Definition
Arthur Bentley holds a distinguished place in literature on interest groups. His most important conceptual innovation is the assumption of groups as the central phenomenon of political life, in open dissent with the institutional formalism prevailing in US social sciences in the early decades of the twentieth century. Bentley book The Process of Government: A Study of Social Pressures (1908) inspired the rise of pluralist approach in political science and opened a rich line of research which developed within and beyond the borders of United States. However, Bentley proved to be erroneous in constructing his theory because he excluded from his analysis the preconditions and experiences necessary to organize interest groups. He only mentioned raw data suitable to his system and then elaborated assumptions independent of the data. This procedure is incompatible with canons of scientific community.
Groups as Central Phenomenon of Political Life
Arthur Fisher Bentley (1870–1957)...
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References
Baumgartner, F. R., & Leech, B. L. (1998). Basic interests: The importance of groups in politics and in political science. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Bentley, F. A. (1908). The process of government: A study of social pressures. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
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Mattina, L. (2021). Bentley A. F. – A Failed Attempt to Build a Group Theory. In: Harris, P., Bitonti, A., Fleisher, C.S., Skorkjær Binderkrantz, A. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Interest Groups, Lobbying and Public Affairs . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13895-0_130-2
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Bentley (1870-1957)- Published:
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13895-0_130-3
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Bentley A. F. – A Failed Attempt to Build a Group Theory
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Bentley A. F. – A Failed Attempt to Build a Group Theory- Published:
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13895-0_130-1