Pluralism Essay, Research Paper

PLURALISM AS THE MOST DESCRIPTIVE THEORY OF AMERICAN GOVERNMENTThere are several different theories as to the question of how America is governed. Thereare those who still espouse the civics book theory, in which the individual is representedby his vote; those who advocate various elitist theories, claiming that we as individualshave no voice, and are merely pawns in some larger game, and there are those others whosupport what is known as the pluralist theory. Pluralism suggests that policy decisions arenot the result of an individual citizen’s vote (or a vote of a population of citizens) butinstead the result of the interaction and competition of various interest groups. This

theory, it can be argued, is the most descriptive of America as we know it. There areseveral examples on which to draw in order to support this theory. In the April 8th issue ofTime Magazine1, there appears an article titled “The New Party Bosses” and subtitled “Whoreally controls politics? Meet the power brokers who will help decide this year’s contest”. This is a textbook example of pluralism being a descriptive theory, and I could write thispaper based entirely on it, but as the assignment calls for references to the Wilcox book,that’s what I’ll use. The Latest American R 1The article is attached 2Time. 8 April 1996