Federica Lecture Eisfeld

Facoltà di Sociologia211/04/23

The concept of PluralismIntroduction

The possibilities of variety

The term “pluralism” initially gained currency as a philosophical view of the universe in the early 20th century. Developed by William James, American pragmatism conceived the world in pluralistic rather than in monistic terms – interconnected, but irreducible to unity; its parts “self-governed”; not a “block universe”, according to James’ expression, but rather resembling a “federal republic”. Philosophical pluralism, as John Dewey had already observed earlier, acknowledged the possibilities of variety, of freedom and of change.

Sources:

Rainer Eisfeld, Pluralism: Developments in the Theory and Practice of Democracy, Opladen/Farmington Hills, Barbara Budrich, 2006.


The concept of PluralismIntroduction

A social “pluralistic universe”

The concept’s applicability to political and cultural contexts was rapidly noticed by English and American thinkers: William James’ “pluralistic universe” could be construed as a polity where groups and associations, possessing “inherent” rights not conceded by the state, elicited individual loyalties and pursued social ends. Pluralism offered an analytical and a normative notion which responded to the increasingly associative character of society, the rise of governmental interventionism, the lobbying activities of organized groups, the nascence of immigrant subcultures, and – finally – the maldistribution of political resources.

Abstracts of the entries “pluralism” in political science dictionaries, Hyperpolitics - An Interactive Dictionary of Poltical Science, http://www.hyperpolitics.net/new/hyperdictionary/sources.php?entry=pluralism


The pluralist theory of the stateHarold J. Laski

Pluralism as a political term

The British Labour Party intellectual Harold J. Laski was the first to introduce the term pluralism in political science in a 1915 lecture delivered at Columbia University. The 19th century’s rigid class structure had started to dissolve. The working class was segmenting into numerous blue- and white-collar strata - groups, in fact - differentiated by vocation and attitude, by income and education and, again, by grossly unequal influence and control both economically and politically. The intellectual climate seemed to be ready for a “new” political concept.

Harold Laski, Studies in the problem of Sovereignty, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1917. cupid.ecom.unimelb.edu.au/het/laski/sovereignty.pdf Harold Laski, A Grammar of Politics. London, George Allen & Urwin, 1925.


The pluralist theory of the state Harold J. Laski

The legacy of the Fabian Society

The ideas of the Fabian Society, that intellectual circle of “respectable” socialists - established, among others, by Sidney and Beatrice Webb and George Bernard Shaw – considerably influenced Laski’s thinking. So did the argument of the guild socialists, who held that associations sprang up in society according to the logic of functional differentiation and that self-government, consequently, was identical with functional representation on every social level.



The pluralist theory of the state Harold J. Laski

Political and economic democracy

Harold Laski remained convinced that no political democracy could be real without being underpinned by an economic democracy. His concept focused on control - rather than on ownership - of the means of production, on the enfranchisement of the citizens of the political body that was and is the modern

enterprise.



Cultural pluralismHorace M. Kallen

Plural societies and cultural diversity

Horace M. Kallen introduced the term “cultural p.” into the American debate in 1924. Immigrant subcultures were by then flourishing in the eastern United States, after nearly 15 million immigrants - mostly from southern and eastern Europe - had been admitted to the country between 1901 and 1920. Writing – not unlike Laski - between 1915 and 1924, arguing against assimilating pressures and “melting pot” conformity, Kallen offered his vision of a “federated republic” of different nationalities.

Horace Kallen, Culture and Democracy in the United States, New York, Boni & Liveright, 1924. Michael Walzer The Communitarian Critique of Liberalism, in Political Theory, Vol. 18, No. 1., 1990, pp. 6-23. www.rationalites-contemporaines.paris4.sorbonne.fr/IMG/pdf/Walzer2.pdf


Cultural pluralismHorace M. Kallen

Self-government and self-realization

Convinced that self-government was impossible without “self-realization”, that the latter - in the sense of personal identity - hinged upon the assertion of ethnic differences, and that society’s creativity would benefit from such heterogeneous strains, he proposed granting equal treatment to each ethno-cultural tradition.

Horace Kallen, Culture and Democracy in the United States, New York, Boni & Liveright, 1924. Michael Walzer The Communitarian Critique of Liberalism, Political Theory, Vol. 18, No. 1., 1990, pp. 6-23. www.rationalites-contemporaines.paris4.sorbonne.fr/IMG/pdf/Walzer2.pdf


Liberal pluralism Arthur F. Bentley

“The process of government”

Even before Laski and Kallen, Arthur F. Bentley had presented an approach which essentially reduced human behavior to group action. Describing his effort as “strictly empirical”, Bentley in his 1908 treatise The Process of Government aimed at introducing the group as the central analytical category.

Arthur F. Bentley, The Process of Government, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1908.


Liberal pluralism David B. Truman

An American public philosophy

Bentley’s work was resuscitated in the early 1950s by David B. Truman, Earl Latham and other group theorists who judged that organized interest groups made up the principal ingredient of present-day government. At the same time, against the backdrop of the Cold War, the need was felt, in the words of Richard Merelman, for a “legitimating discourse” designed to explain and justify the political systems of the “free world”, meaning the

United States and Western Europe.

David Truman, The Governmental Process, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1951. Theodore Lowi, The new public philosophy: interest-group liberalism, in American Political Science Review, Vol. 61, No 1, 1967, pp. 5-24, www.jstor.org/stable/1953872


Alternatives to liberal pluralismNeo-corporatism

A top-down pluralism

“Liberal” pluralism, while claiming to disregard considerations of a normative kind (and thus contrasting with Laski’s “radical” variety”), was admittedly biased toward group leadership. (…) As a way to answer to such limits, liberal or (neo) corporatism fits groups into a model of elitist democracy where governments would explicitly privilege the organizations of capital and labor as “partners” in policy formulation and implementation over associations with weaker political resources. Group members would consequently be mobilized and

controlled in a top-down process.

Philippe Schmitter, Still a century of corparativism?, in The Review of Politics, Vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 85-131, 1974, www.jstor.org/stable/1406080 Philippe Schmitter and Gerhard Lembruch, Trends Towards Corporatist Intermediation, London, Beverly Hills, 1979.


Alternatives to liberal pluralismNeo-corporatism

The main features of neo-corporatism

Consequently, the neo-corporatist school of thought has insisted (1) that the socio-economic attributes around which interests organize are indeed unequally distributed, (2) that existing inequalities are further reinforced by the politics of interest associations, not least because (3) certain associations, particularly organized business and organized labor, are granted privileged access to governmental decision-making, (4) that political processes typically take the form of oligarchically structured “interest intermediation”

through bargaining among leaders.

Philippe Schmitter, Still a century of corparativism?, in The Review of Politics, Vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 85-131, 1974, www.jstor.org/stable/1406080 Philippe Schmitter and Gerhard Lembruch, Trends Towards Corporatist Intermediation, London, Beverly Hills, 1979.


Alternatives to liberal pluralismNeo-pluralism

The contribution of Robert Dahl

The second conceptual alternative, according to Robert Dahl, consisted in raising the normative question how one might remedy the defects of pluralism. This meant conceiving pluralism in terms of a normative concept of democratic transformation such as it had earlier emerged in England. The large business corporation and the politically privileged position of corporate executives became major targets for proposed

participatory reforms.

Robert Dahl, Dilemmas of Pluralist Democracy, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1961.


Alternatives to liberal pluralismNeo-pluralism

A normative program

In a way reminiscent of Laski’s earlier efforts, but more systematically, Dahl therefore proposed that control over the “political body”, which the modern business enterprise has become, should no longer rest with investors or managers, but rather with blue and white collar employees. Starting from the premise that unequal social resources will translate into unequal political resources, Dahl’s program focused on diminishing the discretionary exercise of organizational power by economically privileged minorities.

Robert Dahl, Dilemmas of Pluralist Democracy, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1961.


Pluralism as a key element of democracyWill Kymlicka

The necessity of toleration

As Canadian political philosopher Will Kymlicka has noted, ethno-cultural diversity can be considered a key condition for both just and stable democracies. Kymlicka made his observation after the civil wars in Serbia and Croatia had shocked the world with their levels of brutality. The atrocities of "ethnic cleansing" have dramatically disproved the hopes pronounced a decade and a half earlier.

Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995.


The search for cultural pluralismGiovanni Sartori

Cultural pluralism and public policies

Giovanni Sartori has stressed that pluralism, because it considered diversity a pivotal value, should first and foremost focus on cultural diversity, aiming at a “cross-fertilized”, rather than a “tribalized”, culture. Pluralist policies should accept (“recognize”) the cultural, religious, and linguistic heterogeneity of different ethnic groups, without inviting further societal segmentalization.

Giovanni Sartori, Understanding Pluralism, in Journal of Democracy, Vol, 8, No 4, 1997, pp. 58-69.


A controversial question

Most of the relevant debate has been centering on the controversial question how to balance individual against group rights. Might not any determined movement in the direction of group rights work to endanger individual autonomy, to bar individuals from “opting out” of their group if they wish to adopt ideas and practices running counter to their ethno-cultural heritage?


Institutional pluralism Arendt Lijphart

The case of consociational democracy

According to Arend Lijphart, consociational governance includes the following basic elements: Considerable autonomy for each involved group in the management of its internal affairs; application of a proportional standard in political representation, in civil service appointments, and in the allocation of financial resources; right of mutual veto in governmental decision-making; finally and decisively, joint government by an either official or unofficial grand coalition of group leaders.

Arendt Lijphart, The Politics of Accomodation, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1968.


Institutional pluralism Arendt Lijphart

Possible negative consequences

In a case study of consociational democracy in the Netherlands during the 1950s and 1960s, a number of significant negative consequences had earlier been spelled out by Lijphart: Elite predominance, the arcane character of negotiations, a large measure of political immobilism. At an even more basic level, group autonomy may involve internal restrictions on the rights of individual members to dissent, thus running counter

to liberal-democratic conceptions of minority rights.

Arendt Lijphart, The Politics of Accomodation, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1968.


Conclusions

Any democracy requires, first and foremost, "resourceful" individuals. In the last instance, the uncertain future of pluralist democracy will be determined by a political culture which puts a premium on the educated citizen, prepared and able (resources!) to involve him- or herself. To the extent that they maintain democratic practices internally, social groups - through the transfer of norms and values - significantly contribute to such a political culture. To the extent, on the other hand, that both groups with democratic practices and involved individuals should be found increasingly few and far between, solutions for the persistent problem what it might mean to live democratically will become anything but easier.


Indice Letture I

Materiali di studio Fonti in rete

Rainer Eisfeld, Pluralism: Developments in the Theory and Practice of Democracy, Opladen/Farmington Hills, Barbara Budrich, 2006. Harold Laski, A Grammar of Politics. London, George Allen & Urwin, 1925. Horace Kallen, Culture and Democracy in the United States, New York, Boni & Liveright, 1924. Arthur F. Bentley, The Process of Government, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1908.

Abstracts of the entries “pluralism” in political science dictionaries, Hyperpolitics - An Interactive Dictionary of Poltical Science, http://www.hyperpolitics.net/new/hyperdictionary/sources.php?entry=pluralism Harold Laski, Studies in the problem of Sovereignty, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1917. cupid.ecom.unimelb.edu.au/het/laski/sovereignty.pdf


Indice Letture II


David Truman, The Governmental Process, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1951.Philippe Schmitter and Gerhard Lembruch, Trends Towards Corporatist Intermediation, London, Beverly Hills, 1979. Robert Dahl, Dilemmas of Pluralist Democracy, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1961. Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995.

Michael Walzer The Communitarian Critique of Liberalism, in Political Theory, Vol. 18, No. 1., 1990, pp. 6-23. www.rationalites-contemporaines.paris4.sorbonne.fr/IMG/pdf/Walzer2.pdf Theodore Lowi, The new public philosophy: interest-group liberalism, in American Political Science Review, Vol. 61, No 1, 1967, pp. 5-24.www.jstor.org/stable/1953872 Philippe Schmitter, Still a century of corparativism?, in The Review of Politics, Vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 85-131, 1974.www.jstor.org/stable/1406080


Indice Letture III


Giovanni Sartori, Understanding Pluralism, in Journal of Democracy, Vol, 8, No 4, 1997, pp. 58-69. Arendt Lijphart, The Politics of Accomodation, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1968.

Technology

Federica Lecture Eisfeld