Dahl to Deliver Next Kohn Lecture - "Exporting Democracy"

Robert A. Dahl, the Sterling Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Yale University, will deliver the next Henry Kohn Lecture, “Exporting Democracy,” at the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale on Wednesday, February 5, at 4:15 p.m.

As a political scientist, Dahl has dominated, for the last five decades, the international discussion about democracy. He has published many articles and books that examine democratic systems of government, including “A Preface to Democratic Theory” (1956), “Who Governs?” (1961), “Democracy and Its Critics” (1989) and “On Democracy” (2000). “How Democratic Is the American Constitution?” will be published by Yale University Press on March 1, 2003, and “The Democracy Sourcebook,” which Dahl co-edited with Ian Shapiro, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor and chairman of Yale’s political science department, will be released in October 2003 by MIT Press.

Can democracy be exported to a country lacking republican traditions? Does a democracy threaten its own essential commitments or further them when it seeks to liberate a tyranny? Can a democratic republic become the center of empire without sacrificing its own defining freedoms? These and other timely questions will be addressed by Dahl at the lecture.

The lecture is free and open to the public.