ABSTRACT
The democratic method is that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the peoples vote. Defense and explanation of this idea will speedily show that, as to both plausibility of assumptions and tenability of propositions, it greatly improves the theory of the democratic process. First of all, we are provided with a reasonably efficient criterion by which to distinguish democratic governments from others. Second, the theory embodied in this definition leaves all the room we may wish to have for a proper recognition of the vital fact of leadership. Third, however, so far as there are genuine group-wise volitions at all—for instance the will of the unemployed to receive unemployment benefit or the will of other groups to help—theory does not neglect them. Fourth, theory is of course no more definite than is the concept of competition for leadership.
