IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/apsrev/v46y1952i03p790-807_06.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Responsiveness, Responsibility, and Majority Rule

Author

Listed:
  • Pennock, J. Roland

Abstract

“Responsiveness,” “responsibility,” and “majority rule” comprise a trio of terms that are basic to the discipline of political science, and particularly to the analysis of democratic political institutions; yet so undeveloped is our science that they represent apples of discord rather than areas of agreement. Where we should have clear concepts for scientific analysis, we are confronted rather with thought receptacles whose unexplored ambiguities constitute standing solicitations to fallacy—solicitations, it may be added, that receive a bountiful response. In view of this situation, it is little wonder that, when we go beyond description to evaluation, we find the doctors in violent disagreement.This article is not limited to definitions. The writer takes a stand on more than one of the issues that plague and divide students of the democratic political process. It is written, therefore, not only in the firm belief that terms ought to be defined, but also with the conviction that in this case an analysis of meanings will lead almost automatically to a resolution of some of the mooted issues, while contributing substantially to a rational appraisal of others.

Suggested Citation

  • Pennock, J. Roland, 1952. "Responsiveness, Responsibility, and Majority Rule," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(3), pages 790-807, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:46:y:1952:i:03:p:790-807_06
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0003055400069896/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Panagiotopoulos, Panos & Shan, Liran Christine & Barnett, Julie & Regan, Áine & McConnon, Áine, 2015. "A framework of social media engagement: Case studies with food and consumer organisations in the UK and Ireland," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 394-402.
    2. Matthies, Hildegard & Torka, Marc, 2019. "Academic Habitus and Institutional Change: Comparing Two Generations of German Scholars," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 57(3), pages 345-371.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:46:y:1952:i:03:p:790-807_06. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/psr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.