form of pluralism failed as both an explanation of the political reality of
diVerence and as a framework for politically embodying and enfranchising
real and growing diVerences in the postwar landscape.
It did not take long before this school of pluralism was attacked for these
limitations, as well as its explicit, uncritical support of the American political
system. Kariel ( 1961 ) argued that while pluralism posed as a positive science, it
was based on an unconscious adoption of ‘‘the functional system,’’ and simply
stopped being analytical (Kariel 1961 , 139 , 145 ). Kariel noted how the particular
power of the corporation was ignored in this group approach; Shattschneider
was much more direct with his famous line, that the ‘‘Xaw in the pluralist
heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-class accent’’
(Shattschneider 1960 , 35 ). Connolly, who would later become a majorWgure in
rethinking the pluralist imagination, challenged a ‘‘biased pluralism in which
some concerns, aspirations, and interests are privileged while others are placed
at a serious disadvantage’’ (Connolly 1969 , 16 ). While a generation of pluralist
authors tried to explain the American system as one of shared power among
groups, its critics saw one where some groups were privileged due to their
economic status, while groups based on other identities were at a distinct
disadvantage (Wolfe 1969 , 41 ). This criticism of the pluralist school continued
for over two decades (see Manly 1983 ).
Connolly ( 1969 : 26 ) argued that pluralists needed to extend the conven-
tional limits of politics and contestation if pluralism was to approach its own
ideal. But the focus of the postwar pluralists was the defense of the discourse
of liberalism against that of a unitary elitism; this overrode the original set of
pluralist philosophies, critiques, and its imaginative rethinking of the state. In
essence, pluralism lost its focus on plurality and instead celebrated a singular
institutional form. With criticisms plentiful and growing, pluralism took on a
shameful and haunted connotation in political thought, signifying the lack of
political critique and imagination in the discipline of political science and the
Weld of political theory speciWcally.
In the meantime, British political theory had its own second generation of
pluralism, mostly in the expansive thought of Isaiah Berlin. Berlin eschewed
the institutional focus of the postwar American school, and focused on the
epistemological foundation of pluralism. While he never acknowledged a
speciWc debt to earlier pluralist thinkers on either continent, the tenets of
value pluralism and incommensurability were central to his examination of
the relationship between liberalism and pluralism. While Berlin is most well-
known for his work on liberty, he premises the need for such a focus with an
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