Robert Dahl

Robert Alan Dahl (December 17, 1915 – February 5, 2014) was an American political theorist and Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University.

He established the pluralist theory of democracy—in which political outcomes are enacted through competitive, if unequal, interest groups—and introduced "polyarchy" as a descriptor of actual democratic governance.

An originator of "empirical theory" and known for advancing behavioralist characterizations of political power, Dahl's research focused on the nature of decision making in actual institutions, such as American cities.

He is the most important scholar associated with the pluralist approach to describing and understanding both city and national power structures.

In addition to his work on the descriptive theory of democracy, he was long occupied with the formulation of the constituent elements of democracy considered as a theoretical but realizable ideal.

By virtue of the cogency, clarity, and veracity of his portrayal of some of the key characteristics of realizable-ideal democracy, as well as his descriptive analysis of the dynamics of modern pluralist-democracy, he is considered one of the greatest theorists of democracy in history.

Dahl was born in Inwood, Iowa, on December 17, 1915.

His father Peter came from a Norwegian family, while his mother Vera came from a Protestant American background.

He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Washington in 1936 and his Ph.D. from Yale in 1940.

After receiving his Ph.D., Dahl worked in the government in Washington DC and then volunteered for a spell in the US army.

He served in Europe during World War II, was the leader of a small reconnaissance platoon in an infantry regiment, and earned a Bronze Star.

In his doctoral thesis in 1940, Dahl critiqued "corporate capitalism" and state socialism as both exemplifying undemocratic traits, arguing for economic democracy and a form of democratic socialism.

He led a platoon that took part in a major offensive in November 1944.

After World War II, Dahl returned to Yale in 1946, where he was offered a temporary position teaching American government.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he was involved in an academic disagreement with C. Wright Mills over the nature of politics in the United States.

Mills held that America's governments are in the grasp of a unitary and demographically narrow power elite.

Dahl responded that there are many different elites involved, who have to work both in contention and in compromise with one another.

If this is not democracy in a populist sense, Dahl contended, it is at least polyarchy (or pluralism).

He was Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science from 1955 to 1964, and Sterling Professor from 1964 to 1986.

Dahl's influential early books include A Preface to Democratic Theory (1956), Who Governs? (1961), and Pluralist Democracy in the United States (1967), which presented pluralistic explanations for political rule in the United States.

Dahl was departmental chair from 1957 to 1962.

From the late 1960s onwards, his conclusions were challenged by scholars such as G. William Domhoff and Charles E. Lindblom (a friend and colleague of Dahl).

One of his many contributions is his explication of the varieties of power, which he defines as A getting B to do what A wants.

Dahl prefers the more neutral "influence terms" (Michael G. Roskin), which he arrayed on a scale from best to worst:

Thus, the governments that use influence at the higher end of the scale are best.

The worst use the unpleasant forms of influence at the lower end.

Dahl wrote many books on democracy throughout his career.

In perhaps his best known work, Who Governs? (1961), he examines the power structures (both formal and informal) in the city of New Haven, Connecticut, as a case study, and finds that it supports this view.

Dahl served as president of the American Political Science Association in 1966/67.

Dahl was married to Mary Bartlett until her passing in 1970, and then to Ann Sale, a Presbyterian.

Over his career, Dahl received many prestigious awards and prizes.

The most influential are Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (1971) and Democracy and Its Critics (1989).

In Polyarchy, Dahl uses the term "polyarchy" to refer to actual cases of democracy and provides a comprehensive discussion of possible causes of polyarchy.

Criteria of a democratic process

In his book, Democracy and Its Critics, Dahl clarifies his view about democracy.

No modern country meets the ideal of democracy, which is as a theoretical utopia.

More specifically, argued that five criteria could be used for evaluating how democratic a process is:

Institutions of polyarchy

A similar theme recurred in his A Preface to Economic Democracy in 1985.

The position became permanent, and Dahl remained at Yale his entire career, until his retirement in 1986.