Some democrats have defined democracy as majority rule, while others have placed on this rule the limitation that minorities must themselves be left free to try to become a majority. But, whichever the definition, the peaceful change argument is the dominant one. (The other major argument for democracy is that the decisions of the majority are always, or almost always, morally right, but support for this article of faith has dwindled in recent years.)

Yet though pervasive, the peaceful change argument has been simply accepted with little or no analysis. In particular, no one has investigated the problem: is the existing form of democracy really compatible with this argument, and what specific form of government does the argument entail? Instead, it has been simply assumed that any type of democracy automatically receives its credentials from the peaceful change doctrine.