Political Elites

Elites have been described both as the bulwarks of democracy and its very antithesis. 'Political Elites', first published in 1969, reviews the literature on the role of elites in politics. It deals with both the 'classic' elite theorists - Mosca, Pareto, Michels, Burnham and C. Wright Mills - and with many of the empirical and theoretical works on elites by modern political scientists and sociologists. It seeks to clarify the central terms of elite discourse, some of which have entered the everyday political vocabulary - 'elitism', 'power elite', 'establishment', 'elite consensus'', 'iron law of oligarchy' and 'mass'. It explores the ways in which the descriptions of power relationships can subtly be infiltrated by the values of the observers. For this ECPR Classics edition Professor Parry has added an introduction reviewing significant new developments in elite political science.

Author: Geraint Parry
Publisher: ECPR Press
Published: 01/01/2005
Pages: 158
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 9.26h x 6.29w x 0.42d
ISBN: 9780954796600

About the Author
Geraint Parry was the WJM Mackenzie Professor, now Emeritus Professor of Government at the University of Manchester. His research interests are in democratic theory and practice, political sociology and the history of political ideas. He is the author of John Locke (1978) and, with G Moyser and N Day, Political Participation and Democracy in Britain (1992). He has edited Participation in Politics(1972), Democracy, Consensus and Social Contract (1972, with P Birnbaum and J Lively), Democracy and Democratization (1994, with M Moran) and Fundamentals in British Politics (1999, with I Holliday and A Gamble). His recent publications have been on the history of the relationship between political theory and educational thought. He has been editor of Government and Opposition, the Journal of Comparative Politics, and is a former President of the UK Political Studies Association.