Voice Analysis

Pluralism is the theory that, in American democracy, numerous groups work together in an organized group to lobby to get public policy passed in favor of themselves. Some examples are unions, civil rights activists, lobbies etc… (Reynolds 1). Pluralism revolves around the theory that legislation should be passed by competing groups who lobby to have representatives elected that vote in favor of their specific issue. The scale of people who decide these issues must be small in order to most positively impact those it effects. If it does not affect a particular group, no say should be made. (Reynolds 2) This is different than traditional democracy in that rather than citizens as whole controlling the political agenda, different agendas should be controlled by small groups who specialize in one topic of interest.

For example, in 1950 Robert A. Dahl studied New Haven, Connecticut, a city of roughly 160,000 people (Domhoff 3). Dahl found that each of the three major political groups, the upper class, the business community, and Yale University, would typically only interact with laws that directly impacted them. If a law or policy made by the city did not impact any of the groups they would put no input in. (Domhoff 4). It was as if pluralism had already been instilled into