ABSTRACT
The great debate on mass society, the fear it aroused, and the conviction it inspired that mass society endangered democracy affected interpretations of democratic theory in the decade of the 1950s and after. Theories of Political Development and, more generally, interpretations of Third World political change were based on contemporary theories of liberal democracy. Critics of the new look in democratic theory argued that an exclusionary policy was far from incidental. From the 1960s on, political scientists and theorists dissatisfied with the claims of revisionist theories debated their meaning. The comparative infrequency of political participation, its relative lack of importance for the individual, and the objective weakness of the ordinary man allow governmental elites to act. Development theorists dealt with the predicament by referring to the paradox of change, while assuming the validity of liberal democratic theories as self-evident and therefore requiring no historical examination.
