ALIENATION1976, p. 136; Lipset and Schneider 1983, pp. 311–
315; Finifter 1970; Form and Huber 1971). Re-
search that directly focuses on obtaining the opin-
ions of minority and poor respondents has uncov-
ered high degrees of political alienation among
these groups. A survey of roughly equal numbers
of blacks and whites in metropolitan Detroit in
1992 showed that blacks, compared to whites,
evaluated schools and the police more negatively,
distrusted local government more, and thought
that participation in local politics was less effica-
cious (Bledsoe et al. 1996). Bobo and Hutchings
(1966) oversampled minority residents of Los An-
geles County and found that higher percentages of
blacks compared to whites expressed ‘‘racial al-
ienation,’’ that is, the opinion that blacks faced
inferior life chances, fewer opportunities, and un-
fair treatment. Blacks living in Detroit neighbor-
hoods where over 20 percent of the residents are
poor, were more likely than other blacks to say that
they had little influence in community decisions
and that community problems were complex and
unsolvable (Cohen and Dawson 1993).
Wright argues that even though sizable num-
bers of persons express alienated attitudes, these
people pose little threat to the stability of regimes,
because they rarely take political action and even
lack the resources and skills to be able to do so.
Lipset (1963) has argued that apathy is a virtue
because it allows elites in democratic societies to
better exert leadership. (For a critique see Wolfe
1977, p. 301.) For many social scientists in the
1950s, widespread apathy was a welcome alterna-
tive to the alleged mass activism that had produced
the fascist regimes in Germany and Italy. Howev-
er, Wright (1976, pp. 257–301) counters that since
the alienated masses actually pose no threat to the
contemporary political system, an increase in mass
democratic participation, perhaps the mobiliza-
tion of workers on the issues of class division,
could very well be beneficial.
But the class mobilization that Wright envi-
sions might turn out to be a middle-class affair
(Teixeira 1996) rather than a working-class revolt.
Whereas Lipset and Wright have been concerned
about the concentration of political alienation in
the lower socioeconomic strata, Warren (1976)
emphasizes the alienation among ‘‘Middle Ameri-
can Radicals,’’ who believe that they are disfavored
by a government that gives benefits to the poor
and to the wealthy. Feelings of inefficacy and
distrust have increased the most among the mid-
dle strata—private-sector managers, middle-income
workers, and a ‘‘new layer’’ of public-sector profes-
sionals (Herring 1989).
Unlike the poor, the middle strata have the
resources to protest and to organize social move-
ments and electoral campaigns, exemplified by
protests against the property tax that culminated
with the passage of Proposition 13 in California
and Proposition 2 1/2 in Massachusetts. Property
tax protesters were middle-class homeowners who
expressed their political alienation when they con-
demned ‘‘taxation without representation.’’ Citi-
zens who felt cut off from political decision mak-
ing were the most likely to support the tax revolt
(Lowery and Sigelman 1981). Protests centered
around unresponsive government officials who
continued to increase assessments and tax rates,
without heeding the periodic angry protests of
homeowners. Movement activists interpreted their
own powerlessness and power in community and
metropolitan politics, thereby shaping the emerg-
ing tactics and goals of a grass-roots citizens’ move-
ment (Lo 1995).
A Crisis for Democracy? Finally, other social
scientists have found intense alienation among
those with irreconcilable dissatisfactions about gov-
ernment policy, thus threatening to make effective
government impossible. Miller (1974) argued that
between 1964 and 1970, political distrust (cyni-
cism) increased simultaneously among those fa-
voring withdrawal and those favoring military es-
calation in the Vietnam War. Similarly, distrust
increased both among blacks who thought that the
civil rights movement was making too little prog-
ress, and among white segregationists who held
the opposite view. The 1960s produced two groups—
cynics of the left and cynics of the right, each
favoring polarized policy alternatives (see also Lipset
and Schneider 1983, p. 332). Cynics of the right,
for example, rejected both the Democratic and
Republican parties as too liberal. (Herring 1989
has developed a similar ‘‘welfare split’’ thesis, that
more social spending has different effects on the
distrust level of various groups but, overall, raises
political distrust.) Miller concludes that increased
cynicism, along with a public bifurcated into ex-
treme stances on issues, makes it difficult for
political leaders to compromise and build support
for centrist policies. While agreeing with Wright
that the alienated are divided amongst themselves,