Representation in demoicracies. Contributions from Belgian federalism to the future of Europe

This contribution assesses representation in the EU through the lens of demoicracy, focusing on how the demos and the demoi are represented and how this interacts with the executive-legislative balance and party politics. As the Belgian polity is a living case for the EU but often as flawed as the latter when it comes to democratic standards of representation, we examine whether and how reform proposals for the Belgian polity can inspire future reforms at EU level. We demonstrate that the direction demoicracies should head for when strengthening democratic representation should include a balanced representation of the demos and demoi via a bicameral system, a polity-wide constituency to represent the demos, involvement of the legislatives of the constituent units at the encompassing level, and a specific role for polity-wide parties.