no other known theory can account for the pattern. But such corroboration can never prove the theory to be true, although failures to confirm the prediction can falsify the theory being tested. Cook and Campbell cite Popper with approval. They describe him as most explicit and systematic in recognizing the necessity of basing knowledge on ruling out alternative explanations of phenomena. There is a distinction between the 'confirmationist' position of the logical positivists and Popper's 'falsificationist' alternative. Both points of view assume that experimental and observational facts that are relevant to the validity of a theory can often be generated, and yet they can be independent enough of the theory to be used to evaluate its validity. Both assume that scientific theories can be used to generate quantitative predictions as to the outcome of scientific experiments, and that these predictions can be compared with the data. In confirmationism the empiricist monism of the positivist leads to the interpretation that the theory which produced the prediction remains a useful, economical summary and predictor of experience. Confirmation is confirmation of usefulness, rather than the truth of the theory in any realist sense. Therefore, other theories which might explain present and past data are irrelevant. Popper, on the other hand, stresses the ambiguity of confirmation. For him, corroboration gives only the comfort that the theory has been tested and has survived the test, that it is not yet disconfirmed. While even this status is rare in any advance science, it is far from the status of 'being true.' Campbell uses an example to illustrate this point:

If Newton's theory A is true, then it should be observed that the tides have period B, the path of Mars shape C, the trajectory of a cannonball from D. Observation confirms B, C, and D. Therefore Newton's theory A is true. The fallacy of this argument can be seen by viewing it as a Euler diagramme.

Appendix

181

The invalidity comes from the existence of the cross-hatched area, i.e., other possible explanations for B, C, and D being observed. But the syllogism is not useless. If observations inconsistent with B, C, and D are found, these validly falsify the truth of Newton's theory A. The argument is highly relevant to a winnowing process in which predictions and observations serve to weed out the most inadequate theories ... if the conditions are confirmed, the theory remains one of the possible true explanations ... As scientists we try in some practical way to empty the cross-hatched area to make it as small as possible. We do this by expanding as much as we can the number range, and precision of confirmed predictions. The larger and more precise the set, the fewer will be the alternative explanations, even though this number still remains in some sense infinite. (22)

The only process available for establishing a scientific theory is one of eliminating plausible rival hypotheses. This is a difficult and inconclusive procedure. It is, they suggest, the best any social scientist can do. The post-positivists claim that all observations (facts) are presumptive and are influenced by the theory or paradigm under which they were collected. Cook and Campbell suggest that they are not laden with just one theory or paradigm, but many. Theories may, they maintain, still be compared in spite of this multiple, value-laden characteristic. Cook and Campbell also put great emphasis on experimental work in particular, and on what they call 'stubborn facts,' which they claim offer dependable comparisons. Cook and Campbell are not so much concerned with grand theoretical alternatives as what they call nuisance factors that diminish the validity of

182

Appendix

the theory. Campbell, although a confirmed neo-positivist, is seen perhaps as the most articulate one of the past few decades. More recently, in another place, Campbell has made some concessions in the direction of more qualitative approaches to research and socialscientific explanation. In writing about the importance of the case study, Campbell notes that 'the dominant mode of study in anthropology, comparative political science, and comparative sociology remains the intensive study of a single foreign setting by an outsider for whom this is the only intensively experienced foreign culture." 7 Such studies may be written by 'trained' social scientists or by 'amateur' observers such as missionaries. Campbell refers to the knowledge that is based upon such studies, written or unwritten, as representing 'common sense knowing' for comparative social science. 28 This is a major shift for Campbell. He writes that anecdotal, single case observations are the basis for broader theory, in the following terms:

If we achieve a meaningful quantitative roe nation correlation, it is by dependence on this kind of knowing at every point, not by replacing it with a 'scientific' quantitative methodology which substitutes for such knowing. The quantitative multination generalization will contradict such anecdotal, single case, naturalistic observation at some points, but it will do so only by trusting a much larger body of such anecdotal single case, naturalistic observations. This is not to say that such common-sense naturalistic observation is objective, dependable, or unbiased. But it is all that we have. It is the only route to knowledge - noisy, fallible, and biased though it may be. We should be aware of its weaknesses, but still be willing to trust it if we are to go about the process of comparative (or monocultural) social science at all. Campbell describes the reason for his earlier rejection of single case studies as follows: The caricature of the single case study approach which I have had in mind consists of an observer who notes a single striking characteristic of a culture, and then has available all of the other differences on all other variables to search through in finding an explanation. He may have very nearly all of the causal concepts in his language on which to draw. That he will find an 'explanation' that seems to fit perfectly becomes inevitable, through his total lack of 'degrees of freedom.' (It is as though he were trying to fit two points of observation with a formula including a thousand adjustable terms, whereas in good science, we must have fewer terms in our formula than our data points.) (54)

Appendix

183

Campbell now argues that he had unnecessarily rejected single case studies in social-scientific research: While it is probable that many case studies professing or implying interpretation or explanation, or relating the case to theory, are guilty of these faults, it now seems to me clear that not all are or need be, and that I have overlooked a major source of discipline (i.e., of degrees of freedom if I persist in using this statistical concept for the analogous problem of non-statistical settings). In a case study done by an alert social scientist who has thorough local acquaintance, the theory he uses to explain the focal difference also generates predictions of explanations or explanations on dozens of other aspects of the culture, and he does not retain th~ theory unless most of these are also confirmed. In some sense, he has tested the theory with degrees of freedom coming from the multiple implications of any one theory. The theory is a kind of pattern matching in which there are many aspects of the pattern demanded by theory that are available for matching with his observations on the local setting. Experiences of social scientists confirm this. Even in a single qualitative case study the conscientious social scientist often finds no explanation that seems satisfactory. Such an outcome would be impossible if the caricature of the single case study ... was correct. There would instead be a surfeit of subjectively compelling explanations ... our common-sense mechanisms of knowing must have had a net adaptive value, at least for the ecology in which they were evolved.2 9

The range of positivism and neopositivism by the most able proponents of these positions is now seen to have stretched the original nomologicaldeductive model for social-scientific explanation with provable 'covering laws' or hypotheses using valid and reliable tests, out of recognition. A Pragmatic Approach to Explanation: William Dray So far this appendix has been a review of the gradual shift in positivism in the social sciences, from 'positivism' to 'neopositivism,' as articulated by some of its most important scholars. The work of William Dray, who has already been introduced as a critic of positivism, can be used as a starting point for .an approach to a pragmatic and practical notion of explanation linking his ideas with George Herbert Mead, a member of the Chicago School of Sociology. It is possible to go beyond post-positivism and neopositivism to positions that are both old, in the sense that they share elements in common with Weber's verstehen, and new. We can progress beyond the HempelDray debate to Dray's positive contribution to a discussion of explanation.

184

Appendix

'Explanation,' to Dray, may be described as 'the demand for explanation which arises out of genuine puzzlement.' Or, as Dray puts it in a later article, 'The function of an explanation is to resolve puzzlement of some kind.' 30 As such, it has a pragmatic and practical dimension. It 'brings the analysis of the concept more into line with the way the word is used in the ordinary course of affairs.' As noted, there may be many meanings for explanation, but Dray insists that a proper account of it cannot be given 'without bringing out its pragmatic dimensions. The intelligibility of the explanation is important. Dray is seeking objective standards for what shall count as explanation, including the 'non-inductive requirements we recognize in giving explanation.' 31 Taking account of the pragmatic dimension of explanation brings the analysis of the concept more into line with the way the word is used in the ordinary course of affairs. Besides 'to make clear the cause, origin, or reason of,' the Oxford English Dictionary gives the following as general meanings of 'explain': 'to smooth out, to unfold'; 'to give details of'; to make plain or intelligible'; 'to clear of obscurity or difficulty'. There is some reason for thinking that what the covering law gives us is the criterion of a technical sense of 'explanation' found only in narrowly scientific discourse, perhaps only among certain philosophers of science ... It seems to me what covering law theorists have done is to seize on (and to misinterpret) a necessary condition of (some kinds of) explanation which is closely connected to the purpose of science - control - that it has been mistaken for a sufficient condition. (76)

Furthermore, even 'scientific' explanations have to have 'intelligibility.' Of what does intelligibility consist? Dray discusses this in terms of the 'rehabilitation' of a 'doctrine of idealist philosophers of history.' In particular he offers the view that 'the objects of historical study are fundamentally different from those, for example, of the natural sciences, because they are actions of beings like ourselves; and that even if (for the sake or argument) we allow that natural events may be explained subsuming them under empirical laws, it would still be true that this procedure is inappropriate in history' ( 118). Dray notes that this doctrine is commonly expressed in terms of the necessity for the inquirer to understand the 'thought-side' of the actors in history in addition to their overt behaviour. According to this approach, the historian must 'penetrate behind appearances, achieve insight into the situation, identify himself sympathetically with the protagonist, project himself imaginatively into his situation' ( 119). The qualitative or 'interpretative' side of the debate about explanation

Appendix

185

does not belong only to William Dray. There is an important tradition of German nonpositivism. The long standing nonpositivist approach in German sociological writing has focused on the concept of verstehen, or understanding through empathy, with the causal factors influencing the actions of individual historical actors, particularly based on the ideas of Max Weber. 31 More recently the variety of textual analysis described in Hans-Georg Gadamer's Truth and Method has also become a focus for the anti-positivists and nonpositivists as a means to understanding the cultural context of past actions. 33 Scholars in the English tradition, such as Dray's mentor R.G. Collingwood, have approaches similar to, but different from, the German school of nonpositivists. Collingwood and Dray differ from the German tradition in their focus on the rationality of actors' behaviour in pragmatic, situational terms. If the idea of rationality may be seen as a form of pragmatic action focusing on intelligibility, then the nature of explanation may be seen as a pragmatic attempt to understand what puzzles us. Dray's approach is clearly akin to the verstehen account of explanation in continental philosophy. As Von Wright notes, Dray does not make contact with more recent European philosophy of the Geisteswissenschaften, but links his argument to Collingwood. 34 In doing so Dray defends this approach against a position of the positivists, including Hempel, so that such identification constitutes a methodology. First he admits that the notion of 'empathetic understanding' can be viewed in this light: 'Covering law logicians commonly speak of empathy as a 'methodological dodge' ... No doubt there is a methodological side to the doctrine, and it might be formulated in some such way as: only by putting yourself in the agent's position can you find out why he did what he did. Here the suggestion is admittedly that by an imaginative technique we shall discover some new information - the agent's motives or reasons for acting.'H Dray goes on to show that this is not the sense in which he wishes to discuss the issue. Referring to Collingwood as an advocate of the position of historical understanding, he notes: When Collingwood says that historical understanding consists of penetrating to the thought-side of actions - discovering the thought and nothing further - the temptation to interpret this in the methodological way is understandably strong. But there is another way in which the doctrine can be formulated: 'Only by putting yourself in the agent's position can you understand why he did what he did.' The point of this projection metaphor is, in this case, more plausibly interpreted as a logical one. Its function is not to remind us of how we come to know certain facts, but to for-

186

Appendix

mulate, however tentatively, certain conditions which must be satisfied before a historian is prepared to say: Now I have an explanation.J 6

In spite of some shortcomings, this argument has merit. Dray is not talking about a 'rationalist' interpretation of history, or 'rationality,' in Weber's sense of the word; intelligible explanation might have been a better choice. The shortcomings of Dray's position are that he looks at 'reason' as an objective standard for judging action, and tends to reify it, rather than looking for a notion of 'rationale' as it applies to the situation itself.37 This seems to be his emphasis, but Dray calls his approach a 'rational' explanation, and such an approach may be unfortunate because rationality carries many associations with it. This is a subject which deserves a wider discussion. There is a broad literature, in British philosophy in particular, on the notion of rational and rationality, including contributions by Gellner, Lukes, and Wilson, which might be included in the discussion. Is there a universal rationality necessary for the intelligent observer to understand 'intelligible' behaviour? Is most intelligible behaviour caused by reason? What is important here is that it is possible to 'understand' actions as intelligible behaviour, and the question of rationality per se must be dealt with in another place. To review, Dray notes that 'when a historian sets out to explain a historical action, his problem is usually that he does not know what reason the agent had for doing it.' 38 Now, Dray had already established that there is more than one kind of explanation, including, 'Why necessarily?' questions in addition to 'How possibly?' ones, and that action in history is the activity of human agents, but can be considered in a more general way as well. Therefore, in this statement he is saying that usually 'reason' is involved, and that it is not as limiting as it may seem at first. The main shortcoming of Dray's position is that he looks at reason as an objective standard for judging action, rather than looking for a notion of the rational as it applies to the situation itself. He assumes a universal rationality without establishing it, which distracts one from the importance of what he is proposing. Explanation as understanding, through intelligibility of the action of actors or the rationale for such action, leads us to a theory of human behaviour which depends on consciousness and reflexivity. Dray does not develop this fuller theory. The idealist emphasis on the creative individual actor is an important part of Dray's approach. It may be possible to combine this insight with a more holistic view in a reflexive theory of action.

Appendix

187

Summary: Explanation, Understanding, and Communication

Varieties of explanation have been outlined, including positivist ones which focus on 'why necessarily' social activities and historical events occur; later, positivist ones which focus on 'why probably' they occur; post-positivist and neopositivist ones that focus on the fallibility of tests for probing why they occur; and nonpositivist explanations that deal with questions of 'how possibly' they occur. Our concern has been with the understanding of human action and history, and a method for its analysis. One of the keys to a method that includes both history and social life is the argument that they are essentially the same things. History and social life are both simply unbroken human conduct over time. Anthony Giddens takes such a position when he says 'there simply are no logical or even methodological distinctions between the social sciences and history- appropriately conceived.' 39 When men and women are perceived primarily as organisms, or as 'natural objects,' and one considers that science can explain his or her activities in the same way it can explain other forms of natural phenomena, then 'history' loses its relevance. If, on the other hand, men and women are seen as active, creative agents, acting to change their society over time with others, then 'science,' in the terms described above, is not adequate to describe their activities. A great divide seems to separate these views. Dray has shown that the 'covering law' model of scientific explanation is neither exclusively nor universally valid. His counter-argument is that man is indeed an intelligent, creative agent in history. Dray does not throw 'scientific' explanation completely out of court as a guide to some of man's activities. Rather, man's actions over time may be explained most appropriately as intelligible. What is needed to complement this view is a view of 'social science,' which maintains that man is more than an organism or a natural object; that he is in fact a creative, intelligent actor who changes himself and his environment over time to meet circumstances. Such a view would have to hold that such an actor does not have a mind that is created transcendentally, but through natural circumstances which can be studied objectively. If such a viewpoint existed, then the ideas of history and social science would coincide as one study of ordinary human action over time in the context of man as a reflexive agent. It would be necessary, then, to fashion models or theories of social science that would take such a view into account. This might eliminate or restrict old analogies for social action that assumed that men and women

188

Appendix

were natural or inanimate objects - analogies such as those built upon mechanics or biology. It might involve inventing some new ones, as well. However, this is to get ahead of our argument. The first requirement is to ask whether a reflexive model for social action exists. One does exist, and it is one that finds its best expression in the work of George Herbert Mead. PRAGMATIC APPROACHES TO EXPLANATION : MEAD AND DRAY

George Herbert Mead devoted a lifetime to creating an approach to social action based on human intelligence, rationality, and reflexivity. In an important respect Mead was responding to the narrow behaviourist model of explanation of John B. Watson. While Mead does not deny the adequacy of the stimulus-response model for animals, he sees it as quite unsatisfactory for explaining human behaviour. Mead does not offer a detailed critique of a specific work of Watson's, but instead outlines his fundamental objections, and then goes on to develop his own theory. Mead writes of Watson: The common psychological standpoint which is represented by behaviourism is found in John B. Watson. The behaviourism which we make use of is more adequate than that which Watson uses. Behaviourism in this wider sense is simply an approach to the study of the experience of the individual from the point of view of his conduct, particularly, but not exclusively, the conduct as it is observable by others. Historically, behaviourism entered psychology through the door of animal psychology and there it was found to be impossible to use what is termed introspection ... It was not necessary for the study of the conduct of the individual animal. Having taken that behaviouristic standpoint for the lower animals, it was possible to carry it over to the human animal. There remained, however, the field of introspection, of experiences which are private and belong to the individual himself -experiences commonly called subjective. What was to be done with these? John B. Watson's attitude was that of the Queen in Alice in Wonderland - 'Off with their heads!' - that there were no such things. There was no imagery, and no consciousness.40

Mead sees inner experience as approachable from the perspective of a behaviourism more broadly defined than Watson's. He specifies in his use of the term that observable behaviour in the individual is rooted in his or her organism, and is not regarded as a separate world. At the beginning of the most basic level, the 'act' - impulse occasioned by a stimulus - is 'atti-

Appendix

189

tudes' which are derived from the central nervous system; and it is these attitudes which organize human activity. The observable external act is part of a process which has started 'within': In both versions of behaviourism certain characteristics which things have and certain experiences which individuals have can be stated as occurrences inside of an act. But part of the act lies within the organism and only comes to expression later; it is that side of behaviour which I think Watson has passed over. There is a field within the act itself which is not external, but which belongs to the act, and there are characteristics of that inner organic conduct which do reveal themselves in our attitudes, especially those connected with speech. Now if our behaviouristic point of view takes these attitudes into account, we find that it can very well cover the field of psychology. (6)

Specifically, Mead's behaviourism can cover crucial areas which neither Watson's nor that of the introspectionists can. It is able to deal with the field of communication. His behaviourism is a social behaviourism based on social communication (6). For Mead, consciousness arises in communication naturalistically, through conduct rather than transcendentally, by the gift of concepts from some 'other' source. By stressing consciousness as an act rather than simply as a state, and by placing emphasis upon it, Mead is defending himself against implicit charges of 'pseudomethodology.' He stresses the social processes in the act, the priority of the whole (society) over the part (the individual), and the social act in terms of the whole organic process, rather than an isolated stimulus-response (7). It is possible to say that Dray's work is complementary to Mead's, and vice versa. In spite of some differences, Dray's idea of 'rational explanation' can be enriched and modified by Mead's mature theory. Mead's theory also provides fruitful approaches to the old issues of methodological holism and individualism, and idealism in relation to materialism. While his focus is relatively more detailed and elaborate with respect to 'mind' and the 'self,' Mead also offers the framework for a theory of social institutions which may be developed fruitfully. The similarities between Dray and Mead are greater than they might appear superficially. Dray is a philosopher, and Mead taught in the philosophy department at the University of Chicago most of his academic life. Dray's effort to explain action in terms of intelligibility is also compatible with Mead, in part because it contains elements of the pragmatism that Mead held to as a general philosophic stance with Dewey and others. Cer-

190

Appendix

tainly, neither divorces himself from the study of man's behaviour as the focus of his investigations, or sees the explanation of such conduct as ultimately mysterious or inexplicable. On the other side of the coin, both are criticizing 'scientific' explanations of action which they regard as inadequate, although Mead considers his work scientific, and Dray would not. Dray does not deny the possibility of some kind of general law, but his goal is a much more inclusive approach that emphasizes the intelligence of the human actor. Mead, for his part, is responding to the narrow behaviourism of John B. Watson. For Mead the mind emerges in reflexive conduct; this is also the key to Dray's notion of explanation. Mead's concept of mind appears to approach the kind of intelligibility and 'rationality' of the historical actors that Dray is talking about. For example, Understanding is achieved when the historian can see the reasonableness of a man's doing what this agent did, given the beliefs and purposes referred to: his action can then be explained as having been an 'appropriate' one. The point I want to emphasize is that what is brought out by such considerations is a conceptual connection between understanding a man's action and discerning its rationale ... Explanation which tries to establish a connection between beliefs, motives, and actions of the indicated sort I shall call 'rational explanation.' 4 '

Explanation is understanding of the rationale of the actions of historical agent and surely involves 'understanding of the understanding' of the actor; or to put it another way, explanation involves interpretation by the observer of the acting participants' mutual interpretations in communicative interaction from which consciousness emerges. As Von Wright has already been quoted as noting, Dray is offering the beginnings of a theory of action, and the argument here is that his attempt is compatible with Mead's more mature effort to do the same thing. Mead's approach explicitly describes the rationale for action both in the present and in the past. The importance of Mead's contribution is generally recognized as seminal in the analysis of social life. Both Parsons and Merton borrowed from it, although they interpreted it from their deterministic perspectives.41 Anthony Giddens also makes a reflexive model of action central to his theory of 'structuration.' Giddens does not attribute his own use of such a model to Mead, but cites him, along with Wittgenstein and Heidegger, as independent originators of the idea, and argues that a case can be made that the 'most significant convergent idea in modern social thought' is 'the notion of the social (and linguistic) foundation

Appendix

191

of reflexivity' by which he judges Parson's theory of action and finds it wanting.43 There remains, however, an important difference between Dray and Mead which is as yet undiscussed; that is, Dray's implicit individualism and Mead's explicit holism. There are two related points that might be made about this difference. First, Mead offers a moderation of Dray's (and Collingwood's) individualism without destroying its insights; and second, Mead's de facto treatment of the 'self' seems to bridge individualist and holist positions. Starting with the latter point, Mead's notion of the social 'me' and the innovative 'I' together in one 'self' seems to bridge the notions of methodological holism and individualism. He is not concerned about laws, either explicitly or implicitly, which regulate or predict the actions of the 'I.' At the same time his social 'me' is subject to the control of the community, and at this level Mead justifies an understanding of that control. Therefore, in practical terms he seems to bridge the gap between the two positions. Since he convincingly shows the necessity of social process for understanding the reflective intelligibility of the individual, Mead also provides a complement to Dray's individualism, while at the same time providing an antidote for social determinists. One advantage of such an approach is that it enables the theorist to shed fears of the 'empathetic' approaches to understanding as represented by Dray (and Dray's interpretation of Collingwood) and avoid ignoring their insights - that it is an understanding of man's actions that the researcher is concerned with, not merely the play of forces upon him. There are indeed constraints upon men and women, and some of these are created by their membership in a social community. Mead shows that these need not be neglected either, if the individual is to be considered. It would seem that explanations of action which ignore one or the other aspect are neither adequate nor satisfactory. There are indeed external forces (about which, Mead reminds us, men are not passive), and regularities can be noted with ·regard to them, but these are relatively unimportant aspects of explanations because they are, as both Dray and Mead point out, irrelevant to the nature of man as reflexive, and men's and women's actions as intelligent beings, both as individuals and as collectivities. Further, Mead seems to cut across traditional notions of idealism and materialism in a similar way. Mind and ideas are not transcendental givens, but arise in the social process. On the other hand, humans see the world in a particular way, and they act as agents. The individual and the collectivity live day-to-day in a 'field of ideas,' of significant symbols in a 'universal discourse' or culture. 44 Such symbols may change in meaning;

192

Appendix

past meanings based on concrete interactions may change with new social processes. It would seem, therefore, that the dynamic relationship of the 'I' and the 'me' cuts across static concepts describing polar philosophical positions, without obliterating the truths that each position holds. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

This appendix has set out to discuss some basic aspects of explanation in relation to social interaction and institution formation. Dray's actionoriented view of explanation can be linked to Mead's theory of communicative interaction, and to Mead's incipient theory of institutions, history, and social science with reference to explanation. The appendix adapts Dray's view of explanation as the resolution of puzzlement; and, accepting his critique of Hempel's 'covering law' model of explanation, it examines Dray's interpretation of Collingwood as seeking to understand history through intentionality, not in a methodological sense but in an attempt to come to grips with the intelligibility or rationale of historical action. As such, it offers the beginnings of a theory of action compatible with Geertz and others who are concerned with the exploration of meaning. In spite of some differences, Dray's approach is considered compatible enough with the communication theory of George Herbert Mead to suggest a mutual reinforcement of both efforts. Mead's theory of the emergence of reflexive intelligence in communicative action serves the double purpose of revealing the context for actions of intelligent, reflexive individuals, and serving as the more adequate base of a theory of action. Explanation through an understanding of action rather than by subsuming social behaviour under social laws has important implications. It is a more adequate way of accounting for human behaviour, on one hand, but is less suitable for controlling it, if that is desired, on the other. While less satisfactory for an understanding of a social and historical action, covering laws may possibly be attached to the nonintelligent regularities of human physiological and psychological behaviour. To suggest that the latter approach is the only adequate one is to deny human reason and reflexivity.4 l

Notes

PREFACE

The appendix introduces the notion of explanation on which the book is based. Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action, 3. Original emphasis. Perhaps Habermas is best considered a transitional figure in modern scholarship, important for his intention to create a 'critical' scholarship, but as notable for the paradigms he retained as for the ones he criticized. 3 Joas, G. H. Mead. Joas refers to Mead as the 'most important theorist of intersubjectivity between Feuerbach and Habermas,' 2. 4 A manuscript entitled 'George Herbert Mead and Contempory Social Theory' is in progress. 1

2

CHAPTER I

1 Sica, Review of C.H. Mead ... , by Hans Joas, 143-p. 2

Mead offers a theory of institutions, including the state, which is often ignored.

3 My manuscript-in-progress entitled 'George Herbert Mead and Contemporary

4

5 6

7

Social Theory' will offer an overview of Mead's major concepts in the light of their interpretation by contemporary theorists. Blumer, Symbolic lnteractionism, and Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action, vols. 1 and 2. Mead, Mind, Self, and Society, 1934. Because Mead's own voice deserves to be heard, there are a number of quotations from Mind, Self, and Society. It should be noted that Mead used the pronoun 'he' in reference to people in general. Mead, Mind, Self and Society, 43. For subsequent quotations from this source, page references are supplied in text.

194

Notes to Pages 6-19

8 See also Miller, The Individual and the Social Self, 17. 9 Giddens, New Rules of Sociological Method, 22. 10 Mead, Mind, Self and Society, 214. 11 Coward and Ellis, Language and Materialism, 1. 12 Marshall McLuhan's dictum, derived from the work of Harold Innis, distorts the notion of communication as a whole. But Innis himself never took such a position. He was more concerned with the biases of different media than with a theory of communication based on language per se. 13 Mead, Mind, Self and Society, 97. 14 Schneider, 'Kinship, Nationality and Religion in American Culture,' 71. 1 5 This interpretation cuts across the kind of distinction David Laitin makes between the methodologies of Geertz and Cohen. See Laitin, Hegemony and Culture, 12-16. The rhetorical use of symbols is not seen here as an application of the rational choice approach. 16 Turner, 'Symbolic Studies,' 146. 17 Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures, 17-18. 18 Mead, Mind, Self and Society, 89. Questions arise about the creation and control of universes of discourse. These questions in turn raise the issue of the relationship of ideology to culture, and the questions of propaganda and persuasion. These issues are dealt with in Chapter 2. 19 The question of rationale or intelligibility is a different topic, dealt with in Chapter 7 and in the appendix. 20 Duncan, Communication and Social Order, 102. 21 Wallace and Wolf, Contemporary Sociological Theory, 5. 22 Ibid., 288. 23 Giddens, Central Problems in Social Theory, 254. 24 Discussed in my manuscript-in-progress 'George Herbert Mead and Contemporary Social Theory.' 2 5 For a fuller discussion of the notion of explanation, see the appendix in this book. 26 Mead, Mind, Self, and Society, 262, and see Chapter 2 in this book. 27 See Ortner, 'On Key Symbols,' 38-46, for a review of the concept of key, or core, or dominant symbols in anthropology. 28 Schneider, 1964, quoted by Turner, 'Symbolic Studies,' 148. 29 Mead, Mind, Self, and Society, 156-7. 30 Pfeutze, The Social Self. 31 Mead, Mind, Self, and Society, 2 52. 32 Geertz, 'Centres, Kings and Charisma,' 150-71. 33 Mead, Mind, Self, and Society, 256-7.

Notes to Pages 22-33

195

CHAPTER 2 I 2

3

4

5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 I7 18

19 20 21

22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29

Mead, Mind, Self, and Soaety, 305. Burke, Rhetoric of Motives, 43, original emphasis. This was, for example, a primary point made by C.B. Macpherson in his courses in political philosophy at the University of Toronto, including the one I attended. Burke, Rhetoric of Motives, 19. Burke did the bulk of his work as a literary and social theorist in the period between 1940 and 1970. This may be a functional usage, but it is not a functionalist usage. Mead, Mind, Self, and Soaety, 257. Burke, Rhetoric of Motives, 55. Ibid. And see Mead, Mind, Self, and Soaety, 307: 'Conflicts among individuals in a highly developed and organized human society are not mere conflicts among their primitive impulses but are conflicts among their respective selves or personalities, each with its definite social structure - highly complex and organized and unified - and each with a number of different social facets or aspects, a number of different sets of social attitudes constituting it.' Burke, Rhetoric of Motives, 22. Lee and Lee, Fine Art of Propaganda, 15. Ellul, Propaganda, 200. Ellul, Propaganda, 161-78. Innis, Changing Concepts of Time, 122. See Paine, 'Exchange and Mediation,' 63-86. Paine Politically Speaking, Chap. 2. Ibid., 2 I. Cited by Burke, Rhetoric of Motives, 49. Or Cicero, for that matter. Burke, Rhetoric of Motives, 50. Ibid., 169. Duncan, Communication and Soci,al Order, 175. Corcoran, Political Language and Rhetoric. Ibid., xiv. Ibid., 76. Ibid. Ibid., 201. Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, vii. Ibid.

196

Notes to Pages 33-50

30 Postman, Technopoly, 9. 31 Innis, Bias of Communication, 3-4. 32 Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, 77-8.

33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

41 42

43 44

45 46

47

Gouldner, Dialectic of Ideology and Technology, 95, 96. Weber, Economy and Society, 224. Giddens, New Rules of Sociological Method, 1 11-12. Ibid., 111. Ibid., 112. Ibid., 113, original emphasis. Ibid., 110-13. Burke, Rhetoric of Motives, 54. Ibid., 36, 46. As Burke points out, if you cannot criticize a point of view adequately, there is a sense in which you identify with it. Parekh, Marx's Theory of Ideology. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks. 'Speculate' is exactly the right word here. The point is that our hypothesis - that Gramsci's work may be based in part on pragmatism - needs to be probed to see if it withstands disconfirmation like any other hypothesis. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 349. See Chapter 2 for a very brief discussion of David Laitin's view of Abner Cohen's adherence to the rational choice position; also Laitin, Hegemony and Culture, 15-16. As Postman puts it, in Technopoly, 18.

CHAPTER

1 2

3

4

5 6 7

3

Hughes, 'Institutions,' 252. One kind of typology was first suggested by Meyer Fortes and E.E. EvansPritchard in the introduction to African Political Systems. There is an enormous literature on pressure groups in the United States. For a classic discussion of American pluralism, see Schattsneider, Semi-Sovereign People. The literature on pressure groups in Canada is almost equally large. A particularly prominent scholar in this area is Paul A. Pross. See, for example, Group Politics and Public Policy. For example, by Poulantzas in Political Power and Social Classes, and in 'On Social Classes.' As noted in Chapter 2, organized activities based on discourse constitute the state. As discussed in Chapter 2 . Burke, Grammar of Motives, 342.

Notes to Pages 51-66

197

8 Barkun, Law without Sanctions, 1 51. 'The legal process involves the transforma-

tion of dyadic interactions into triadic interactions.' 9 Burke, Grammar of Motives, 342. 10 Vol. 4, p. 204; cited in Burke, Grammar of Motives, 342. 11 Not without controversy; but this is not the place to deal with this question. The point is, that there is a 'principle' as a set of symbols used rhetorically behind constitutions, not to focus on the debate about its characteristics. 12 Burke, Grammar of Motives, 343. 13 Ibid., 342. 14 Mead, Mind, Self, and Society, 266-7. 1 5 King, Federalism and Federation. 16 Riker, Federalism, Origin, Operation, Significance, 5-6. The author did in fact use such a continuum to evaluate symbols in use in his PhD dissertation. 17 For example, Rousseau, from The Social Contract; Madison, from The Federalist; and Mill, from Representative Government. 18 Elazar, 'Federalism,' 353. 19 Ibid., 353-4. 20 Ibid., 354. 21 Burke, Grammar of Motives, 373. 22 Livingston, Federalism and Constitutional Change. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 Giddens, Central Problems of Social Theory, 111. 27 An application of this approach is outlined in Chapter 7. CHAPTER 4 1 2

3 4

5 6 7 8

9 10 11

Dye, Understanding Public Policy, 87. See Goffman, Presentation of Self Gusfield, Culture of Public Problems, 189. See particularly Duncan, Communication and Social Order, 16. Edelman, Symbolic Uses of Politics, 12. Ibid., 2. Dittmer, 'Political Culture and Political Symbolism,' 561. Edelman, Symbolic Uses of Politics, 75-84. Gusfield, Culture of Public Problems, 10-12. Gusfield, Culture of Public Problems, quoting Edelman, Politics in Symbolic Action, 2, 7. Altheide and Johnson, Bureaucratic Propaganda.

198

Notes to Pages 68-82

12 Goodin, Manipulating Politics, 8. 13 Jessop, Capitalist State. 14 Hall et al., Policing the Crisis. 15

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

26

27 28 29 30

3I 32 33

34

Doern and Phidd, Canadian Public Policy. The second edition, published in 1992 by Nelson Canada, does not contain any substantial revisions to their basic concepts. Vickers, Freedom in a Rocking Boat, 145. Doern, ' Canadian Regulatory Process,' 14. Doern and Wilson, Issues in Canadian Public Policy, 339, and Doern, 'Canadian Regulatory Process,' 17. Doern and Wilson, Issues in Canadian Public Policy, 31. Doern and Phidd, Canadian Public Policy, 22. Stanbury and Fulton, 'Suasion as a Governing Instrument.' MacDonagh, 'Nineteenth-Century Revolution in Government,' 52-67. Gusfield, Culture of Public Problems, especially Chapter 1. Quoted in ibid., 12-13. Edelman, 'The State as a Provider of Symbolic Outputs,' 1. The use of the concept of symbol employed here has its roots in Mead's notion of significant symbol, by which men and women communicate. The question of whether symbols represent 'reality' in any sense, apan from the meanings attributed to them in the relevant discourse is not dealt with at length here, but is discussed in my manuscript-in-progress 'George Herbert Mead and Contemporary Social Theory.' Hosek, 'Women and the Constitutional Process,' 280--1. Duncan, Communication and Social Order. These examples are based on my work in Cameroon and in Canada. See, for example, Stark, 'Power and Persuasion in Cameroon,' 273-93 . Burke, Grammar of Motives, 505-6. Ibid., 51 2 . And why they are called cultural industries. (My manuscript-in-progress 'Persuasion, Propaganda, and Public Policy' discusses this point.) This question will be examined in more detail in 'Persuasion, Propaganda, and Public Policy.' In A Fate Worse than Debt, using the example of the IMF, Susan George offers a good survey of the policy demands the IMF makes on developing countries. The literature on this subject is so vast that one hardly dares open the lid of Pandora's box. Repeated references have already been made to another volume which deals specifically with these issues, but for the Canadian context one cannot leave the subject without mentioning the work of Susan Crean, Abraham Rotstein, Paul Audley, Liora Salter, Dallas Smythe, and a host of others on the

Notes to Pages 85-94 199 nationalist side of the debate, and Richard Collins and others on the 'internationalist' side. See, for example, Crean, Who's Afraid of Canadian Culture?; Rotstein, 'The Use and Misuse of Economics in Cultural Policy,' 148-74; Audley, Canada's Cultural Industries; Salter, '"Public" and Mass Media in Canada'; Smythe, Dependency Road; and Richard Collins, Culture, Communication and National Identity. CHAPTER

5

r Schiller, Mass Communications and American Empire, r r6. Mead, Mind, Self, and Society, 282. 3 As the debate about the writings of Karl Deutsch showed in the sixties and seventies. See, for example, Elder and Cobb, International Community, 290. 4 Smith, Ethnic Revival. 5 Various commentators have made this point, including W allerstein, in The Capitalist World Economy: Essays, and 'The Future of the World Economy,' in Hopkins and Wallerstein, Processes of the World System. 6 Innis, Fur Trade in Canada, 383-5. 7 Frank, 'Development of Underdevelopment,' 3, 6. 8 Ibid., 4. 9 Taaffe, Morrill, and Gould, 'Transport Expansion,' 504. IO Ibid., 505. r r Ibid., 5r 4. 12 For example, see Goheen, 'The Changing Bias of Inter-urban Communications in Nineteenth-Century Canada,' 177--96; and Simmons, 'lnterprovincial Interaction Patterns in Canada.' 13 Mabogunje, 'Urbanization and Change,' 331-58. 14 Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication, 64. 15 Deutsch, 'Growth of Nations,' 169. r6 Deutsch, 'Transaction Flows as Indicators of Political Cohesion,' 49. The introductory chapter of their volume is perhaps the best introduction to the subject of political integration in functional terms. They suggest ten integrative factors: (1) propensity; (2) homogeneity, which includes our discussion of normative values; (3) transactions - including communications, trade, and mobility; (4) mutual knowledge; (5) functional interest; (6) communal character or social nature; (7) structural frame; (8) sovereignty - dependency status; (9) governmental effectiveness; and (10) previous integrative experience, 49. This material, although dated in the academic world, has had a continuing influence on politicians in power, for example, Paul Biya, president of Cameroon after 1987. 17 Deutsch, 'Transaction Flows as Indicators of Political Cohesion,' 5r. 2

200

Notes to Pages 95-110

18 Ibid., IOI . 19 Garrison and Marble, 'Factor-Analytic Study of the Connectivity of a Transpor20

21 22 23

24

25

26

27 28 29 30 31 32

33 34 35 36

37 38 39 40

tation Network,' 232. McPhail, Electronic Colonialism, 19. Anthony Smith, Geopolitics of Information, 11 1. Innis, Empire and Communications. Mason, Path of the Paddle, 3. Some of these issues have been touched upon by Allison Beale in a recent anicle. See Beale, 'Question of Space.' Unfortunately, Beale never deals with the point at issue here. Ibid., 3-4. Lerner, The Passing of Traditional Society; Pye, Communications and Political Development; Schramm, Mass Media and National Development. Servaes, Communication and Development, 7. As noted, the Taaffe, Morrill, and Gould model outlined in this chapter is not impervious to these criticisms. Rogers, Communication Networks. Ravault, 'International Information.' Schramm, Mass Media and National Development, 6-11. Hamelink, Cultural Autonomy in Global Communications, 1 14. Ravault, 'International Information,' 246. Robins and Webster, 'Cybernetic Capitalism,' 44-75; cited by Mosco in 'Toward a Theory of the State and Telecommunications Policy,' 120. However, this association sometimes amounts to a confusion of these related subjects, as well as an overemphasis on them. Schiller, Mass Communications and American Empire, 85. Ahidjo, speech, mimeo,July 1980. Smith, Geopolitics of Information, 12. Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures, 234-43. Anderson, Imagined Communities. Stark, 'Harold Innis and the Chicago School.'

CHAPTER

6

1 William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II, Scene 7, lines 140-5 .

Not for the better, or in every discipline. Every person, including every politician, who seeks to persuade using figures of speech is a poet, whether skilled or unskilled. And, as noted in Chapter 7, there is a strong movement towards 'poetics' in contemporary anthropological theory. 3 Burke is not alone in drawing on Mead in discussions of the relationship between communication and the drama. Schutz does not make the drama as

2

Notes to Pages 110-1 5 201

4

5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

15

16 17 18 19

20

metaphor part of his phenomenological approach, but he does mention the drama in the earliest of his early writings (published as Life Forms and Meaning Structure [London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982], 184-6. Schutz comments only on the special character of communication within the drama, citing Mead. He does not use it as a metaphor for human communication. Schutz illustrates the point that actors in the drama communicate both with each other and with an audience, and this is a useful point. 'Mead called his pragmatism a philosophy of the act.' Burke, Grammar of Motives, xxi. Burke, Grammar of Motives, xxii. The introduction to Burke's book is the best introduction to dramatism. Burke, Dramatism and Development, 22. See note 5 above. Burke, Grammar of Motives, Introduction. Ibid., xv. Burke, 'Dramatism,' 446. Burke, Dramatism and Development, 23 . Burke, Grammar of Motives, xxi. Burke, 'Dramatism,' 446. Duncan, Symbols in Society, 17: 'If we stress media, or any of these five elements, to the exclusion of others (as does the Toronto school led by Marshall McLuhan), we make our special view so general that it risks loss of meaning, or, at least, loss of precision in meaning ... We ascribe all kinds of affects to media, and then 'derive' various effects from our ascription. The same may be said for all mechanical, theoretical constructs which reduce language to a series of signals. Signals do not set, create, or criticize themselves. The pattern within which they function was created by someone to serve a common purpose.' Burke puts it in much more complete terms than these, and hardly any of the richness of his argument could be presented here. See the articles by Krippendorff in Gerbner et al., eds., Analysis of Communication Content. Duncan, Symbols in Society, 5. As I did in my PhD dissertation. For a fuller elaboration of this point, see Stark, 'Theories of the Contemporary African State' and my manuscript-in-progress 'George Herbert Mead and Contemporary Social Theory.' Turner, The Forest of Symbols; Fernandez, Persuasions and Performances; Goffman, Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Gusfield, Culture of Public Problems; Edelman, Symbolic Uses of Politics; idem., Politics as Symbolic Action; and Cohen, Two Dimensional Man.

202

Notes to Pages

1 17-26

2 1 Wallace and Wolf, Contemporary Sociological Theory, 2 76. 22 Menzies, Sociological Theory in Use, 28. 23 Berg, Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences. 24 Ibid., 14. 25

If not the only one.

Goffman, Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, 22. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 24. In a footnote in ibid., 2 5. Burke, Grammar of Motives, 7 (e.g., 'scene is to act, as implicit is to explicit'}. Goffman, Presentation of Self, 164. The source of the citation is the 195 3 version of A Grammar of Motives, published by Prentice-Hall, 171. 33 Goffman, Grammar of Motives, 30. 34 And indeed is more inclusive than has been described here. 35 Randall Collins' s reference to the relationship of Goffman to Durkheim in Four Sociological Traditions, 277, reinforces my point. Randall writes that Goffman's 'theoretical apparatus was the Durkheimian theory of rituals rather than the American tradition of symbolic interaction.' 36 Wallace and Wolf, Contemporary Sociological Theory, 284. 37 Edelman, Symbolic Uses of Politics. 38 Burke, ' Dramatism,' 448. 39 Gusfield, Symbolic Crusade, 166-7. 40 Gusfield, Culture of Public Problems, 21. 41 Ibid., 22. 42 Gusfield, Symbolic Crusade, 169. 43 Turner, Forest of Symbols; idem., Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors. 44 Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors, 31-2. 45 Ibid., 32. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid. 48 Barrett, Rebirth of Anthropological Theory, 30. 49 Fernandez, Persuasions and Performances, 227. 50 Cohen, Politics of Elite Culture. 51 Cohen, Politics of Elite Culture, 14. 52 Cohen, Two-Dimensional Man, 131- 2. 53 Barley, Symbolic Structures, 11. 54 Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures, 9. 55 My inspiration does not come from Gramsci, but from a combination of the communication theory of George Herbert Mead linked to analysis of relations

26 27 28 29 30 31 32

Notes to Pages 126-36 203

56

57 58 59

60 61

62

of power between individuals and groups. It has already been argued that since Gramsci was a linguist with an understanding of the 'pragmatist' tradition, it is possible that Gramsci followed a similar route. Burke, Grammar of Motives, Introduction. Ibid., 325. Ibid., 341. Miliband, The State in Capitalist Economy, (1969), Chap. 3. These are devised inductively from research already referred to on Cameroon, but it may be argued that they are useful in a comparative perspective. The notions of political groups, political elites, state institutions, state elites, and state systems are derived from Miliband, The State in Capitalist Society, as useful categories for almost any state, but without adhering to the economistic assumptions of some of the work. Havens and Flynn, Internal Colonialism and Structural Change in Colombia, I I.

63 One might ask, Will the most rigorous social scientist please stand up? What is rigour? It often seems to be an ideologically based symbol of approval attached to quantitative methods only. Can the analysis of these interactions be quantified? A discussion of both the comment and the question would take longer than is possible here. 64 See Cohen, Two-Dimensional Man, as interpreted by Laitin in Hegemony and Culture, Politics and Religious Change among the Yoruba. 65 As distinct from Edelman's Symbolic Uses of Politics. 66 See the appendix. 67 Strauss, George Herbert Mead. 68 Strauss and Corbin, Qualitative Research. 69 Burke, Grammar of Motives, lntrod. 70 This distinction is used by Menzies in Sociological Theory in Use. CHAPTER

7

As discussed in the appendix. Geertz's use of catching the measles as an example is a striking coincidence indeed. Hempel's example of Tommy and the measles is a central feature of Dray's critique of the nomological model as described in the appendix. See Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures, 26. 'Thus we are led to the second condition of cultural theory: it is not, at least in the strict meaning of the term, predictive. The diagnostician doesn't predict measles: he decides that someone has them, or at the very most anticipates that someone is likely shortly to get them.' 3 Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures, 26. 1

2

204

Notes to Pages 136-40

4 Tyler, 'Postmodern Ethnography,' 136. 5 See page 250. Again, I would attempt to avoid labelling the method as postmodern. See also Jameson, 'Postmodernism and Consumer Society,' 123. 6 I should make it plain that I do not use the concept of 'scene' in the same way Erving Goffman does in Gender Advertisements; for example, in his distinction between pictured scenes and pictured portraits, as 'picture frames,' 16-17. 7 Fabian, Atomization of Charisma, 12-r 3. 8 Van Maanen, Dabbs Jr., and Faulkner, Varieties of Qualitative Research, 32. 9 Lofland and Lofland, Analyzing Social Settings, 75. ro Spradley, Participant Observation, 39-40. Although this analytical triad was not originally created with dramatism in mind, we can incorporate it into the dramatistic model. r r Lofland and Lofland call them episodes. See Analysing Social Settings, 76. r2 Fernandez, Persuasions and Performances, xi. I 3 Ibid., xi. 14 For a commentary on the phrase 'pregnant with meaning,' see Crapanzano, 'Hermes' Dilemma,' 52. r 5 Clifford and Marcus, Writing Culture, I 2. 16 It is interesting that social scientists in Russia are attempting to identify the truly significant events among the many which have taken place in their society, and to develop criteria with which to make such decisions. 17 In Chapter 6 I took some encouragement from the last two lines of As You Like It, in order to span five 'ages' in the political life of a state with the dramatistic model: 'And one man in his time plays many parts / His acts being seven ages.' r 8 Knight, Choosing Canada's Capital. l should make it clear that Knight does not use the theoretical orientation suggested in this book, or call his case study a 'scene.' 19 Some scholars scorn it on this basis alone. For them, the idea of using the drama as a metaphor for social action is, in coloquial terms, a 'hard sell' requiring a concerted rhetorical effort on the part of the researcher to convince them of its worth, while listening carefully to the nature of their objections. Scholars who reject the drama as a methaphor seem, in my experience, to be based on disciplines less likely to acknowledge the contributions of Burke or Goffman. 20 The word integrate can carry with it functionalist, paradigmatic overtones because of the specific uses that functionalist theory has made of the word in the context of a biological metaphor, or social and political life. The notion of integration was extremely widespread in the I 960s as a centrepiece of analysis. Indeed, integration is contained in the title of some of my own student writings. There is, however, a life for the word integration after functionalism, just as there is for the word function itself.

Notes to Pages 141-9 205 21 Neuman makes a similar point. See Social Research Methods, 383. 22 This is a revised version of a list suggested by Neuman, in Social Research Methods, 384. 23 Dexter, Elite and Specialized Interviewing. 24 Blumer makes this point in a particularly effective way. See Symbolic 25 26 27 28

29 30 31 32

33 34

35 36 37 38

39 40 41 42

43 44 45 46

I nteractionism. See Geertz, Interpretation of Culture. Van Maanen, Tales of the Field, 2. See, for example, Clifford and Marcus, Writing Culture. For a discussion of the writing of ethnography as rhetoric, see Clifford and Marcus, Writing Culture. It offers a good starting point. Ethnography can be a form of sanctioned name-dropping of one's relationships with members of another society. Rabinow, 'Representations,' 245. Neuman, Social Research Methods, 384. Peel, 'Alien Belief Systems,' 71. Fran~ois Truffaut's film four pour Nuit comes to mind. Geertz's caution about ethnographic research in Interpretation of Cultures is useful here. 'The "Jonesville is America" writ small (or" America is Jonesville" writ large) is so obviously a fallacy that the only thing needing explanation is the fact that people have managed to believe in it, and expected others to as well. The notion that one can find the essence of national societies, civilizations, great religions, or whatever summed up and simplified in so-called typical small towns and villages is palpable nonsense,' 21-2. More detailed analysis is undertaken in work either in process or in progress. Campbell and Pal, The Real Worlds. LeVine, The Cameroons. Smith, 'Canadian Confederation and the Influence of American Federalism,' 444. Ibid. Creighton, Road to Confederation, 141. Ibid. Where did this power come from? It came at least in part in their capacity to pay the heavy debts of the other colonial legislatures. This was a key feature of confederation in Canada. Pope, Confederation, 18. Palmer, quoted by Pope, 69. Charlottetown Monitor, 1 Dec., 1864, letter from Palmer of 30 Nov., cited by Waite in The Life and Times of Confederation, 95. 'There is no use asking the conference to depart from the principle laid down. We could not justify it.' Pope, Confederation, 72.

206 47 48 49 50 51

Notes to Pages 149-73

Pope, Confederation, 54-5. Vipond, 'Constitutional Politics,' 271. Which is also in keeping with present-day practice. Waite, Confederation Debates in the Province of Canada, r865, 4 3. Government of West Cameroon, Record of the Conference on the Constitutional Future of the Southern Cameroons, held at Foumban 17 to 21 July 1961. All subsequent references to the Foumban discussions are taken from this source. For details of the conference, see Johnson, The Cameroon Federation, 181-98.

52 Johnson, The Cameroon Federation, 194. 53 Johnson comes to a similar conclusion. See ibid. 54 Not necessarily in this order. 55 As discussed in Chapter 5. 56 Scholars wishing to test the validity of the analysis of the content of the videotape can borrow copies from the author. 57 Berger, Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland. Sympathy for the Native peoples' position had built around the Berger Report from 1974. 58 Government of Canada, Iri all Fairness. 59 See Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, Nunavut, The Peoples' Land (NWT: Inuit Land Claims Commission, 1978), and The Dene Nation and the Metis Association of the NWT, Public Government for the People of the North, Nov. 1981. 60 Barrett, Rebirth of Anthropological Theory, 51. APPENDIX

1 See, for example, Fay, Social Theory and Political Practice, 12 3; and Moon, 'The 2

3 4

5 6 7

8

Logic of Political Inquiry.' In one of the several senses in which Thomas Kuhn uses the notion of paradigm. See Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. See note I above. Kaplan, Conduct of Inquiry, 324. Rudolph Carnap, cited by Caldwell in Beyond Positivism, 13. Hempel, 'The Function of General Laws in History.' Giddens, Central Problems in Social Theory, 230. George Henrik Von Wright makes a similar claim for Hempel in his Explanation and Understanding, 10. 'The discussion of problems of explanation within the tradition of analytic philosophy received its decisive impetus from Carl Gustav Hempel's classic paper, "The Function of General Laws in History."' Hempel, 'General Laws,' 345.

Notes to Pages 175-84 207 9 Class notes of William Dray, 'The Philosophy of History,' University of Toronto, 1965-6. 10 It is the same method David Easton pronounces for American political science in his extremely influential article, 'The Current Meaning of Behavioralism,' published in r967. Easton offers an 'itemized list' of characteristics of behavioralism, the first two of which serve as the basis for the rest: ( r) Regularities: There are discoverable uniformities in political behaviour. These can be expressed in generalizations or theories with explanatory and predictive value; (2) Verification: The validity of such generalizations must be testable in principle, by reference to relevant behaviour. r r 'A challenge to positivist methodology and philosophy of science has thus arisen within the mainstream of analytical philosophy, particularly after the appearance of the three works by Anscombe, Dray and Winch.' Von Wright, Explanation and Understanding, 29. 12 MacIntyre, After Virtue, 84. r 3 Class notes of William Dray, 'The Philosophy of History,' University of Toronto, 1965-6. 14 Ibid. I 5 Dray, Laws and Explanations, r 58. 16 Von Wright, Explanation and Understanding, 27. 17 Ibid., 25. 18 Ibid., 5o-60. 19 For example, Popper, Logic of Scientific Discovery. 20 The American philosopher Charles S. Peirce made a similar point some thirty years before Popper. 2 I Campbell and Stanley, Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research, and Campbell and Cook, Quasi-Experimentation, Design and Analysis. 22 Weber, 'Objectivity in Social Science and Social Policy,' 27. 23 Ibid., 22. 24 Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, 103. 25 Campbell and Cook, Quasi-Experimentation, Design and Analysis. 26 Ibid., 17. 27 Campbell, '"Degrees of Freedom" and the Case Study,' 54. 28 Ibid., 54. 29 Ibid., 57. 30 Dray, 'Historical Explanation of Action Reconsidered,' 108. This statement is also quoted by Giddens in Central Problems in Social Theory. 3 r Dray, Laws and Explanations, 76.

208 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

44 45

Notes to Pages 185-92

Max Weber, 'On Social Action.' Gadamer, Truth and Method. Von Wright, Explanation and Understanding, 26. Dray, Laws and Explanations, 119. Ibid., 143. And see Von Wright, Explanation and Understanding, 27. The distinction between 'rationality' and 'rationale' is a critical one. Dray, 'Historical Explanation of Actions,' 108. Quoted with a similar comment by Giddens in Central Problems, 232-3. Giddens, New Rules, 17, 55, and Dray, 'Historical Explanation of Actions,' 108. Quoted by Giddens with a similar comment in Central Problems, 232-3. Mead, Mind, Self and Soaety, 2 . Dray, 'Historical Explanation of Actions,' 108. Strauss, Introduction to George Herbert Mead, 12-13. Giddens, New Rules, 19. The entire quotation is as follows: 'Talcott Parsons has argued that the most significant convergent idea in modern social thought concerns the 'internalization of values' as independently arrived at by Durkheim and Freud; I think a better case can be made for the notion of the social (and Linguistic) foundation of reflexivity such as was independently arrived at, from widely varying perspectives, by Mead, Wittgenstein, and Heidegger - and following the latter, Gadamer. Giddens's criticism of Parsons occurs in several places, one of them being on page 16 of the same volume, where he comments 'that there is no action in Parson's frame of reference [his emphasis], only behaviour which is propelled by need dispositions or role expectations.' Mead, Mind, Self and Society, 294. Fay, Social Theory and Political Practice, 12 3.

Bibliography

Abercrombie, Nicholas, Stephen Hill, and Bryan S. Turner. The Dominant Ideology Thesis. London: George Allen and Unwm, 1980. Abraham, J.H. Origins and Growth of Soaology. New York: Pengum Books, 1973. Althe1de, David L., and John M. Johnson. Bureaucratic Propaganda. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1980. Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. London: Verso, 1983. Audley, Paul. Canada's Cultural Industries. Toronto: Lorimer, 1983. Barkun, Michael. Law without Sanctzons. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968. Barley, Nigel. Symbolic Structures: An Exploration of the Culture of the Dowayos. Cambridge: Cambridge Umvers1ty Press: 1983. Barrett, Stanley R. The Rebirth of Anthropological Theory. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984. Beale, Allison. 'The Question of Space: Transportation m Relation to Commumcation with Some Implications for Broadcastmg.' In Communication Canada: Issues in Broadcasting and New Technologies, edited by Rowland M. Lorimer and Donald C. Wilson. Toronto: Kagan and Woo, 1988. Berg, Bruce L. Qualitative Research Methods for the Soaal Saences. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1989. Berger, Thomas. Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland. Ottawa: Department of Supply and Services, 1977. Blumer, Herbert. Symbolic Interactzomsm: Perspective and Method. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969. Burke, Kenneth. 'Dramatism.' In The International Encyclopedia of the Soaal Saences. Vol. 4. New York: Macmillan, 1968. - Dramatism and Development. Barre, Mass.: Clark Umvers1ty Press, 1972. - A Grammar of Motives. Berkeley: Umvers1ty of Cahforma Press, 1969. - A Rhetoric of Motives. Berkeley: Umvermy of California Press, 1969.

210

Bibliography

Caldwell, Bruce. Beyond Positivism. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1982. Campbell, Donald T. "'Degrees of Freedom" and the Case Study.' In Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Evaluation Research, edited by T. D. Reichardt and C.S. Reichardt Cook. Beverly Hills: Sage, 1979. Campbell, Donald T ., and Thomas D. Cook. Quasi-Experimentation, Design and Analysis: Issues for Field Settings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979. Campbell, Donald T., and Julian C. Stanley. Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1963. Campbell, Robert B., and Leslie Pal. The Real Worlds . Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 1990. Canada, Government of. In All Fairness: A Native Claims Policy. Ottawa: Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, 1976. Clifford, James, and George E. Marcus. Writing Culture: The Poetics and the Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. Cohen, Abner. The Politics of Elite Culture: Explorations in the Dramaturgy of Power in a Modern African Society. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. - Two-Dimensional Man: An Essay on the Anthropology of Power and Symbolism in Complex Society. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974. Collins, Randall. Four Sociological Traditions. New York: Oxford Books, 1994. Collins, Richard. Culture, Communication and National Identity. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990. Corcoran, Paul E. Political Language and Rhetoric. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979. Coward, Rosalind, and John Ellis. Language and Materialism: Developments in Semiology and the Theory of the Subject. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977.

Crapanzano, Vincent. 'Hermes' Dilemma.' In Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, edited by James Clifford and George Marcus. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. Crean, Susan. Who's Afraid of Canadian Culture? Don Mills, Ont.: General Publishing, 1976. Creighton, Donald. The Road to Confederation. Toronto: Macmillan, 1964. - Towards the Discovery of Canada. Toronto: Macmillan, 1972. Deutsch, Karl. 'The Growth of Nations.' World Politics 5 Gan. 1953). - Nationalism and Social Communication. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1952. - 'Transaction Flows as Indicators of Political Cohesion.' In The Integration of Political Communities, edited by P. Jacob and J. Toscano, 75-97. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1964. Dexter, Lewis A. Elite and Specialized Interviewing. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1970.

Bibliography

211

Dittmer, Lowell. 'Political Culture and Political Symbolism.' World Politics 29, 4 ( 1 977). Dobbs, James M. Jr. Making Things Visible. In Varieties of Qualitative Research, edited by John Van Maanen,James M. Dobbs Jr., and Robert R. Faulkner. Beverly Hills: Sage, 1982. Doern, G. Bruce, 'The Canadian Regulatory Process.' In The Regulatory Process in Canada, edited by G. Bruce Doern. Toronto: Macmillan, 1978. Doern, G. Bruce, and Richard W. Phidd. Canadian Public Policy: Ideas, Structure and Process. 1st ed., Toronto: Methuen, 1983; 2d ed., Scarborough, Ont.: Nelson Canada, 1992. Doern, G. Bruce, and V. Seymour Wilson, eds. Issues in Canadian Public Policy. Toronto: Macmillan, 1974. Dray, William. Laws and Explanations in History. London: Oxford University Press, 1964. - 'The Historical Explanation of Action Reconsidered.' In Philosophy and History: A Symposium, edited by Sidney Hook. New York: New York University Press, 1963. Duncan, Hugh Dalziel. Communication and Social Order. New York: Oxford University Press, 1962. - Symbols and Social Theory. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969. - Symbols in Society. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. Dye, Thomas. Understanding Public Policy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1981. Easton, David. 'The Current Meaning of Behaviouralism.' In Contemporary Political Analysis, edited by James C. Charlesworth. New York: Free Press, 1967. Edelman, Murray. Politics as Symbolic Action. Chicago: Markham Press, 1971. - 'The State as a Provider of Symbolic Outputs.' 1973 World Congress of the International Political Science Association. Mimeo, 1973. - The Symbolic Uses of Politics. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1967. Elazar, Daniel. 'Federalism.' In The Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Vol. 5. New York: Macmillan, 1968. Elder, Charles W., and Roger Cobb. International Community. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970. Ellul,Jacques. Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes. Trans. Konrad Kellen and Jean Lerner. New York: Random House, 1973. Fabian, Johannes. 'The Atomization of Charisma: A Critique of D.B. Barrett's "Schism and Renewal in Africa.'" Mimeo. Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., 1968. Fay, Brian. Social Theory and Political Practice: Controversies in Sociology. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1975.

212

Bibliography

Fernandez,James. Persuasions and Performances. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986. Fortes, M., and E.E. Evans-Pritchard, eds. African Political Systems. London: Oxford University Press, 1963. Frank, Andre Gunder. Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1967. - 'The Development of Underdevelopment.' In Latin America: Underdevelopment or Revolution. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. Trans. by Garret Barden and John Cumming. New York: Seabury Press, 1975. Garrison, W., and D. Marble. 'Factor-Analytic Study of the Connectivity of a Transportation Network.' Regional Science Association Papers, Vol. 12. Lund Congress, 1963. Geertz, Clifford. 'Centres, Kings, and Charisma: Reflections on the Symbolics of Power.' In Culture and Its Creators: Essays in Honor of Edward Shils, edited by Joseph Ben-David and Terry Nichols Clark. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977. - The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books, 1973. George, Susan. A Fate Worse than Debt. London: Penguin, 1988. Gerbner, George, Ole R. Holsti, Klaus Krippendorff, William). Paisley, and Philip J. Stone, eds. The Analysis of Communication Content. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1969. Giddens, Anthony. Central Problems in Social Theory. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979. - New Rules of Sociological Method. London: Hutchison, 1976. Goffman, Erving. Gender Advertisements, New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1987. - The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1959. Goheen, Peter G. 'The Changing Bias of Inter-urban Communications in Nineteenth-Century Canada.' journal of Historical Geography 16, 2 (1990):177-96. Goodin, Robert E. Manipulating Politics. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980. Gouldner, Alvin W. The Dialectic of Ideology and Technology: The Origins, Grammar, and Future of Ideology. New York: Seabury Press, 1976. Gramsci, Antonio. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Edited and translated by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowel Smith. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1971.

Gusfield, Joseph R. The Culture of Public Problems. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981. - Symbolic Crusade. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1966. Habermas, Jurgen. The Theory of Communicative Action. 2 vols. Trans. Thomas McCarthy. Boston: Beacon Press, 1981, 1987.

Bibliography

21 3

Hall, Stuart, Charles Critcher, Tony Clarke Jefferson, John Roberts, and Brian Roberts. Policing the Crisis. London: Macmillan, 1978. Hamelink, Cees J. Cultural Autonomy in Global Communications. New York: Longman, 1983 . Havens, A.E., and W.L. Flynn. Internal Colonialism and Structural Change in Colombia. New York: Praeger, 1970. Hempel, Carl Gustav. 'The Function of General Laws in History.' In Theories of History, edited by Patrick Gardener. Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1959. Hopkins, Terence K., and Immanuel Wallerstein, eds. Processes of the World System . Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1980. Hosek, Chaviva. 'Women and the Constitutional Process.' In And No One Cheered, edited by Keith Banting and Richard Simeon, 289-300. Toronto: Methuen, 198 3. Hughes, Everett Cherrington. 'Institutions.' In Principles of Sociology, edited by Alfred McClung Lee. In College Outline Series, 225-82. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1951 . Innis, Harold. The Bias of Communication. Toronto: University qf Toronto Press, 1964. - Changing Concepts of Time. Toronto: Macmillan, 1952. - Empire and Communications. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972. - The Fur Trade in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1956. - 'Settlement and the Mining Frontier.' In Canadian Frontiers of Settlement, Vol. 9, part 2. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1936. Jameson, Fredric. 'Postmodernism and Consumer Society.' In The Anti-Aesthetic Essays on Postmodern Culture, edited by Hal Foster. Port Townsend, Wash.: Bay Press, 1983. Jessop, Bob. The Capitalist State . Oxford: Martin Robinson 1982. Joas, Hans. G.H. Mead: A Contemporary Re-examination of His Thought. Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press, 1985. Johnson, Willard. The Cameroon Federation. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970. Kaplan, Abraham. The Conduct of Inquiry. San Francisco: Chandler Publishing, 1964. King, Preston. Federalism and Federation . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982. Knight, David B. Choosing Canada's Capital: Conflict Resolution in a Parliamentary System. Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1991. Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2d ed. No. 2. Foundations of the Unity of Science, International Encyclopedia of Unified Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962.

214

Bibliography

Laclau, Ernesto. Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory: Capitalism, Fascism, Populism. London: Verso, 1979. Laitin, David D. Hegemony and Culture: Politics and Religious Change among the Yoruba . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986. Lee, Alfred McClung, and Elizabeth Briant Lee. The Fine Art of Propaganda. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1939. Lerner, Daniel. The Passing of Traditional Society. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1958. Le Vine, Victor T. The Cameroons: From Mandate to Independence. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964. Livingston, William S. Federalism and Constitutional Change. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956. Lofland, John, and Lofland, Lyn H. Analyzing Social Settings. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1984. Mabogunje, Akim L. 'Urbanization and Change.' In The African Experience, vol. 1, edited by J. Paden and E. Soja. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1970.

MacDonagh, Oliver. 'The Nineteenth-Century Revolution in Government: A Reappraisal.' The Historical journal 1 (1958): 52-67. MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 198 1. McPhail, Thomas. Electronic Colonialism. Beverly Hills: Sage, 1981 . Madison, James. The Federalist. (Reprint} New York: Irvington, 1993 . Mason, Bill. Path of the Paddle. Toronto: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1980. Mead, George Herbert. Mind, Self, and Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist. Ed. Charles W. Morris. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934. Menzies, Ken. Sociological Theory in Use. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982. Miliband, Ralph. The State in Capitalist Society: An Analysis of the Western System of Power. New York: Basic Books, 1969. Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty: Representative Government. London: Oxford University Press, 1912. Miller, David L., ed. The Individual and the Social Self Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. Moon, J. Donald. 'The Logic of Political Inquiry.' In The Political Science Handbook, vol. 1, edited by Fred Greenstein and Nelson Polsby. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1975. Mosco, Vincent. 'Toward a Theory of the State and Telecommunications Policy.' Journal of Communication 38 (winter 1988). Neuman, W. Lawrence. Social Research Methods. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1991. Ortner, Sherry. 'On Key Symbols.' American Anthropologist 75 (1973): 1338-46. Paine, Robert. 'Two Modes of Exchange and Mediation.' In Transaction and Mean-

Bibliography

2 15

ing: Directions in the Anthropology of Exchange and Symbolic Behavior, edited by Bruce Kapferer. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1976. - Politically Speaking . St. John's: Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1981. Parekh, Bhikhu. Marx's Theory of Ideology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982. Parsons, Talcott. The Structure of Social Action. 2 vols. New York: Free Press, 1968. Peel, J.D.Y. 'Understanding Alien Belief Systems.' British journal ofSoaology 20 (1969): 71. Pfeutze, Paul. The Social Self New York: Brookman, 1954. Pope, Joseph. Confederation: Being a Series of Hitherto Unpublished Documents Bearing on the British North America Act. Toronto: The Carsell Co., 1895. Popper, Karl R. Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Saentific Knowledge. New York: Basic Books, 1963 . - The Logic of Scientific Discovery. New York: Harper and Row, 1959. Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. New York: Penguin, 1985 . - Technopoly. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992. Poulantzas, Nicos. 'On Social Classes.' New Left Review 78 (1973). - Political Power and Social Classes. Ed. and trans. Timothy O'Hagan. London: NLB, Verso, 1978. Pross, Paul. Group Politics and Public Policy. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1986. Pye, Lucien, ed. Communications and Political Development. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963. Rabinow, Paul. 'Representations Are Social Facts: Modernity and Post-Modernity in Anthropology .' In Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, edited by James Clifford and George E. Marcus. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. Ravault, Rene-Jean. 'International Information: Bullet or Boomerang?' In Political Communication Research: Approaches, Studies, Assessments, edited by David L. Paletz. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Press, 1987. Riker, William H . Federalism: Origin, Operation, Significance. Boston: Little, Brown, 1964. Robins, Kevin, and Frank Webster. 'Cybernetic Capitalism: Information, Technology, Everyday Life.' In The Political Economy of Information, edited by Vincent Mosco and Janet Wasko. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988. Rogers, Everett. Communication Networks: Toward a New Paradigm for Research. New York: Free Press, 1981. Rotstein, Abraham. 'The Use and Misuse of Economics in Cultural Policy.' In Communications Canada: Issues in Broadcasting and New Technologies, edited

216

Bibliography

by Rowland M. Loviner and Donald C. Wilson. Toronto: Kagan and Woo, 1988.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The Social Contract. New York: Knopf, 1993. Salter, Liora R. '"Public" and Mass Media in Canada: Dialectics in Innis's Communication Analysis.' In Culture, Communication and Dependency: The Tradition of H.A. Innis, edited by William H. Melody, Liora R. Salter, and Paul Heyer. Norwood, NJ: Ab lex Press, 198 1. Schattsneider, E.E. The Semi-Sovereign People. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960. Schiller, Herbert I. Mass Communications and American Empire. Boston: Beacon Press, 1969. Schneider, David M. 'Kinship, Nationality and Religion in American Culture: Toward a Definition of Kinship.' In Symbolic Anthropology, edited by Janet L. Kemintzer, David S. Dolgin, and David M. Schneider. New York: Columbia University Press, 1977. Schramm, Wilber. Mass Media and National Development. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1964. Schutz, Alfred. Life Forms and Meaning Structure. London: Reoutledge & Kegan Paul, 1982. Servaes, Jan. Communication and Development. Leuven, Holland: Uitgeverij Acco, 1983.

Sica, Alan. Review of G.H. Mead: A Contemporary Re-examination of His Thought, by Hans Joas. Telos 66 (Winter, 198 5-6): 143-5 1. Simmons, James W. 'lnterprovincial Interaction Patterns in Canada.' Research paper no. 24. Centre for Urban and Community Studies, University of Toronto, 1970. Mimeo. Smith, Anthony D. The Ethnic Revival. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.

- The Geopolitics of Information: How Western Culture Dominates the World. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980. Smith,Jennifer. 'Canadian Confederation and the Influence of American Federalism.' Canadian]ournal of Political Science 21, 3 (Sept. 1988). Smythe, Dallas. Dependency Road: Communicatons, Capitalism, Consciousness, and Canada. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Press, 1981. Spradley, James P. Participant Observation. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1980. Stanbury, William T., and Jane Fulton. 'Suasion as a Governing Instrument.' In How Ottawa Spends, edited by Allan M. Maslove. Toronto: Methuen, 1984. Stark, Frank M. 'Federalism as a Symbol of Political Integration in the Elite Political Culture of Cameroon.' PhD thesis, Northwestern University, 1972.

Bibliography

217

- 'Harold Innis and the Chicago School.' journal of Canadian Studies (Fall, 1994). - 'Power and Persuasion in Cameroon.' Canadian journal of African Studies 14, 2 (1980): 273-93 . - 'Theories of the Contemporary African State: A Reappraisal.' Journal of Modern African Studies 24, 2 (1986): 335-47. Stock, Brian. The Implications of literacy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983. Strauss, Anselm, ed. and trans. ' Introduction.' George Herbert Mead on Social Psychology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956. Strauss, Anselm, and Juliet Corbin. Basics of Qualitative Research. Newbury Park: Sage, 1990. Taaffe, E.J., R.L. Morrill, and P.R. Gould. 'Transport Expansion in Underdeveloped Countries: A Comparative Analysis.' Geographical Review 53 (1963): 5o3-2 9. Turner, Victor. Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974. - The Forest of Symbols. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1967. - 'Symbolic Studies.' Annual Review of Anthropology 4 (1964): 145-61. Tyler, Stephen A. 'Postmodern Ethnography.' In Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, edited by James Clifford and George E. Marcus. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. Van Maanen, John. Tales of the Field: On Writing Ethnography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988. Van Maanen, John,James M. Dabbs Jr, and Robert R. Faulkner. Varieties of Qualitative Research. Beverly Hills: Sage, 1982. Vickers, Sir Geoffrey. Freedom in a Rocking Boat: Changing Values in an Unstable Society. New York: Basic Books, 1971. Vipond, Robert C. 'Constitutional Politics and the Legacy of the Provincial Rights Movement in Canada.' Canadian]ournalof Political Science 18, 2 (June 1985): 271. Von Wright, George Henrik. Explanation and Understanding. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1971. Waite, P.B. The Life and Times of Confederation. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962. - ed. The Confederation Debates in the Province of Canada, I 86 5. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1963. Wallace, Ruth A., and Alison Wolf. Contemporary Sociological Theory. 3d ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1991. Wallerstein, Immanuel. The Capitalist World Economy: Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Weber, Max. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Eds.

218

Bibliography

Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich. Vol. r. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. - ' Objectivity in Social Science and Social Policy,' In Understanding and Social Inquiry, edited by Fred Dallmeyr and Thomas McCarthy. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1977. - 'On Social Action.' In The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, translated by T. Parsons and A.M. Henderson. New York: Penguin Books, 1973 . West Cameroon, Government of. Record of the Conference on the Constitutional Future of the Southern Cameroons. Proceedings of the conference held at Foumban, 17-21 July 1961. Winch, Peter. The Idea of Social Science and I ts Relation to Philosophy. Studies in Philosophical Psychology. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958.

Index

Abercrombie, Nicholas, et al. 37, 48 Aboriginal rights, 158; and title, 15 5-6 action, 68; symbolic, 63-5; communicative, 119-20 actionists, symbolic, 63 actors, 55, 128-31 advenising, 38, 77; and advocacy, 39, 77; agencies, 78; governmental, 75; in the media, 38; political, 32; as propaganda, 28 Africa, 22, 46, 86, 88, 92, 97, 103, 105 agents, human, 110 agriculture, 141 Ahenekew, David, 159, 164 Ahidjo, Ahmadou, 150-5 Altheide, David, and John Johnson, 66-7, I 17 American Revolution, 146 analysis: dialogical, 143; ethnographic, 140; qualitative and quantitative, 95, 1 37 Anderson, Benedict, 105 Aristotle, 30, 40; and persuasion, 27, 28 Assembly of First Nations, 157, 163 attitudes, 26, 27; as incipient action, 41, 128 Augustine, Saint, 30

Australia, 96 authority, 63 Bamenda Conference, 152, 1 55 Barrett, Stanley, 165 behaviourism, 189 Bennett, W.A.C., 164 Berg, Bruce L., 117 Berra, Yogi, 6 Birmingham School, 68 Blumer, Herbert, 3; and symbolic interactionism, 12 BoomerangTheory, 101-3 Bosnia, 87 Boston Tea Party, 88 bourgeoisie, 47 Britain, 56, 88, 105 British Columbia, 164 British Nonh America Act, 1 50 British United Nations Trusteeship Territory of the Southern Cameroons, 151 broadcasting: policy, 81;- system, state-owned, 81; commercial, 48 Brown, George, 147 Buddhism, 22 budget, 49

220

Index

Bullet Theory, 101-3 bureaucracy, 66-7 Burke, Kenneth, 20-1, 35, 39, 62, 71, 82,

llO,

117,120,123, 134-5, 166-7;

conflict, 123; dramatistic model, 129; elaboration of Mead's theory, 26; God terms, 51; identification, 26; postmodern contemporary social science, 30; rhetoric, 20; -, administrative, 31;-, definition of, 26;-, four stages of, 29; -, identification, 29; -, language, 26; -, nature or men and women as symbol users, 23, 24; -, New Rhetoric, 30 Calder Case, 161 Cameroon, 104,135, 139-42, 145,151 Cameroun, Republic of, 151 Campbell, Donald T ., 176-7 Canada, 47, 49, 60-1, 75, 77, 88, 104-5, 128, 135, 139, 140; government of, 8 1; provincial governments of, 61 capitalism, 103 CBC television, 1 58 Charter of Rights, 156 Charlottetown Conference, 145-7 Chicago, 85 Chicago School of Sociology, 38, 183 choice, 25, 29 Christianity, 22 Cicero, 29, 40 circulation, 127; as communication, 100; systems, 87, 93, 106 classes: ruling, 47; social, 46, 68, 128, 134

Clifford, James, 139 coercion, 84, 86-7 Cohen,Abner, 115,117, 124-5, 130 Collingwood, R.G., 185, 191 colonial empires, European, 88

colonial period, 129 colonialism, 144; internal, 129 commerce, 8 5 common sense, 46 communication, 68, 84; international, 84, 87; political 32; quantitative approaches to, 84; social, 83; studies, 33, 84, 93; technology, 33-5 communities, 17, 23, 42; international, 18, 81, 84; national, 86 community of communities, 57, 79 competition, 2 5 conflict, 21, 25, 35-6, 74, 109; of discourses, 47 connectivity, 95 conquest, 24 consciousness, 4-5, 8, 26, 34, 41, 87 Conservative Party, 145 Constitution Act of 1982, 76, 156 constitutional change, 128; formation, 166

Constitutional Conference on Aboriginal Rights and Tide, 1 56 constitutions, 51-2, 58; of federal states, 56 consumer society, 38 content analysis, 114 contests for meaning, 109 control, social, 63, 68-70 conventions, 55 conversation, 26-7, 167; of gestures, 15-16

Cook, Thomas, and Donald T. Campbell, 178 Corbin,Julia, 132 Corcoran, Paul, 3 1-4; core ideas, 71; electronic media, 32; political language, 31; symbolic indeterminancy, 32; technological change, 31 corporations, multicultural, 81

Index cosmopolitanism, 106; liberal, 85 courtship, 24 Coward, Rosalind, and John Ellis, 9 creative 'I,' 48 Creighton, Donald, 146-8 cultural poetics, 139 culture, 10-11 , 16, 28, 32, 45 Dabbs,James M., 137-8 Dakar, 92 deficit: as symbol, 76; reduction, 78 democracy, liberal, 46, 48, 100 Deutsch, Karl, 93-5, 99, 106, 128 development, 78, 80; economic, 90 Dexter, Lewis A., 141 discourse, partisan, 50; relatively dominant, 81 discourse, universal, 6-9, 14-16, 1819, 22-3, 8 5. See also Mead, George Herbert discourse, universe of, 8-12, 14-22, 28, 47-8. See also Mead, George Herbert Dittmer, Lowell, 64 Doern, Bruce, 69; and Richard Phidd, 70-2 Douala, 92 drama, 66, 110; as metaphor, 123 dramatistic model, 129-30, 143, 150, 166 dramatism, 110-17, 119-22, 125-6, 134-9, 167, 169; elements of, 111 dramaturgy, 116-17, 124-6, 134,169 Dray, William, 136,171, 175-7, 183-7, 189-92 Dray-Hempel debate, 171 Duncan, Hugh Dalziel, 31, 117, 122, 124 Durham, Lord, 145 Durkheim, Emile, 18 Dye, Thomas, 62

221

East Timor, 87 economics, 18; Keynesian, 71 economism, 38 Edelman, Murray, 64, 76, 80, 82, 11 5, 117; and mass arousal and acquiescence, 64 Elazar, Daniel, 56; and federalism, 56-7 elite accommodation, 128; and specialized interviewing, 141 elites, 60; political, 128; state, 48, 128-9; urban, 129 Ellul,Jacques, 27-8, 33; and propaganda as psychological violence, 28 emotions, 60 empire, 21 England, 72, 74, 76 environment, 60 epistemology, 109; positivist, 132 equality, principle of, 58 equilibrium, 50 Erasmus, George, 160-1, 165 ethnography: analysis, 140; fieldwork, 13 5; methods, 142; research, 143; studies, 131; techniques, 141 exchange, economic, 18 exhortation, 70-2 extermination, 22 Fabian Society, 76 Fay, Brian, 171 federal principle, 57-8, 60, 147, 150 Federal Republic of Cameroon, 151 federalism, 52-61, 114-15, 146-51, 159, 166; of ancient Greece, 52; as symbol, 54; as principle, 54-5; conventions about, 55; decentralized, 60; and divisions of powers, 55; interactive language of, 54; laws about, 55 federation, 58, 146-7

222

Index

Fenian raids, 146 Fernandez, James, II 5, II7, 124, 138

fibre-optic cable, 8 1, 88-9, 96 field-work, 141-3, 165, 167 film making, 8 1 Foncha, John, 1 52 Foumban Conference, 151-2, 15 5 France, 88 Frank, Andre Gunder, 90, 92, I 29 free trade, 78, 81, 86 Fulton, Jane, 72 functionalism, 115; Parsonian, 63, 113, II6

functionalists, 1 3 fur trade, 88-9 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 185 Galt, Alexander, 146 Gecrtz, Clifford, 11, 19, 105, 125, 135-6, 192

generalized other, 14, 49 Geneva Radio Conference, 96 Giddens, Anthony, 7, 13, 60, 187, 190; definition of power, 36. See also power Gluckman, Max, 122-3 God, 56, 78 God terms, 60 Goffman, Erving, 63, 66, 117-21, 1256; and dramaturgy, 125 Goheen, Peter, 93 Goodin, Robert E., 68-9 Gosnell, Chief Jimmy, 161-2 Gouldner, Alvin, 34 governing instruments, 69-70 government, of Canada, 81; rhetoric, 67-8; unitary, 57 Gramsci, Antonio, 37-9, 51, 68-9, 126; and coercion, 37; consent, 37; hege-

mony, 21, 37, 103; leadership, 37; and Gramscian perspective, 69 Green Revolution, 141 Grenada, 87 Group of 77, 104 Gusfield,Joseph, 63, 65-9, 72, 74-5, 82, II 5, 117; Burke's dramatism, 120; and Goffman's dramaturgy, 121 Habermas, Jurgen, 11, 19; and communicative action, 3 Hall, Stuart, Charles Critcher, et al., 68 Hamelink, Cees, 102 Havens, A.E., and W.L. Flinn, 129 hegemony, 39, 68 Hempel, Carl, 136, 171-9, 183 hermeneutics, 141 Hill, Stephen, 37, 48 Hobbes, Thomas, 63 holism, methodological, 1 88; and individualism, 8, 144, 167 Hosek, Chaviva, 76-7 House of Commons, 148 Hughes, Everett Charrington, 45 human nature, 2 3 Huxley, Aldous, 33 idealism, 115, 126, 189 ideas, 71 identification, 25-6, 36, 82 ideologies, 71, 168; competition between, 49 ideology, 20-1, 46, 55, 80, 109; definition of, 16; dominant, 38, 49; and propaganda, 36; relatively dominant, 47; state, 68 imagination, 60, 79 imperialism, 22, 85 impression management, 76 indigenous populations, 89

Index individualism, 190; methodological, 188. See also holism industry and commerce, international, 86 inflation, low, 78 informatics, 95 information, 100, 101; as transportation, 95 Information Highway, 100 Innis, Harold, 27, 33, 37, 60, 89, 97-8, 106, 128; and bias of media of communication, 29 inspirations, 63 institutions, 3, 9, 11-15, 20, 45, 47, 71, 87, 105, 109; of the state, 78; social, 60; state, 81 Integrated Services Digital Network, 96 integration, 84, 95, 106, 122; economic, 85-6; national, 57, 80, 93 intelligence, 5 interaction, 63, 65; communicative, 3-4, 10-13, 14, 17, 19-21, 23-4, 26, 34, 83,109,119,127,136, 140-2 interactionism, symbolic, 12-13, 65 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 48, 81 International Telecommunications Union,96 Inuit, 46 Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, 157 irony, 79 Israel, 46; ancient, 56 Ivory Coast, 141 James Bay Agreement, 157, 159 Japan,96 Jessop, Bob, 68 Johnson,John,66-7, 117

223

Kalahari desert, 47 Kamerun, 151 Kano, 92 kindness, 18 King, Preston, 54-5 kinship, 16 Knight, David, 140 Krippendorff, Karl, 114 labour unions, 128 Laclau, Ernesto, 68 Lagos, 92 language, 9, 26, 39, 55, 68; of federalism, 58; political, 32, 60 law, p, 66; covering, 187 leadership, 13, 19, 65, 71,105,128 Lee, Alfred McClung, and Elizabeth Briant Lee, definition of propaganda, 27 legitimacy, 63 Levesque, Rene, 163 Liberal Party of Canada, 80 life histories, 141 Likert Scale, 114 lines of penetration, 91 Livingston, William S., 58-9 Lofland,John, and Lyn H. Lofland, 138 Los Angeles, 96 Lougheed, Peter, 163 Lower Canada, 14 5 Mabogunje, Akim, 93 MacDonagh, Oliver, 72 MacDonald, A.A., 147, 149 Macdonald,John A., 145-50 Machiavelli, 30, 50 MacIntyre, Alasdair, 175 Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, 1 57

224

Index

McPhail, Thomas, 95 Madison, James, 55 Maitland Commission, 96 Maritime Union, 146 Marx, Karl, 31; ideology, 37; notion of mystification, 78; social class, 18; theory of the state, 38, 4 5 Mason, Bill, 97 Mead, George Herbert, 3, 82-3, 85-6, 102,109,132, 166-8, 171,183; the act, 110; attitude, 10; communicative interaction, 3, 4, 10, 19; community, 6; conflict, 23; conversation of consciousness, 4; federalism, 53; generalized other, 12, 15-16; gestures, 3-4; the 'I,' 5-8, 12, 15, 19, 20, 26, 48, 144, 167; the individual, 7; the 'me,' 5-8, 12, 15, 20, 26, 144, 167; institutions, 20, 24; language, 3, 8; leadership, I 9; mass media, 23-4, 27; mind, 3, 188; perspective, 3, 6, 9, 142; propaganda, 24; self, 3, 5, 7; significant symbols, 3-4; social class, 17; society, 3; theatre, 23-4; theory of the state, 45; universal discourse, 7-9, 1 r, 14-19, 22; universe of discourse, 3, 8-12, 14-22, 26, 167 meaning, 8; systems of, 4 5. See also Watson,John B. meanings: shared, 24; web of, 87 media, 19, 128; electronic, 33-5, 51; mass, 38-9, 77; -, commercialization of, 37-8 Menzies, Ken, 117 mercantilism, 92 metaphor, 79, 110; mechanical and biological, 130; of the drama, 125, 169 methods: qualitative, p, 132; quantitative, 84 Metis Association of Canada, 158

metonymy, 79 metropole, international, 129 metropolitan-hinterland relations, 88 micro- and macro-analysis, 13 microcosm and macrocosm, 145 Miliband, Ralph, r 28 Mill, John Stewart, 55 monarchs and kings, 19 monetarism, 71 Montreal, 146 motivations, p, 103 Mouffe, Chantal, 68 movements, nationalist, 86; women's, 76 Mozambique, 87 mugging, 68 multicultural groups, 76 mutuality, 109 myths, 103; about international economic and political relations, 8 5 Nachamian heresy, 78 nationalism, 86, 105-6 nationality, 16 national unity, 78, 80, 140 Native Council of Canada, 157 Native peoples, 76, 156-65 Native rights, 75; and title, 160, 165 Naylor, Gary, 1 50 network analysis, 92-3; and theory, 93, JOO

networks, 82; as circulation systems, 88 New England, 56 New Information Order, 104 New Rhetoric, 30. See also rhetoric; Burke, Kenneth news, 38 Nigeria, 93, 15 1-2, 15 5 Nishga, 161

Index norms, 11, 18, 63, 71,119; enforced, 29 Northwest Territories, 165 order, 63, 122 organization, political, 48 Orwell, George, H ownership of an issue, 74 Paine, Robert: coercion, exchange, and persuasion, 28; propaganda, 29 paradigms, dominant, 71 Parekh, Bhikku, 37 Parliament, 67, 80 Parsons, Talcott, 63, 66, 120, 123, 190 participant observation, 141-3 parties, political, 47-8, 128 party identification, 15 Peckford, Brian, 163 performance, 11 8-19 persuasion, 20, 26-7, 31, 41, 120, 124, 132, 168; and propaganda, 26-7, 42, 82; distinction between, 30; gradient of, 29 Pfeutze, Paul, 19 Phidd, Richard W., 69 photographs, H poetics, 136; cultural, 139 policy, 47; about rhetoric, 82; as rhetoric, 83; cultural, 81; formation, 65; public, 62; -, as performance, 69 political economy, 126 politicians, 69 politics, 15 polls, 49 Popper, Karl, 177 positivism, 39 Postman, Neil, and Harold Innis, H, 98 postmodern ethnography, 136 postmodernism, 125, 136 poverty, 74-5

225

power, 2 1, 35-6, 4 5, 60, 68, 86, 109, 134; as psychological violence, 36; in relation to persuasion and propaganda, 36; political, 105 pragmatism, 39-40 pressure groups, 46, 128 principles, 168; of equality, 58; of federalism, 61; of order, 63 private interest groups, 46 private property, 7 propaganda,22-3,25,27-9,40,41, 49-50, 61, 87, 120, 132, 164, 168; in African, 36; as psychological violence, 40; bureaucratic, 67; German, 27. See also persuasion pseudomethodology, 189 public debt, 79 public opinion, 76 public policy, 62; as performance, 69 public service, as symbol, 76 publishing, book, 8 1 Quebec, 147, 150 Quebec Conference of 1864, 145-7 quiescence, 80 Quintilian, 30 rationality, 5, 26, 28,109,185; normative model of, 41 Ravault, Rene-Jean, 101-2 reality, political: definition of, 58 reassurance, 80 reconciliation, national, 57. See also national unity reductionism, 69 reflexivity, 25-6, 62, 105 Reform Party, 145 regulation, 69 religion, 16, 17, 18, 22, 85, 103, 128

226

Index

research: empirical, 82; qualitative, 132; techniques, 109 responsibility: causal, 75; political, 65, 75 revelatory incident, 138 rhetoric, 23-6, 30--40, 45, 66-9, 70--2, 74, 84, 87, 105-6, 109, 125-6, 134; administrative, 31; definition of, 26; four stages of, 30; government, 67-8; identification of, 30; of institutions, 105; language of, 26; of medicine, 118; nature of men and women as users of, 24; partisan, 47; as persuasion and propaganda, 41; and policy, 72, 77, 83; of rights, 77; as subvariety of power, 40. See also New Rhetoric; Burke, Kenneth Ribicoff, Senator Abraham, 74 Riker, William, 55 Rogers, Everett, 99 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 55 Ryle, Gilbert, 136 salience, 93 sanctions, 11 satellite systems, 96, 1 o 1 satellites, 88 scapegoats, 78 Schiller, Herbert, 85 Schneider, David, 16 scholars, 59, 63 scientism, 34 segmentary societies, 46 self, 14 self-consciousness, 28 Sierra Leone, 124 Simmons, James, 93 Smith, Adam, 146 Smith, Jennifer, 146 Smith, Peter, 146 social group, 17 social science, 142, 171

social security, 75-6 social theory, 125, 135 sociology, 13 Southern Cameroons, 1 p-5; and Northern Cameroons, 151 sovereignty, 105, 159-60 Soviet Union, 88 speeches, 31-2, 77, 114 Spradley,James M., 138 stability, 50 Stanbury, William T., 72 state, the, 13, 45; relative autonomy of, 48; rhetoric of, 77; subunits of, 48, 58, 60; systems, 55, 68, 105, 128; theories of, 45 states, federal, 55, 6 1 stimulus and response, 4, 61 Strauss, Anselm, 132-3 structures, 71 suas10n, 72 subjugation, 21-2 subsymbol, 78 Sunni, 46 symbolic interactionism, 13, 65 symbolic systems, 11 symbols, significant, 21 synecdoche, 79 Taaffe, E.J., et al., 90, 92 talk, political, 4 5 taxpayers, 70 technology: of agencies, 29; and propaganda, 49 telecommunications, 95-6; international systems, 89 telegraph, 34 television, 33, 40, 61, 77; in Africa, 104-5

theatre, 24 Toronto, 145

Index tradition, 53; Muslim, 102 transactions, 69, 70; and flows of people, goods, and services, 94-5 transportation, 84, 127; confused with communication, 106; development, 90 transportation network, 95, 127 triangulation, 141 tropes, literary, and figures of speech, 60, 79, 124 Trudeau, Pierre, 159, 160-3 Turner, Brian S., 37, 48 Turner, Victor, 115-16, 122-6, 134;and culture, 1o; social dramas, 12 3 Tyler, Stephen, 136 understanding, 9 UNESCO, 96,104 Union des Populations du Cameroun, 151

United Nations, 104, 128 United States, 16, 46, 75-7, 87-8, 96, 104-5 university, 171 Upper Canada, 145

227

Vailati, 38 validity, 143 Van Maanen,John, 142 verstehen, 18 3 Vickers, Sir Geoffrey, 69-70 Vietnam, 87 Vienna School, 171 Vipond, Robert, 150 v01ces, 40 Von Wright, George Henrik, 77, 85, 190 Wallace, Ruth A., and Alison Wolf, 12, 117, 119

Watson,JohnB., 188-90 Weber, Max, 11; definition of power, 34-5 West Africa, 46 Winch, Peter, 171 World Bank, 128 Wundt, Wilhelm, 4 Yukon, 165