In the past, the informed American accepted the inadequacies of the public process as inevitable. At the same time, a good many citizens have worked on the substantive problems of education, health, poverty, housing, employment, equal rights, the environment, and war and peace, gradually realizing that many of those problems are made harder to solve by breakdowns in the structure and process of government. The instruments of self-government are themselves in need of repair. This book about what citizens must do in order to have a voice. In matters of social action, citizens have some lessons to learn or they condemn themselves to righteous impotence. They can demand that public officials be responsive and accountable. They can advocate special interest. They can monitor the actions of both legislative and executive branches with the same high professional competence that the special interest bring to that task.