1
سیاسی و روابط بین الملل::
نخبگان سیاسی
Democratic culture helps to maintain and press for the return of dem- ocracy, but historically, the choice of democracy by political elites clearly preceded, in many of our cases, the presence of democratic values among the general public or other elites.
Reflecting observations by Pareto (1984) on the formation of oligarchies, and Mosca (1939) and Michels (1959) on previous political study being largely recommendations on elite capture and control of political power, Lev noted that the choice of those who run for office is not made by the people, but rather constitutes part of the functioning of an oligarchy or political elite.
Such competition between aspiring political leaders, or political elites, was characterized by Dahl as a competitive oligarchy where there was public contestation (1971: 7), as well as a polyar- chy where such public contestation was also inclusive (1971, 1989: 30).
But, in large part, the destruction of the previous political order was completed by military occupation and the construction of a new, pro-democratic political elite modeled more or less on the US political system.
As noted in the previous chapter, the institutionalized role of political elites is, from a democratic perspective, contentious, as the notion of elites and elitism implies a functional political inequality.
واژگان شبکه مترجمین ایران