ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the constraints placed upon the Corporation by the public, and furthermore there will be an examination of the specificity of the public’s role in terms of protest. Carole Pateman, in her discussion of democratic theory, describes and evaluates what she terms the ‘contemporary theory of democracy’. Pateman’s criticism of the contemporary theory provides an entrance to a more specific discussion on participation in urban planning. She states that proponents of the contemporary theory have consistently misunderstood ‘classical theory’, the theory which the contemporary theory was designed to replace, in that they have refused to accept that classical theory was a normative theory as well as a descriptive one. Pateman suggests that the major contribution to democratic theory by the ‘classical theorists’ has been to focus attention on the interrelationship between individuals and the authority structures of institutions within which they interact.
