Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-7qhmt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T23:37:26.173Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Pluralism: A Point of View

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

George H. Sabine*
Affiliation:
University of Missouri

Extract

It is unfortunate, in my opinion, that the terms monism and pluralism have been injected into the discussion of political theory and doubly unfortunate that they have been put forward as rival theories between which we are expected to choose. Both words are in fact very general, both are capable of many meanings and both have about them the connotations of centuries of philosophical dispute. And yet the one clear lesson from these disputes is that both monism and pluralism are inescapable aspects of our world and as such can neither of them be neglected. An effort to set the two in opposition, to picture them as incompatible, and to force a choice between them is surely wasted. The truth is that monism and pluralism are not theories but points of view or modes of attack, and any reasonable political theory will have to take account of both and both will have to be interpreted in such a way that they can be joined in one theory. It is not the purpose of this paper to undertake so large a task as this final reconciliation; but merely to state as exactly as may be what is connoted by such phrases as “a monistic theory of the state” and “a pluralistic theory of the state,” in order that the different points of view may be made as clear as possible and may be compared.

By political monism I understand a theory which holds that the state is ultimately a single indivisible authority, not subject to any other authority and therefore able itself to fix the limits and the content of the obligations to which it gives rise.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1923

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 “Eine unserem Bewusstsein notwendige Form der Synthese.” Allgemeine Staatslehre, 3rd ed., p. 170.

2 Krabbe, H., The Modern Idea of the State, English tr., pp. 98ff, 133ff, 147ff.Google Scholar

3 The High Court of Parliament, Ch. 5. The passage in Bryce, is in his Studies in History and Jurisprudence, ed. 1901, p. 501.Google Scholar

4 The Political Science Quarterly, 1917, Vol. 32, p. 505.