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The article deals with Mill's theory of liberal democracy as a synthesis of the elements of two different political traditions and doctrines: liberalism and democracy, integration of liberal concepts of freedom, limitations of power, political representation and elite leadership and democratic ideas of equality, social homogeneity, national sovereignty and citizens" participation. The author concludes that the contradictions found in Mill's theory do not stem from the inconsistency of the logic of his argumentation, but from the contradictory demands he tried to reconcile. (SOI : PM: S. 162)

The analysis has shown that both approaches are legitimate and useful in understanding and maintaining democracy. Of course, the interactional approaches are more complex, as well as more important and more vital for understanding democracy. The analysis has shown how political culture (democratic legitimation or political trust, support for civil freedoms, satisfaction with the functioning of democracy, etc.) often depend on the elements of the very political structure (party systems and coalition models, election patterns, patterns of democracy, positions in power structure, etc.). Political culture is autonomous in relation to political structure, but frequently its role greatly depends on the relations among political actors and the variables of the political culture itself. The analysis has also demonstrated how these investigations into the interaction (combined effects) between political culture and structure are extremely sophisticated and that in the future they are going to become the most fruitful part of political science, making possible not only a deeper understanding of the "dynamic regularities" in the functioning of democracy but also the attempts at its "innovative sustainment" and gradual development. (SOI : PM: S. 131) + The purpose of this essay is to prove the connection among political culture, political structure and democracy. All the arguments pointing to such a connection have been analysed within the framework of two fundamental approaches to the relationship between culture and structure i.e. within the framework of the classical approach to their correspondence (which claims - primarily in line with the functional theory of culture - that there is a functional concordance between culture and structure, that democracy is mirrored by the civic political culture, i.e. that "culture is a structure's way of life", that culture determines the structure) and the contemporary interactional approach (in which - primarily in line with the theory of culture "as meaning" or "social functioning" - complex relations among various cultural variables and structural variables are analysed as well as their combined effect on democracy as the consequence of these relations). The latter approach considers democracy not as a "fixed condition" but rather as a dynamic phenomenon or the end result of the combined interactional relationships between culture and structure

The methodological assumptions of the rational choice theory - methodological individualism and rationality - are not generally considered suitable for analyzing nations. Nevertheless, if we accept that the political process is at least partially rational, and that nation building and change is part of that process, this will provide an opening to look at nations from the unorthodox perspective of rational choice. The club theory, as part of the rational choice theory, offers great opportunities for establishing analogies between clubs and nations, and thus for shedding new light on some features of modern polities. Establishing a polity, by the club analogy, entails two basic selections: the selection of the members and the selection of a sovereign territory, that will serve to provide physical protection and material resources for its members. The choice of membership is in general based on the choice of desirable membership characteristics (usually cultural ones). The choice of a sovereign territory is linked to the decision on the part of the members to engage in a collective action in order to acquire the sovereign territory. (SOI : PM: S. 212)

The author looks into the methodological features of public choice theory. On the example of James Buchanan's contribution, he demonstrates the differences between that kind of approach (often dubbed political economy) versus welfare economics and mainstream economics. Unlike welfare economics, which tries to work out the optimal state of allocation and distribution of economic resources by using certain logical rules based on Pareto's principles, or mainstream economics, which tries to identify the improvements in observable economic categories (such as national income or investment consumption), political economy encompasses the process of collective decision-making i.e. politics. In this, the efficacy criterion is t extent of consent (consensus) in collective decisionmaking. On the example of Buchanan's and Tullock's joint contribution in the book "The Calculus of Consent", the author concludes that this paved the way for introducing a legitimate categorial mechanism for investigating the costs of political decision-making into political science. (SOI : PM: S. 88)

The author discusses the basic structure of Mancur Olson's political economy. He highlights three concepts on which it is based - public goods, interest groups, and selective incentives. The last concept represents Olson's innovation in contemporary political science. The author's central methodical assumption is based on the insight that Olson's key theory is linked with the so-called public goods paradox. Unlike private goods, public goods are non-competitive and non-exclusive, which means that it is not possible to bar those who do not share the costs of their production from using them. On the basis of this, Olson has developed the original theory of interest groups. By looking into the costs of organizing along interest lines as a collective activity whose result is a public good, he distinguishes between large, heterogeneous, and small, homogeneous groups. Besides, he has shown that, regarding public goods, individuals tend to behave as free riders, defaulters who try to avoid the costs of securing these goods. The author shows that Olson has, notwithstanding certain flimsiness of his reductionist methodology, significantly revamped political science. (SOI : PM: S. 202)

The significance of the positive political theory is recognized in the text and a special emphasis given to the theory of public choice and the theory of voting. The main reasons for the study of political, particularly electoral processes from the viewpoint of the positive theory are listed. The author further questions certain fundamental postulates of the normative theories of democracy and their unviability. He goes on to analyse the phenomenon of the so called electoral or voting paradoxes and their possible influence on electoral results and, ultimately, on the democratic norms themselves. The existence of the voting paradoxes and their theoretical rationale is considered unequivocal and is mathematically proved. The author also gives a review of the most significant works on voting paradoxes and the theory of public choice. (SOI : PM: S 225)