- 'Democracy is justified by its consequences, not by its supposed intrinsic fairness.' Discuss.
- Christiano, Tom, Democracy, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring, 2015).
- Cohen, Joshua, Procedure and Substance in James Bohman & William Rehg (eds.), Deliberative Democracy: Essays on Reason and Politics, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, ch. 13.
- Arneson, Richard, Democratic Rights at the National Level, in Thomas Christiano (ed.), Philosophy and Democracy: An Anthology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, ch. 4.
- Barry, Brian, Democracy and Power: Essays in Political Theory, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.
- Christiano, Thomas, The Rule of the Many: Fundamental Issues in Democratic Theory, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1996.
- Christiano, Thomas, The Constitution of Equality: Democratic Authority and its Limits, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
- Dahl, Robert, Democracy and its Critics, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.
- Elster, Jon, The Market and the Forum, in Jon Elster & Aanund Hylland (eds.), Foundations of Social Choice Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, pp. 103-132.
- Estlund, David, Democratic Authority: A Philosophical Framework, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009.
- Estlund, David, Democracy without Preference, The Philosophical Review, vol. 99, no. 3 (July, 1990), pp. 397-423.
- Estlund, David, The Persistent Puzzle of the Minority Democrat, American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 26, no. 2 (April, 1989), pp. 143-151.
- Held, David, Models of Democracy, 3rd ed., Cambridge: Polity, 2009.
- Nelson, William, On Justifying Democracy, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.
- Nino, Carlos Santiago, The Constitution of Deliberative Democracy, New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1996.
- Pateman, Carole, Participation and Democratic Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970.
- Schumpeter, Joseph, Capitalism Socialism and Democracy, New York: Harper, 1947.
- Singer, Peter, Democracy and Disobedience, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973.
- Wollheim, Richard, A Paradox in the Theory of Democracy, in Peter Laslett & W. G. Runciman (eds.), Philosophy, Politics and Society, 2nd series, Oxford: Blackwell, 1962, pp. 71-87.
- Young, Iris Marion, Inclusion and Democracy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
- Is representative democracy the best system or only the best attainable?
- ‘The great challenge to democratic theory lies in how it comes to terms with minorities’. Discuss.
- How can one best assess the extent to which government is representative?
- Does democracy require majority-rule as a decision procedure?
- Should judges be elected?
- 'Popular sovereignty is neither realizable nor desirable.' Discuss.
- Is democracy a set of institutional arrangements or a value?
- 'The justification for democracy is that everyone who is affected by a decision should have an equal say in it.' Discuss.
- 'The strongest arguments for democracy in general are also arguments for participatory democracy in particular.' Discuss.
- Does democracy require participation in deliberation on the part of citizens?
- 'It is because it is the only form of government that gives citizens an equal say in the making of political decision-making that democracy is the only legitimate form of government’. Do you agree?