I should confess that I was surprised when I happened to see that the reviewers have expressed some critical concerns about the writing style of Lowi and the core message the author attempts to convey in the book. First, I would like to say that the book generally, although difficult to follow in some pages, bears a very clear message and hypothesis that provide the basic conceptual and mental framework if one reads through the first chapter carefully. I will try to summarize the leading argument of Lowi within some lines.Lowi is primarily concerned with political transformation in the United States, which his analysis demonstrates has started in the 1930s and had been continuing through the time in which the book was published. What Lowi calls interest group liberalism (IGL) refers to an offshoot of a new public philosophy called pluralism. Pluralist ideology favors a dispersion of power centers so that no group can control governmental power totally in order to impose authoritative decisions on others. In order not to let any group to dominate the public realm, the pluralist ideology emphasizes broad and extensive public participation to determine what kind of public policies will be crafted and pursued rather than granting entire authority of policy making to central government (say, the Congress). According to Lowi, this strong belief encourages devolution of public authority (the authority to make laws and designate specific standards), in a broad and unguided manner, to public bureaucracies in order for a broad number of participants can partake in the process of policy making, for the sake of flexibility. In a nutshell, the new public philosophy is "process" oriented, not goal or substance-oriented. According to Lowi, there is not even space for law that supporters of new public philosophy argue is so authoritative. However, Lowi's meticulous analysis of political development of the United States shows the reader that this process-oriented public philosophy led the way for public bureaucracies to be captured by organized and strong interest groups.
According to Lowi, the pluralist conception and practice of government does great harm, when one considers its far-reaching consequences. "Flexibility and legitimacy could only have been reduced by building representation upon the oligopolistic character of interest groups, reducing the number of competitors, favoring the best organized competitors, specializing politics around agencies, ultimately limiting participation to channels provided by pre-existing groups" (p. 63). One needs to focus on this sentence carefully just to understand why Lowi expresses a very critical concern about interest group liberalism (IGL). IGL breaks the essential tie between government and politics, and reduces politics into a very narrow space populated and dominated by interest groups around agencies (public or not, the distinction doesn't have much meaning in IGL) that are given authority to implement (or make) policies.
Providing too many a convincing example, Lowi demonstrates that this pluralist process has taken momentum in the 1930s, which manifested itself in the changing "language" of laws (social security is a good example). Since then, the laws have begun to be imbued with ambiguous language that provides no specific standard that would guide the administration to make consistent decisions. According to Lowi, the move from concreteness to abstractness in the definition of public policy represents a watershed in the political development of the United States: interest group liberalism is substituted for the rule of law. Thus, laws lose their unique character as instruments for public control: what is practiced is policy without law, according to Lowi. From social policy, to urban policy, and even to foreign policy, Lowi provides an impressive analysis to illustrate the unceasing impact of new public philosophy. In his cases, what is seen, by and large, are policies, implementation of which are devolved to a great number of agencies, without having any concern to develop a consistent and purposeful policy based on the supremacy of law. The most interesting claim is that this broad and unguided delegation of public authority showed a continuity regardless of who comes to power, Republicans or Democrats, according to Lowi. At the very least, his analysis attests to this continuity.
Finally, Lowi offers some cures in order to improve the current situation. First, the author urges a comprehensive codification in order to reassure legal integrity. Second, Lowi recommends a return to a strong juridicial democracy within which legal formality and administrative procedures take a strong hold.
Within the book's conceptual framework, the arguments sound persuasive. There is one point that I would like to question. Lowi argues that IGL is a product of pluralist ideology and manifests itself in the ambigous language of laws. However, it is certainly possible that we left behind the age in which we had certain questions, and to which we had certain answers. In an age in which there is a high degree of ambiguity, it is extremely difficult to enact very unambiguous laws. In sum, the change in the language of laws may be a natural and direct consequence of what has been changing in the larger environment. Also, the fact that the move from concreteness to abstractness in the definition of public policy occurs in many countries spanning many continents reinforces the conviction that IGL may not peculiarly be a problem for the United States. Lowi makes no visible reference to this alternative rationale of why laws began to be very ambiguous.
To be honest, the book is more comprehensive than what I tried to recap here. Although I am not primarily engaged in political science, I always need a political source that would help me make sense with what is happening or not happening in the contemporaneous American "public administration", and Lowi's book provides a great help for me. I read this book some time ago with primary intention of enlarging my perspective with regard to legitimacy issue in public administration. I can say that this book provides good insights about legitimacy of public administration and should make a great contribution to understanding of public administration students.
Overall, this book is a very illuminating source on American politics and I highly recommend. Also, to those who complain of writing style of Lowi, I recommend "The Human Condition" by Hannah Arendt (1958/1998) and "The Postmodern Condition" (1979) by Lyotard, in order for them to be fair about The End of Liberalism by Lowi!
Q: How did writing a book that you knew would be read so closely by so many compare to writing your first book, when few people knew who you were?
