Introduction

Research on power crops up at the edges of disciplines, or in the interstices between disciplines, especially between political science and sociology. The pariah status of power in the social sciences can be seen most glaringly in economics. The only exceptions within the academic community to the avoidance of any sustained focus on the actual operations of power in the United States have been the studies inspired by the seminal work of Floyd Hunter on Atlanta and of C. Wright Mills on the national level. Both held to theories that rooted power in organizations and institutions, putting them at odds, on the one hand, with the classical liberal emphasis on individuals and groups and, on the other, with the Marxian emphasis on classes. Structural Marxists and state autonomy theorists also shared a common lack of interest in the work of Mills and Hunter.