La ciencia politica estadounidense y el discurso de la democracia : de la teoria del estado al pluralismo

Abstract

American political science has been defined by attempts to determine the criteria of democracy and to evaluate the extent to which the American polity conformed to such criteria. This discourse of democracy has been characterized by two basic and successive paradigms: the nineteenth century theory of the state, and the pluralist theory of democracy, which despite challenges and emendations, still informs the basic image of the American polity. Both theories, however, have been forced to confront a fundamental paradox involving the concept of the "people" which has been endemic to American political theory since the founding period.