How Democratic Is The American Constitution Robert Dahl

In 1788, the ratification of the United States Constitution sought to establish the fundamental aspects of the nation’s government, laws, and protections of its citizens’ unalienable rights. Robert G. McCloskey’s The American Supreme Court (2016) explains that, during this period, the prospects of the Supreme Court were essentially unknown. As time progressed, however, the Court began strengthening its legitimacy with its decisions in major landmark court cases which, in turn, established its crucial role in shaping the judicial interests and values of the nation. As such, McCloskey (2016) traces the country’s judicial history by highlighting the Court’s great transitional periods regarding state rights, nation rights, property rights, and slavery. By the start of the 20th century, however, discrepancies began to emerge with the rise of

Robert Dahl's book How Democratic is the American Constitution, reminds us that the American Constitution wasn't the only possible base for a democratic system in America. In this book Dahl explains some of the democratic and undemocratic aspects of the American constitution. He also explains what should be changed to improve it.

Despite the many crises that the United States has faced historically, democracy has persisted. However, this is not to say that the system is secure or deeply rooted. In fact, based on the events of recent decades, it has been weakening. In How Democracies Die, Levitsky and Ziblatt provide examples of how American democracy has exemplified the positive and negative aspects of other global democracies of the past and present. Although the US is exceptional in some ways, with its longstanding democratic institutions and diverse population, it is more similar to others than different. Thus, the idea that few parallels can be drawn to other nations is disproven. The process of comparing each state is analogous to that of differentiating between

Since the ratification of the Constitution, more than 11,000 amendments have been proposed. The Constitution of the United States of America was Officially ratified in 1789. This makes the document over two-hundred years old. Since the time of its writing and eventual ratification, the document has been amended and interpreted in many ways. Whether it be prohibition to the abolition of slavery. The Constitution has been constantly updated over time. It has not laid stagnant with the time. The Constitution has remained the document off of which we have based our country for many years. A major question that has been posed is, why do we as a country still feel bound to this document written so many years ago? The reasons are fairly simple. The Constitution of the United States can and has been over many years amended, the laws and thoughts of a people can be expressed through the Constitution, and the constitution has functioned, with a few bumps in the road, fairly well over the last two-hundred years. The people of the United States should still stand behind this Constitution because it infact still serves us well today in many ways. A few being that it can be amended and “Fixed”, and another being that it does still protect our rights as citizens.

When people gather together for form a society, they will automatically need a fundamental law (constitution) that will be above everything and everyone. Constitution is what actually regulates a country. It provides rights and set up obligations for everyone. The United States constitution is one of the greatest documents ever written. It provides liberty, prosperity, equality, more importantly huge freedom. However, the ratification of the U.S. constitution was not an easy task. The farmers had trouble to agree on several issues such as the representation and distribution of political powers; how to prevent excessive democracy; and the protection of individual liberties, etc.

The balance between the duty of the government, both on a state and federal scale, and the citizens’ view of freedoms has been a continuous struggle throughout the readings. Although many members of America’s youth believe that their participation in politics is aimless, public opinion and voting are very important aspects of shaping the government. Without certain civil rights being granted by the government, these important rights of expression and suffrage would not exist.

This was his main argument. Dahl addressed an overview of not only what he believes but also what he further went into detail in throughout the book. He focused on the shortcomings of the framers and how they had to make this document for America when they didn’t know the full potential of America would be. He also stated, “[f]athers (including the Framers) intended to create a republic, not a democracy… citizens would simply not tolerate such a government. A second immovable limit was the existence of the thirteen states, with still more states to come.”(Dahl 5). It was intended to be republic, which is why our democratic society has issues with it today because some citizens feel as though they are not being represented the way they should. He also goes on further to say as. This quote made a substantial affect because it makes reminds the reader that it was constructed for on 13 states. The United States now has almost 4 times as many states as it did back then ranging from coast to coast. He also goes on to say, “[wise as the framers were, they were] necessarily limited by their profound ignorance”(Dahl 7). Which does not necessarily mean they were intelligent but they were limited to constructing a document that would serve people now and in the future. Which is probably why the constitution is arguably very vague so that even though it may not include exact rights concerning at situation all inexplicit rights are still protected.

There is no doubt that the United States of America is a democracy, but how democratic are some of the components of our system of government? For example, the Electoral College is used when selecting the president of The United States, but the founders developed the Electoral College based on a theory of how it should work with no practical, real-world example of how it realistically works. Based on the three core principles of democracy which are popular sovereignty, political equality, and political freedom, the Electoral College falls short when assessed using these democratic values.

Even in the early stages of American history there was an urge to put legally protected freedoms into written government documents. The result was the drafting of the first ten amendments to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, by James Madison. The applications of the personal freedoms described in the Bill of Rights, particularly the freedom of speech, have been challenged repeatedly in American courts of law and elsewhere. These incidents and challenges of authority reflect the defensive American attitude toward the ever-important freedom of expression and the growing significance of personal rights throughout American history.

In the article, “Framed Up What the Constitution gets wrong” written by Hendrik Hertzberg, Robert Dahl’s perspective on the United States Constitution, he is in favor of the “American system does a better job than the democratic alternatives, and quite a

In the initial years of the United States a meeting of delegates appointed by the several states met for the sole purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation. The result of this meeting was the creation of the U.S. Constitution that would soon become the ultimate directive for both Federal and State Governments. Since its birth it has been revised, amended, and ratified in order to solidify the allocation of power between the separate branches of government. Although this may be the case, distribution of the powers has been disputed ever since the formation of the Constitution. These political, legal, and quasi-legal constitutional disputes triggered civil unrest and led to explicit acts of opposition involving nullification and

Upon the opening words of the Constitution, "We the People…do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America," one must ask, who are these people? While the American Constitution provided its citizens with individual rights, many members were excluded. Elite framers manipulated the idea of a constitution in order to protect their economic interests and the interests of their fellow ‘white land and slave owning men' by restricting the voices of women, slaves, indentured servants and others. Therefore, the Constitution cannot truly be considered a "democratic document." However, because it is a live document, malleable and controllably changeable according to the interest of congress, it has enabled us to make

Aside from these awards, he has authored twenty-three books and textbooks, a number of which are seen as seminal books of modern political thinking (Hertzberg, 2002). Apart from these distinct products on the political science field, Dahl has earned the esteem of his peers. Fred I. Greenstein of Princeton described Dahl as “the premier democratic theorist of our time,” James S. Fishkin of the University of Texas called Dahl "the premier analyst of democratic theory and democratic institutions writing today,” and Theodore J. Lowi of Cornell stressed that Dahl is the “foremost political theorist of this generation” (Hertzberg, 2002). From these impressive honors and esteemed praises, Dahl is argued as someone who knows his expertise. If Dahl thinks that something is wrong with the Constitution, his ethos gives him validity and credibility.

The United States of America is one of the oldest contemporary democracies, is currently the second largest democracy, and is ranked the 16th best democracy in the world (Campbell et. Al, 2014). Yet there is a legitimate question over whether or not the United States can still truly be considered a democracy, with some studies even suggesting it has begun to resemble an oligarchy (Chumley, 2014). In this essay, I will use Dahl’s criteria of voting equality and effective participation to determine whether or not the United States are truly a democracy.

The nation we knew as the United States is no more. The fair, war-weary republic that we've all known and loved has been replaced by a tired war hungry, that has been so split that it is hardly worthy of being called the "United" States. But what happened, one might ask. When looking into the past, the major turning point occurred in the year 2000. In that year, the dynastic candidate George W. Bush was elected president, and since has reigned with an iron will to turn the United States into the nation that it is today.