Political Science

In his book, How Democratic is the American Constitution, Robert Dahl gave a very rather provocative assessment on the state of American democracy using the Constitution as his basis.  In his opinion, the Constitution falls short in providing a truly democratic system in the United States.  His grounds for arriving at the conclusion is based on his comparison with the other known constitutional (democratic) governments which are mostly parliamentary as opposed to the presidential system of the United States.

Dahl begins with a historical approach looking at it from the beginning the Constitution was drafted and eventually ratified in 1787.  In his opinion, the Founding Fathers made a mistake in making too many compromises which resulted in some of the  undemocratic  characteristics of the Constitution such as the now-defunct issues of slavery and suffrage which were eventually addressed as well as those that currently exist like the Electoral College and the power of the judiciary to declare any law unconstitutional even though it has been passed in Congress and signed by the President.  The bottom line here was that the Founding Fathers dreaded the prospect of creating system of direct democracy and instead came up with a representative democracy in a republican form of government.  This was because the framers feared the inability of the people at the time to act responsibly and maintain stability for they feared their social and political immaturity might lead to instability and apparent chaos in society, hence the current form of government (Dahl, 2003, p. 5, 15-16).

(Political) Stability is one of the criteria Dahl used to assess which constitution is the best among the existing democratic countries at present.  The most obvious reason why stability is essential, especially for a democracy is to ensure order and prevent anarchy and chaos which is the  downside  to any democracy for democracy often connotes  rights  and  freedoms  and due to its seemingly implicit nature, there are those who seem to think that these rights and freedoms are absolute and anarchists, in particular, want to take it to the extreme hence their opposition to any form of establishment or governmental institution.  Dahl at the beginning of his book clarified that he had no intention of proposing a change in the Constitution, let alone its abolition just because it is  undemocratic.   It is still possible for a democratic state to be stable while preserving the freedoms and rights of the citizenry and he stated that this stability is possible when certain conditions are met which are the effective control over the military and police forces, a very supportive political culture and a stable economy.  There must be a balance of these conditions to ensure stability because if neither one nor all of them are met, it will not only lead to chaos but invite extremist or radical ideologies to come in and establish authoritarian or totalitarian forms of government as was the case of Latin American countries and the Weimar Republic of Germany prior to the rise of the Nazis (Dahl, 2003, p. 134-135).

Going back again to the historical context of the American Constitution, it is possible for the United States to have a direct democratic system.  He believes that the American public is socially and politically mature, a far cry from their ancestors back in 1787.  He believes that the  undemocratic  features in the Constitution have to go and he challenges the readers to think about it as he has senses an apparent indifference if not apathy of the American people towards the Constitution.  One of the obvious institutions that have to go is the Electoral College.  While theoretically, it is supposed to be made up of mature and morally upright members who must reflect the will of the people of their respective states, reality has shown it has never been the case and the elections of 2000 proved it when  swing votes  in critical areas can spell the difference between an electoral victory or defeat without any regard for the popular votes.  It is in this regard that the popular vote is the true  democratic  way of electing the president.  This has been tried and tested in other established democracies.

In conclusion, while Dahl may have given valid insights, he still fell short in determining which is the best form of government for the United States.  He even acknowledged that there appears to be no uniformity on the political stability of the other democratic states he mentioned and he inferred that these are based on  constitutional arrangements  that are appropriate or compatible to the political culture of those nations (Dahl, 2008, pp. 93-94).  Needless to say, there is no definite criteria or characteristic that can show a  perfect  or a pure democratic state.

Like any form of government, democracy, though  beautiful  as it may sound to any freedom-loving individual, is not perfect, whether they are direct or indirect (representative).  There is no absolute formula or characteristic as culture tends to define the attitudes of the people of a particular society which in turn, helps define what is (political) stability for them with regards to Dahls premise of a supportive political culture.  This is where these democracies differ and some have worked while others havent.  But in those systems that work, there are still  compromises  in the sense that some rights have to be relinquished in order to maintain stability.  Others do require a strong central government, short of an authoritarian regime to do the same thing yet still recognize and protect the individual rights of its citizens.  Nonetheless, they still bring and maintain stability to these societies even though they are still  works-in-progress.