ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at Carole Pateman's premises for the hypotheses and explains the development of a complementary approach. Every academic discipline has certain core problems which, by their very nature, seem to define and give structure to research activity. One such problem for political science is the ancient and continuing debate over the nature of democratic theory and praxis. Pateman addresses herself critically to the 'theory of democratic elitism' and offers her own recommendations for an alternative model and theory of a 'participatory society.' The inability of people to take advantage of preferred participation possibilities is one of the clearest results of a lack of true participation. The result was a 'realistic' rewriting of the 'classical' theory of democracy to comply with the liberalist standards of the cold-war era. As an initial simplification, it can be said that Ernest Becker's scheme builds upon six basic elements: action, objects, anxiety, self-esteem, symbols, and meaning.
