elite theory, in political science, theoretical perspective according to which (1) a community’s affairs are best handled by a small subset of its members and (2) in modern societies such an arrangement is in fact inevitable. These two tenets are ideologically allied but logically separable.

The basic normative question underlying elite theory is whether the relative power of any group ought to exceed its relative size. The affirmative answer goes back to ancient Greece, where the disproportionate influence of distinguished minorities was defended by reference to their superior wisdom or virtue, as in Plato’s “guardian” class of rulers. The Greek precursor to the English aristocracy (aristokratia) referred to rule by “the best men” (the aristoi). The empirical assumption behind the defense of elite rule at the time was the unequal distribution of the finest human traits.

The inevitability of elite rule could not be taken for granted, however, as attested by the fact that ancient, medieval, and early modern political writers undertook a constant struggle against rule by ordinary people, or democracy, which was often equated with the absence of order, or anarchy. That explicitly antidemocratic posture was characteristic of Christian writers such as Thomas Aquinas, the 13th-century theologian. The French word élite, from which the modern English is taken, means simply “the elect” or “the chosen” and thus accommodates the notion that people of outstanding ability hold their power and privileges by divine sanction.

It is sometimes forgotten that later revolutionary ideologies held fast to the classic form of normative elitism, even borrowing the Platonic language of guardianship. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Calvinists referred to the superior personal characteristics of aristocrats in order to justify armed resistance against illegitimate monarchs; John Milton’s defense of the regicide in England in 1649 and subsequent rule by Puritan “saints” represents one instance of that type of ideology. Milton was admired by John Adams, the American revolutionary, and in the 1780s James Madison and Alexander Hamilton defended the new institutions of the U.S. Congress and the Supreme Court precisely as good guardians—privileged agencies more capable of serving the people’s interests than the people themselves. Those defenses of elite rule are the more notable because, in some cases, their authors ostensibly rejected the ancient assumption of unequally distributed capacities in favour of some notion of natural equality.

By the late 19th century, attention to the empirical aspects of elite power complemented normative elitism without fundamentally altering it. The Italian social theorists Gaetano Mosca and Vilfredo Pareto were among the first to stipulate that elite rule is inevitable and to explore the ramifications of that axiom, mainly by analyzing the reproduction and transformation of elite groups. The famous “iron law of oligarchy,” advanced by the German-born Italian political sociologist and economist Robert Michels, was more systematic: instead of merely positing the inevitability of elite domination, Michels tried to explain it by reference to the peculiar organizational features of modern politics, undoubtedly influenced on that point by the German sociologist Max Weber. Michels’s account was unusually compelling because of his own egalitarian sympathies and his case studies of German socialist organizations. In the face of his “iron law,” Michels concluded, in evident despair, that “democracy is the end but not the means.”

Michels’s conclusion underscored the complex relation of elite theory to Marxian political thought. Mosca, Pareto, and Michels accepted that governing elites are usually (albeit not necessarily) friendly to leading economic interests, but they rejected Karl Marx’s analysis of historical change as the result of class conflict. They also spurned what they took to be his democratic faith in the ultimately decisive influence of the most numerous, the labouring class. Yet empirical elitism also appealed to Marxian figures such as Vladimir Lenin and Antonio Gramsci. In the years following World War II, however, the classic elitists’ writings were much in vogue among American social scientists committed to a kind of liberal constitutionalism. The conservative American philosopher James Burnham, a founding editor of the National Review, depicted Mosca, Pareto, and Michels as Machiavellians whose realistic analysis of elite actors and rejection of utopian egalitarianism represented the best hope of democracy—as defined in terms of the law-governed liberty that emerges from interelite checks and balances. The 20th-century American economist Joseph Schumpeter used the elitists less conspicuously but also redefined democracy in terms congenial to the elite legacy as nothing more than electoral competition between elites vying for popular authorization to rule.

Schumpeter was the last great political writer to explicitly marry empirical elitism to normative elitism. Though influenced by Schumpeter, later approaches, such as behavioralism and rational-choice theory, were meant to be value neutral. Nevertheless, rational-choice theory strengthened empirical elitism by offering new arguments for the inevitability of elite rule. For example, the American economist Kenneth Arrow’s impossibility theorem showed that ordinary voting procedures could not in principle express a stable collective will, implying that agenda setting and other procedural maneuvers by a few strategically placed actors are indispensable to public choices.

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J. S. Maloy The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

elites, small groups of persons who exercise disproportionate power and influence. It is customary to distinguish between political elites, whose locations in powerful institutions, organizations, and movements enable them to shape or influence political outcomes, often decisively, and cultural elites, who enjoy a high status and influence in nonpolitical spheres such as arts and letters, philanthropy, professions, and civic associations. At the national level, political elites number only a few thousand persons in all but the largest countries, whereas the makeup of cultural elites is more indeterminate and turns on the nonpolitical spheres regarded as consequential in a society.

Elites and nonelites

In their social background, education, and occupations, elites are almost always more privileged than nonelite populations. They come prevailingly from wealthy families, some of whose members may have held elite positions in preceding generations. The frequency with which they hold university degrees—often from “elite” institutions—far exceeds the distribution of such education among nonelite publics. Elites also come disproportionately from high-status occupations—lawyers, teachers, and managers in the public or private sector. There are exceptions, of course. Significant proportions of civil-service elites have careers that begin in lowly positions and involve long climbs to the top. Self-made entrepreneurs are certainly not unknown among business elites. Historically, the elites of trade unions and various social movements exhibited modest backgrounds and educations, though they are now predominantly middle-class in background and university-educated in industrialized countries. Elite-level politicians are increasingly involved in full-time careers in or close to politics, often starting as student political leaders and then serving on leading politicians’ staffs or holding paid positions in parties; they may also come from politically relevant careers in journalism, public relations, and think tanks. Historically, elites have consisted almost entirely of men, and men continue to outnumber women greatly in most elite sectors. In multiethnic or multiracial societies, elite persons usually belong to the largest or otherwise dominant ethnic or racial population. Finally, in average age, elites tend to be significantly older than nonelites.

Research shows, however, that such differences between elites and nonelites are gradually being reduced. For example, research on the social, educational, and occupational profiles of parliamentary elites in 11 European countries from the middle of the 19th century to the early 21st century reveals a long trend toward less exclusive and privileged profiles. Changes in the gender makeups of elites are also now quite evident. It is possible, moreover, that the preponderance of bureaucratic and service work in many contemporary societies is intermingling elites and nonelites in important ways. Both elites and nonelites perform essentially similar nonmanual tasks and not infrequently rub shoulders in offices. Because elites now more frequently ascend to their positions from nonelite origins than in the rigidly stratified societies of earlier times, not a few see themselves as one of a kind with nonelites, among whom they have intimate personal associates and for whom they have considerable empathy. Such closer and more-empathetic ties may dispose elites toward actions that better reflect and represent nonelite desires and interests.

Elite autonomy

Elites seldom enjoy complete autonomy. To carry out major initiatives and to perpetuate their hold on power, elites need nonelite support. To win it, elites may appeal to nonelite interests and to shared political orientations. Failure to win nonelite support frequently shortens elite tenures or undermines their power.

How much autonomy elites have—and should have—are questions that have long dogged discussions of “democratic elitism.” In his seminal book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942), the American economist Joseph Schumpeter argued that democracy is simply a method by which voters select governing leaders and elites, who should then be left alone to get on with the business of governing. For Schumpeter, in other words, democracy combines autonomous governance by leaders and elites with time-limited mandates to govern given by the voting public in periodic elections. However, many critics of democratic elitism claim that this too blithely assumes that leaders and elites are creative and responsible actors who can safely be entrusted with autonomy.

Three of the most-influential figures in elite theory—the jurist and philosopher Gaetano Mosca, the economist and sociologist Vilfredo Pareto, and the political sociologist and economist Robert Michels—also stressed the persistence of elites. The formation of elite groups, they argued, is inescapable in modern societies and imposes limits on what is possible in politics. They maintained, for example, that genuine democratic systems are impossible because there will always be self-interested elites who will outorganize and outwit the people. The most that can be hoped for, in their view, is a relatively liberal but still quite unequal order led by elites who are capable and enlightened. But, they noted, elites in most societies, both historically and in the present, fall well short of those attributes, so politics is likely to continue to involve fierce power struggles between ambitious elites.

John Higley The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica