Mosca Gaetano (1858–1941), Italian political scientist who made pioneering contributions to the theory of democratic elitism. Combining the life of a university professor with that of a politician, he taught such subjects as constitutional law, public law, political science, and history of political theory; at various times he was also an editor of the Parliamentary proceedings, an elected member of the Chamber of Deputies, an under-secretary for colonial affairs, a newspaper columnist, and a member of the Senate. For Mosca ‘elitism’ refers to the empirical generalization that every society is ruled by an organized minority. His democratic commitment is embodied in what he calls juridical defense: the normative principle that political developments are to be judged by whether and how they prevent any one person, class, force, or institution from dominating the others. His third main contribution is a framework consisting of two intersecting distinctions that yield four possible ideal types, defined as follows: in autocracy, authority flows from the rulers to the ruled; in liberalism, from the ruled to the rulers; in democracy, the ruling class is open to renewal by members of other classes; in aristocracy it is not. He was influenced by, and in turn influenced, positivism, for the elitist thesis presumably constitutes the fundamental ‘law’ of political ‘science.’ Even deeper is his connection with the tradition of Machiavelli’s political realism. There is also no question that he practiced an empirical approach. In the tradition of elitism, he may be compared and contrasted with Pareto, Michels, and Schumpeter; and in the tradition of Italian political philosophy, to Croce, Gentile, and Gramsci. See also CROCE, GENTILE, GRAMSCI , MACHI- AVELLI , WEBE. M.A.F.