Private Opinion and Public Policy
The most pervasive issue dividing theories of the opinion-policy relation bears a striking resemblance to the problem of monism-pluralism in the history of philosophy. The controversy deals with the question of whether the structure of socio-political action should be viewed as a more or less centralized process of acts and decisions by a class of key leaders, representing integrated hierarchies of influence in society or whether it is more accurately envisaged as several sets of relatively autonomous opinion and influence groups, interacting with representative decision makers in an official structure of differentiated governmental authority. The former assumption interprets individual, group and official action as part of a single system and reduces politics and governmental policies to a derivative of three basic analytical terms: society, culture and personality. Public opinion it enables the organisation to expand internally and externally through public introspection.
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Famous quotes containing the words private, opinion, public and/or policy:
“Remember that you are an actor in a drama, of such a part as it may please the master to assign you, for a long time or for a little as he may choose. And if he will you to take the part of a poor man, or a cripple, or a ruler, or a private citizen, then may you act that part with grace! For to act well the part that is allotted to us, that indeed is ours to do, but to choose it is another’s.”
—Epictetus (c. 55–135 B.C.)
“Where an opinion is general, it is usually correct.”
—Jane Austen (1775–1817)
““Hear me,” he said to the white commander. “I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. Our chiefs are dead; the little children are freezing. My people have no blankets, no food. From where the sun stands, I will fight no more forever.””
—For the State of Montana, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“If matrimony be really beneficial to society, the custom that ... married women alone are allowed any claim to place, is as useful a piece of policy as ever was invented.... The ridicule fixed on the appellation of old maid hath, I doubt not, frightened a very large number into the bonds of wedlock.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)