Models of democracy (part I)
- The competitive élitist and the pluralist models
by Londradical


The competitive élitist and the pluralist models of democracy were conceived between the end of the XIX century and the first half of the XX. The latter wouldn't have been born without the former, in that obviously bearing similarities with it, and didn't stop to develop into neo-pluralism until recent decades, in that marking significant differences with competitive élitism and even pluralism itself in its original form.

The aim of this discussion will be to elaborate on these similarities and differences. In doing so, before reaching conclusions it seems appropriate to summarise the two models with the help of the philosophers, sociologists and economists who best represent them: among élitists, Gaetano Mosca (1858-1941), Max Weber (1846-1920) and Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1883-1950); and among pluralists Robert Dahl (1915-).

According to the competitive élitist theory, every political system is ruled by a political élite or élites. It was Sicilian social scientist Gaetano Mosca who first introduced this model, along with his fellow Italian contemporary sociologist, neo-Machiavellian Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923), whose work was later developed by Schumpeter and Dahl into the pluralist model. Mosca defined democracy as a system in which competing élites are formally chosen or rejected by electors. However, he was convinced that members of Parliament were not actually elected by the people, but rather by their friends who arranged for them to be elected.

This is, in short, Mosca's concept of élitism, a competition heavily relying on the nature of an organisation (the "friends") which is nothing less than the bureaucracy described by one of the founding father of sociology, Max Weber, in what is perhaps his most important theory. Weber was the first to introduce the idea that modern political systems are becoming more and more similar among them because they all endure a process of bureaucratisation.

Bureaucracy's special features include storing information on a vast scale and the fragmentation of functions according to the specialised abilities of experts. In this respect it is worth to recall the work of Roberto Michels (1876-1936), another Italian sociologist, who developed Weber's thoughts on bureaucracy into the "Iron Law of Oligarchy": if a form of organisation is necessary for effective action in society, that organisation unavoidably demands a bureaucracy and those bureaucracies, again unavoidably, concentrate power at the summit of a hierarchy, where few people control information, communication and finances. It is a fascinating theory about the civil servants controlling a given organisation ignore or distort the wishes of its membership. It basically is a development of Weber's account of bureaucracy, and to Weber we go back in our discussion.

Another interesting theory derived from Weber's work and relevant to our discussion on élitist bureaucracy is that on the "convergence thesis", claiming that systems apparently very different such as those of the Soviet Union and the United States become increasingly similar because of the expansion of bureaucracy. This is a concept shared by Schumpeter in analysing how the huge size of modern industry determines a convergence between socialism and capitalism because of the need of bureaucratic management in both models of society.

Schumpeter's pessimistic view of democracy (he didn't trust humans as being able to act rationally) was that the ordinary citizen should not have any further role in the decision-making process other than taking part in periodic elections to choose between political parties, one or other team of competing leaders. In reinterpreting democracy as a system in which rival élites of party leaders vied for power through election, Schumpeter was to become the link between Weber and Dahl (see below), between the competitive élitist and the pluralist models.

Indeed, his thought could well be seen as the common ground between the two models of democracy we are examining here: we begin to see what in my opinion is the most important similarity between the competitive élitist and the pluralist model (which follows): differently from previous models such as, for example, the Marxist one, they do not tend to describe what would be the best model, nor to construct an example of what they wish to be the model, but they rather take a photograph of the existing model. As David Held explains in his Models of democracy:

Like Weber and Schumpeter, their [the pluralists'] goal was to be "realistic" and "objective" in the face of all those thinkers who asserted particular ideals without due attention to the circumstances in which they found themselves. Since the pluralists' critique of such thinkers is similar in many respects to the critical treatment offered by Montesquieu, Madison, Mill, Weber and Schumpeter, the focus below will be on the pluralists' positive understanding of democracy.