Popis: |
Elite decision making refers to a collective decision-making process that focuses on the instrumental quality of laws, public policies, and political decisions it produces. Since the process aims at producing outcomes of considerable substantive quality, it organizes the existing capacities within a political community to achieve the desired outcome, thus giving greater (or even all) political power to a small group of people (i.e., experts) who are considered to be better at producing correct political decisions. This term has been a central issue in numerous discussions for the last 2, 500 years and still represents a relevant political idea because of its strong influence regarding which political system we can see as legitimate. This entry briefly introduces the rationale for elite decision making and discusses various forms elite decision making can take in democratic and nondemocratic systems. The entry concludes with a few influential objections raised against elite decision-making procedures. |