Jon Elster has a clear view of the role of norms and impartiality in collective decision making processes, but does not ascribe to them the power to explain action. Hence, the paradox: If it is only public reasons that can justify outcomes, how can private desires be the causes of the same...

This paper proposes to assess the representative quality of European Union decision-making by way of a micro-approach which traces the effectiveness of the mechanisms of representation that connect the European peoples to the decision-making process. In particular, it proposes to distinguish...

Europeanisation and globalisation are frequently held to undermine national democracy. What are then the prospects for democracy in the multi-level constellation that makes up the contemporary European political order? The European debate has taken the question of democracy beyond the nation...

This paper shows that the main pattern of European democratisation has unfolded along the lines of an EU organised as a multilevel system of representative parliamentary government and not as a system of deliberative governance as the transnationalists propound. But the multilevel EU has...