The Possibility of Democratic Pluralism

Stevens, Dana N.; Foster, James E.

doi:10.2307/2553454

Cited by 19 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Miller, 1977a), and it is well known that such conditions, in conjunction with the Pareto condition, imply social preference cycles at some-probably many-preference profiles (Sen, 1970a;cf. Batra & Pattanaik, 1972;Stevens & Foster, 1978). So even if pluralism were defined in terms of dispersed power, instead of dispersed preferences, it would still be associated with social preference cycles.…”

Section: Pluralist Theory and Political Stability The Pluralism Of Plmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pluralism and Social Choice

Miller

1983

Am Polit Sci Rev

240

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Pluralist political theory identifies certain patterns of political preferences as promoting the “stability” of democratic political systems and others as threatening to such stability. Social choice theory likewise identifies certain patterns of political preferences as leading to “stability” in social choice under majority rule and related collective decision rules, and other patterns as leading to “unstable” social choice. But the preference patterns identified by pluralist theory as promoting stability are essentially those identified by social choice theory as entailing instability. Thus the notions of stability and the implicit normative criteria associated with the two theories are very close to being logically incompatible. This incompatibility suggests that the social choice ideal of collective rationality may not be one that we should endorse. Indeed, the generic instability of the pluralist political process and its consequent collective irrationality may contribute to the stability of pluralist political systems.

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Section: Pluralist Theory and Political Stability The Pluralism Of Plmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pluralism and Social Choice

Miller

1983

Am Polit Sci Rev

240

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“…The second notion of federalism within the social choice literature is democratic pluralism (DP) (Stevens and Foster, 1978;Wriglesworth, 1982). DP requires that society contains at least two groups which are distinct but not necessarily disjoint, such that each group is democratically decisive both ways over one pair of social alternatives.…”

Section: Federalism In Social Choicementioning

confidence: 99%