Elites, Non-Elites, and Political Realism

John Higley, one of the key figures behind the revival of elite theory, convincingly argues that the current crisis of populism, nationalism, and resurgent authoritarianism is rooted in a decades-old overselling of the promise of liberal democracy. Western policy makers, and the academics who shape their world view, persistently downplay the role of elites, pretending instead to ground political institutions in mass public involvement. Elite theory helps us understand why US liberalism is in crisis and facing repeated disappointment, whether it be the Arab Spring or nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan. -- Peter Rutland, Wesleyan University
John Higley, long one of our greatest experts on elite politics, offers a powerful analysis of how our failure to grasp the realities of elite and non-elite roles in politics has undermined liberal democracy in the West and led to futile efforts to encourage non-elite uprisings around the world. His clear-eyed political realism offers a provocative path to putting democracy on a sounder foundation and avoiding the false utopias that bedevil world order. -- Jack A. Goldstone, George Mason University
In John Higley’s most comprehensive and philosophical work yet on elites, he offers a disquieting assessment of modern democracy and its vulnerabilities. Early elite theorists argued that elite domination was inevitable or that democracy was a sham. Higley pioneered the arresting argument that elites play the decisive role in democracy. How elites behave—whether they fight or unite, whether they inflame or dampen wider social conflicts—is the single most important factor determining transitions to democracy, democratic stability, and democracy’s collapse. In an exploration Higley labels ‘political realism,’ he argues that it is failures at the elite level that are now threatening even well-established democracies like the United States. -- Jeffrey A Winters, Northwestern University