9 found
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  1.  35
    Bringing the state back in … again.Samuel DeCanio - 2000 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 14 (2-3):139-146.
    Previous scholarship on states’ autonomy from the interests of society has focused primarily on nondemocratic societies, raising the question of whether “state theory” is relevant to modern states. Public‐opinion research documenting the ignorance of mass polities suggests that modern states may be as autonomous as, or more autonomous than, premodern states. Premodern states’ autonomy was secured by their ability to suppress societal dissent by force of arms. Modern states may have less recourse to overt coercion because the very thing that (...)
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  2.  36
    Efficiency, legitimacy, and the administrative state.Samuel DeCanio - 2021 - Social Philosophy and Policy 38 (1):198-219.
    This essay examines certain epistemic problems facing administrative states’ efforts to draft efficient regulations for their societies. I argue that a basic feature of the administrative state’s authority, namely its monopoly over the production of legally binding rules for all members of a geographically defined society, creates epistemic problems that impede efficient rule-making. Specifically, the administrative state’s monopoly over the production of legally binding rules prevents multiple public policies from being simultaneously implemented and compared. The resulting singularity of administrative states’ (...)
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  3.  55
    Beyond marxist state theory: State autonomy in democratic societies.Samuel DeCanio - 2000 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 14 (2-3):215-236.
    Recent theories of the state often draw attention to states’ autonomy from social preferences. This paper suggests that the phenomenon of public ignorance is the primary mechanism responsible for state autonomy in democratic polities. Such theorists as Skocpol and Poulantzus, who do not take account of public ignorance, either underestimate the state's autonomy or stress causal mechanisms that are necessary but not sufficient conditions for its autonomy. Gram‐sci's concept of ideological hegemony is promising, even though it is far too insistent (...)
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  4.  38
    Mass opinion and American political development.Samuel DeCanio - 2006 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 18 (1-3):143-155.
    Despite its origins in explorations of the political and institutional history that had become unfashionable in History departments, the Political Science subfield of American Political Development has drifted toward the “history‐from‐below” view against which it was originally a reaction. Perhaps this is a normal tendency in democratic cultures that ground their legitimacy on the will of the people. But it may also be due to a failure of APD scholars to appreciate that even in a democratic country such as the (...)
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  5.  30
    The Autonomy of the Democratic State: Rejoinder to Carpenter, Ginsberg, and Shefter.Samuel DeCanio - 2007 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 19 (1):187-196.
    ABSTRACT While democratic states may manipulate public opinion and mobilize society to serve their interests, a focus on such active efforts may distract us from the passive, default condition of ignorance‐based state autonomy. The electorate’s ignorance ensures that most of what modern states do is unknown to “society,” and thus need not even acquire social approval, whether manipulated or spontaneous. Similarly, suggestions that democratic states may be “captured” by societal groups must take cognizance of the factors that enable elites to (...)
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  6.  34
    Murray Edelman on symbols and ideology in democratic politics.Samuel DeCanio - 2005 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 17 (3-4):339-350.
    For Murray Edelman, political realities are largely inaccessible to the public, save by the mediation of symbols generated by elites. Such symbols often create the illusion of political solutions to complex problems—solutions devised by experts, implemented by effective leaders, and undemonstrably successful in their results.
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  7.  6
    Introduction: Rationality and the State in International Relations.Samuel DeCanio - 2024 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 36 (4):409-426.
    Mearsheimer and Rosato’s How States Think argues rational foreign policy decision-making proceeds from deliberations whereby state actors link credible theories regarding policies’ effects to states’ strategic ends. Mearsheimer and Rosato’s emphasis on the importance of theories in the minds of state decision-makers, and their willingness to consider the state as an important “unit level” variable in international politics, establishes a unique position in international relations theory. However, their procedural definition of rationality is at odds with their recognition that irrational outcomes (...)
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  8.  13
    The Epistemology of Democracy and the Market: Rejoinder to Elliott.Samuel DeCanio - 2024 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 36 (1-2):183-197.
    Epistemic democratic theory often focuses on defending democracy from various forms of elitism, such as epistocracy. However, democracy’s informational properties may also be compared with those of the market, and not other forms of political decision-making. While Kevin Elliott’s critique of the market’s epistemic properties is a welcome contribution that broadens the range of comparisons epistemic democratic theory engages with, Elliott mischaracterizes arguments made by market theorists, overlooks their justifications for employing unrealistic assumptions, and ignores instances where they agree with (...)
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  9.  70
    Roundtable 3: Political ignorance, empirical realities.Samuel DeCanio, Jeffrey Friedman, David R. Mayhew, Michael H. Murakami & Nick Weller - 2008 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 20 (4):463-480.