ABSTRACT
The main purpose of this essay is to make the case for the analysis of change and progress in western democracies in the framework of the democratic élite, or what I prefer to term the demo-élite theory, a well established but recently neglected theory in the social sciences. This theory is not concerned with the analysis of all aspects of society, but only with the analysis of power and the processes and phenomena related to it. It is also not concerned with the analysis of such processes and phenomena in all societies, but only with those of western-style democracies. As such, it is not a global theory, but a middle-ranging theory in the Mertonian sense. But this paper is designed to show that it may make a distinct contribution to the analysis of how the machinations of power in such a democracy— and in particular those between established élites and non-established élites of social movements—are connected to social change, and of how they may therefore work for social progress.
