ABSTRACT
In 1966 American political scientist Jack Walker lamented the way in which elitist democratic thinking was crowding out classical theory in scholarly discourses:
In short classical democratic theory is held to be unrealistic; first because it employs conceptions of the nature of man and the operation of society which are utopian, and second because it does not provide adequate, operational definitions of its key concepts. [.] The concept of an active, informed, democratic citizenry, the most distinctive feature of the traditional theory, is the principal object of attack.
(Walker 1966: 285) [Emphasis added]