Scholastic
thinkers like Cardinal Cajetan, St. Robert Bellarmine, and Francisco Suárez developed
what is sometimes called a “transmission theory” of governmental authority. It holds that such authority ultimately comes
from God, but is directly vested by him in the community as a whole, and then
transmitted by it to some particular form of government (which may or may not
be democratic). Yves Simon offered an
influential discussion of this theory in chapter 3 of his book
Philosophy of Democratic Government.
