The Process of Government and the Governmental Process

Abstract

This review finds little utility in Bentley's famous The Process of Government. It is asserted that his book is cited as a primary source of interest group writing, but in fact, the review argues, that this prominence is given mainly by those who want to criticise the interest group orientation. Critics commonly misinterpret the group approach as meaning that policy is the outcome of an interest group struggle: such critics seem to find in Bentley that banal and easily discredited position. The review argues that in fact Bentley's stress on group conflict was anything but coincident with interest group conflict. The charge is unfair on Bentley as it grotesquely simplifies his position and is unfair on the general interest group approach because that perspective is not adequately summarised by a distortion of Bentley. In contrast Truman's The Governmental Process is commended as raising issues that are strikingly contemporary.