Write approximately 150 words on Pluralist theory of State. (UPSC CSE Mains 2024- Political Science and International Relations, Paper 1)
Robert Dahl''s A Preface to Democratic Theory (1956) and Who Governs? (1961) demonstrate that a democratic society was marked by a widespread distribution of political resources, and that different interests prevailed in different political disputes and at different times. Dahl and Lindblom described their model of a working democracy as ''polyarchy''. This implied a situation in which power is not centralized but dispersed among numerous interests and groups. The role of government in such a situation is little more than an honest broker in the middle.
N. Polsby in his essay Community, Power and Political Theory (1963) went a step further and asserted that in such a situation at the bottom nobody really dominates. The concept of pluralist state in this sense implies that all groups would bargain on equal footing, which is not the case in actual practice. Moreover, some groups may lack internal democracy so much so that the dominant personalities in those groups may project their own will as the will of the whole group. As a result the real interests of the members of those groups might be relegated to the background. These points were later conceded by the exponents of the pluralist theory.
As a pluralist Harold J. Laski, pleaded for a system which would recognize the complete autonomy of groups and deny the state any claim to absolute sovereignty. To him the group is real in the same sense as the state is and the theory of “unlimited and irresponsible state is incompatible with the interests of humanity”. Laski does not use the term ‘sovereignty’. In its place he uses the term ‘authority’. And authority in modern democratic state is federal in nature and divisible. The modern state, according to Laski, is pluralistic, responsible and constitutional. It is directive rather than dominating. Its power is diffused in territorial and functional groups. Actually the state is an association of associations, with the special function of co-ordination.
Robert Dahl in Dilemmas of Pluralist Democracy (1982) conceded that pluralism cannot be treated as an open competition between truly equal political forces. In order to reduce the inequalities of these forces Dahl recommended those policies which would promote redistribution of power in society. Thus, the descriptive and normative sides of the pluralist perspective on the state come very close to each other.
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