Page 110 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

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The Bureaucratic Conception of Pluralism
cannot accomplish it because as they are very insignificant and lost
amid the crowd, they cannot see and do not know where to find one
1
another.” Tocqueville also observed that information and communi-
cation problems persist once citizens with common interests identify
one another, because the success of an association or group depends on
coordination and a continued exchange of information among people
whomaynotbephysicallyproximate.Oncelocated, “meansmustthenbe
found to converse every day without seeing one another, and to take steps
2
in common without having met.” Therefore, associations depend on the
flow of information and communication both to form and to survive.
Howcantheseinformationandcommunicationrequirementsbemet?
Tocquevillebelieveditwouldbethroughthenewspaper.Heobservedthat
Americans surpassed Europeans in both the vibrancy of their newspa-
pers and their many civic associations, and that this was not coincidental.
He believed that newspapers provided the vital flow of information that
stimulates the formation of individual interests in the first place, which
helps citizens identify others of like mind and eventually permits the co-
ordination of activities and operations within associations. In his words,
“The effect of a newspaper is not only to suggest the same purpose to a
great number of persons, but to furnish means for executing in common
3
the designs which they may have singly conceived.” He summarizes:
“Consequently, there is a necessary connection between public associa-
tions and newspapers: newspapers make associations, and associations
make newspapers.” 4
Informational obstacles occupy a position in Tocqueville’s theory of
collective action similar to that of free riding in the work of Mancur
Olson and other contemporary scholars of groups. Tocqueville’s theory
of collective action also contrasts with much of modern collective action
theory, in that he believed it is easier to entice people to join large or-
ganizations than small. He argued that potential group members more
readily see the impact and value of a large group, and so are more inclined
to participate. Although he failed to recognize the problem of free riding
and the possibility of its differential effects on large and small groups,
Tocqueville’s acknowledgment of the role of media and information flow

1
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol. 2 (1840; rpt., New York: Vintage,
1945), p. 120.
2
Ibid., p. 121. For a larger discussion of Tocqueville and information technology, see
HansK.Klein,“TocquevilleinCyberspace:UsingtheInternetforCitizenAssociations,”
The Information Society 15, no. 4 (1999): 213–220.
3 4
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, p. 119. Ibid., p. 120.
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