Democracy in the Contemporary State

This study assesses the contemporary condition of democracy, treating it as a decision-making procedure based on certain personal civic freedoms and supported by the rule of law. The theory of democracy as a participatory process in which governments are responsible to the governed, is examined in the light of present-day policy-making and the exercise of power in the comparatively small number of States we call democracies. The author devotes attention to the bypassing of conventional routes through representative institutions and the resulting negotiations between interest groups and governments, and considers bargaining procedures in terms of their implications for democracy. He gives an opinion of how centralized modern democracies should be and how far they have succeeded in dealing with pressures towards egalitarianism. Finally he reviews the impact of leadership on democracy. Although examples are taken from the United Kingdom, other democracies are quoted to illustrate all these themes. Hence the treatment is empirical rather than purely theoretical.
Frank Bealey has also written "The Social and Political Thought of the British Labour Party", "The Politics of Independence" (with John Sewel) and "Labour and Politics 1900-1906" (with Henry Pelling).