Under the guise of democracy: populism's false promise to return power to the people

This meaning emanates from the term itself since the ideal is one of the people (demos) exercising power (kratos), and serves the important function of creating a boundary between democratic rule and all other forms of rule. Whereas legitimacy may be claimed by a single person (monarchy) or group (oligarchy) in other forms of rule, democratic legitimacy can only be claimed when it is citizens themselves who create laws.

As this condition is fairly broad, the precise nature of democracy has been a matter of ongoing contestation. Some scholars, for instance, believe that democracy rests on the power of the people to select their own leaders, while others defend a more robust form of democratic rule based on the shared identity of the rulers and the ruled. This thesis evaluates some of the most prominent theories of democracy with the aim of finding a normatively defensible model of democracy that truly delivers on the democratic premise to let the people rule.