Comparative Study Between Power Elite Theory And Power Pluralism Theory

Power is the most basic process in social life and one of the most important phenomenon in political life, power relations exist in all aspects of human society and is closely related to people’s life, Every social act is an exercise of power, every social relationship is a power equation, and every social group or system is an organization of power. Power research began to attract psychology, political science, management science and other disciplines’attention. Many scholars believe that absolute power leads to absolute corruption, and power is like a beast, if not restrained, people who had power will abuse his power. About the distribution and restriction of power, elite and the public dispute caused a heated debate, of which the most far-reaching are Wright Mills’Elitist and Robert Dahl’s Pluralist.At first, this paper using literature research and induction and contrast method to explore Mills’Power Elite Theory and Robert Dahl’s Pluralist Theory, according to the theory of the ideological origin, main content and its main followers of the inheritance and development of its theory framework. Finally I respectively carry on a brief evaluation to the two people’s power theory, points out its main contributions and limitations. Due to many current domestic scholars have partial views on the theory of power, in this paper, I carry out the conclusion based on comparing the two kinds of power theory from the sources of power, the power dynamics, the methods of power exertion, the center of power and social reality, point out that the differences between two kinds of theory, at the same time I point out the similarity between the two kinds of theory, so that we can understand the Power Elite Theory and Power Pluralism Theory better. Through carding and comparing the two kinds of theory, I found that their thoughts their insights and original ideas about power, give us many enlightenment, such as the ideas of independent organization and group and the enterprise autonomy, etc., can provide a train of thought while building the Chinese characteristics and actual power restriction theory, can also be used to guide the construction of our socialist democratic politics with Chinese characteristics, and even enterprise management, it also pointed out the direction for further research.