Normative democratic theory deals with the moral foundations of democracy and democratic institutions. it's distinct from descriptive and explanatory democratic theory. This brief outline of normative democratic theory focuses attention on four distinct issues in recent work. First, it outlines some different approaches to the question of why democracy is morally desirable in the least . Second, it explores the question of what it's reasonable to expect from citizens in large democratic societies. This issue is central to the evaluation of normative democratic theories as we'll see.

“By definition,” Maurice Cranston says, “a liberal may be a man who believes in liberty” (1967: 459). In two ways, liberals accord liberty primacy as a political value. Liberals have typically maintained that humans are naturally in “a State of perfect Freedom to order their Actions…as they think fit…without asking leave, or counting on the desire of the other Man”