Political Elites

Elites have been described both as the bulwarks of democracy and its very antithesis. Political Elites, first published in 1969, reviews the literature on the role of elites in politics. It deals with the 'classic' elite theorists - Mosca, Pareto, Michels, Burnham and C Wright Mills - and with many of the empirical and theoretical works on elites by modern political scientists and sociologists.
The book seeks to clarify the central terms of elite discourse, some of which have entered everyday political vocabulary, including 'elitism', 'power elite', 'establishment', 'elite consensus', 'iron law of oligarchy' and 'mass'. It explores the ways in which the descriptions of power relationships can be infiltrated subtly by the values of the observers.
For this ECPR Classics edition Professor Parry has added an introduction reviewing significant new developments in elite political science.


Geraint Parry was the WJM Mackenzie Professor and is now Emeritus Professor of Government at the University of Manchester. His research interests are in democratic theory and practice, political sociology and the history of political ideas. He is the author of John Locke (1978) and, with G Moyser and N Day, Political Participation and Democracy in Britain (1992). He has edited Participation in Politics (1972), Democracy, Consensus and Social Contract (1972, with P Birnbaum and J Lively), Democracy and Democratization (1994, with M Moran) and Fundamentals in British Politics (1999, with I Holliday and A Gamble). His recent publications have been on the history of the relationship between political theory and educational thought. He has been editor of Government and Opposition and the Journal of Comparative Politics, and is a former President of the UK Political Studies Association.


...what makes Parry's book impressive overall, as well as respectable in detail, is his careful attention to the great diversity of questions which have been an issue.
Alan Ryan, Political Studies

...[Parry's] account of the theories in the field is admirably systematic and succinct, showing what is valuable in each, and his
critical remarks are shrewd.
Stephen Lukes, New Society