Elitism from perspective of pluralism and behavioralism
Elitism theory assumes that the country is run by a ruling class that has the social and economic weight, the knowledge and experience, and the power to make decisions and set policy and this is preferred because the public is not capable of making decisions about policy. Pluralism faults elitism theory for ignoring the impact of interest groups and institutional influence on power. Dahl recognized the dilemma of a society run by elitist from a pluralism point of view; elitists remove the incentive for people with the least power to undertake political activity. Pluralism states that citizens do have an indirect impact because during elections candidates need to anticipate what the public wants, although elitism does not see the degree of public impact as influential. Traditional elite spheres have well-worn paths to the doors of government power; the impact on political processes and outcomes is not simply a calculation based on pluralism theory of how many in the public are for or against an issue.
The arguments by pluralism against elitist theory are generally defined by the distribution of resources in recent decades. Capital inequalities are pronounced in the US, and the Occupy Movement and the Tea Party Movement are a reaction to wealth inequalities. After World War II universal education and welfare systems were developed making the boundary between the elites and the public less pronounced, especially in Europe, but neo-liberalism has situated elitism theory as a popularly held belief. Pluralism does not support the return of more powerful elites. Elites have access to informal power such as a networking system of higher education, social events and family connections, but citizen interest groups (pluralism) cannot take part in the informal networks that influence policy decision-making. Dye and Zeigler (2008) concluded that the elite are brandishing the power and the citizens are the losers.
Behavioralism demands the measurement of attributes and factors; elitism theory does not scientific method in the way behavioralism demands.
Pluralism and behavioralism fault the elite theory because the assumption of a group of socially and economically powerful elitists running the country naturally pushes the concept of democracy the realm of conservatism. Another criticism is those elitism theorists are so busy studying elites that whole areas of the political system that have influence are ignored. Therefore, elitism theory is challenged by pluralism (citizens organize into interest groups) and behavioralism (systems theory) because by relying on the elitist theory to evaluate every modern system does not do justice to all the impacting factors and characteristics in the political system. Pluralists are disturbed by the activities of elites while, on the other hand proponents of the elite theory believe that a power elite needs to run the country because citizens do not have the capacity to understand issues or make the correct decisions.
Unlike the elitism theorists, Dye and Zeigler (2008) ask a prescient question ‘How democratic is the US? In terms of pluralism theory, based on citizen influence, the US democracy is ailing. The argument a sites the problem with elites based on the following observations. Mills (1956) reports that when military policy was developed, the main input came from high-ranked military officers and corporate leadership who were “mutually supportive” (746). Dye (2002) found that under George W. Bush’s presidency (from 2001 to 2009) that 5,778 individuals were in positions of the power elite within a total of 7,314 elite institutions (205). Dye (2002) explains that Obama wrote the health care plan with the help of health care officials and health care supported lobbyists (205). The activities are all contrary to pluralism.
Elitism
Vilfredo Pareto, Harold Lasswell, and Milovan Djilas are all elitism theorists (Elites, 1968). Pareto noted that all categories of employment have their own set of elites like the military, art, bankers and criminals but at the top of the heap is a group of elite who carry more social weight than others. These are termed the strategic elite, the ruling elite, the power elite or the top influentials. This top level stratum is the most powerful type of elites. Elitist theory assumes at the outset that a class of ruling elites competes for power without input from the public interest groups on issues like justice and democracy and power. The discussion can easily become stunted to the extremes and not engage the total range of relevant issues as may be happening in the political climate of contemporary U.S.
The Economic Elite Domination theory assumes that the richest individuals or business owners have the most impact on policy changes and by virtue of their wealth are the appropriate people to influence policy. Key (1967) noted that the personal connections with sources of revenue “are especially important in primary campaigns” (495). Anderson (2011) quotes Key’s thought that “those opinions held by private persons with governments find prudent to heed” and explains in contemporary language “the government determines which opinions out of a range of possibilities, seem to have powerful support and need to be taken seriously” (51). The common vernacular is the “one percent” where the richest one percent of the American population dominates the 99 percent that makes up the majority of citizens.
Pluralism from perspective of elitism and behavioralism
Elitism does not agree that citizens know enough to organize and impact policy, because the public has little understanding or knowledge of politics and they do not care enough to find out (Dahl Who Governs? p. 227). Lipset points out that manipulating the media to influence the public to the candidates’ view is easier than reacting to public demands; using the media in this way is called engineering consent.
Dye and Zeigler (2008) report that modern pluralist theory and democratic theory are overly optimistic and unrealistic when compared with elitism. The researchers state that citizens “have little influence over the policies our government adopts” (Dye and Zeigler 2008, 24). Schattschneider (1960) states “The flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-class accent.” Business elites and a few members of the very rich dominate policy, as several examples from the elitism research have demonstrated; the American public has little to no influence on Congress or the president (Dye and Zeigler 2008).
Pluralist theory applied without common sense places too much faith on the power of citizen-interest-groups to apply influence on the government. A cache of political, social and economic capital leads to decision-maker access and those are qualities of the elite class or power elite. In pluralism theory the majority of citizens may be against foreign wars and prefer infrastructure improvements, but without the finances to match the amount of support little can happen. The unequal distribution of resources, both monetary and social resources within the citizenry means that the public does not have the resources to influence policy like the elites can.
Jack L. Walker (1966) explains that elitism theory call the basic problem with pluralism naiveté. He argues that in fact, the naiveté of the theory is dangerous, because “it overlooks the role of demagogic leadership, mass psychology, group coercion, and the influence of those who control concentrated economic power” (285). The idea of an informed public who debates issues and impacts policy is seen to be unrealistic and even utopian in its concept of human nature and society by some elitist theorists.
Behavioralism expects pluralism to make value judgments, like is done in behavioralism theory so measurements made can be compared.
(Argument between pluralism theorists)
Mouffie (2000) explains that agonistic pluralism is in the form of deliberative democracy. Mouffie (2000) does not agree with attempts to present democracy as only a process of mediating conflicts between interest groups as in the general definition of pluralism theory. Wenman (2013) does not agree that such a concept as agnostic pluralism can exist. His main argument with the concept is that in order to produce a rational theory, too many irrational features inherent to all people are overlooked. In other words, a “non exclusive public sphere of deliberation what a rational consensus could be obtained” would never be possible (Wenman 2013, 17). In other words, deliberate democracy theory cannot apply to pluralism, because it does not allow for the inclusion of the great degree of conflict that must be considered as a natural feature of modern pluralism in the view of Wenman (2013).
Pluralism
Dahl (1956) argues that people with the greatest needs must make an effort to vote or to somehow become involved in the political system, but that is the assumption described as naïve or utopian by elitism theory. In 1960, Neustadt researched presidential power using institutionalized pluralism theory. Bargaining is the main resource a president relies upon to persuade and negotiate with others to support his policy. A president needs the people he negotiates with to feel confident that he is capable of making the changes he proposes (Moe and Howell 1999).
Conflict between interest groups is an important factor to define issues and make take the issues public. Biased Pluralism acknowledges the existence of non-represented interest groups that have priorities very different from modern corporations, business associations and professional associations that are at the elite level (Schattschneider 1960; Olson 1965; Schlozman, Verba and Brady 2012).
Schattschneider (1960) firmly suggests that a competitive democracy is the only type that can allow citizens to have an impact; otherwise, the people remain powerless. Under ideal circumstances a democracy is affected by competing groups and leaders that make clear distinctions between the choices of policy options so the public will be able to participate in the decision-making process (Schattschneider 1960).
Gilens (1999) and Rose (1999) noted that pluralism was the foundational theory even with detractors, pluralism remained the “legitimating discourses exert control over political debate” (Merelman : 180).
Wenman (2013) argues that post-war pluralism was not based on the search for stability as others from the pluralistic perspective have argued. His arguments are based on Dahl’s (1956) and Lindblom’s (1965) emphasis on the need for self-organization and self-coordination to be carried out without any outside influence, including “external domination” (Wenman 2013, 4). The best weapon against tyranny is pluralism; an assumption held by writers of the Constitution. The ideal stability is really the post-war pluralists reasoning that a variety of views on reaching a self-organized social system called democracy can be designed to allow groups within the system to remain secure from outside domination.
Behavioralism from perspective of elitism and pluralism
Behavioralism is faulted by pluralists and elitists theorists for making value judgments and placing values on concepts that cannot be measured like liberty and freedom. Elitism and pluralism fault behavioralism for the (a) difficulty (or impossibility) to define behavioralism theory and the necessity of making value judgments. Behavioralism has at its foundation the use of scientific method but value judgments cannot be measured; leading to another criticism – objectivity and therefore the scientific method are impossible. The life experiences and education of the researcher will add inherent subjectivity to the project. Theories that assume all people and all issues are the same and based on rational thought will not describe the American political process well notes Mouffe (2000) from the pluralism perspective.
Behavioralism
The behavioralism theory grew out of the movement to apply quantifiable statistical analysis to the social sciences. The behavioralism approach to political science offers a method for analyzing voting patterns and understanding “human behavior” (Easton 1965). Easton (1965) describes behavioralism as a type of systems theory that allows for a degree of objectivity that had not been attempted before in political theory.
Behavioralism embraces the use of scientific method making the assumption “that like nature, human behavior abides by a set of laws” that can be verified (Amen 2011, 15). Easton was a supporter of behavioralism and promoted the empirical methods to overcome the deficiencies in “reliable theory” which he called Systems Theory (Amen 2011, 15). Karl Deutsch and J. David Singer (1964) used quantitative methodology to demonstrate how many great powers were needed in order to create a stable international community.
Easton’s (1965)influence integrated scientific method and behaviorialism concepts into the international relations field, emphasizing the relationship of the data gathered to theory. The study of international relations theory was affected by discussion about whether or not old traditional theories were useful in a new, ever-changing international world. “Realism was impacted by both behavioralism and by work that questioned the singular significance of the state” (Amen 2011, 22). In international relations the state-centric behavior theory weakened considerably when cross-border research determined that the state might be irrelevant compared to other actors and factors (Keohane and Nye 1976). Today, Amen, McCarney, Toly and Segbers (2011) report that the cross-border flows” of capital and of content” are more relevant than the state (217).
Congress
Marshall (2008) compares the institutions of the presidency and Congress concluding that although the presidential powers have expanded, Congress has advantages such as the capability to administer investigations and to “oversee” the Presidency (519). Marshall is from a pluralism point of view and is referring to investigations like the Iran-Contra connection under Reagan and the investigation of Clinton’s extra-marital affairs. The pluralism theory of Dahl argued that although the United States has an imperfect democracy, the pluralistic nature of the institution of the government gives everyone a chance to impact politics including Congress.
Gilens and Page (2014) explain that although the US public may want or even demand governmental action on issues; the government is not designed to be responsive to the needs of the public. “Federalism, separation of powers, bicameralism-together with further impediments due to anti-majoritan congressional rules” as well as other rules implemented in congress to are designed to discourage majority influence and are biased towards keeping the status quo, not to respond to change (Gilens and Page, 2014, 18).
James Madison (1787), Truman (1951) and Neustadt (1960) all evaluate politics from the view of pluralist theory. The political system is considered as different factions with different priorities and different political goals that argue and counter-argue to move an issue onto a legislative agenda of Congress.
Going public by the president can cause bad feelings with members of Congress, who the President will need to press for support on future issues” (Kernell 1997). Congress members may feel the President has undermined their positions on the issue as well as “undermined their (Congress’) legitimacy” (Kernell 1997, 4).
Members of the House of Representatives are elected during midterm elections, but voters do not consistently show a large voter turnout as pluralism anticipates. Kernell (1977) found that negative voting (voting against the incumbent president) more highly impacts Congressional seats in the midterms than during the presidential election. In other words choosing Congress members are not the largest motivating factor that brings out voters during the midterms.
Gilens and Page (2014) evaluated the concept of power in terms of the elite and pluralism. The US Chamber of Congress is an association of businesses from across the nation that Gilens and Page (2014) included into the framework of their study. The Chamber of Congress lobbies Congress on issues that are perceived as a priority by the organization’s members; the question arises - does the influence by the Chamber on Congress mean carte blanche cooperation by representatives to form policy acceptable to the business Chamber
Presidency
Marshall (2008) states unequivocally that “presidential power has expanded exponentially since the time of the framing” (507). Marshall’s (1999) perspective is based on institutional theory but not in the traditional sense; rather that the President uses unilateral actions that are outside the formally structured presidential powers. The pluralism theory of Dahl argued that although the United States has an imperfect democracy, the pluralistic nature of the institution of the government gives everyone a chance to impact politics including Presidency.
Two examples of bargaining techniques (pluralism methods) are executive and congressional bargaining. Executive bargaining with the executive branch is when the President needs support for a policy from one of the many agencies. Interestingly, Neustadt argues that the agencies can have as much power as the president when it comes to their policy of interest. Nonetheless, the president cannot simply command an agency to follow his policy; he must fall back on negotiating if he is using executive bargaining as the strategy to get what he wants.
Pluralism can be an asset for the President to use when bargaining with Congress. Essentially, Kernell (1997) posits that going public has become more popular than bargaining for the President. Going public is not necessarily a good thing. A president uses presidential press releases, his press secretary and all the media available to him to explain the policy he wants to affect. The problem is that the policy is not discussed in detail by the media so the public does not learn the full extent of what a policy change will mean to them in their daily lives (Groeling and Baum 2013). Therefore, based on how the message reaches the public, through presidential press secretary and major channels of mass media, going public morphs into an elitism tactic.
The President needs to come on strong; showing a great deal of confidence that he believes his policy is the best, but then his bargaining position with Congress weakens.
Negative voting is defined by Kernell (1977) as voting against the incumbent president’s party. Kernell’s assumption for the Negative Voting model is that midterms are a referendum on the president. The president especially is on the minds of voters for both midterms and presidential elections according to the research of Kernell (1997). It appears that the president is more influential on how voters decide to vote in both the midterms and presidential election. (Kernell 1997)
Pluralism theory assumes that engagement with issues will motivate more people to vote and that the presidential elections offer presidential candidates who provide a range of differing viewpoints to the public and the public become engaged due to the issues discussed (Gilens and Page 2014). Gilens and Page (2014) did not reach the conclusion that the public is favored directly from voting on issues of their concern in presidential elections.
Hargrove (1974) viewed pluralism’s assessment of the Eisenhower presidency as simply a as an excuse to discuss the country as in a period of stability. Lindblom (1968) described Lyndon Johnson’s presidency as reconstructive leadership and praised it for making the necessary reforms, praising LBJ form the pluralism point of view.
References
Amen, M., Toly, Noah J., McCarney, Patricia L., and Segbers, Klaus. (2011). “Sighting or Slighting Cities in International Relations.” Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company.
Banchoff, Thomas F. (2007) Democracy and the New Religious Pluralism. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc.
Baum
Bentley, Arthur F. (1908). The Process of Government: A Study of Social Pressures. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Berelson, Bernard R., Lazarsfeld, Paul F. and McPhee, William N. (1966). Voting: A study of opinion formation in a presidential campaign Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.
Black, D. (1958). The Theory of Committees and Elections. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Buckler, Steve. Hannah Arendt and Political Theory: Challenging the Tradition. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011. /read/121100677/hannah-arendt-and-political-theory-challenging-the.
Campbell, Angus, Philip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller, and Donald E. Stokes. The American Voter. New York: Wiley, 1960. /read/98627651/the-american-voter.
Cooper, Joseph, ed. Congress and the Decline of Public Trust. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999. /read/98918061/congress-and-the-decline-of-public-trust.
Dahl, RobertA. (1996). “Further Reflections on the Elitist Theory of Democracy” American Political Science Review, 60(2), 296-305
_____. (1961). “The behavioral approach in political science: Epitaph for a monument to a successful protest.” The American Political Science Review, 55(4), 763-772 http://www.jstor.org/stable/1952525
______. (1956). A Preface to Democratic Theory. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
______. (1953) Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City? New Haven: Yale University Press
Downs, A. (1957). Economic Theory of Democracy. New York City: Harper and Row.
Dye, Thomas R. (2002) Who’s Running America? The Clinton Years. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall
Easton, David. (1965). A framework for political analysis 5th ed., Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
"Elites." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. 1968. Retrieved October 02, 2014 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3045000356.html - See more at: http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Elites.aspx#1-1G2:3045000356-full
Gilens, Martin and Page, Benjamin L. (2014) “Testing theories of American politics: Elites, interest groups, and average citizens.” Perspectives in Politics, https://www.princeton.edu/
Groeling, T. and Baum, M. (2013). “Partisan news before Fox: Newspaper Partisanship and Partisan Polarization, 1881-1972.” HKS Faculty Research Working Papers, Harvard Kennedy School, http://web.hks.harvard.edu/publications
Habermas, J. (1991). “Further Reflections on the Public Sphere” in Calhoun C. (ed) Habermas and the Public Sphere Cambridge: The MIT Press,
Hamilton, Jay, and Madison, James. (1787) The Federalist Papers. #10.
Hargrove, Erwin. (1974)
Hill, Steven. (2002) Fixing Elections: The Failure of America’s Winner Takes All Politics. New York: Routledge.
Keohane, R and Nye, J. (1973) Transnational Relations and World Politics, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Kernell, Samuel. (1977). Presidential popularity and negative voting: An alternative explanation of the midterm Congressiona. APSR, 71: 44-66.
Key, Vladimir Orlando. (1964; 1942). Politics Parties, and Pressure Groups. 5th ed., NY: T.Y. Crowell Company, Inc.
Lindblom, Charles E. (1977). Politics and Markets. New York: Basic.
Lindblom, Charles E. (1968). The policy making process. New York: Basic.
Merelman, Richard M. (2003). Pluralism at Yale. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press.
Mills, C. Wright. The Power Elite. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. /read/62447676/the-power-elite.
Mouffe, Chantal. (2000) “Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism” Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, Political Science Series 72 https://www.ihs.ac.at/publications/pol/pw_72.pdf
Neustadt, Richard E. Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1960. /read/6017565/presidential-power-the-politics-of-leadership.
Odegard, Peter. The American Public Mind. New York: Columbia University Press, 1930. /read/1071139/the-american-public-mind.
Olson, Mancur, Jr. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Orentlicher, David. Two Presidents Are Better Than One: The Case for a Bipartisan Executive Branch. New York: New York University Press, 2013. /read/123103499/two-presidents-are-better-than-one-the-case-for-a.
Rawls, J. (1993). Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Schattschneider, E.E. 1960. The Semisovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy in America. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Schlozman, Kay Lehman, Sidney Verba, and Henry E. Brady. The Unheavenly Chorus: Unequal Political Voice and the Broken Promise of American Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012. /read/120914251/the-unheavenly-chorus-unequal-political-voice-and.
Schwarzmantel, John. Democracy and Political Violence. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011. /read/121109625/democracy-and-political-violence.
Seligman, Adam B., and Robert P. Weller. Rethinking Pluralism: Ritual, Experience, and Ambiguity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. /read/121453322/rethinking-pluralism-ritual-experience-and-ambiguity.
Somin, Ilya. Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government Is Smarter. Stanford, CA: Stanford Law Books, 2013. /read/123120169/democracy-and-political-ignorance-why-smaller-government.
Todd, Michael. (2014). “Pluralism’s Ringmaster: Robert Dahl, 19195-2014.” Social Science Space, http://www.socialsciencespace.com/2014/02/pluralisms-ringmaster-robert-dahl-1915-2014/
Truman, David. (1971: 1951). The Governmental Process, 2nd ed., New York: Alfred A. Knopf
Wenman, Mark. (2013). M. A. William E. Connolly: Resuming the Pluralist Tradition in American Political Science Political Theory XX(X), 1-26, DOI: 10.1177/0090591713507932
