motivated by the same recognition of plurality, both philosophically and in
civil society, there was never agreement on state design. Cole was a supporter
of guild socialism, Laski of a federal structure with plural authority, and
Figgis argued for the state as an association of associations, charged with the
task of helping citizens establish and maintain such groups (Hirst 1989 , 25 – 7 ).
Follett’s design for a new state was closest to Laski’s federalism, though she
was constantly trying to balance James’ plurality with a Hegelian (rather than
a monist or uniform) unity. Ultimately, neither this Wrst generation of
pluralists nor those that follow make for a coherent academic school—by
deWnition, their discourse and institutional suggestions are open-ended,
variable, and unending. Such is the nature of radical empiricism wed to an
imaginative rethinking of political forms.
Pluralist concerns were never given a welcome reception by the discipline of
political science; given the attacks on thestatist focus of political theory, there
were harsh critiques of pluralism and pluralist authors in theAmerican Political
Science Reviewin the 1920 s(Coker 1921 ;Elliot 1924 ;Ellis 1920 ). Not surprisingly,
the focus of political theorizing moved back toward the state and a growing
concern with liberalism in the 1930 sand 1940 s (covered admirably by Gunnell
2004 ). Still, the pluralist discourse reappeared in the post-Second World War
period, although in a way that ignored the writings and frameworks of the earlier
generation. While articulated as an argument against a unitary explanation of
power politics, for example in Dahl’s ( 1961 ) direct response to the elite power
theory of Mills ( 1956 ), there was little in it resembling the earlier generation’s
concerns. The underpinning of radical empiricism and value incommensurability
were ignored, replaced with an elevation of liberal institutions as universally
applicable to solving the problem of group (more particularly, interest) diVerence.
Dahl’s ( 1961 , 1967 ) version of pluralism argued that power was divided into
multiple centers, with diVerent actors having more power in diVerent sectors.
The ideal, which just so happened to be what these pluralists empirically
found, was a system of balanced power, shared among overlapping groups.
Truman’s classic work ( 1960 ) embodied the institutional focus of the post-
war pluralists, focusing on the pressure of interest groups (almost entirely
based on economic identity and interest) in the political realm. Individual
freedoms were to be defended and protected by such pressure groups, and the
stability of the system would be enforced by the incrementalism bred by
‘‘mutual adjustment’’ (Lindblom 1965 ). This was a purely political and
institutional pluralism, uninformed by the philosophical or empirical
grounding in diVerence that was the foundation of earlier pluralists. This
the pluralist imagination 145