Comparative Essay Example: Participatory, Pluralist and Elite Democracy

📌Category: Government
📌Words: 630
📌Pages: 3
📌Published: 01 February 2022

When deciding on which democratic ideas to adapt to the new constitution three options were available. Federalists have narrowed it between a participatory, pluralist, and elite democracy. Each of these systems provides their own unique advantages, but elite democracy is the clear choice as to which structure would provide the most secure government that still allows for it to be run by the people. A participatory democracy may sound appealing, but it doesn’t come without its downsides.

Participatory democracies on paper are very appealing, it would allow the people to vote directly on issues. This would eliminate the need for any representatives who might not be able to take into account every single person's opinion. However when exploring possible scenarios that this structure may face many issues arise. On a small scale a participatory democracy could probably work with only a few issues. When scaled up to encompass an entire nation it becomes impractical to get the approval or disapproval of every citizen. Not only would it be difficult to get the opinion of every citizen, a participatory democracy has no method of preventing a majority faction from assuming power to discriminate against minority groups. This eliminates this idea as an option because a government's sole purpose is to protect its citizens and if it can't do that then it has failed its duty as a government. While a participatory democracy had many issues a pluralist democracy has a few of its own as well.

A pluralistic democracy is more preferable to that of a participatory democracy, even so it still has its flaws. A major limitation of a pluralistic democracy is it would be a very in-efficient system. With diverging interests between different governing bodies it would be difficult to get any laws passed. Even so, in a system where separated governing bodies hold competing interests, will inevitably lead to the creation of factions. If there are factions present in the governing body they might vote on policies that are either in favor of their party or would harm opposing parties, not with the people's interests in mind. Not only would these factions be local to the governing bodies, it would also involve the citizens associated with those parties turning the general public factious. As Madison states no previous attempts at democracies have succeeded due to their oversights of factions. If a democracy wishes to succeed it must find a way to deal with factions and under a pluralist democracy it is incapable of dealing with factions appropriately. Compared to a pluralist democracy an elite democracy is best suited for dealing with the issue of factions. 

Elite democracies are more preferable to their counterparts for many reasons. The first being that in an elite system representatives must be chosen by the people, as Madison states “ and the suffrages of the people being more free, will be more likely to center in men who possess the most attractive merit and the most diffusive and established characters.”. In regards to that, citizens will choose the most virtuous amongst themselves to represent them. This is beneficial because it helps prevent corruption and separates the people from directly manipulating the government. In addition to ensuring only educated individuals are responsible for passing laws, an elite democracy also helps control the effects of factions. Within a democracy factions are inevitable an elite democracy when applied on a larger scale will form many factions all fighting for the same limited powerer. This infighting between factions ensures that there will always be some degree of varying opinion, and also ensures that a majority faction could never form. This concept also applies to representatives elected by the people they too will have their own factious ideas, however they too will have varying opinions. Representatives also have to be concerned with support from the people motivating them to be productive and keep their interests in consideration. The elite democracy’s ability to control the effects of factions and maintain stability while still allowing for the people to interact with the government is why it is the clear option when compared to pluralist, and participatory democracy.

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