Robert A. Dahl quotes - page 2

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)
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. View quote
Robert A. Dahl
I concluded also that Madison bad more confidence in majorities than I gave him credit for; or more accutely, that he was somewhat less distrustful and hostile to majority rule than I had supposed. View quote
Robert A. Dahl
People can be deceived by appeals intended to destroy democracy in the name of democracy. Dissenters who believe in the democratic creed may unwittingly advocate or legitimists may insist on preserving rules of the game destined to have unforeseen and unintended consequences disastrous to the stability and perhaps the survival of the democracy. View quote
Robert A. Dahl
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. View quote
Robert A. Dahl
I think [my experience] gave me-without I think ever romanticizing (because these were people you romanticize as somehow super people), it gave me a very deep and lasting respect for the common sense and the abilities of human beings, adults. At the same time, it increased my awareness of the importance of information and the challenge that that posed, therefore the challenge of education. And the great gap between what people need to know in order to protect their own self-interest and what they do know, which of course in some Platonic and other theories is filled in by those who believe that they know best, a view which as you know I've always greatly distrusted. View quote
Robert A. Dahl
If the Madisonian democratic republicans had been able to foresee the later experience with constitutions in democratic countries, including the experience of the United States, would they have made the choices they made in 1787? I very much doubt it. View quote
Robert A. Dahl
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. View quote
Robert A. Dahl
I have stressed inequalities in wealth and incomes because they reveal how far this country falls short not only of an ideal but of an actual condition of equality that was taken for granted by democrats like Jefferson and Madison in the early years of the Republic. But there is another important reason for particularly stressing incomes. When we attempt to compensate for gross inequalities in incomes by means other than providing income itself, the result is likely to be a patchwork of irritating regulations enforced by bureaucratic agencies. View quote
Robert A. Dahl
Actual practices in the advanced democratic countries are, then, far too diverse and complex to be captured by ideologies. View quote
Robert A. Dahl
If a matter is best dealt with by a democratic association, seek always to have that matter dealt with by the smallest association that can deal with it satisfactorily. (Robert A. Dahl)
Most of us readily take things for granted that at an earlier time remained to be discovered. View quote
Robert A. Dahl
If democracy is justified in governing the state,then it must also be justified in governing economic enterprises, and to say that it is not justified in governing economic enterprises is to imply that it is not justified in governing the state. View quote
Robert A. Dahl