1. PLURALISM & ELITISM (The many and the few)

2. Derives from the word Plural
“Containing, involving or composed of more than one”.
Central tenet of Liberalism
Competition & disagreement healthy (J.S. Mill)
Competing ideas -The truth can only be found through discussion when people are open to criticism (Mill)

3. Countervailing ideas

4. Central to democratic thought and practice.
Countervailing groups (eg League Against Cruel Sports vs the Countryside Alliance)
Opposes Marxists and elitists in suggesting in liberal societies there is a dispersal of power

5. Pluralism & Power
Pluralism espouses the distribution, dispersal and separation of power and influence
It opposes absolutism and monism
It supports multiculturalism and can be found in Socialist, anarchist and Conservative thinking

6. Pluralism opposes elitism
Elitism: social hierarchy natural and desirable
Those ‘born to rule’
Traditional conservatism: we seek the security of ‘knowing our place’; provides stability
Benevolent elitism: Disraeli's ‘noblesse oblige’; One Nation Conservatism

7. Elitism Those who went to public school: 71% Senior Judges 31% MPs
50% the Cabinet
50% Lords
43% newspaper columnists
45% public body chairs

8. Elitism Oxbridge: 75% Senior Judges 50% Cabinet
47% newspaper columnists
44% chairs of public bodies
38% Lords
24% MPs
In Attlee’s government (1945) there were 28 from public schools, including 7 from Eton

9. A pluralist state functions as:
A minimal and neutral role for the state
Locke’s arbiter state
There is a choice of competing political parties allowing government by consent
Electors express independent views
The state should promote debate and safeguard individual freedom

10. In Europe pluralism began as a response to absolutism
In USA it began as a practical response to limit state power
Concerned with how society should be organised in order to achieve a just society
Diversity is a social good
Prevents the dominance of one particular idea
Power should be dispersed

11. The Main Principles of English Pluralism
Liberty the most important political value
Liberty best preserved by power being dispersed
Groups should be regarded as ‘persons’ (representative)
Ideas of state sovereignty should be rejected

12. However, early English pluralists opposed the individualism of liberalism
They saw groups as the main elements of society (family, village, community)
Individuals have no independent existence (other than through groups)
Group identity and representation an important element in the political structure (eg constituencies; rotten boroughs)
Groups are therefore the building blocks of politics and the state

13. English pluralists therefore concerned with:
State sovereignty (constrained by groups)
2) The role of groups therefore important in democracy

14. American Pluralism
Particularly opposed to a powerful imperial state (Britain)
Necessary to ensure powers of state limited to avoid groups being crushed
Emphasised separation of powers
Federalism
Lobbyists/ ‘K Street’ corridor

15. Britain after WW2
Pluralism weakened by a growing, complex state (in the USA a welfare state failed to develop)
Growing symbiotic relationship between civil servants and ministers
Power monopolised within a closed and elitist state
Thatcher suspicious of groups (eg unions) & emphasised a direct relationship between the sovereign government and the individual

16. BUT Assumptions of pluralism challenged by:
1) Civil rights movement (groups are not truly equal)
2) Anti-Vietnam War movement (government elites control our lives)

17. Modern pluralism State “hollowed out” in late 20th Century
Pluralists see “voluntaristic solutions to deep seated structural problems” (Smith 2006)
The Big Society?
Postmodernists, like pluralists, reject monism (especially the Marxist belief in a single truth and explanation – everything linked to class)

18. Multiculturalism & Pluralism
Multiculturalists see rights as group-based rather than individual (eg the rights of religious groups)
Generally recognised as a good thing
But
Some Muslim women might want their rights protected as individuals rather than as Muslims So
Dilemma: is there a tension between group rights and individual rights?