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In previous years two influential analyses of the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) from the camp of empirical rational choice have launched two strong theses: Judges are influenced by their political preferences (Honnige) and act opportunistically in alignment with public opinion (Vanberg). Both theoretical models are in important parts inconsistent. In the first case the empirical support is also weak, in the second the data can be explained in a more convincing way. Adapted from the source document.

This article critically examines institutional versions of cosmopolitan democracy and institutional ideas of global federalism. Assuming global institutions to be as they are designed in conceptions of cosmopolitan democracy, the paper addresses a feasibility question: (To what degree) would such global democratic structures meet normative standards of democratic accountability. As there is no global democracy existing, the argumentation makes a detour, first investigating the experiences of the most advanced project of cosmopolitan democracy -- the European Union -- and then, second extrapolating from persistent, structural democratic deficits in the EU to the feasibility of global democracy. Compared to national arenas, the EU faces a gradual deficit in democratic capacities and the global reality of cosmopolitan democracy would be -even compared to the EU -- a downgraded democracy as well. The main findings are: Vertical accountability is either more ineffective or more inegalitarian or both. Neither unitary nor federal systems should be seen as a plausible solution for the threat of 'Verselbstandigung' caused by multilevel politics. And nationally segmented public spheres will not promote a similar type of politicised discourses around 'common' global issues. Adapted from the source document.

In the view of the European Commission and many EU scholars, European democracy should be deliberative and the democratisation process as such fostered via civil society involvement. But until now, no one has developed a plausible EU-specific theory of associative democratisation. This gap might be filled by looking at democratisation theories for national settings. This article discusses the scope of applicability for the EU environment of three of the most prominent normative conceptions of (deliberative) democracy (Christiano, Cohen/Rogers and Habermas), which in particular deal with associational involvement in national political systems. Their underlying empirical assumptions about the nature of associations, the political framework and so on are taken up and contrasted with the persistent empirical conditions in the EU. For different reasons, none of these models of associational involvement works properly at EU level and, thus, only a restricted vision of democratic associational involvement in EU decision making is viable. Notwithstanding, the EU political system is still far away from institutionalising even this modest vision. Adapted from the source document.

In the previous decade, the European Commission has promoted direct citizen involvement in European Union (EU) affairs via institutions such as deliberative polls, citizen conferences, online consultations or citizens' initiatives. Do these instruments foster EU democratisation? In this article, the Commission's participatory turn is re-constructed. Against the yardstick of a democracy theoretical framework, two participatory instruments (European Citizens' Consultations and the Commission's online consultations) are assessed. Both instruments are seriously flawed: the ECC cannot resolve the trade-off between demanding and egalitarian participation, and remains almost unrecognised outside the forum (bridging problem). Online consultations suffer both from a lack of active participation and of the symbolic accountability of the Commission to the contributions of ordinary citizens. Adapted from the source document.

Online-consultations are one of the most important Commission's instruments to democratize EU decision-making. But are they really fostering EU democracy? Political equality/reciprocity, publicity and accountability are introduced as three normative principles. Their realization is indicative for the democratic quality of the EU. Online-consultations might democratize the EU via involving 'ordinary' citizens or civil society organizations. But neither of the mechanisms works effectively. A participatory strategy fails due to convenient habitual dispositions and competences of EU citizens, which are not fostered by the online-consultations. An associative democratization is hampered by the missing of any agenda setting options, the lack of working accountability structures, and possibly ineffective processes of opinion and will-formation within associations. References. Adapted from the source document.

This article shows why European Union (EU) strategies to improve democratic legitimacy by strengthening its publicity have (unnecessarily) failed. Due to an 'under-theorized' image of democracy, the institutional means chosen are inappropriate to draw the expected public attention and as a consequence most of the aims pursued. Most notably, it misses (in accordance with most of the literature on the EU's democratic deficit) the important distinction between mere transparency and publicity: for improving democratic legitimacy it is not enough for political acts and processes to be published (to be transparent), they also have to be sufficiently perceived by European citizens. This holds true for any democratic theory, even if there are differences in their specific expectations of publicity. Adapted from the source document.

Quorums of participation or consent are contested components of direct-democratic institutions -- at least in Germany. It can be argued that a modified version of a quorum is desirable compared to a direct democracy without quorums, on the one hand, & to conventional ones, on the other hand. Using an anti-proportional quorum the extent of necessary participation would vary with the measure of consent. This proposed quorum could cope with all known problems addressed by advocates & critics of conventional quorums. It is particularly helpful in making political equality real in instruments of direct democracy. Tables, Figures. Adapted from the source document.

Measuring the democratic quality of political systems has to cope with the double challenge of specifying a convincing normative concept of democracy against the background of normative pluralism as well as adequately applying such a conception when research questions, objects of research etc. vary. The coherentist methodological framework that we employ to discuss the first challenge suggests a second-order conception of democracy that could allow empirical research to bridge the pluralism of existing conceptions or at least to identify and acknowledge normative trade-offs were they cannot be overcome. With regard to the second challenge, we address those issues, which arise during the application of democracy concepts in empirical research and which differ from typical problems of operationalization in that they follow from the concept's inherent normativity. Adapted from the source document.