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Australia's System of Democracy

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In reference to the Australia’s system of democracy, the pluralist theory of the state portrays the distribution of political power accurately in comparison to its rival theories, being Marxism and elitism. However, the theory faces certain limitations within the Australian political system. In order to thoroughly answer the question I will firstly start off by stating what the theory of pluralism entails by discussing the pluralist views of power. Secondly, I will highlight the characteristics of pluralism within Australia’s democratic society and prevalence of such characteristics to the distribution of political power in Australia. Thirdly I will discuss the major limitations and critiques of the pluralist theory to the distribution of political power in Australia. I will then conclude with the role that pluralism is likely to play in the distribution of power within Australia’s political future. Firstly, what’s pluralism? “Pluralism, in political science, is the view that in liberal democracies power is (or should be) dispersed among a variety of economic and ideological pressure groups and is not (or should not be) held by a single elite or group of elites”. [Britannica] Pluralism received added global attention in the 1960’s, due to the work of Robert Dahl, an American political scientist. Dahl linked the pluralist theory to what is known as the First face of power in which: “A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not

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