Pluralism

Political Pluralism

Several related strands of pluralist thought have emerged as the focus of intellectual development over the last one hundred years. In the United States, the works of David Truman and Robert Dahl represent one of the primary perspectives associated with the related concepts of political pluralism, pluralist democracy and interest group pluralism. The foundations of political pluralism can be found in the works of Harold Laski and G. D. H. Cole, who moved pluralism and its understanding of the state away from the abstract and idealized treatment in philosophy to a more concrete, instrumental analysis that recognized corporations and associations as independent formations and interest sets. Having embraced the move of pluralism out of philosophy, Truman's work made a further shift, in this case away from the dominant focus on descriptions of institutions and structures that characterized the study of American political processes at the time, and focused instead on developing an understanding of how interest groups shaped political and policy activities. Pluralist theorists of this vein sought to locate the stability of the political system in the interactions of the local, immediate, and small, consistent with the perspectives articulated by Alexis de Tocqueville. Political pluralism argues individual rights and interests are protected by an ongoing process of negotiation and renegotiation between interests such that no single group holds the dominant power position, power is always shifting, and individuals can influence policy making through being active in one of these power groups. In this way, Truman moved away from both the politics of social class and the large-scale political projects of the Left, as well as [Page 679]the notion of inclusive or unitary interest in favor of the bargaining of competitive interest groups as the source of public policy.

Dahl further contributed to the development of political pluralism by including conflict in his analysis. Starting from the position that the existence of conflict is unavoidable, he works to develop an understanding of how political communities respond to and resolve that conflict. Dahl identified the problem of conflict as a central one in the debates over the writing and ratification of the Constitution. Looking to James Madison's Federalist 10, he identified the source of conflict in the diverse interests of those in the political community. One of the fundamental questions thus becomes, what are the means of resolving conflicts in a way that will enable community to be possible? That is, what are the structures and processes by which the diverse interests of factions can be successfully negotiated? To answer this question, Dahl recounted the debate between aristocratic and democratic forms of government and notes that while there are difficult challenges associated with democratic forms of government, it is a better response than aristocratic forms. Once democracy is selected, a balance between the dangers of faction and the need for the consent of the governed must be achieved. The dangers of faction, whether minority or majority factions, cannot be limited simply through the exercise of self-restraint. Instead, drawing again on Madison, Dahl looked to the creation of processes through which the consent of the political community can be established. Establishing the consent of all is important because of its consistency with personal freedom, human dignity, and respect, as well as being a means of enhancing the durability of the political system. The political processes that emerge represent a model of pluralism. Rather than relying on a single center of sovereign power, pluralism demands that there be many centers of power, none of which is or can be wholly sovereign. Although in the United States, “the people” are the source of legitimate sovereignty, from the perspective of American pluralism, even the people should never be an absolute sovereign. Moreover, no part of the people, even a majority, should be absolutely sovereign. The existence of multiple centers of power, none of which is wholly sovereign, will help—or may in fact be necessary—to secure the consent of all and to settle conflict between interests without resorting to coercion or outright violence. The basic concept is the idea of setting power against power as a means of ensuring that it will be tamed, civilized, controlled, and limited to decent human purposes, reducing the use of power and coercion to the lowest possible level. Further, because all interests, even the smallest minorities, can contribute to decisions and, in some cases, can even have the opportunity to veto solutions they strongly oppose, the consent of all can be established in the long run. Last, because ongoing negotiation between interests and centers of power is necessary for decision making, leaders will develop requisite capacity to deal with conflict to the mutual benefit of all involved in conflict without the use of coercive power.

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