Talk:Polyarchy

Polyarchy is mainly used in Political Science and broadly in the social sciences, following Robert A. Dahl, as a formal definition of democracy. Although Dahl is cited, his concept is not even mentioned in the article, and his main work, Polyarchy, a classic in Political Science, is ignored. I think this page has been taken by activists and needs a profound revision to become an encyplopaedia article and meet NPOV. [Dahl, Robert A. 1971. Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition. New Haven: Yale University Press. (ISBN: 0300013914)] --Uncertain 09:23, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Dahl's polyarchy
I concur with Uncertain's critique above, although I would not like to say whether the errors are due to deliberate political manipulation or to ignorance.

I would add that Mark Curtis's take on the word polyarchy is broadly consistent with Dahl's, or at least can be seen as a particular kind of polyarchy within Dahl's definition. Mark Curtis was trying to describe something for which the word "oligarchy" would be inadequate (for instance Argentina under the generals was an oligarchy, but not a polyarchy). Because there does not exist, to my knowledge, any other word in English that describes the political system Mark Curtis refers to as "polyarchy", the effective refutation of this definition in the wikipedia article amounts to a kind of censorship, making it harder for some of those who rely on wikipedia to keep themselves abreast of political science terminology to explain political reality as they see it.

Ireneshusband 18:06, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

US vote
"For example, more than four million U.S. citizens residing in the U.S. territories (such as Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands) are excluded from voting for the President ".

This quote reveals a fundamentally wrong understanding of US presidency voting ... citizens do not vote for President in the US, electors do ... popular vote is just a poll and sometimes its results differ from the actual elector vote , such as with Bush , with no effect on the actual elections. I will remove it untill someone can prove me wrong, or the US Constitution is changed.

Polyarchy or Polycracy
i helped write on polycracy definition :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycracy#References seems to me that both words are describing same form of government ,somebody with better understanding of this matter should help unify both articles into one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.123.168.47 (talk) 13:13, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Removed most of the old article
I have removed most of what was left of the old article (from before Drono's much-needed reworking of it) because I could not, with the resources available to me, find anything to back it up. It is possible, because proper footnotes were not being used, that some of the works cited at the bottom do support the definition of polyarchy given in the section I have deleted. If so then please do not hesitate to reinstate this section.

The footnotes need more tidying, with "ref" tags used wherever possible.

Could somebody, if they have time, please check whether the Rosenau, Blattberg and Chomsky links are in fact relevant? I suspect the Chomsky one is. I don't know about the other two. Ireneshusband 12:44, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Reference to Blattberg, Shall We Dance?, removed as the book is not cited in the article.Ronald11 (talk) 16:10, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

If the linked Chomsky video is relevant then it should be directly referenced in the article the article as it would be a use of the term by a leading intellectual. Ireneshusband 12:46, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I think the recent changes have probably addressed the concerns that led to the POV flag. Is it time to remove it? I don't know the policy on POV flag removal. Ireneshusband 13:16, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

-::I disagree with your removal of the original contents, Ireneshusband, although I claimed they were biased: they have to be represented here even in a shorter space, or they should be moved to a new page (with a clear dismbiguation).
 * I'll try to put the material I was working on as soon as possible --Uncertain 13:00, 27 October 2006 (UTC). ¡Saludos!


 * As I said before, if someone can provide sources for any of the stuff I have deleted then it should be reinstated. However, since this article has been POV flagged for 12 months or so now, the people who wrote that stuff have had more than enought time to do this. It's not a question of whether those alternative definitions should be given their own article or not; if they are valid I have no problem with them going back exactly where they were. It's a question of whether those definitions actually exist at all outside of wikipedia, because if they don't then they shouldn't be in wikipedia. I personally think it most improbable that, if these alternative definitions were in use somewhere, I should not have been able to find such usage somewhere on the web. I looked quite hard for such usage, but I couldn't find it. That is why I believe that those definitions are more than likely to be bogus and that they should therefore stay deleted until somebody provide positive proof that they are not.


 * I'm looking forward to seeing your new material btw. :-) Ireneshusband 06:14, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Careless Use of Source
Just wanted to point out that PageUp's 1 July 2007 edit appears to quote William I. Robinson's views directly; PageUp actually footnotes the article from where he/she got the quotes. But when you follow the link, you get a review of Robinson's work by Patrick J. Haney, and then it's clear that PageUp is not quoting directly from Robinson, but just lifting Haney's very words and putting them in the wikiarticle without the appropriate quotation marks. It's probably good to preserve some of the material based on Robinson's views, but it should be quoted and/or paraphrased and cited more appropriately. Maybe someone who has spent more time than I on this wikiarticle would like to do this. TruthPolice (talk) 22:41, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Polyarchy vs. Oligarchy
Can anyone explain what differentiates a polyarchy from an oligarchy? ~ UBeR (talk) 18:02, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

From my understanding, oligarchy does not have the democratic trappings of polyarchy. There's not even ceremonial elections in an oligarchy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.114.77.195 (talk) 13:10, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

polyarchy
Since this term has been coined by Dahl, it is a pity that he did not indicate that the word is also attested in Classical Greek (where poly- means "much", the plural meaning "many"), but infrequently and with a different meaning from the one he proposes. The two uses known to me are those in Thucydides and Xenophon, where it means "(too) much rule", leading to confusion. Polykrateia, as far as I know, is not attested in Classical Greek. Both Dahl and Chomsky argue that the US is not a democracy. In the sense of "direct" democracy, as in Athens from the 6th cent to the 4th cent BC, this is perfectly true. However, the US democracy can easily be classified as representative or parliamentary. Within the democracy there are undoubtedly large lobby and power groups with interests of their own, and these might be described by means of some Greek term, if this is felt to be necessary, in order to lend an air of authority, but the mere use of a Greek word, and this one in particular, does not in itself have much meaning. It is, in my view, obscurantist. You could describe the system within the US democracy as "interest group-driven". Pamour (talk) 10:47, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Democracy is formed from demos and cracy, and demos means people but also means neighbourhood , as Athens was split into 12 demos, each of them taking their turn into leading the city. Thus, is better said that democracy is rotation of power , which is anyway , a feature of true democracy (see EU Presidency). Also polykrateia (ruling by many)is opposed to monokrateia, which is ruling by one person , or power , and simbolizes separation of powers within a state , thing which features a true democracy ... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.123.168.47 (talk) 01:22, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Form of Governance
From the content of this article, Dahl's polyarchy is not a form of governance but rather a way to measure the effectiveness of direct and representative democracy. Thus it should not be considered a form of democracy and can be removed from the lists of forms of democracy. Please let me know if I am in error. I will wait a month before making the change to give ample time for comments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BBUCommander (talk • contribs) 16:24, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Western European?
Why "in Western European political science"? Is science regionally bound? Can't descriptions about polyarchy made by Western European political scientists apply elsewhere? If not, surely, that would set exceptions within the theory but not the extent of the theory throughout the academic community. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BrianKovo (talk • contribs) 21:54, 16 March 2021 (UTC)