Democracy is a result of democratic ideology and theory as well as political practice.
Accordingly, the politics of democracy is defined by theories of democracy as well as the changes in the manners and practice of democracy which also alter the ideology and the theory.
This paper tries to describe the basic differences between the pluralistic and elitist forms of community power. (Ellis 100)
Pluralism refers to the confirmation and greater recognition of diversity. Pluralism is used in several ways in different circumstances. For instant in politics, it may refer to the recognition of diversity in the needs or the interest of the people of a country which to an extent is a major pillar of today’s democratic ideals. In the field of science, it is used to show that different theories or methods are acceptable. The concept is also used in different ways in both religion and philosophy. (Ellis 102)
Politics is always about the interests of the citizens who severally exhibit diversity in their values attitudes and opinions and to some extent, these differences must live together. To extent, democracy is a very hard way or form of political leadership since it must give justifiable results out of the plurality of interests. This is also a fundamental significance of pluralism because pluralism “signals a theorized preference for multiplicity over unicity and for diversity over uniformity”. (McLennan 25).
This theory has been advocated in several ways but one of the central issues has been the relationship between the interest of the people and those of the larger community in democracy and how such relationship affects the functioning of the political system. This difficulty is also evident today in the debate about libertarianism against communitarianism and it is also an important part of the discussions about multiculturism. (Ellis 105)
According to McLennan, tolerance is one of the chief bases of pluralism. He indeed identified pluralism as dispersed power, as group power as well as dispersed preferences. The initial two forms often coincide with one another whereas the third one is partially independent. Thus pluralism as dispersed power is the study of political power and the acceptance of various, but unequal, elites. On the other hand pluralism as a group, power refers to the pragmatic study of political groups whereas dispersed preferences deal with the relevance of the diverse political attitudes to the stability of the democratic government. (McLennan 33)
Elitist on the other hand is the assumption that the people who are seen to be elite, that is, “a chosen group of individuals with outstanding personal capabilities, wealth, specialized training or other unique attributes”, are the ones whose ideas or views on any subject are taken the most seriously. In other words, their views are felt to have the most weight and thus they are the most qualified to lead since their views are the most constructive. Moreover, the term can also be used to “illustrate circumstances where power is concentrated in the hands of the elite, whether rightly or not”. (Schumpeter 45)
Work cited
Ellis, Ellen. “The Pluralistic State”. The American Political Science. 1920.
McLennan, Gregor. “Pluralism”. Buckingham: The Open University Press.1995.
Schumpeter, Joseph. “Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy”. London: Unwin. 1987.