In Democracy and its Critics, Robert Dahl defends both democratic values and pluralist democracies, or polyarchies (a rough shorthand term for Western political systems). Dahl argues convincingly that the idea of democracy rests on political equality—the equal capacity of all citizens to determine or influence collective decisions. Of course, as Dahl recognizes, democratic only as approximations to the ideal. It is on these grounds that Dahl defends polyarchy.
As a representative system in which elected officials both determine government policy and are accountable to a broad-based electorate, polyarchy reinforces a diffusion of power away from any single center and toward a variety of individuals, groups, and organizations. It is this centrifugal characteristic, Dahl argues, that makes polyarchy the nearest possible that have strong feelings about an issue can organize in pressure groups to influence public policy.
During the 1960s and 1970s, criticism of the theory of pluralist democracy was vigorous. Many critics pointed to a gap between the model and the reality of Western political systems. They argued that the distribution of power resources other than the vote was so uneven that the political order systematically gave added altogether from the political agenda effectively countered any diffusion of influence on decision-making.
Although such criticism became subdued during the 1980s, Dahl himself seems to support some of the earlier criticism. Although he regrets that some Western intellectuals demand more democracy from polyarchies than is possible, and is cautious about the possibility of further democratization, he nevertheless ends his book by asking what changes in are at the same time political resources, and the relationship between political structures and economic enterprises.
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