Elite Theories in a Time of Democratic Backsliding

Western liberal representative governments are facing a transition, or even a “crisis”, where scholars attribute “democratic backsliding” to a variety of socio-political and economic twenty-first century ailments: the weakening of traditional channels of political representation, economic stagnation, forced migration, and the Covid-19 pandemic. This paper attempts to deploy classical elite theories in order to acknowledge an anterior cause of such backsliding. By re-examining these theories and Giovanni Sartori’s analysis on the vertical and horizontal dimensions of democracy, this contribution aims to provide theoretical insight into the current configuration of the relationship between rulers and the ruled, such that the relationship between these groups is realigned. This paper argues that the vertical distinction between rulers and the ruled that underlies contemporary political systems is gradually losing its political legitimacy. Its re-legitimation requires a revisitation of the relationship between the vertical and horizontal faces of democracy.