“The Group Basis of Politics”: Notes on Analysis and Development

Academics who make scholarly book on trends in the literature must heed “the group theory of politics.” For there is much evidence that the approach is being de-emphasized for a third time. Arthur Bentley's The Process of Government is, of course, the most prominent of the contributions apparently headed for disciplinary oblivion. This paper attempts to blunt the recent criticism by directing students to the unfinished (and largely untouched) business of exploiting “the group approach.” The prime vehicle for this effort will be Bentley's The Process of Government rather than the corpus of his work or that of his interpreters. A three-fold rationale supports this analytical visit to the tap-root of “the group approach.” Primarily, critics have avoided the issues posed by Bentley. Moreover, pleas for abandonment of his approach often reflect an important misconception. Consider Rothman's conclusion that “there is certainly room for studies of the kind which rely upon the mature judgment of their authors, rather than being bound by conceptual schemes which appear to be simple keys to reality, but which only serve to blind students to the obvious facts of politics.”