Robert A. Dahl

One of the difficulties that confronts anyone who attempts to answer the question, "Who rules in a pluralist democracy?" is the ambiguous relationship of leaders to citizens.

— 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.

— Robert A. Dahl

That democratization has never closely approached its theoretical limits, either in the government of the state or in the government of other institutions, is revealed in the three great historical movement toward democratizing the state.

— Robert A. Dahl

The democratic process in governing a country is not necessarily enhanced by democratizing subsidiary parts of the process.

— Robert A. Dahl

Even in a democratic country, it appears, nondemocratic forms of authority might sometimes be tolerable, perhaps actually desirable.

— Robert A. Dahl

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

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

In considering whether a larger association would be more satisfactory, do not fail to consider its extra costs, including a possible increase in the sense of individual powerlessness.

— Robert A. Dahl

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

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

The experience of the democratic countries with the most advanced economies also tells us that no single pattern, or even a dominant one, has emerged; and what has emerged is a product of the special characteristics and the unique history of each country.

— Robert A. Dahl

Actual practices in the advanced democratic countries are, then, far too diverse and complex to be captured by ideologies.

— Robert A. Dahl

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

Because intelligent choices of public policies require both technical understanding and sensitivity to the values involved, in modern democratic countries a form of specialized intellectual activity has evolved that tends to combine both aspects of policy.

— Robert A. Dahl

It would be more realistic to think of all economic enterprise as a public service. Thought of in this perspective, a private economy is a contradiction in terms. Every economy is a public or social (not socialist) economy.

— Robert A. Dahl

In a magic show, mystification is a good thing, but it is hardly to be commended in an economic program.

— Robert A. Dahl

Probably nothing strengthened the impetus of socialists toward bureaucratic centralization more than their implacable rejection of economic controls in general and the market in particular.

— Robert A. Dahl

I cannot stress too strongly the importance of external controls, both governmental and economic. I do not see how economic enterprises can be operated satisfactorily in a modern economy, capitalist, mixed, socialist or whatever, without some strategic external controls over the firm.

— 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.

— 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.

— 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.

— 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.

— 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.

— Robert A. Dahl