The Pluralist Theory Of Democracy In John Dahl And Political Equality

Dahl was a well-known American political theorist who established the pluralist theory of democracy. “A Preface to Democratic Theory (1956)”, “Democracy and its Critics (1989)”, and “On Democracy (1998)” were the example of Dahl’s influential books in political science. The last book he wrote was “On political Equality (2006)”.

In the book of “On political Equality”, Dahl claimed that political equality is the fundamental assumption of democracy politics, but not freedom. The meaning of political equality, the relationship between political equality and democracy, as well as how political equality affect the resources allocation in the society were still not clearly understood.

In the first part of the book, Dahl points out that political equality is based on the equality of all human being, no one is inherently superior to others. Political equality cannot be obtained under any political system but democracy. There is a huge divergence between the rhetoric and reality of political equality, political inequality existed in the democratic countries in their histories, for example, the United States of America and the United Kingdom. However, these countries are moving toward political equality nowadays. Dahl believes that there is a motivation of human drives the society move toward the political equality.

In my point of view, I agree that we can only establish political equality in democratic political system. There are three major forms of government, authoritarian