In the

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; , ''BSE'') is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Great Russian Enc ...

, 3rd Edition (1970–1979), a pluralist democracy is described as a

political system In political science, a political system means the form of Political organisation, political organization that can be observed, recognised or otherwise declared by a society or state (polity), state. It defines the process for making official gov ...

where there is more than one center of power. Modern

democracies Democracy (from , ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitiv ...

are by definition pluralist as they allow

freedom of association Freedom of association encompasses both an individual's right to join or leave groups voluntarily, the right of the group to take collective action to pursue the interests of its members, and the right of an association to accept or decline membe ...

; however, pluralism may exist without democracy. In a pluralist democracy, individuals achieve positions of formal political authority by forming successful electoral coalitions. Such coalitions are formed through a process of bargaining among political leaders and subleaders of the various organizations within the community. It is necessary to form electoral coalitions; this gives the organizational leaders the ability to present demands and articulate the viewpoints of their membership. Hamed Kazemzadeh, a pluralist from

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, believes that pluralist democracy means a multitude of groups, not the people as a whole, can govern, direct, and manage societies as an ethic of respect for diversity.

References

External links

"The Political Theory of Pluralist Democracy"
article by Claude J. Burtenshaw (''The Western Political Quarterly'', Vol. 21, No. 4 (Dec., 1968), pp. 577–587, University of Utah)
"Pluralist Democracy"
The Portfolio of Hamed Kazemzadeh Perso-Canadian Orientalist and Pluralist.
"A Pluralist Democracy"
by Göran Rosenberg (''Eurozine'', 27 November 2001)

by ThinkQuest Team 26466: Eric Barr, Taylor Rankin, and John Baird (A More Perfect Union project) Democracy Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria Political terminology Types of democracy {{Poli-term-stub