Robert Dahl’s Pluralistic Democratic Thought

Democracy is one of the most core problems in today’s political theory study, andalso one of the hottest theory topics in current domestic fundamental political theorystudy. Robert Dahl was the founder and an outstanding representative of pluralistdemocracy thought. His pluralist democracy thought is regarded as the orthodoxAmerican democracy thought, and a necessary research topic when westerndemocracy thought is studied. This paper will sort out and explain his pluralistdemocracy thought with the method of literature research, and then analyze theconnotation, reasonable factors and values of this thought.Dahl’s pluralist democracy thought was formed during the period between1930sand1980s which was a time full of wild fluctuations ad changes in some westerncountries and even in the world. Fascism, the Second World War and the seriouscredit crisis towards American government called for development of democracythought. Along with vigorous development of interest groups and formation ofpluralistic society, political pluralism developed step by step and traditionaldemocracy values faced to severe challenges.Dahl’s pluralist democracy thought hasprofound theoretical source, including Madison democracy, populist democracy,utilitarianism, group theory of personality and social checks and balances, and elitedemocracy theory. Dahl divided democracy into ideal democracy and realisticdemocracy. Ideal democracy meets the standard of the "big five" in the politicalsystem. The typical representative of realistic democracy is “representativedemocracy” which is the most close to the ideal democracy and also walks towardsideal democracy constantly, although it cannot meet the standard of ideal democracycompletely. Democracy keeps walking forward and during the process of itsdevelopment, it calls for a variety of guarantees such as democratic political systemand some other conditions which can give some supports to democracy.Dahl’s pluralist democracy thought described the west, especially American democracy political life, and revealed the essence of western democracy politics. Itplayed an essential role in the history of western democracy thought, and filled thegap between western democracy thoughts. It adapted to the needs of the time and hasmany reasonable contents and high values.At the same time, it is obvious that thereare many limitations of Dahl’s pluralist democracy thought, such as the "fourdifficulties" and "five groups" which are the best evidences. Based on defects ofpluralist democracy and effects of new pluralist democracy thought, Dahl proposedthe economic democracy thought and many methods to put democracy into practice,which developed the pluralist democracy thought and solved the defects of pluralistdemocracy to some extent, which possessed many advantages.