Jack Lively, who died in 1998, published Democracy in 1975. It is a
'classic' because it deals with a large and highly controversial
subject in a brief, clear and definite way. It exemplifies the art
of producing a short book on a large subject, written with quiet
authority that inspires the reader's confidence in the judgements
being made. Part of this authoritativeness derives from his
perspective being richly informed by historical study. The central
thesis is that the meaning of democracy is political equality. Less
explicitly but importantly, there are two related sub-themes: the
relationship between political equality and social equality, and
the need (as Lively saw it) to consider political equality as one
of a number of desirable social values which might need to be
weighed in the balance. This thesis, and these themes, are in one
way timeless; and the book may justly be regarded as a classic
exposition of the political equality characterisation of democracy.
In another way, the book is a classic because it deals with a
particular period in the academic debate about democracy: when the
value (and even the possibility) of normative enquiry was widely
doubted; when the status of 'political theory' was challenged both
in the discipline of politics and by the claims of other 'modes of
theorising' (Lively's term); and, above all, when the value (and
even possibility) of democracy itself was strenuously contested.
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