The Theory of Democracy Revisited

The book argues that democratic theory must reconcile the ideal and the real: prescriptive theory elaborates democratic ideals and values, while empirical theory describes how democracies actually perform, and the crucial problem is to what extent and in what manner ideals are realized and realizable . It is a thoroughly revised edition of Sartori's earlier Democratic Theory (1962), updated to address developments in the last quarter-century . Volume I focuses on issues that surfaced in the last decade, while Volume II is more historical, covering the endless debate on power, coercion, liberty, equality, laws, rights, justice, and representation that shaped political vocabulary from Aristotle to Tocqueville .

Sartori's method is conceptual clarification. He argues that political theory has developed by excluding inadequate definitions and erroneous meanings of fundamental concepts, and that this task must be permanent . The book's greatest strength, according to reviewers, lies in Sartori's demonstration that prescriptive and descriptive theories must be blended—the ideal and the real—to be valid, in an integral whole: a theory of the democratically possible . This approach synthesizes a theory of his own, which he offers as a new mainstream view to his readers .

The work combines two volumes in one book of 542 pages. Volume I deals mainly with issues that have surfaced in the last decade and focuses on the gap between democratic ideals and actual performance . Volume II is more historical and considers the classical issues: the endless debate on power, coercion, liberty, equality, laws, rights, justice, and representation that shaped the vocabulary of politics from Aristotle to Tocqueville . The two volumes differ in their underlying threads but share Sartori's concern with the relationship between normative and empirical democratic theory .

The most significant criticism came from Norberto Bobbio, who reviewed the book harshly and characterized Sartori as a conservative thinker—'more liberal than democrat' . Sartori never concealed his political preferences, and Bobbio's judgment is considered correct by some commentators . The book has also been criticized for falling short of its ambitious goal of fully reconciling normative and empirical theory: Sartori indicated a possible and desirable path, but no one followed it, and political science turned away from political thought, with method becoming a straitjacket .

The book received high praise from major political scientists. Arend Lijphart of the University of California wrote that 'in this field, his argument has no real rival. This immensely stimulating work comes from the most powerful theoretical mind of our time' . Robert Dahl of Yale also praised it . A Chinese reviewer described it as a 'super Occam's razor' for cutting through the tangled mess of democratic theory, noting its rare combination of conceptual precision, rigorous logical argumentation, and lively, witty prose . The book was translated into numerous languages, including Spanish, German, Chinese, Turkish, and Polish .

Sartori argues that the classical theory of democracy did not draw a systematic distinction between ideal system and reality, but today we are all highly sensitized to the hiatus between the ideal and the real . The crucial problem becomes to what extent and in what manner ideals are realized and realizable . This focus is central to Volume I and reflects Sartori's conviction that democratic theory must be both empirically grounded and normatively oriented. The book is not a defense of any existing democracy but an inquiry into the conditions under which democratic ideals can be approximated in practice .