- C b MacPherson- in any answer on democracy write his name as he has done a lot of work. His work- Democratic theory: Essays in Retrieval
- His conclusions-
- Liberalism can't claim Monopoly over democracy. Communitst model of one party state can also be called democracy if it has intra party democracy. They need not follow the western model of democracy. China calls itself as “democracy that works.”
- Macpherson defines two types of power
- Extractive ( power in the form of coercion)
- Developmental (power used for development)
- Mac is disappointed with the state of democracy in the western world. his analysis-concludes that Western countries should make effort to achieve a situation when no one exercises an extractive power on the other hand each has equal developmental opportunities or opportunities for creative freedom
- Models:
- Classical
- Protective model( locke, Bentham) to protect rights of people.
- Development model(mill) for overall development of an individual.
- Contemporary
- Elitist (schumpeter). For them democracy is all about free and fair elections
- Pluralist ( robert dahl, charles lindblom). For them it is the pressure groups that play the main role(polyarchy and deformed polyarchies). There analysis is in line with pluralist theory of sovereignity(laski).
- Acc to mac , classical model lacks the empirical understanding of real world whereaas the contemporary model lacks the substantive aspect.
- MacPherson coined the term- schumptere dahl axis. Says both the analysis are procedural view of democracy and proposes egalitarian model. It should result into creative freedom, maximisation of developmental power, elemination of extractive power.
- ludwig wittgenstein -
- conclusion: while raisins may well be the better part of a cake, a bag of raisins is not a cake. Similarly while elections may be an integral part of a democracy, they cannot be its end.