Due to the increasing importance and complexity of forms of multi level governance, federal polities seem to be in search of democratic legitimacy. Issues of input-, output- and/or throughput legitimacy, such as representation, are discussed by various voices. However, one of the major flaws in the current literature is that these compound systems are analysed by the same standards as traditional nation-states, even though the debate on the transformation of democracy has shown that complexity demands a new approach. This paper tries to answer this by putting forward an adjusted instrument to analyse democratic legitimacy in federal polities. Compatible with the inherent diversity in federal polities, this paper claims that we need to have a look at collective legitimacy as well. According to this view citizens need to legitimise a polity as a collective as well. More in particular, the paper will focus on democratic representation at the individual and at the collective level as a crucial aspect of democratic legitimacy. In this paper we merge the classical democratic literature with elements from federal theory. We develop an instrument to analyse representation that can be applied to a wide range of current day federal systems. This paper will focus on how democratic representation is interpreted in the EU, both on the individual and the collective level.
