scholarly journals ‘Disfigurations’ of Democracy? Pareto, Mosca and the Challenge of ‘Elite Theory’

Topoi ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert P. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
New Haven ◽  
Political Liberty ◽  
Mutual Dependence ◽  
Elite Theory ◽  
The People ◽  
Political Orientations ◽  
The Masses

AbstractConsidering recent re-assessments of Pareto and Mosca, I discuss whether these thinkers’ socio-political orientations contribute to the ‘disfiguration’ of democracy (in: Urbinati, Democracy disfigured: opinion, truth, and the people, Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 2014) or provide a resource for the renewal of democratic institutions. Femia (Pareto and political theory, Routledge, Abingdon, 2006) presents Pareto as being in the “Machiavellian tradition of sceptical liberalism,” revealing the liberal potential of Pareto’s realist political theory. Finocchiaro (Beyond right and left, Yale, New Haven, London, 1999) ameliorates the conservative consequences of Mosca’s thought by reinterpreting him as a ‘democratic elitist,’ who holds a conception of political liberty “as a relationship such that authority flows from the masses to the elites.” Highlighting the significance of internal tensions within each thinker’s work foregrounded by these readings, between the causal primacy of psychic states and the ‘mutual dependence’ of social factors (Pareto), and between the elite principle and ‘balanced pluralism’ (Mosca), I ask whether the ‘sceptical liberal’ Pareto or the ‘democratic elitist’ Mosca elude Urbinati’s unpolitical, populist and plebiscitarian ‘disfigurations’ of democracy.

scholarly journals The Masses and the Elite: the Conception of Social Inequality in 1840s Scandinavian Literature

Romantik ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joachim Schiedermair
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequality ◽  
Present Article ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Romantic Period ◽  
Elite Theory ◽  
The People ◽  
The Masses ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Scandinavian Literature

The opposition between the masses and the elite is the constituting formula by which the classic texts of elite theory justified social inequality around 1900. Nowadays, contemporary theorists of social inequality interpret this opposition primarily as a panic reaction to demographic developments that occurred towards the end of the 19th century. Uncovering the same mechanisms in fiction from that period is an obvious task for literary scholars. In the present article, however, it will be argued that the ‘true’ contemporaries of elite theories are already manifest in texts from around 1840 – texts that are usually regarded as belonging to the Romantic period. The argument is based on Johan Ludvig Heiberg’s essay ‘Folk og Publikum’ [The People and the Audience] and the drama ‘Den indiske Cholear’ (1835) [The Indian Cholera] by Henrik Wergeland. Heiberg’s and Wergeland’s texts will not be read as anachronistic reflections of 1900 elite theories, but rather as complex analyses of precisely those bourgeois concerns that led to the emergence of the elite theories toward the end of the century.

Democracy as a Gamble Worth Taking

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hélène Landemore
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Collective Intelligence ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Cognitive Artifacts ◽  
The Past ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
The People ◽  
Cognitive Failures ◽  
The Masses ◽  
Over Time

This concluding chapter returns to the metaphor of the maze and the masses introduced in the first chapter and addresses a few concerns about the possibility of democratic “unreason.” Introducing the dimension of time and reflection over time, the chapter suggests, first, that democracies can learn from their mistakes and, second, that certain democratic institutions and norms serve as cognitive artifacts that help the people control for or correct their potential cognitive failures. Those cognitive artifacts at the level of society include institutions and norms that embody the collective intelligence of the people distributed across both space and time. Democratic reason thus includes the wisdom of the past “many” crystallized into social cognitive artifacts that help reduce democratic unreason. Because of the synchronic and diachronic collective intelligence tapped by democratic institutions, democracy, this chapter concludes, is a gamble worth taking.

Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 307-314
Author(s):  
Cathal Kilcline
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
The People ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Masses ◽  
Post Industrial

In France, conflicts over nationhood in a globalised world are refracted through competing visions and models of the role of sport in society. The first model holds that sport has intrinsic virtuous qualities and acts as a space for the development and performance of Republican values. This model contends that the sport should be organised by and for the people through the democratic institutions of the State. The second vision recognises sport as primarily a form of entertainment for the masses, dictated by television corporations and media outlets, with sports stars constructed primarily to further commercial imperatives. In the back-and-forth between these rival visions, a range of issues are played out in the sporting sphere, from France’s postcolonial heritage to its post-industrial future, through concerns over Americanisation, corporatisation, immigration and commemoration.

On the Will of the People: Notes on the Political “Theory” of Populism

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Claus Offe
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
The Political ◽  
The People ◽  
National People ◽  
The Will

The “will of the (national) people” is the ubiquitously invoked reference unit of populist politics. The essay tries to demystify the notion that such will can be conceived of as a unique and unified substance deriving from collective ethnic identity. Arguably, all political theory is concerned with arguing for ways by which citizens can make e pluribus unum—for example, by coming to agree on procedures and institutions by which conflicts of interest and ideas can be settled according to standards of fairness. It is argued that populists in their political rhetoric and practice typically try to circumvent the burden of such argument and proof. Instead, they appeal to the notion of some preexisting existential unity of the people’s will, which they can redeem only through practices of repression and exclusion.

Serge Moscovici's "Réflexions sur la popularité des conspiracy mentalities"

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier Klein
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Social Representation ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The People ◽  
Social Representation Theory ◽  
The Masses

This is a pdf of the original typed manuscript of a lecture made in 2006. An annotated English translation will be published by the International Review of Social Psychology. I this text, Moscovici seeks to update his earlier work on the “conspiracy mentality” (1987) by considering the relationships between social representations and conspiracy mentality. Innovation in this field, Moscovici argues, will require a much thorough description and understanding of what conspiracy theories are, what rhetoric they use and what functions they fulfill. Specifically, Moscovici considers conspiracies as a form of counterfactual history implying a more desirable world (in which the conspiracy did not take place) and suggests that social representation theory should tackle this phenomenon. He explicitly links conspiracy theories to works of fiction and suggests that common principles might explain their popularity. Historically, he argues, conspiracism was born twice: First, in the middle ages, when their primary function was to exclude and destroy what was considered as heresy; and second, after the French revolution, to delegitimize the Enlightenment, which was attributed to a small coterie of reactionaries rather than to the will of the people. Moscovici then considers four aspects (“thematas”) of conspiracy mentality: 1/ the prohibition of knowledge; 2/ the duality between the majority (the masses, prohibited to know) and “enlightened” minorities; 3/ the search for a common origin, a “ur phenomenon” that connects historical events and provides a continuity to History (he notes that such a tendency is also present in social psychological theorizing); and 4/ the valorization of tradition as a bulwark against modernity. Some of Moscovici’s insights in this talk have since been borne out by contemporary research on the psychology of conspiracy theories, but many others still remain fascinating potential avenues for future research.

Sovereignty

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hermann Heller
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Weimar Republic ◽  
Political System ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
National Sovereignty ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The People ◽  
Pluralistic World

This 1927 work addresses the paradox of sovereignty, that is, how the sovereign can be both the highest authority and subject to law. Unlike Kelsen and Schmitt who seek to dissolve the paradox, this text sees the tensions that the paradox highlights as an essential part of a society ruled by law. Sovereignty, in the sense of national sovereignty, is often perceived in liberal democracies today as being under threat, or at least “in transition,” as power devolves from nation states to international bodies. This threat to national sovereignty is at the same time considered a threat to a different idea of sovereignty, popular sovereignty—the sovereignty of “the people”—as important decisions seem increasingly to be made by institutions outside of a country’s political system or by elite-dominated institutions within. This text was written in 1927 amidst the very similar tensions of the Weimar Republic. In an exploration of history, constitutional and political theory, and international law, it shows that democrats must defend a legal idea of sovereignty suitable for a pluralistic world.

The Ambivalent Minority: Mexican Americans and the Voting Rights Act

1994 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Skerry
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Mexican Americans ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
San Antonio ◽  
Voting Rights Act ◽  
News Magazine ◽  
The People ◽  
Political Orientations ◽  
Rich History

In the countless conversations about U.S. immigration policy that I have had with Mexican Americans of varied backgrounds and political orientations, seldom have my interlocutors failed to remind me that “We were here first,” or that “This was our land and you stole it from us.” Even a moderate Mexican American politician like former San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros sounds the same theme in a national news magazine:It is no accident that these regions have the names they do—Los Angeles, San Francisco, Colorado, Montana.…It is a rich history that Americans have been led to believe is an immigrant story when, in fact, the people who built this area in the first place were Hispanics.

The Eurocentrism of neo-Roman republicanism and the neglect of republican empire

Thesis Eleven ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 072551362110439
Author(s):  
Kevin Blachford
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Freedom ◽  
Political Liberty ◽  
Absence Of Power ◽  
Historical Practices ◽  
Republican Liberty ◽  
Historical Practice ◽  
Normative Ideals

Republicanism is an approach within political theory that seeks to secure the values of political liberty and non-domination. Yet, in historical practice, early modern republics developed empires and secured their liberty through policies that dominated others. This contradiction presents challenges for how neo-Roman theorists understand ideals of liberty and political freedom. This article argues that the historical practices of slavery and empire developed concurrently with the normative ideals of republican liberty. Republican liberty does not arise in the absence of power but is inherently connected to the exercise of power.

scholarly journals Political Theory of Populism

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Urbinati
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
The Political ◽  
Representative Government ◽  
Constitutional Democracy ◽  
The People ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
Democratic Principles

Populism is the name of a global phenomenon whose definitional precariousness is proverbial. It resists generalizations and makes scholars of politics comparativist by necessity, as its language and content are imbued with the political culture of the society in which it arises. A rich body of socio-historical analyses allows us to situate populism within the global phenomenon called democracy, as its ideological core is nourished by the two main entities—the nation and the people—that have fleshed out popular sovereignty in the age of democratization. Populism consists in a transmutation of the democratic principles of the majority and the people in a way that is meant to celebrate one subset of the people as opposed to another, through a leader embodying it and an audience legitimizing it. This may make populism collide with constitutional democracy, even if its main tenets are embedded in the democratic universe of meanings and language. In this article, I illustrate the context-based character of populism and how its cyclical appearances reflect the forms of representative government. I review the main contemporary interpretations of the concept and argue that some basic agreement now exists on populism's rhetorical character and its strategy for achieving power in democratic societies. Finally, I sketch the main characteristics of populism in power and explain how it tends to transform the fundamentals of democracy: the people and the majority, elections, and representation.

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