DEMOCRACYaccount defends democracy by admitting its weak-
ness: voting in elections is not a terribly effective
system for ensuring that the will of the people will
be carried out. Instead, Dahl focuses attention on
whether non-electoral forms of influence can yield
democratic decision making in keeping with the
wishes and interests of the public. Interest groups
thus become not the bane, but the hope of democ-
racy. Through lobbying in all its forms, interest
groups are able to exert power and influence over
decision making beyond elections; if they do this,
then the system, with all its flaws, can be consid-
ered democratic (Dahl 1961).
A problem with the pluralist view is that not all
groups in society may be able effectively to form
interest groups to pursue their goals. Olson, in an
early effort in what is now known as rational choice
theory, argued that individuals must be assumed to
be rational, and that rational individuals will not
contribute to the formation of interest groups
when they will obtain the benefits achieved by the
interest group anyway. This is the free rider or
collective action problem: if an interest group lob-
bies for clean air, and a person cannot be denied
clean air because he or she does not belong to the
interest group, why should that person contribute
to the group? Only those interest groups with a
particularly small constituency or those interest
groups who are able to use ‘‘special’’ incentives—
those available only to members of the group—to
attract contributors will be able to form to lobby to
advance their interests. Groups representing weak
and powerless individuals may be unable to supply
such special incentives (Olson 1971).
Olson’s pessimism about the chances for the
disadvantaged to gain a voice in decision making
has been the focus of much attention. Oliver and
Marwell suggest that social movements are more
likely to be formed as interest groups grow in size
(Oliver and Marwell 1988). Knoke argues that the
use of selective incentives may attract apathetic
members, whereas a focus on the goal of lobbying
may attract highly active members, thereby creat-
ing more effective organizations (Knoke 1988).
Clemens points out that as interest groups come
into existence, they are themselves models or tem-
plates for others to imitate. Those templates will
then increase the likelihood of the formation of
more interest groups (Clemens 1997). These criti-
cisms of Olson’s analysis of the collective action
problem may actually serve to strengthen the
pluralist account of democracy.Yet many sociologists remain deeply critical of
the pluralist account. Domhoff argues that plural-
ism is flawed not because the collective action
problem retards the capacity of the disadvantaged
to organize. Rather, pluralism is flawed because in
the United States, and in other industrialized de-
mocracies, there is a governing class (Domhoff
1998). This governing class is composed of elites
from business, the social upper class, and those in
charge of organizations, both within and outside
government, that are powerfully involved in the
formation of public policy. While Domhoff admits
that there is some conflict within these groups, he
views them as cohesive in their opposition to the
interests of the poor and the working class. Through
their control of important organizations, through
the strength of their social ties, and through the
use of agenda-setting, the governing class achieves
enormous power. And, Domhoff argues, the gov-
erning class is able to use that power consistently
to defeat the interests of the majority.Other critics of the pluralist account have
drawn attention to the relationship between social
class and voting. For some years, it appeared that
class-based voting in the United States appeared to
be declining (Clark, Lipset, and Rempel 1993;
Manza, Hout, and Brooks 1995). Yet some schol-
ars believe that class remained a significant factor
in voting behavior (Burnham 1981). Piven and
Cloward argued that the pluralist account failed
because there was a systematic pattern to who
voted and who did not. Because the poor and the
working classes disproportionately failed to vote
in elections, they were inadequately represented
in the competition between interests; hence the
poor were excluded from the pluralist democracy
(Piven and Cloward 1988). It has been shown that
class remains a powerful determinant of how peo-
ple vote, even if the working class no longer votes
for the Democratic party in the United States with
as great a frequency as it did in the years immedi-
ately after WWII (Hout, Brooks, and Manza 1995).