ABSTRACT
When one has little faith in the rationality, the knowledge, and the sense of responsibility of the voter, the logical next step is to call for a relative expansion of the influence of the expert. This is certainly the case when exceptionally complex issues are at stake, whereby the wrong choices can have disastrous consequences. Aforementioned authors like Mannheim, Schumpeter, Lippmann, and Lasswell indeed not only observe, with a sense of relief, that citizens actually exert much less influence on decision making than the theory of democracy calls for, they also argue that this theory should be declared inapplicable in a number of sensitive areas. Specifically in the area of foreign affairs, they consider it self-evident to turn to experts. In Congress and Foreign Policy (1950a) Dahl too observes a wide gap between the knowledge about foreign policy and the influence on it among, on the one hand, the electorate and its representatives in Congress and, on the other hand, among a very small number of governmental policymakers. Moreover, he has the impression that this gap keeps growing wider. Particularly by making a successful appeal to their expertise and to the need for secrecy, the policymakers are able to obtain more and more power. One can hardly speak of democratic decision making anymore in the area of foreign affairs. Unlike Schumpeter, Lasswell, or Lippmann, however, Dahl wonders how this situation might be changed.
