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Peter Bachrach, who died this past December 14, was one of the most distinguished theorists of power of his generation. He was born in Winnetka, Illinois, on June 19, 1918, and received his BA from Reed College. Peter earned his Ph.D. from Harvard as part of the generation of Americans that completed their graduate training in the immediate aftermath of World War II-when Carl Friedrich was the dominant voice in theory at Harvard. He taught at Bryn Mawr College for more than 22 years, serving as chair of its department for part of that time. In 1968, Peter left Bryn Mawr for Temple University-where he continued to teach and write until his retirement in the mid-1980s.
Peter is most famous for his article (co-authored with Morton Baratz) "Two Faces of Power," which appeared in the APSR in 1962 and has become the most widely cited article in the more than 100 year history of the APSR. The face of power that Peter was most concerned to expose and explore in that article was the one that consists in "the extent that a person or group-consciously or unconsciously-creates or reinforces barriers to the public airing of policy conflicts." Peter denominated this form of power, the power of "nondecision," and thereby helped innovate and charter a term that has gained wide currency in our discipline. Under its aegis, an extraordinary expansion has taken place of the arenas deemed appropriate for the location and assessment of power within American...