Demoi-cracy is deservedly attracting attention as a normative and descriptive tool for understanding the EU. Democracy is thought to presuppose a singular demos in prescribing “power to the people”, whereas demoi-cracy takes multiple demoi as its starting point and prescribes “power to the peoples”. This focus on the plurality of demoi leads to a scheme of political representation with member states at its core. The first part of this paper seeks to re-invigorate the argument for both the fact and normative desirability of a European-wide demos – the 29th over and above the 28 member state demoi. This argument leads to a new scheme of political representation: one that seeks to give “power to the people” while at the same time giving “power to the peoples”. The second part of this paper seeks to investigate the forms of political representation appropriate to this marriage of democracy and demoi-cracy.
