ABSTRACT
Robert A. Dahl was an influential American political scientist who shaped the contemporary study of the system of government of democracy and the mechanisms that define it, such as mass voting and the rule of law. Dahl's Democracy and its Critics considers the questions of what democracy is, and whether it is a desirable system of government. Democracy and Its Critics is useful both for students of politics and for the nonacademic world of economics, finance, and business. Dahl's text is important for business and economics; in it, he argues that economic structures should be regulated to ensure political equality, proposes work-place democracy, and reasons that the same democratic processes used in a nation-state should govern economic enterprises. Dahl suggested creating bodies of randomly selected citizens who would deliberate on a particular policy issue, and the debate would bring back the face-to-face deliberation that characterized ancient democracy.
