Who Makes Public Policy in America?
Theda Skocpol should be immensely flattered by the appearance of this volume, because it consists entirely of refutations of her work and the work of her students and associates. G. William Domhoff, a distinguished sociologist and frequent commentator on the power elite, sees the ascendance of Skocpol to a position of great influence in political science and sociology as marking the end of an era. The awards heaped on her 1992 book[1] reflect, according to Domhoff, “the return of political science and sociology to full normalcy when it comes to power and politics,” the “final step in the assimilation of the radicals in Skocpol’s generation into the academic establishment as they approach their fifties” (p. 258). Domhoff, in contrast, has kept the faith and continued to assert the importance of what he calls “class dominance” as a way of understanding the development of the American state. He feels so strongly about his premise that he has written this book of essays. After an extended
