The Elite Worldview Consensus

Abstract

This thesis seeks to make a contribution to the field of elite theory. Over the past near century and a half, elite theory has built up a rich and diverse body of theoretical literature for understanding liberal democratic polities. It is a regrettable fact, and one that this thesis is intended to go some small way towards rectifying, that elite theory is largely neglected in contemporary scholarship. Unlike most democratic theory, which is essentially credulous of the reality and possibility of democracy, elite theory takes as axiomatic the proposition that complex organisations inevitably come to be dominated by organised minorities. These minorities it terms elites. As its point of departure from the dominant discourses on democracy is so anterior to contemporary controversies, elite theory offers a highly novel viewpoint from which original perspectives may be gleaned.

This thesis proposes a theory of intra-elite relationships which builds on some of the latest insights in elite theory. One of the more recent strands of elite theory, the so-called New Elite Paradigm, posits that in order for liberal democracies to be stable their elite must form a consensual union. Such a union entails agreeing to practice self-restraint in democratic competition by adhering to both its legal rules and the unspoken social rules of civility. The long-term viability of democracy, argue these elite theorists, is contingent upon this agreement amongst elites to compete for power according to these self-imposed restraints. This theoretical perspective offers a different vantage point for understanding the stability of liberal democracies from that of, for example, democratic survival theorists in that it casts elites, rather than the masses or institutions, as the central determinant of outcomes.

Building upon the theorising of the New Elite Paradigm, this thesis will propose the following original theoretical contribution: the consensual union of elites must be founded upon certain core normative-descriptive beliefs about the world. This thesis takes the view, drawing on the insights of traditional metaphysics (primarily the Platonic, Ruist and Buddhist traditions) that political actors are principally motivated by a will to the Good. As such, this thesis posits that in order to be able to practice the restraint necessary for the functioning of democracy, losing elections must be an acceptable outcome for elites. In order for this to be acceptable, the policies that could result from defeat cannot be normatively unacceptable to any given faction of the elite. As such, there must be a consensus on those issues which are “serious” in the Schmittian sense, with only issues of secondary importance being decided through electoral competition.

To summarise, the three central innovations of this thesis are as follows: firstly, that political activity is driven in principle by a will to the Good. Secondly, that this will has to be satisfied through a consensus on deep core beliefs for the limited competition that is democracy to remain limited. Thirdly, this further makes it likely that the content of this consensus must prefer harmony over conflict for democracy to be sustainable.

Towards the end of advancing this argument this thesis takes the following structure; chapter one is an introduction, chapter two presents the methodology of the thesis, chapter three provides a literature review of elite theory and relatedly the literature on the different forms of political power, chapter four offers the central theoretical innovations of the thesis – a metaphysically informed theory of political motivations, the concept of a metapolitical ‘worldview’, and the theory of the elite worldview consensus, chapter five proposes possible future avenues of study based on and, finally, chapter six contains the principal conclusions of the thesis as a whole.

Date of Award	22 May 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	City University of Hong Kong
Supervisor	Fan Lun Franz MANG (Supervisor) & Tat Kei Alfred HO (Supervisor)