Essay Question: 'Pluralists and ruling elite theory provide fundamentally different accounts of the distribution of political power.' Discuss.

Pluralism and the ruling elite are two different schools of thought that have developed distinct theories about the state. The pluralist base their theory on the ideology that if a specific criterion is matched in a country, the political system could be claimed to be pluralist. Although the criteria mentioned here is very complex, hence I will not go into detail. The criteria is based on the pluralism existence ideology summarised on page 11 of The …

…political system in the UK may be thought of being adhering to the elitist model, but they have been achieving economic growth and political popularity. Similarly, those who feel that having a pluralist system is most desirable since it is closest to democracy which in turn results in the best way of decision making may be wronged. Toby Crump and William Kirby state in their essay that pluralistic structured decisions can some times be incorrect.