Elites in the United States

Type :

Presentation

Pages :

6 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

01/15/2009

Category :

Political science

Sub category :

Political science

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Summary :

Introduction.
The very notion of a 'power elite'.
1. The first author that first pointed out the existence of clear and distinct power elite.
2. The defining factor of the power elite of the 1950s.
The erosion of public authority.
1. The opacity and darkness of the bureaucratic world.
2. A real decline in the bureaucracy's powers.
3. Who is to blame for the terrifying shift?
The opinion shaping process is a money led one.
1. William Domhoff's view of the web of forces that define the American politics.
2. Four sorts of organs that are meant first to plan the desired policies and then to shape.
Conclusion.
Bibliography.

Abstract

One of the arguments that have been laid down to explain the defeat of John F. Kerry on the US-Presidential elections in 2004 was his elitist side. Being a White Anglo-Saxon from the North-East, Kerry really corresponded to the image of a politician who would run the country in a technocratic way, far from the realities of the Americans. Going back to the imaginary of the Americans, it seems to us particularly interesting to check out if the elite à la Kerry really rules America. Are the composition and functioning way of the American elite that linear and monolithic? Or do we have to deal with a very complex problem that is genuinely difficult to analyse in a country such as the united states of America? The purpose of this paper is to analyse the structure and scope of the American elites with the help of several social scientists that wrote on that topic between the 1950es till nowadays. The first author that first pointed out the existence of clear and distinct power elite in the united states of America was Charles Wright Mills in the year 1956. His purpose was to figure out first to what extent the American elite had developed in the 18th, 19th and 20th century and secondly what the main features and dangers of the 1950es elite were.