Since the beginning of the current era of imperialism in the late nineteenth century, there has been a striking contrast between bourgeois political thought in Germany and the West. Walter Struve demonstrates how German political culture went through a phase in which great emphasis was placed on the establishment of a new political elite recruited on the basis of merit and skill, but ruling in an authoritarian way, and not controlled by the populace. He suggests that this type of elitism, many aspects of which were vital to the political culture of Nazi Germany, seems today to be widespread in the West. The development of this concept of an open-yet-authoritarian elite is approached through the analysis of the political ideas and activities of nine elitists, among them Max Weber, Walther Rathenau, and Oswald Spengler. The author relates biography to intellectual, political, social, and economic history, so that his work becomes a study in the political and social context of intellectual history. Originally published in 1973. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This book argues that - in terms of institutional design, the allocation of power and privilege, and the lived experiences of citizens - democracy often does not restart the political game after displacing authoritarianism. Democratic institutions are frequently designed by the outgoing authoritarian regime to shield incumbent elites from the rule of law and give them an unfair advantage over politics and the economy after democratization. Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy systematically documents and analyzes the constitutional tools that outgoing authoritarian elites use to accomplish these ends, such as electoral system design, legislative appointments, federalism, legal immunities, constitutional tribunal design, and supermajority thresholds for change. The study provides wide-ranging evidence for these claims using data that spans the globe and dates from 1800 to the present. Albertus and Menaldo also conduct detailed case studies of Chile and Sweden. In doing so, they explain why some democracies successfully overhaul their elite-biased constitutions for more egalitarian social contracts.

One of the potentially explosive issues of the modern era is a vast and growing disparity between the overwhelming predominance of elites in the decision-making process and the democratic ideal that people should participate in making decisions that vitally affect them. In this book an impressive array of political theorists offer conflicting views on the form of democratic elitism practiced in the United States.Defining the political elite as "the power holders of the body politic," Harold Lasswell explains that the division into elite and mass is universal, while Robert Dahl confirms that key political, economic, and social decisions are indeed made by these tiny minorities. Paul Good man argues that we are now in a period of excessive centralization that he regards as "economically inefficient, technologically unnecessary, and humanly damaging." From another standpoint, Herbert Marcuse calls for a struggle against the ideology of tolerance husbanded by the political elites in this country and Jack L. Walker contends that elitist theory has provided an unconvincing explanation of the widespread political apathy in American society.As the events of recent decades vividly demonstrate, a growing number of people refuse to recognize elite rule. This many-sided work puts before the student a variety of strongly held opinions regarding the place and function of the political elite and its power. The wide range of authoritative articles makes Political Elites in a Democracy a most useful addition to every course in political science that touches on the subject of elites and political power.

It can feel like we're swimming in a sea of corruption. It's unclear who exactly is in charge and what role they play. The same influential people seem to reappear time after time in different professional guises, pressing their own agendas in one venue after another. According to award-winning public policy scholar and anthropologist Janine Wedel, these are the powerful ''shadow elite,'' the main players in a vexing new system of power and influence. In this groundbreaking book, Wedel charts how this shadow elite, loyal only to their own, challenge both governments' rules of accountability and business codes of competition to accomplish their own goals. From the Harvard economists who helped privatize post-Soviet Russia and the neoconservatives who have helped privatize American foreign policy (culminating with the debacle that is Iraq) to the many private players who daily make public decisions without public input, these manipulators both grace the front pages and operate behind the scenes. Wherever they maneuver, they flout once-sacrosanct boundaries between state and private. Profoundly original, Shadow Elite gives us the tools we need to recognize these powerful yet elusive players and comprehend the new system. Nothing less than our ability for self-government and our freedom are at stake.

Democracy is a matter of degree, and this book offers mainstream empirical evidence that shows how rich democracies would be better off with a few degrees less of it.

This text challenges American notions of democracy and ambition, culture and civic responsibility, charting a decline in democratic values and debate. It states that this change is due to the "new elites" who, having lost their sense of communitarianism, will not accept ties to nation and to place.

This compelling and convincing study represents the culmination of the authors' several decades of research on the pivotal role played by elites in the success or failure of political regimes. Revising the classical theory of elites and politics, John Higley and Michael Burton distinguish basic types of elites and associated political regimes. They canvas political change during the modern historical and contemporary periods to identify circumstances and ways in which the sine qua non of liberal democracy, a consensually united elite, has formed and persisted. The book considers an impressive body of cases, examining how consensually united elites have fostered forty-five liberal democracies and how disunited or ideologically united elites have thus far prevented liberal democracy in more than one hundred other countries. The authors argue that obstacles to the emergence of elites propitious for liberal democracy are more formidable than democratization enthusiasts recognize. They assess prospects for the transformation of disunited and ideologically united elites where they now exist, ask whether current challenges to Western liberal democracies will undermine their consensually united elites, and explore what the rise of the distinctive elite clustered around George W. Bush may portend for America's liberal democracy. The authors' powerful and important argument reframes our thinking about liberal democracy and questions optimistic assumptions about the prospects for its spread in the twenty-first century.