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Robert Michels  

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  • Robert Michels (1876–1936) was a European political sociologist who started out as a Marxist member of the late-nineteenth-century German Social Democratic Party and ended up a professor in Italy and a proponent of fascism. He is best known for propounding the “iron law of oligarchy,” which held that nominally democratic organizations such as mass political parties end up being controlled by oligarchs. [Source: The Encyclopedia of Political Science; Michels, Robert]

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https://concepts.sagepub.com/social-science/concept/Robert_Michels

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