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PLURALISM- Based on functionalism with emphasis on equilibrium, stability and gradual change, conservative perspective. Key Pluralists: Arnold Rose, Peter Bentley, Talcott Parsons, Neil Smelser
Key features-  

  -Societal power is decentralized, widely shared, diffuse and fragmented, deriving from many sources, i.e. power pie divided into many pieces.
 
  -Society consists of many diverse groups and associations (e.g. business, labour, professional, religious, etc…) and constitutes a conglomeration of dissimilar and often conflicting interests, no none of which plays a singularly dominant role, through a process of democratic competition the nature and direction of society are determined.
 

  -Society is made up of a multitude of conflicting interest groups balanced by the state, groups are equally influential in their impact on government policy and major institutions.

  -Assumption of a natural balance of power among various groups which is preserved through bargaining and compromise, win some and lose some, give and take, and thus equilibrium is reached in group struggle.

  -Existence of shared acceptance of basic political framework, i.e. consensus of values, democratic traditions, procedures & principles.

  -Economic and governmental institutions are separate not overlapping power sources.
 

  -Tension between necessity for strong, modernizing, central coordinator on one hand and a relatively equal distribution of social powers on other reflects cross-pulls of two allegedly functional pre-requisites – need of autonomy and need of integration.

Role of the state


  Society is a struggle of competing groups within an arena refereed by the state

State represents institutionalized power and authority

State is supreme guardian of representative democracy in modern society, from tension paves way for political competition and pluralist democracy

State serves neither its own interests nor those of any single...