Further Reflections on “The Elitist Theory of Democracy”

Robert A. Dahl

American Political Science Review, 1966, vol. 60, issue 2, 296-305

Abstract: 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.

Date: 1966
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