  We use a recent near-infrared imaging survey of samples of Seyfert and normal
galaxies to study the role of bars in the fueling of nuclear activity. The
active galaxy sample includes Seyfert galaxies in the Revised Shapely-Ames
(RSA) and Sandage & Tammann's (1987) extension to this catalog. The normal
galaxies were selected to match the Seyfert sample in Hubble type, redshift,
inclination and blue luminosity. All the galaxies in both samples classified as
barred in the RSA catalog are also barred in the near-infrared. In addition,
~55% of the galaxies classified as non-barred in the RSA show evidence for bars
at 2.1 microns. Overall, ~70% of the galaxies observed show evidence for bar
structures. The incidence of bars in the Seyfert and normal galaxies is
similar, suggesting Seyfert nuclei do not occur preferentially in barred
systems. Furthermore, a slightly higher percentage of normal galaxies have
multiple-bar structures.
