Remembering theorist Peter Bachrach

When I moved to Southwest Harbor two decades ago, a neighbor asked me what I did for a living. I replied that I was both a political theorist and a columnist. He then asked me if I knew Peter Bachrach, a political theorist who had retired here. I replied: “Do you mean the Peter Bachrach?”

I was astounded to learn that one of the most respected theorists of his generation now lived here. I knew his work well but had never met him. On holidays we often reflect on time spent with friends and family. For me, this holiday season is tinged with a bit of sadness. Bachrach passed away a few days ago. He would, however, not want us to mourn but rather to learn from, build on and challenge his many fruitful contributions our political discourse.

We think of the 1960s as a time of turmoil but also of political renewal. Long established patterns of workplace organization, racial divisions and gender roles were challenged. The activism of the ’60s was inseparable from ferment within the academy. Bachrach was a central player. His early work constituted an intellectual preface to ’60s politics.

In the late 1950s, most political scientists were rather complacent. U.S. citizens did not vote in high percentages, but social scientists argued that low voter participation didn’t matter. Citizens were represented by the interest groups to which most belonged. The relative lack of acrimony in our politics, many political scientists claimed, reflected widespread satisfaction. This society had achieved the highest attainable manifestation of freedom and the democratic ideal.

In an influential 1962 essay, shortly before the full turmoil of the civil rights and anti-war movements, “The Two Faces of Power,” Bachrach pointed out that the apparent lack of controversy hardly proved the

absence of power in social life. No researcher should “overlook the chance that some person or association could limit decision-making to noncontroversial matters by influencing community values or political procedures and rituals, not withstanding that there are in the community

serious but latent power conflicts.”

Bachrach taught us that the lack of controversy might well reflect the ways prevailing institutions and procedures disabled the formation and articulation of the concerns of those left out of the political process.

Bachrach also rejected the notion that mere membership in an interest group, whose leaders might just as well manipulate and use the membership as speak for them, constituted real democratic citizenship. He was one of the most eloquent and profound defenders of participatory democracy as both an end in itself and a means by which citizens might come better to understand and develop the confidence to express their own interests and the relation of those interests to the larger society.

Democratic politics for him rested on more than merely voting for leaders. It included the active formulation of goals and policies within our schools and especially our workplaces.

In “Power and Empowerment,” his last full work published in 1992, several years after retiring from a long career at Bryn Mawr and Temple University, Bachrach once again developed these ideas in ways that have increasing relevance to today’s politics: “Widespread mass participation is an indispensable component of a healthy democratic polity. In its absence, leaders become unresponsive to the needs of the people. As the power gap between ruler and ruled increases, the masses can become alienated, disaffected and mean. And in so becoming render democracy vulnerable to attack by an anti-democratic mass movement.”

Bachrach carried his passions into local politics. I fondly remember sitting with him at a town meeting some years ago as residents hotly contested a miniscule subsidy to the local library. With the twinkle in his eye that often preceded a provocative thrust, he whispered: “symbolic politics.” Fishermen and shopkeepers feel increasingly squeezed and resent taxes going to a library they perceive as run an educated elite from away. The “hidden injuries of class,” he muttered.

In addition to his political causes, Bachrach did whatever he could through his own generosity to address grave injustices. A long time supporter of Habitat for Humanity, he was also a “volunteer grandfather” at Pemetic Elementary School.

I am personally indebted to him in his role as a friend to younger academics. After I once told him about my frustrations in striving to publish an early political economy book, Bachrach spent many hours reading

and commenting on my manuscript and then took the thoughtful step of speaking to several publishers on my behalf.

Most especially, I treasure the democratic manner in which he advanced his most cherished views. Bachrach had the unusual gift of advancing strong and profound views all the while demonstrating respect for and encouraging responses from those who held opposing views. More particularly, he understood and acknowledged the inevitable gaps and limits in any theory, including his own, and thereby brought out the best in his sparring partners.

I will miss Bachrach, but I take joy in and am inspired by his memory. He was a teacher and an inspiration not only to me but also to an entire generation.

John Buell is a political economist who lives in Southwest Harbor. Readers may contact him at jbuell@acadia.net.