Why Elections Aren't Always Democratic: Challenging American Political Science's Founding Myth

In today’s age of authoritarian plutocracy, the UCLA political theorist Natasha Piano argues that we need to rethink the supposed “elitist” school of Italian thinkers like Vilfredo Pareto and Gaetano Mosca. In her intriguing new book, Democratic Elitism, Piano suggests Pareto, Mosca and even the Marxist Antonio Gramsci were actually "democratic theorists of elitism" who warned that electoral institutions can often enhance elite domination. Piano contends that American political science created a "founding myth" by misrepresenting these Italian thinkers to legitimize electoral democracy during the Cold War. And in our current political climate she says, their warnings about plutocracy are particularly prescient.

Five takeaways

1. Flipped Interpretation of Italian Elite Theorists

Pareto, Mosca, and Gramsci weren't "elite theorists of democracy" but rather "democratic theorists of elitism" - they studied elite power to expose its dangers, not endorse it.

KEY QUOTE: "They investigated elitism not to endorse it, but to study it and figure out how democracy could actually create genuine accountable leaders."

2. Elections ≠ Democracy

Equating democracy with competitive elections creates two major threats: it conceals plutocratic domination (rule by the wealthy) and enables demagogic manipulation by those claiming to represent "the people."

KEY QUOTE: "Elections are actually representative mechanisms, they're not democratic mechanisms."

3. American Political Science's "Founding Myth"

The discipline misrepresented these Italian thinkers during the Cold War to legitimize electoral democracy as superior to communist alternatives, covering up their warnings about plutocracy.

KEY QUOTE: "My book kind of tries to understand why we lost the extent to which plutocracy can undermine electoral institutions, as the Italians warned, and why American political science kind of covered this study of plutocracy up."

4. Democracy as "Good Government"

Piano advocates redefining democracy not as elections but as good government with three attributes: popular support, actively anti-plutocratic measures, and genuine pluralistic competition with majoritarian pressure from below.

KEY QUOTE: "What I've understood or what I think we should take from them is that perhaps a redefinition of democracy, not as election, but as good government is in order."

5. Elite Self-Recognition is Essential

Contemporary "coastal elites" must acknowledge their own elite status and impose limits on their power - the solution requires elites to honestly assess their role, not blame "the mob" for democratic failures.

KEY QUOTE: "They would really encourage all elites on the left or right to look within themselves and ask themselves if they're genuine aristocrats and what that would mean vis-a-vis the resurrecting the polity."

Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe