Elmer Eric Schattschneider (August 11, 1892 – March 4, 1971) was an American

political scientist Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and l ...

Life and career

Schattschneider was born in Bethany, Minnesota. He received his B.A. and M.A. at the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the univers ...

and his Ph.D. at Columbia University. He taught at Columbia, the New Jersey College for Women (now a section of

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

), and

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a private liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown, the ...

(1930–1960). Schattschneider was president of the

American Political Science Association The American Political Science Association (APSA) is a professional association of political science students and scholars in the United States. Founded in 1903 in the Tilton Memorial Library (now Tilton Hall) of Tulane University in New Orleans, ...

for 1956–1957 and is the namesake of its award for the best dissertation in the field of American politics. He died in

Old Saybrook, Connecticut Old Saybrook is a town in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 10,481 at the 2020 census. It contains the incorporated borough of Fenwick, as well as the census-designated places of Old Saybrook Center and Saybr ...

Publications

Schattschneider's books include ''Politics, Pressures and the Tariff'' (1935), ''Party Government'' (1942), ''The Struggle for Party Government'', (1948), ''Equilibrium and Change in American Politics'' (1958), ''The Semisovereign People: A Realist's View of Democracy in America'' (1960) (for a discussion see: Mair, 1997), and ''Two Hundred Million Americans in Search of a Government'' (1969).

Critique of pluralism

Along with the

Theodore J. Lowi Theodore J. "Ted" Lowi (July 9, 1931 – February 17, 2017) was an American political scientist. He was the John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions teaching in the Government Department at Cornell University. His area of research was th ...

, Schattschneider offered perhaps "the most devastating" critique of the American

political theory Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, l ...

of pluralism: Rather than an essentially democratic system in which the many, competing interests of

citizens Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection". Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...

are amply represented, if not advanced, by equally many competing interest groups, Schattschneider argued the pressure system is biased in favor of "the most educated and highest-income members of society", and showed that "the difference between those who participate in interest group activity and those who stand at the sidelines is much greater than that between voters and nonvoters." In ''The Semisovereign People'', Schattschneider argued the scope of the pressure system is really quite small: The "range of organized, identifiable, known groups is amazingly narrow; there is nothing remotely universal about it" and the "business or upper-class bias of the pressure system shows up everywhere." He says the "notion that the pressure system is automatically representative of the whole community is a myth" and, instead, the "system is skewed, loaded and unbalanced in favor of a fraction of a minority." And "the flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-class accent."Schattschneider 1960, 35

Notes

References

*Adamany, David. 1972. "The Political Science of E. E. Schattschneider: A Review Essay." ''The American Political Science Review'' 66 (December): 1321–1335. *Schattschneider, Elmer Eric. 1960. ''The Semisovereign People: A Realist's View of Democracy in America''. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. . * Woolley, Peter J. and Albert R. Papa. 1998. ''American Politics: Core Argument and Current Controversy''. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. .

External links

Elmer Eric E. E. Schattschneider Papers
at

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schattschneider, Elmer Eric American political scientists University of Pittsburgh alumni 1892 births 1971 deaths Wesleyan University faculty Columbia University alumni 20th-century political scientists