We then briefly review the values associated with elite theory.

These features make elite theory central in arguments about the liberal democratic state.

There is now a clear distinction between two strands of modern elite theory.

Having said this, however, elite theory does indicate what is a central truth of the military-industrial complex.

Running through elite theory accounts of political leadership roles there are then two contrasting themes.

That is, interest group theory and elite theory can be subsumed in political systems analysis.

This concept in political theory is part of elite theory and state-building.

The final role for political leaderships, which all elite theory accounts acknowledge, is crisis decision-making.

A related fundamental problem for empirical work in the elite theory tradition is the difficulty of demonstrating that a power relationship exists.

The elite theory shares with pluralist writings a very well developed descriptive sense of what has been happening.

Following these sections, we examine some major internal divergences between three broad elite theory images of the liberal democratic state.

When elite theory crossed the Atlantic to North America during the 1920s, it was transformed in a rather unexpected way.

If we couple this difficulty with elite theory's stress upon rigorously specified methodology and empirical research, a dilemma appears.

This difference of approach is even clearer in elite theory accounts of bureaucracies and their increased policy roles within the modern extended state.

Elite theory stands in opposition to pluralism in suggesting that democracy is a utopian ideal.

Both the power elite literature and the elite theory community power studies were solidly based upon democratic, even participatory, values.

Olson adopted a public choice methodology but used it to produce striking anti-pluralist criticisms in the tradition of elite theory.

Radical elite theory's machine model presupposes that both party and state organizations are effectively controlled by socially dominant elites.

By contrast a 'state-centred' model of liberal democracy rehabilitates classical elite theory to argue that:

Schumpeter's theory of democracy, which was discussed in Chapter 1, shows the influence of elite theories, and has itself influenced some later political views.

The elite theory analysis of power was also applied on the micro scale in community power studies such as that by Floyd Hunter (1953).

Elite theories accept that power is concentrated in the hands of a few, but deny that the power derives from wealth.

Elite theory (philosophically opposite view)

In political science and sociology, elite theory is a theory of the state which seeks to describe and explain the power relationships in contemporary society.

Dye's main research interests center on the conflict between the two political organizational theories of Elite theory vs. Pluralism in American politics.