These reflections on representative democracy and its future are a product of the first systematic research programme on the subject for several decades. Planned during 2006, the framework of The Future of Representative Democracy project was first discussed in detail at an international colloquium held in December 2007, at the Social Science Research Centre Berlin (WZB). Following months of intensive correspondence and exchange of materials, the contributors met for a second time, during October 2008, at the Lisbon headquarters of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
