Robert A. Dahl: Politics

Robert A. Dahl was American political scientist. Explore interesting quotes on politics.
Robert A. Dahl: 60   quotes 1   like

“I think that it’s important always to retain awareness of what you call core ideas, including those in the tradition of political philosophy. I think keeping in touch with those earlier political philosophers, being aware of them as part of our training, I think that’s still quite worthwhile. I know, or I would guess less and less of that may be taking place. But at the same time, I think that we should try to remain aware of the richness and complexity of the world that we deal with out there, and how much more, in a way—[laughing] it’s always been complex, but how much more complex it’s grown. Especially the field of democracy now, in just the sheer number and varieties.”

Robert A. Dahl

A Conversation with Robert A. Dahl (2009)

World , Way , Democracy , Idea

“I had this sense that ideas about democracy, theories of democracy which I had learned about of course from graduate school on, from Aristotle and Plato onward, that they were inadequate. I don’t want to diminish them; I have always retained a great respect for classical and medieval and eighteenth-century theory, but meanwhile a whole new kind of political system emerged to which the term democracy became attached, and for which democracy remained an ideal, even though classical democracy as an ideal was so far removed from reality. The gap between that ideal and the actual political institutions that had developed, particularly from about the sixteenth, seventeenth century on, was just enormous. And what we didn’t have enough of, had very little of, was an adequate description of what the actual institutions of so-called democracy, modern democracy, representative democracy, were.”

Robert A. Dahl

A Conversation with Robert A. Dahl (2009)

School , Democracy , Idea , Reality

“Power and influence have been the center of—this is not necessarily an argument in favor of keeping it, but power and influence have been the center of the field of the study of politics from the beginning. And what’s more, they are the central elements in all of our lives, our daily lives and our family lives, this interview going on—and they’re enormously complex.”

Robert A. Dahl

A Conversation with Robert A. Dahl (2009)

Family , Study

“Every attempt to develop systematic democratic theory has to confront the elementary fact that democracy can be, and in practice has been, interpreted as an ideal political system, perhaps (or probably, or certainly) unattainable in full, and also as an actual, historically existing system, a set of political institutions or processes that are attainable at least under some limiting conditions.”

Robert A. Dahl

Foreword : Reflections on A Preface to Democratic Theory
A Preface to Democratic Theory (Expanded ed., 2006)

Democracy

“In addition, a century or more of efforts to arrive at a feasible and politically acceptable mix of market and nonmarket elements has not produced a definitive, stable, or uniform solution.”

Robert A. Dahl

After the Revolution? (1970; 1990), Ch. 3 : Democracy and Markets

Effort

“To what extent do the views of Madison justify the specific constitutional arrangements that came out of the Convention together with the political practices and doctrine that followed? I am now inclined to think that the connection was much looser than l indicated in my chapter on Madisonian Democracy.”

Robert A. Dahl

Foreword : Reflections on A Preface to Democratic Theory
A Preface to Democratic Theory (Expanded ed., 2006)

Democracy , Thinking

“It seems obvious, then, that the search for solutions to the problems generated by a predominantly privately owned market-oriented society has been and will continue to be a major element in the political agenda of every democratic country.”

Robert A. Dahl

After the Revolution? (1970; 1990), Ch. 3 : Democracy and Markets

Search , Problem , Country

“Many of the criticisms of capitalism advanced by socialists were essentially correct. Capitalism is persistently at odds with values of equity, fairness, political equality among all citizens, and democracy.”

Robert A. Dahl

After the Revolution? (1970; 1990), Ch. 3 : Democracy and Markets

Democracy

“We have to include a wider array of institutions—to distinguish democracy from authoritarian governments, and even there we need a scale to do so. But it means not just elections, indeed free and fair elections; I think it’s come in the twentieth century to mean a universal electorate, male and female, moving the age down a bit, that’s now just standard. Political parties and political competition and free and fair elections, and something that I’ve tried to add on, without, I suppose, a great deal of success in the real world or elsewhere: the ultimate popular control over the agenda.”

Robert A. Dahl

A Conversation with Robert A. Dahl (2009)

Age , World , Democracy , Thinking

“Democracy in the sense of political equality and majority rule is by no means the most desirable, that is, optimal solution for all kinds of associations.”

Robert A. Dahl

After the Revolution? (1970; 1990), Ch. 1 : Three Criteria for Authority

Democracy , Optimism , Sense