A Study of Harold D. Lasswell's View of Elite in his Early Period

Abstract

Although Harold D. Lass well is the one of the fathers of modern politics, the study of his political theory is not enough to be called systematic even today. This is because, I suppose, his rapidly moving thought prevents us from taking his theory systematically. Especially, his view of elite shows such a change prominently. Threfore, in this article, in addition to reviewing the reason why Lasswell adopted the elitism in his early period, I analyzed Lasswell's view of elite in his early period in detail. As the result, we could understand that Lasswell takes the elite as the few who get the most of any value (deference, income, safe, and so on) and, hence, are influential. Then, I pointed out that his definition of elite entailed a discrepancy in reference to the value "safe", and explained the reason why this happened. I believe, this article would give us a clue to grasp the meaning of the start point of Lasswell's political theory and his theoretical basis that we may understand how it has changed gradually in his subsequent periods.