Dahl and Mills Analysis

Jennifer Beard

October 13, 2012

Dr. Landow

PSCI 8040

Midterm Essay of Mills and Dahl

The representations in political science about aspects of political theory and such subjects like representation or group action are relevant to the understanding of the current political atmosphere in the United States today. Their relevance to political science becomes important in understanding the mechanisms of equal representation or the function of the government because political thinkers such as C. Wright Mills or Robert Dahl wrote and discusses the aspects of who governs, who is represented, and who rules in a democracy like the United States. While C. Wright Mills and Robert Dahl worked off the ideas of one another, they also maintained different ideas in the sense of such subjects. Applied to the current political scene today, their philosophies provide a unique understanding of who governs as well as give their respects to the ideas of the Founding Fathers. What lasting philosophies of these two men provide in context to the state of current events?

Author R. Hofsteadter published a book entitled The Founding Fathers: An Age of Realism and the contents of the the publication argued that the Founding Fathers of the United States held a particular view of their fellow man, one in which shaped their thinking and ultimately, the writing of the Constitution. Hofsteadter argues that the Founding Fathers of the country held a rather negative view of their fellow countryman. Such view made an impact of the writing of the Constitution and arguably, the governance and rule of the country. Hofsteadter states that the members of the Constitutional Convention also had a mistrust of democratic rule, perhaps due to the overwhelming sense of power it could give to a large amount of people. The chapter quotes William Livingston who states that “the people have ever been and ever will be unfit to retain the exercise of power in their own hands,” (Hofsteadter, 6). His opinion...