Robert A. Dahl

A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model

A great many people seem to believe that “they” run things: the old families, the bankers, the City Hall machine, or the party boss behind the scene. This kind of view evidently has a powerful and many-sided appeal. It is simple, compelling, dramatic, “realistic.” It gives one standing as an inside-dopester. For individuals with a strong strain of frustrated idealism, it has just the right touch of hard-boiled cynicism. Finally, the hypothesis has one very great advantage over many alternative explanations: It can be cast in a form that makes it virtually impossible to disprove. Consider the last point for a moment. There is a type of quasi-metaphysical theory made up of what might be called an infinite regress of explanations. The ruling elite model can be interpreted in this way. If the overt leaders of a community do not appear to constitute a ruling elite, then the theory can be saved by arguing that behind the overt leaders there is a set of covert leaders who do. If subsequent evidence shows that this covert group does not make a ruling elite, then the theory can be saved by arguing that behind the first covert group there is another, and so on.

After the revolution? : authority in a good society

Three criteria for authority varieties of demographic authority democracy and markets from principles to problems.

FURTHER REFLECTIONS ON "THE ELITIST THEORY OF DEMOCRACY"

An interest in the roles, functions, contributions, and dangers of leadership in popular regimes is not, of course, new among observers of political life. This has, in fact, been an ancient and enduring interest of political theorists. It is possible, however, to distinguish—at least in a rough way—two different streams of thought: one consisting of writers sympathetic to popular rule, the other consisting of anti-democratic writers. It has always been obvious to practical and theoretical observers alike that even where leaders are chosen by the people, they might convert a democracy into an oligarchy or a despotism. From ancient times, as everyone knows, anti-democratic writers have contended that popular governments were unlikely to provide leaders with wisdom and virtue, and insisted on the natural affinity between the people and the despot. These ancient challenges by anti-democratic writers were, I think, made more formidable in the course of the last hundred years by critics—sometimes ex-democrats turned authoritarian when their Utopian hopes encountered the ugly realities of political life—who, like Pareto, Michels, and Mosca, contended that popular rule is not only undesirable but also, as they tried to show, impossible . The failure of popular regimes to emerge, or, if they did emerge to survive, in Russia, Italy, Germany, and Spain could not be met merely by frequent assertions of democratic rhetoric. Fortunately, alongside this stream of anti-democratic thought and experience there has always been the other. Aware both of their critics and of the real life problems of popular rule, writers sympathetic to democracy have emphasized the need for wisdom, virtue, and self-restraint not only among the general body of citizens but among leaders as well.

Myth of the Presidential Mandate

... not simply a mandate for a change but a mandate for peace and freedom; a mandate for prosperity; a mandate for opportunity for all Americans regardless of race, sex, or creed; a mandate for leadership that is both strong and compassionate . .. a mandate to make government the servant of the people in the way our founding fathers intended; a mandate for hope; a mandate for hope for the fulfillment of the great dream that President-elect Reagan has worked for all his life.1

Controlling Nuclear Weapons: Democracy versus Guardianship

Argues that decisions about nuclear weapons and strategy have escaped the control of the democratic process and discusses how to deal with complex issues in a democratic fashion.

Equality versus Inequality

Human beings are fundamentally equal from a moral point of view. They are not, and never have been, fully equal from a descriptive, factual, or empirical point of view. For some of us equality in its moral meaning is a goal, an aim, an ideal, a hope, an aspiration, an obligation. The goal is never fully attained nor is it likely to be. Egalitarian goals and aspirations confront stubborn human limitations.

Political Theory: Truth and Consequences

Bertrand de Jouvenel is one of a very small group of writers in our own time who make a serious effort to develop political theory in the grand style. In the English-speaking world, where so many of the interesting political problems have been solved (at least superficially), political theory is dead. In the Communist countries it is imprisoned. Elsewhere it is moribund. In the West, this is the age of textual criticism and historical analysis, when the student of political theory makes his way by rediscovering some deservedly obscure text or reinterpreting a familiar one. Political theory (like literary criticism) is reduced to living off capital—other peoples capital at that.

James Madison: Republican or Democrat?

Although James Madison is best known for the views he expressed in the Federalist, as he gained greater experience in the new American political system he rejected some of these early views and increasingly emphasized four propositions: (1) the greatest threat in the American republic comes from a minority, not the majority; (2) to protect their rights from minority factions, members of the majority faction must organize their own political party; (3) the danger that majorities might threaten property rights could be overcome by enabling a majority of citizens to own property, a feasible solution in America; and (4) in a republic, majorities must be allowed to prevail. Even Madisons post-1787 constitutional views, however, were flawed in at least three serious ways: (1) as an empirical proposition, his conjecture that increased size reduces the danger of factionalism is contradicted by subsequent experience; (2) in his conception of basic rights, Madison excluded more than half the adult population: women, African Americans, and American Indians; and (3) he actively supported the provision in the Constitution that gave to slave states an increase in representatives amounting to three-fifths of the slave population.Robert A. Dahl is the Sterling Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Yale University (robert.dahl@yale.edu). A past president of the American Political Science Association, his numerous publications include A Preface to Democratic Theory; Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City; Democracy and Its Critics; and How Democratic is the American Constitution? The author expresses his appreciation to the Political Science Departments of the University of Indiana and Stanford University for providing opportunities to offer a lecture on the subject of this essay and to profit from the discussions that followed. Thanks also to Professors Jack Rakove, Richard Mathews, and Lyman T. Sargent for their helpful criticisms and suggestions on a draft of this paper.

The Science of Politics: New and Old

pOLITICAL scientists will soon need a vocabulary to describe, not, as the layman in his innocence might suppose, the world of politics with which they purport to deal, but rather the cleavages within the profession itself. For the purposes of this review, it will be sufficient to distinguish the Political Scientist and the Political Theorist. The Political Scientist is often a theorist-in one sense, he is always a theorist-and frequently he believes strongly that an important requirement of theory is that it be explicit; therefore, he is not called a theorist. The Political Theorist, oddly enough, is often not a theorist at all but a historian, and insofar as theory is embedded in his history, it is more likely to be implicit than explicit; hence he is known as a Theorist. Between the Political Scientist and the Political Theorist, serious intellectual tension seems presently to exist. Inevitably, each caricatures the aims and methods of the other, and in time each even comes to believe in the caricature; straw men are set up and knocked down with great gnashing and thrashing; and the bones of old skeletons are rattled with such furious energy that one has the momentary illusion of life. It might all be good fun if the participants were not deadly serious. Professor Easton (a Political Scientist) administers as thorough a drubbing to American political science as it is likely to get for some time. He attacks it because of its failures as a science. Professor Voegelin (a Political Theorist) argues in effect that it has been too much a science and insufficiently the Science of politics. It is clear, then, that among other disagreements the two authors conflict over the elementary meaning of words. Alas, much of the

Democracy and Its Critics

Part 1 The sources of modern democracy: the first transformation - to the democratic city-state toward the second transformation - republicanism, representation, and the logic of equality. Part 2 Adversarial critics: anarchism guardianship a critique of guardianship. Part 3 A theory of the democratic process: justifications - the idea of equal intrinsic worth personal autonomy a theory of the democratic process the problem of inclusion. Part 4 Problems in the democratic process: majority rule and the democratic process majority rule - practise process and substance process versus process when is a people entitled to the democratic process? Part 5 The limits and possibilities of democracy: the second democratic transformation - from the city-state to the nation-state democracy, polyarchy, and participation how polyarchy developed in some countries and not others is minority domination inevitable? pluralism, polyarchy and the common good common good as process and substance. Part 6 Toward a third transformation: democracy in tomorrows world sketches for an advanced democratic country.