Pluralism in the American Democracy

Theories of Power in a Democracy

There are different theories when it comes to thinking about government. There are four theories, Marxism, Elitism, Bureaucratic Elitism, and Pluralism. The theory of power that best describes American democracy is pluralism. Pluralism is a state of society in which members of diverse ethnic, racial, religious, or social groups maintain and develop their traditional culture or special interest within the confines of a common civilization. This describes the American democracy the most because everyone in the country legally has equal rights no matter where they're from, what their gender, ethnicity, race, religion, or sexuality. Pluralism also reflects the American democracy because everyone work towards equality, acceptance, and power. "Political resources, such as money, prestige expertise, organizational position, and access to the mass media, are so widely scattered in our society and in the hands of such a variety of persons that no single elite has anything like a monopoly on them. Furthermore, there are so many governmental institutions in which power may be exercised-city, state, and federal governments and, within these, the offices of mayors, managers, legislators, governors, presidents, judges, bureaucrats-that no single group, even if it had many political resources, could dominate most, or even much of the political process," (Wilson's Theories of Governance). This is a part of the pluralism theory, and it basically explains how groups of people have power in a government and they will be fair even if one group is more dominant than the other. It's a fair spread of power and it explains how certain people in the theory of pluralism would do certain things in a government, and most of the people listed were people that are actually part of the American democracy.

Basically in conclusion of what you just read, pluralism is what best describes the American democracy because of the equality and division of power that is explained in the theory of pluralism. The equality and division of power in pluralism is similar to the equality and division of power in the American democracy.

Further Information:

https://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/19/the-challenge-of-pluralism/