The theory of liberal representative democracy constitutes a set of normative standards that are ever more difficult to apply in the empirical reality of transnational politics with a myriad of different actors. This paper discusses recent theoretical concepts from deliberative to representative democracy in regard to their adaptability for transnational organizational network contexts. Democratic theorists like e.g. Michael Saward, John S. Dryzek as well as Eva Sorensen & Jacob Torfing have asked for a rethinking of traditional notions of liberal democracy and stated that there is a need to think more and more about new, more flexible, dynamic or even discursive forms of democracy in the context of a further shifting of policy-making. Static constellations in geographically defined national contexts are not anymore the sole and main arenas of political decision-making. Nor are states the main actors in international relations. New non-state actors are organizing and cooperating in different modes and contexts. For the last two decades, we could observe a huge increase of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) demanding to be heard at international fora. Those NGOs, operating in different policy fields, like in this case, environmentalism, women’s rights or social rights, changed the architecture of the international system and are often seen as the remedy for the democratic deficit in international politics. This paper argues that internationally relevant NGO networks also need to fulfill certain democratic standards in order to be legitimate representatives for their issue-specific constituency. How those standards could look like is a central question of this paper. Thus, the paper seeks to juxtapose and contrast the current theoretical reasoning about new forms of transnational and network democracy and the empirical reality of NGOs deliberating, cooperating and making decisions across borders and in contexts of insecure and non-permanent cooperations and working conditions.
