The democratic state, in pluralist perspective, is influenced by multiple forms of citizen political participation within the limits of a consensus on the boundaries of state action. Public opinion and voting are explicitly modes of individual influence. Social movements, interest groups, and political parties aggregate individual preferences and values into political demands, which are presented to agencies of government. Noninstitutionalized participation such as demonstrations, riots, and rebellions is seen as a deviant form of political behavior. Although social movements typically begin outside the normal channels of political representation and may become pathological, in healthy democracies they are also mechanisms to create new political parties or to force existent parties to adapt to the demands of previously unrepresented groups.

Various analytic categories delineate forms of individual action within diverse group contexts. A. O. Hirschman's well-known essay Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (1970) is a good example of an attempt to go beneath such substantive categories as protest, voting, and public opinion to discover more generic modes of individual action. In democratic political systems individuals enjoy combinations of options. Either “voice” (the expression of preferences via political action) or “exit” (a decision to leave the group, organization, or political unit) must be available. “Loyalty” is a residual characteristic of those who stay. It is an ad hoc category, not theoretically grounded. The conditions necessary for people to speak ·out, leave, or be loyal can be investigated in any social unit. Democracy is most likely when both exit and voice are available.