In a genuinely democractic system, as opposed to a pseudodemocratic one in which a „representative sample“ of the population is asked whether it „approves“ or „disapproves,“ citizens would be viewed as agents actively involved in the exercise of power and in contributing to the direction of policy. Instead citizens are more like „patients“ who, in the dictionary definition, are „bearing or enduring (evil of any kind) with composure; long suffering or forbearing.“
—Sheldon Wolin, Democracy Incorporated, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), 60.
