ABSTRACT
This chapter is on the work of writers who see modern democracy primarily as parliamentary or presidential government, free elections, and competing political parties and leaders. The assumption that democracy is not an end but a set of political procedures which can serve different ends leads Mayo, Pickles and other proceduralists to turn away from substantive sociological and cultural issues. Joseph Schumpeter, who constructed what became known as the 'revisionist' theory of democracy, a theory which systematically developed the view that democracy was not an end but a means, grounded his argument on an attempt at a destructive criticism of what he called classical democratic theory. Democracy may not bring a perfect society and individual salvation, or be an adequate substitute for religion, art, literature, friendship and much else, but it is a force which has transformed the modern world.
