ABSTRACT
Issues of power--its distribution and acquisition--in democratic politics generally concern the conditions that structure the influence of mass publics. The nature of political issues that dominate postindustrial politics poses several problems for the exercise of power by democratic citizenries. First, many issues are novel and unfamiliar. Second, postindustrial politics disrupts conventional patterns of mass mobilization and political linkage. Third, the complex, technical and/or scientific character of many public policy issues presents a bewildering smorgasboard of concern to the attentive citizen. If knowledge produces perceptions of power but not the power itself then its acquisition has a placebo effect as opposed to an empowerment effect. As a preface to the empirical analysis, it is important to make more precise our meaning of power. In the tradition of Verba and Nie's work Participation in America, concurrence will be used as the operational indicator of power.
