Talk:Polyarchy

message: 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)

message: 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)
thread_title:  Dahl's polyarchy 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Polyarchy or Polycracy 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Careless Use of Source 

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

message: 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)
thread_title:  polyarchy 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Form of Governance 

message: 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)
thread_title: Western European?