The Nature of American Democracy

Although there are some aspects of elite control in the United States, the theory of pluralism is the overall best fit for American democracy by far. Pluralism is defined as the belief that power is so widely scattered throughout the population that most groups have some level of power over society. By contrast, in elitist theory, several small groups of people would have effectively total control over power. However, in America, this is very clearly not the case. Every aspect of society, including political groups, corporations, and media, has a significant amount of division and competition that prevents any one group from obtaining a monopoly. Even in the case of monopoly over certain areas of the market by corporations, antitrust suits are filed by government agencies to recreate competition in that area of the market. Furthermore, the government itself is divided into so many agencies and committees across federal, state, and local levels that no group within it could possibly exert control over a significant portion of it. For example, as of the 2016 elections, the Republican Party controls 52 out of 100 seats in the Senate, 240 out of 435 seats in the House of Representatives, the vast majority of the executive branch at the federal level, including the office of President, as well as 34 out of 50 state Governorships and approximately 57% of all State-level legislative seats. Despite this seemingly wide level of control over the government, the Republican Party has gotten so little done in 2017 that President Donald Trump has actually started working with the opposing party because of his own party's failure in Congress. (See Article: Trump suggests he's working with Democrats because Republicans can't get anything done)

Additionally, in direct contrast to what other theories of government state, power in the United States is highly dependent on the ability to obtain votes and win elections, and is strongly influenced by public opinion: "Not only are elites divided, they are responsive to their followers' interests, and thus they provide representation to almost all citizens affected by a policy." (Wilson's Theories of Governance, Page 2) This almost always leads to decisions, especially those made by Congress, to be the outcome of complex bargaining that would never be seen in a government that reflects Marxist, Elitist, or Bureaucratic Elitist theories.

To summarize, although arguments could be made that other theories apply to some aspects of power in the United States, pluralism describes our society overall to a much higher degree of accuracy than these other theories. Thus, as originally intended, power in America is generally held by the American people themselves.