American Government › Section A · Government and civic engagement › Topic A.2
Who governs? Elitism, pluralism, and tradeoffs
Americans can vote, petition, lobby and sue, yet many suspect that a powerful few really call the shots. Political scientists have argued about this for decades, and the evidence they weigh shows how policy actually gets made.
In this topic
- A long-running argument
- Elite theory
- The evidence elitists cite
- Pluralist theory
- Critics of both views
- Worked example: testing the theories on one case
- The tradeoffs perspective
- Tradeoffs between rights
- Worked example: a legislator's tradeoff
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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