Just an Illusion? Democratization in the International Realm

What Democracy Do We Want? The Problematic Focus on the Median Voter

“…At the same time, international organizations with questionable democratic legitimacy have become more influential (see Freyburg et al. ). Questions of responsiveness and representation will stay salient in the debate about the quality of democracy.…”

“…Technocratic governments without democratic legitimation have been on the rise in Southern Europe as are populist movements who claim to be responsive to 'the people', but exclude those who do not belong to the political community according to their definition (see K€ ubler and Kriesi 2017). At the same time, international organizations with questionable democratic legitimacy have become more influential (see Freyburg et al 2017). Questions of responsiveness and representation will stay salient in the debate about the quality of democracy.…”

Varieties of populism and the challenges to Global Constitutionalism: Dangers, promises and implications

“…Such public contestability of authority, however, is a key requirement to ensure responsiveness of authorities to citizen preferences and hence democratic quality in (global) political institutions (Dahl 1971: 2). While there are also rare 'pockets' of majoritarian politics beyond the national level to contest policy choice and constitutional frameworks, these remain limited in authority and transnational character (Freyburg, Lavenex and Schimmelfennig 2017;Rocabert et al 2019).…”

How Globalisation and Mediatisation Challenge our Democracies

“…The increasing authority of supra‐national governance bodies has thus been paralleled by the emergence of mechanisms aimed to re‐strengthen their responsiveness to public demands (see also Freyburg et al. ). Except for the case of the European Union (see Cheneval and Schimmelfennig ), these mechanisms appear, however, as rather hesitant and superficial and it is questionable whether and to what extent they will be able to compensate the loss of electoral responsiveness related to de‐nationalisation processes.…”

“…Even mechanisms of global governance, such as international climate negotiations, have been opened to bottom-up participation: governments seeking to increase the acceptability of their policies have started to include civil society actors in the national delegations participating at international climate conferences (B€ ohmelt et al 2013). The increasing authority of supra-national governance bodies has thus been paralleled by the emergence of mechanisms aimed to re-strengthen their responsiveness to public demands (see also Freyburg et al 2017b). Except for the case of the European Union (see Cheneval and Schimmelfennig 2013), these mechanisms appear, however, as rather hesitant and superficial and it is questionable whether and to what extent they will be able to compensate the loss of electoral responsiveness related to de-nationalisation processes.…”