Study Of Schumpeter's Theory Of Elite Democracy

The development of classical democracy theory has been facing the problem of coordination with the reality since modern times. The classical theory does not provide us with an effective and realistic interpretation of the theory. When the democracy theory is developed in modern times, it encountered two difficulties. On the one hand, the challenge is the expansion of the state's scope. The other is the thought of equality in modern society. The two challenges make the democratic theory facing the problem of transformation and rebuilding. As the representative of economists and elitists, Schumpeter criticizes the thought of"common welfare"and"the will of the people", which support the theory of classical democracy, on the basis of inheriting Pareto, Mosca, Mitchell and Weber's political thought. Schumpeter completely overturns the theory of classical democracy by criticizing the two hypotheses.In addition, he has built up his own democratic theory which is the competition among the elite on the basis of criticizing the classical democratic theory. He also provides us with a research of the realist perspective. Schumpeter's democracy theory is a process of competing political leadership between the political elite, which is different from"the voters to decide the political issues". To elect the person who made the political decisions is considered as the primary goal of democracy. In the electoral process, an emphasis of the competition can ensure the democratic features, and it also has elitism ideals though putting the power of decision-making to the career politicians. We can say, Schumpeter's elitism democratic thought implements the fusion between the elite and democracy in some extent.This paper uses the history researching approach of the political thoughts theory, which seeks to return to the specific historical context. We interpret his understanding of democratic ideas on the base of interpreting the text comprehensively. Behind Schumpeter's elite theorists of democracy, such as Lasswell, Sartori and Dahl, who were all affected by Schumpeter's elite democratic ideas. They established their own democratic theory on the base of the inheritance and critique. Of course, Schumpeter's theory of elitist democracy has its own defects. His theory is incomplete in the logic and faces many critics from a number of scholars who advocate participation in the democracy theory. The difference from the elite democracy is that they pay more attention on the value of the people's participation in the democratic practice. At the same time, they also fight against the kind of political participation in which citizens are limited and restricted. Their purpose is trying to recover the classical democratic theory and the great ideal of the political democracy. Besides, the scholars, who advocate the participation in democracy, also criticize Schumpeter's assumptions and the political views as a method and program in his democratic theory, which affects the development and transformation in the democratic theory. That is why we should correctly understand and analyze Schumpeter's elite theory of democracy.