La théorie des élites aux États-Unis: conditions sociales de réception et d'appropriation

In: Genèses: sciences sociales et histoire, Band 37, Heft 1, S. 27-43

Abstract

The Theory of the Elite in the United States: the Social Conditions Governing Reception and Appropriation. The aim of this article is to analyse the reception given in the US to two works considered to be the original sources of the theory of the elite: the Trattato di sociologia generále by Vilfredo Pareto and the Elementi di scienza politica by Gaetano Mosca. Unlike Italy, where the elitist thesis was appropriated by groups attacking the parliamentary system and demanding a government by force, in the United States. V. Pareto and especially G. Mosca were read not as critics of democracy in general, but rather as realistic thinkers, demystifiers of the classical notion of democracy and as the very basis for a pluralist outlook. The distance separating these viewpoints is what the article seeks to understand.