Operational analysis … cannot raise the decisive question whether the consent itself was not the work of manipulation—a question for which the actual state of affairs provides ample justification. The analysis cannot raise it because it would transcend its terms toward transitive meaning—toward a concept of democracy which would reveal the democratic election as a rather limited democratic process. Precisely such a non-operational concept is the one rejected by the authors as unrealistic because it defines democracy on too articulate a level as the clear-cut control of representation by the electorate—popular control as popular sovereignty.

p. 116 - One-Dimensional Man (1964)