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The Fallacy of Democratic Elitism: Elite Competition and Commitment to Civil Liberties

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Paul M. Sniderman ,
Joseph F. Fletcher ,
Peter H. Russell ,
Philip E. Tetlock  and
Brian J. Gaines
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Extract

Since the seminal studies of Stouffer and McClosky it has become accepted that political elites are markedly more committed to civil liberties and democratic values than is the public at large; so much so that political elites should be recognized, in McClosky's words, as ‘the major repositories of the public conscience and as carriers of the Creed’. The argument of this article is that previous analyses have erred by focusing on the contrast between elites taken as a whole and the mass public. The crucial contrast is not between elites and citizens, but rather between groups of elites that are competing one with another for political power.

Drawing on large-scale surveys of two modern democracies, Canada and the United States, this article demonstrates that differences among elites in support for civil liberties eclipse, both in size and political significance, differences between elites and citizens. The fallacy of democratic elitism, as this study shows, is its indifference to which elites prevail in the electoral competition for power.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , July 1991 , pp. 349 - 370
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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References

1 See, for example: Stouffer, Samuel, Communism, Conformity, and Civil Liberties (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1955)Google Scholar; Berelson, Bernard et al. , Voting (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954)Google Scholar; McClosky, Herbert, ‘Consensus and Ideology in American Polities’, American Political Science Review, 58 (1964), 361–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dye, Thomas R. and Zeigler, Harmon, The Irony of Democracy, 7th edn (Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole Publishing Co., 1987)Google Scholar; McClosky, Herbert and Brill, Alida, Dimensions of Tolerance: Whal Americans Think About Civil Liberties (New York: Russell Sage, 1983)Google Scholar; Barnum, David G. and Sullivan, John L., ‘Attitudinal Tolerance and Political Freedom in Britain’, British Journal of Political Science, 18 (1988), 604–14Google Scholar. However, also see Gibson, James L., ‘Political Intolerance and Political Repression During the McCarthy Red Scare’, American Political Science Review, 82 (1988), 511–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Schumpeter, Joseph, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), p. 269.Google Scholar

3 This article focuses on the research of McClosky, given the centrality of his empirical results to the thesis of democratic elitism. It offers a critique of a part of the writing, but is in no respect a critique of the writer: on the contrary, McClosky has made a seminal contribution and we would not have been in a position to offer our contribution had he not first made his.

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13 The extent to which the thesis of democratic elitism reinforces the arguments for participatory democracy has largely escaped attention. Beyond this, it should be emphasized that merely because a scholar agrees with the consensus and the participation claims as empirical generalizations, it does not follow that he or she personally favours an elite possessing special prerogatives or extra-constitutional powers.

14 Sniderman, Paul M., Fletcher, Joseph F., Russell, Peter H. and Tetlock, Philip E., ‘Political Culture and the Problem of Double Standards: Mass and Elite Attitudes Toward Language Rights in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms’, Canadian Journal of Political Science, 22 (1989), 259–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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19 The item is taken from McClosky, and Brill, , Dimensions of Tolerance, with permission.Google Scholar

20 See Dworkin, Ronald, Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977).Google Scholar

21 This item is taken with permission from McClosky, and Brill, , Dimensions of Tolerance.Google Scholar

22 This item is taken, with permission, from McClosky, and Brill, , Dimensions of Tolerance.Google Scholar

23 Commission of Inquiry Concerning Certain Activities of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (McDonald Commission), Second Report: Freedom and Security Under the Law (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1981).Google Scholar

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25 To discipline our assessment of issues of wiretapping, the justifications are drawn from the enabling legislation, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, 1984.

26 Fletcher, Joseph F., ‘Mass and Elite Attitudes About Wiretapping in Canada: Implications for Democratic Theory and Polities’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 53 (1989), 225–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 The parallels between attitudes now and actual behaviour in the October Crisis is impressive.

28 Schumpeter, , Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy.Google Scholar

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30 McClosky, Herbert, Hoffman, Paul J. and O'Hara, Rosemary, ‘Issue Conflict and Consensus Among Party Leaders and Followers’, American Political Science Review, 54 (1960), 406–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also see Kirkpatrick, Jeanne J., A New Presidential Elite (New York: Basic Books, 1976)Google Scholar; and Miller, Warren E., Parties in Transition (New York: Russell Sage, 1986).Google Scholar

31 McClosky and Brill present these results to demonstrate the strength of the connection between liberalism and commitment to civil liberties, among both elite and general population samples.

32 McClosky, and Brill, , Dimensions of Tolerance, p. 422.Google Scholar

33 Dahl, , Who Governs?, p. 320.Google Scholar