On Some Current Problems of Elites Interpretation in Modern Political Theory

The study of the phenomenon of political elites in political theory has many dimensions. In its modern form, the conceptual foundations for interpreting elites were formulated more than a century ago in the works of V. Pareto, G. Mosca and R. Michels, imbued with unprecedented realism and a desire to apply scientific methods to the study of politics. Elite analytics, which has evolved over the centuries under the influence of a wide variety of determining factors, has nevertheless always maintained a connection with classical paradigms that go back to the political philosophy of early modernity, which, in turn, was closely linked to the tradition of ancient political philosophy — from Pythagoras and the early sophists to Plato and Aristotle. In this regard, virtually all the latest interpretations, one way or another, include — spontaneously or deliberately — some “traditionalist” element. The initial premise is the obvious statement that all societies are governed by elites and each society has certain means of creating its elites. An analysis of the latter suggests the need to establish clear distinctions between societies that have mechanisms for creating elites and societies that do not create institutional conditions for their formation. In modern political science, the analysis of problems related to the political status and ambitions of elites is quite often carried out within the framework of the dichotomy “elite theory versus theory of democracy”. At the same time, democratic theory and elite theory in their current state cannot by definition be considered as purely scientific or “descriptive”, since at any stage of their evolution they organically included a number of elements characteristic of normative political theory. Many scholars openly acknowledge that the concept of the elite is fraught with problems, and the unpredictable nature of elite choice can become an obstacle to theoretical progress (D. Higley, M. Burton, etc.). Such conclusions in a certain sense correlate with some postulates of the “positive political theory”, which has been actively developing in Western political thought since the beginning of the 21st century. “Statistics of disputes” within the positive political theory indicate that in recent years one of its most sensitive “pain points” has become the “hypothesis of democratic peace”. The central assumption underlying this hypothesis is that liberal democracies have rarely or never fought each other: wars have occurred and can occur only between autocracies or between democracies and autocracies. Many of the controversies and theoretical doubts regarding the democratic peace hypothesis are largely due to the heated debate that unfolded around the works of the American political scientist J.L. Snyder, in which this hypothesis was subjected to uncompromising criticism. Snyder’s main argument is that traditional autocratic elites, faced with a situation in which the spread of democracy begins to threaten their power, create “exclusionist” ethnic nationalist regimes. In order to protect their own interests, they provoke nationalist conflicts in a completely “rational” way. Snyder’s analysis also has specific links with the so-called “minimalist concept of democracy.” Its emergence is largely associated with the hypothesis substantiated in the mid–20th century by Kenneth Arrow. At the level of normative political theory, an attempt to overcome the abovementioned philosophical problems and moral dilemmas is quite vividly presented in the works of Patrick Deneen, one of the most prominent representatives of modern American conservatism. The starting point of the discussion he initiated is the same concerns about the growth of “neo-oligarchic tendencies” in modern Western democracies. In Deneen’s own “project”, outlined only in general terms, elements of the classical political-philosophical concept of a “mixed constitution” are bizarrely combined with futurological forecasts marked by the striving for a “conservative synthesis”.

elites, political theory, democracy, oligarchy, autocracy, liberalism, conservatism, nationalism, ethnic conflicts