Power and Democracy in America

PETER FERDINAND DRUCKER (1909-2005) was an Austrian-born American management consultant, educator, and author, whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of the modern business corporation. He was also a leader in the development of management education, having invented the concept known as management by objectives and self-control, and he has been described as “the founder of modern management”. Drucker’s books and scholarly and popular articles explored how humans are organized across the business, government, and nonprofit sectors of society. He is one of the best-known and most widely influential thinkers and writers on the subject of management theory and practice. His writings have predicted many of the major developments of the late twentieth century, including privatization and decentralization; the rise of Japan to economic world power; the decisive importance of marketing; and the emergence of the information society with its necessity of lifelong learning. DELBERT CHARLES MILLER (1913-1998) was an American organizational theorist and Professor of sociology and business administration at Indiana University, Bloomington, noted for his work on industrial sociology. ROBERT ALAN DAHL (1915-2014) was a political theorist and Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University. He established the pluralist theory of democracy—in which political outcomes are enacted through competitive, if unequal, interest groups—and introduced “polyarchy” as a descriptor of actual democratic governance. An originator of “empirical theory” and known for advancing behavioralist characterizations of political power, Dahl’s research focused on the nature of decision making in actual institutions, such as American cities.