Dahl

ROBERT DAHL

Es profesor emérito de ciencias políticas en la Universidad de Yale y ex-presidente de la Asociación estadounidense de ciencias políticas.
Dahl basa su doctrina en examinar los principios en los que se basa la autoridad de los gobiernos democráticos y los tipos de democracia que pueden adaptarse a situaciones diferentes; reconoce la importancia de las economías de mercado para lasinstituciones democráticas, pero no deja de señalar a los gobiernos democráticos recientemente establecidos los riesgos de adoptar sistemas de mercado totalmente desrregulados sin la existencia de algún tipo de intervención estatal.
En su obra ¿ |Después de la revolución? (1994), Dahl analiza los problemas que plantea la democracia como método para tomar decisiones en los modernos sistemasgubernamentales.
Es autor de numerosos libros, entre los que destacan:
- La democracia y sus críticos.
- La poliarquía.
- Análisis político moderno.
- Análisis sociológico de la política.
Ha recibido numerosos premios y distinciones: el premio de la Woodrow Wilson Foundation (que le ha sido concedido dos veces), el Talcott Parsons para las ciencias sociales y el James Madison de la Asociaciónestadounidense de ciencias políticas.
| Fuente
www.deautores.com
Robert Alan Dahl (born 17 December 1915), is the Sterling Professor emeritus of political science at Yale University, where he earned his Ph.D. in political science in 1940.[1] He is past president of the American Political Science Association and one of the most distinguished political scientists writing today. Dahl has often beendescribed as "the Dean" of American political scientists. He earned this title by his prolific writing output and the fact that scores of prominent political scientists studied under him.
Biography
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he was involved in a landmark dispute with C. Wright Mills over the nature of politics in the United States. Mills held that America's governments are in the graspof a unitary and demographically narrow power elite. Dahl responded that there are many different elites involved, who have to work both in contention and in compromise with one another. If this is not democracy in a populist sense, Dahl contended, it is at least polyarchy (or pluralism). In perhaps his best known work, Who Governs? (1961), he examines the power structures (both formal andinformal) in the city of New Haven, Connecticut, as a case study, and finds that it supports this view.
From the late 1960s onwards, his conclusions were challenged by scholars such as G. William Domhoff and Charles E. Lindblom (a friend and colleague of Dahl).
In more recent years, Dahl's writings have taken on a more pessimistic tone. In How Democratic Is the American Constitution? (2001) he arguedthat the constitution is much less democratic than it ought to be given that its authors were operating from a position of "profound ignorance" about the future. However, he adds that there is little or nothing that can be done about this "short of some constitutional breakdown, which I neither foresee nor, certainly, wish for."
Influence terms
One of Robert Dahl’s many contributions is hisexplication of the varieties of power, which he defines as “A” getting “B” to do what “A” wants. Dahl prefers the more neutral “influence terms,” (Michael G. Roskin) which he arrayed on a scale from best to worst:
1. Rational Persuasion, the nicest form of influence, means telling the truth and explaining why someone should do something, like your doctor convincing you to stop smoking.
2.Manipulative persuasion, a notch lower, means lying or misleading to get someone to do something.
3. Inducement still lower, means offering rewards or punishments to get someone to do something, i.e. like bribery.
4. Power threatens severe punishment, such as jail or loss of job.
5. Coercion is power with no way out; you have to do it.
6. Physical force – is backing up coercion with use or threat of...