La théorie des élites est un peu plus que la théorie de la conspiration de l'homme pensant : êtes-vous d'accord ?

Among the various theories of statecraft, the elite theory claims that the power is withheld by a minority of the society, the "ruling class", or "power elite" according to Mills' term. This expression of "power elite" implies that this elite is not only the group entitled with policy-making, but more accurately the one of the people who truly influence and affect the power. The question of the definition of the elites arises thus from these remarks. Is the elite a social class in the sense of a group defined by its wealth or is the criteria different? For Mike Savage and Karel Williams , this criteria of definition of the elite is the one of power: "those who have a formal relationship to power in one of the established political or sociological usages of that term".

The elite theory only states the existence of an elite, but it does not necessarily argue that such repartition of the power is suitable or not, and therefore the normative views within this theory are diverse. However, the elite theory has long bee criticised for its degree of affirmation, in other words, for its assumption that the elite exists, but failing to provide the necessary information on how it emerged and how it uses the power that it is entitled with. This critique leads to another reproach which has been made to elite theory and which questions its credibility in a much more profound way.
Indeed, elite theory has been sometimes seen as a form of conspiracy theory in the sense that it cannot be proven false and that it states that the elite and the connections within the group move the state, its prerogatives and its policies. But can we really say that "the elite theory is little more than a thinking man's conspiracy theory?"