Introduction to American Politics online course discussion – Dahl

Help me study for my Political Science class. I’m stuck and don’t understand.

Read chapter 12 by Dahl and respond to his points and arguments. Also, comment constructively on a classmates’ posting.

(I will attach Chapter 12 by Dahl)

Q: Dahl, Ch 12: “What Underlying Conditions Favor Democracy?”

VERY important chapter. Take some part of this. Work with each other to build the discussion. Help steer the discussion.

Here is classmate’s posting from question. Please reply in 1st person point of view.

Classmate’s post

Earlier in the book Dahl mentioned that there are conditions that are favorable to the creation and maintenance of democracy. In this chapter, he goes on to reveal these conditions that allow for democratic nations to succeed. There are 5 in total. The first condition that must be met is that the military and police are under control by elected officials. This one is important because as history has shown us, if elected officials do not have full control of the military and police, but rather only partial control, then there comes a risk of having the police and military being used against the people for the personal gain of whomever controls them. Such was the case in Nazi Germany when officials would have the secret police go arrest and kill any who opposed them. The next condition that must be met is that there must be democratic beliefs and political culture. This one is a given since without out it there is no chance of democracy being upheld for more than a day. The last essential condition is that there must be no strong foreign control hostile to democracy. To prove this point, Dahl explains, “were it not for the intervention of the Soviet Union after World War II, Czechoslovakia would probably be counted today among the older democracies. Soviet intervention also prevented Poland and Hungary from developing democracy institutions (Dahl pg. 147-148).” While the last two conditions are not essential, there are rather favorable towards democratic institutions. These two are that there must be a modern market economy and society, and a weak subcultural pluralism. As long as the first three conditions are met, though, then these last two will either eventually occur or are not needed for the goal of democracy to be fulfilled. Just take a look at India. Dahl tells us how although India lacks these conditions, suffers from poverty, corruption and an unfair system, it is somehow able to maintain its own form of democracy. Why can’t we here in the United States do better when we meet more of the essential conditions than other countries?

Work Cited

Dahl, Robert Alan. On Democracy. Yale University Press, 2008.