ABSTRACT
Obviously, elites of one sort or another rule much of the world. It is difficult to see how this situation could change in the foreseeable future. Nonetheless, elites often have to take into account the desires of both the masses and of publics, groups of interested persons. As V.O. Key (1967) said, even a tyranny “needs the ungrudging support of substantial numbers of its people” (p. 3). As British politician James Bryce (1981) wrote of public opinion processes around the turn of the century: “In some countries, the leaders count for, say, three-fourths of the product, and the mass for one-fourth only. In others these propositions are reversed” (p. 8).
