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From the standpoint of responsible citizenship, what is needed
to clean up politics is not cynicism and self-righteous withdrawal
from the political process but more concern and participation in it
by those Christians and others who deplore the existing corruption.
This participation can take place at many levels, and it does not de
mand that everyone run for office. All of the citizens share the respon
sibility for government, but relatively few actually represent the
people in the process of governing.
t h e y
do
n o t
u n d e r s t a n d
po l it ic al
p o w e r
.
There is a general
failure on the part of Protestants to understand the nature of political
power. It is widely assumed that voting represents the full duty of
citizenship and that it is in itself an effective way of exerting political
influence. E. E. Schattschneider calls this the “old maid’s view of
politics,” and he points out that by itself voting does not really in
fluence the formation of public policy to any very marked degree.24
Voting is a last-minute choice or taking of sides after the issues have
been selected, the platforms adopted, and the candidates chosen. By
itself it ignores the party caucuses, the informal agreements that are
worked out by the party leaders at the ward level, the party con
ventions, the organization of support for the party, and the wide
variety of ways that issues are clarified and aired and that support is
gathered for the opposing platforms and candidates. In a word, the
individual voter who limits his political action to registration and
voting never becomes involved in the real process of policy formation.
He just steps up and gets counted—and then rejoices or laments over
the outcome. This does not mean that voting is unimportant; it does
mean that what people will vote upon, whether they will vote, and how
they will vote is pretty well decided before election day.
This tendency to ignore the real political process is interestingly
illustrated by our daily use of such phrases as “They ought to pass
a law,” “They ought to do something about that,” and “They ought
not to allow that.” It is also illustrated by our common tendency to
blame the incumbents in office—the members of the legislature or the
present administration—with little or no recognition of the part we
and our fellow-citizens played in deciding who the present representa
tives and administrators would be and what policies they would be
authorized to pursue.
24 E. E. Schattschneider, “Our Unrecognized Governmental Crisis,”
Socia
Action,
XVI, no. 8 (October 15, 1950), p. 13.
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Biblical Faith and Social Ethics