Title: Pluralism
Headings: 
Pluralism
Resources.
Scope of Power.

Content: Nor do pluralists think that representative democracy works as well in practice as in theory. Voting is important, to be sure. But Americans vote for representatives, not for specific policy alternatives. A candidate's election cannot always be interpreted as an endorsement of a particular course of action. Politicians frequently win office with only a "plurality" of the votes--that is, they receive more votes than their opponents--but not with a majority of the total eligible electorate. President Reagan, for example, received approximately 51 percent of the ballots cast in 1980, but his total constituted only about a quarter of the votes of all potential voters, since only 55 percent of those eligible to participate actually went to the polls. Furthermore, a first choice among candidates is not necessarily the same as a first choice among policies. The people who elected President Clinton, for example, did not all agree with his positions on health care, taxes, national defense, Bosnia, and the environment. Many of them, in fact, were probably voting against his opponent, George Bush, rather than for Clinton himself. If Americans do not decide major controversies themselves or indirectly through elections, how are such matters resolved?