[EL] Robert Dahl

[David Adamany]

Rick:   Thank you for reprinting Linda Greenhouse's comments about Robert Dahl and his widely studied article on the Supreme Court.   A few might be interested in a bit of commentary on Dahl's article.  Some years ago, Stephen Meinhold and I were asked to prepare a chapter on Professor Dahl for a book, edited by Nancy Maveety, entitled "The Pioneers of Judicial Politics."  We invited Dahl to be our guest for lunch at a meeting of the American Political Science Association, of which Dahl was a former president.  Already in his 80s, Dahl agreed.   He was gracious, charming to be with.  But when we told him we were writing something about his famous article, he was startled.   He didn't remember any of the substance of it and didn't know that it was one of the most widely cited articles in political science on the Supreme Court.  He did recall that he had written "Judicial Review in a Democracy" because the Dean of the Yale Law School, with whom he was friendly, had dropped in one day to ask Dahl to do him a favor by writing a piece for an edition of a relatively new journal that had asked the Dean to organize an issue on the Court.   Dahl seemed genuinely astonished when we mentioned that it was one of the most widely cited articles in political science on the Court's role in American politics.  He had no idea of its fame.

Since the article had long since faded from memory, we abandoned our list of questions--many of them noting sharp criticism of the article by other authors over the years.   There can be no doubt about the contribution of Dahl's argument in challenging the authority in a democracy of a body of appointed and life-tenured officials to invalidate decisions taken by the nation's elected officials.  He was not the first to do so, of course, but he made the argument more carefully and elegantly than most and his justification for judicial review was far and away the most creative.   Given the fame and force of the argument, we nonetheless were critical of his justification of judicial review.   For more of that, see Stephen Meinhold and David Adamany, "Robert Dahl: Democracy, Judicial Review, and the Study of Law and Courts," in Nancy Maveety (ed.), The Pioneers of Judicial Behavior (2003).

Because he simply did not recall his famous article, we desisted from asking Prof. Dahl whether he had changed his mind in light of his quite clear statements that the Court was an undemocratic feature of the system in his later, charming book--useful for undergraduates and lay readers--How Democratic is America?

We are in Linda Greenhouse's debt for reminding us, at the time of his death, that Dahd made a seminal contribution to our thinking about judicial review.  And in Professor Dahl's debt for being a wonderful lunch companion.

David Adamany

David Adamany
Laura Carnell Professor of Law
and Political Science, and
Chancellor
1810 Liacouras Walk, Ste 330
Temple University
Philadelphia, PA 19122
(215) 204-9278

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