Democratic Elitism: The Founding Myth of American Political Science
Natasha Piano, "Democratic Elitism: The Founding Myth of American Political Science"
English | ISBN: 0674295374 | 2025 | 256 pages | PDF | 3 MB
English | ISBN: 0674295374 | 2025 | 256 pages | PDF | 3 MB
A searing argument―and work of meticulous scholarship―about how American political scientists misinterpreted the elite theory of democracy and in so doing made our political system vulnerable to oligarchic takeover.
Do competitive elections secure democracy, or might they undermine it by breeding popular disillusionment with liberal norms and procedures? The so-called Italian School of Elitism, comprising Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca, and Robert Michels, voiced this very concern. They feared that defining democracy exclusively through representative practices creates unrealistic expectations of what elections can achieve, generating mass demoralization and disillusionment with popular government.
The Italian School’s concern has gone unheeded, even as their elite theory has been foundational for political science in the United States.
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