Elite Theories Of Democracy: The Elite Theory Of Democracy

The elite theory of democracy is a form of democracy where a small minority of highly influential members of society like wealthy and political elites hold an unequal or more power than the popular majority. Basically, the elite theory of democracy says that in every political system there are only two different groups of participants. The first is the small amount of elites, which exercises a large amount of influence over the democratic system .The second is the large amount of regular citizens, which collectively do not have an equal amount of influence that the elite camp has, and are therefore governed by predominantly the elite minority of society. Note, however, that this system is still a democracy, as the majority of voters still have a say in what goes on in politics.

Who are the types of people that would support this system? On the wealthy side, big donors tend to be corporations. Large companies like AT&T, Goldman Sacs, Citigroup, and J.P. Morgan Chase all give tens of millions of dollars each election cycle to both sides of the race. That’s not to say corporations are the only ones that play an active role, People like Robert Mercer, George Soros, and Toby Neugebauer also make up a large chunk of donations on both the republican and democratic side. However, the wealthy aren’t the only members of society that support the elite theory of democracy, there are also political elites. The political elite …show more content…
The popular theory of democracy is where the majority of the population participates much more actively in democracy. Voter turnout is high, everyone has an equal influence, and there are much more active choices for voting. Citizens from middle to lower economical parts of society are the ones very likely to support this system, as its the system that favors them the most. Values of this system include a large amount of civil rights, an unbiased media, widespread equality, and anti-partisan