Who Governs

Who Governs?: Democracy and Power in an American City is an influential book in American political science by Robert Dahl. It was published in 1961 by Yale University Press. Dahl's work is a case study of political power and representation in New Haven, Connecticut. It is widely considered one of the great works of empirical political science of the twentieth century.

"Who Governs" is Dahl's claim as the leader of the pluralistic approach to politics, and many interest groups compete in the political sphere, the government's role being to act as the mediator between the groups.