THE RECOIL EFFECT - PUBLIC-OPINION AND POLICY-MAKING IN THE UNITED-STATES AND BRITAIN

The longstanding tension between liberal democracy and the development of governmental administrative capacity has been exacerbated during the twentieth century by the emergence of new techniques to track and manipulate public opinion. The one-sided emphasis of the power elite and pluralist interpretations fails to account for the government's dual concern with responding to and shaping public opinion. Using archival evidence from American presidential libraries and British cabinets, this paper argues that the development in both countries of a government public opinion apparatus had a "recoil effect": in striving to have an outward effect on public opinion, the creation of this apparatus had the inward effect of heightening sensitivity to public opinion. Although the apparatus's development amidst the institutional guarantees of liberal democracy has encouraged responsiveness to popular preferences, the government's capacity to manipulate the public remains a standing danger.