Summary, Analysis & Review of Christopher H. Achen's & Larry M. Bartels's Democracy for Realists by Instaread Preview: Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government offers a critique of conventional wisdom surrounding popular theories of democracy. Authors Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels argue that the public, journalists, and political scientists rely on a group of common-sense understandings of democracy. The authors collectively refer to these beliefs as t