side reading to the post just above, excerpts from:
Claudio Martinelli, in "Gaetano Mosca’s Political Theories: a Key to Interpret the Dynamics of the Power", Italian Journal of Public Law, 2009, vol.1, 1-44
"There is no doubt that many democratic systems present great difficulties in finding the right mechanism of selection of the political classes and, more in general, the correct relationship between governors and governed. Gaetano Mosca’s disenchanted, realistic and relativist views of democracy can be used as a useful guide to understand the problems of this political system and even as a good antidote against any populist regression.
(...)
Contrary to what is commonly believed, élitism is not a trend that can be traced back exclusively to a handful of authors whose scientific production is collocated at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries: Mosca, Pareto, Michels and Weber. There were 18th and 19th century precursors like Saint-Simon, Comte, Tocqueville and Taine, who often in their respective socio-political and historic-political analyses had the occasion to use the concepts of élites and managerial classes as an indispensible key for interpreting epoch-making phenomena such as revolutions and the attempts for restoration, the imposition of the bourgeoisie and the class struggle.
(...)
In Mosca’s élitism the “political class” assumes a central role. What does it consist of exactly? (...) His attempt to formulate an organic interpretation of the political class derives from the assumption that “in every properly established government the effective distribution of political power does not always tally with the power of law”. In other words, this means that alongside the holders of institutional roles expressly foreseen by the public law (the Crown, Republican President, Heads of government, members of the cabinet, members of the elected assemblies, besides the uppermost positions in the bureaucratic and judicial systems and those responsible for public order and defence), those who exert formal power endorsed by constitutional and legislative rules, there are the holders of a social power no less important than those who hold legal power, prerogative of all those who have significant positions from an economic point of view (industrialists, bankers, financiers), in the world of the professions, intellectuals and even in the religious field (ecclesiastical hierarchies). In short, all those who, while not holding offices foreseen by the order, have a significant ability to influence the course of public life and so the conditions in the existence of individuals belonging to a particular society."
(...)
" (...) summons us to reflect on the delicacy of the idea of political representation too often turned into a myth and thus distorted. Popular participation in political life is never fully aware and free as the theoreticians of radical democracy would like to make us believe."
Claudio Martinelli, in "Gaetano Mosca’s Political Theories: a Key to Interpret the Dynamics of the Power", Italian Journal of Public Law, 2009, vol.1, 1-44
http://www.ijpl.eu/assets/files/pdf/2009_volume_1/Martinelli%20-%20Mosca%20Theories.pdf
(...)
" (...) summons us to reflect on the delicacy of the idea of political representation too often turned into a myth and thus distorted. Popular participation in political life is never fully aware and free as the theoreticians of radical democracy would like to make us believe."
Claudio Martinelli, in "Gaetano Mosca’s Political Theories: a Key to Interpret the Dynamics of the Power", Italian Journal of Public Law, 2009, vol.1, 1-44
http://www.ijpl.eu/assets/files/pdf/2009_volume_1/Martinelli%20-%20Mosca%20Theories.pdf
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