ABSTRACT
This study has made use of the classic, and old-fashioned, meaning of the term “social control”; social control focuses on the capacity of a social group or a society to achieve self-regulation in terms of a set of “higher moral principles.” The idea of social control is directly applicable to the political institutions of a society which makes use of competitive elections. The basic problem is to account for the increased difficulty legislative institutions have in mediating among conflicting group interests and in resolving social and economic conflicts. The United States has come to confront a chronic political stalemate similar to that faced by the other Western political democracies. We are in essence dealing, not with the monopolization of political power by tiny elite groups, but with new forms of dispersion of political influence which lead to the inability to create meaningful majorities which can effectively govern. If voting behavior and election outcomes are taken as measures of social control, existing procedures for creating political decisions and consensus are far from adequate.
