ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the notion of non-majoritarian governance in detail, focusing on the main features of the phenomenon and the benefits attributed to it. It assess the challenges that non-majoritarian institutions (NMIs) pose from a constitutional point of view, arguing that the deficits that the organisations suffer from this perspective can be compensated for. Different labels are used to refer to NMIs in different countries. For instance, while people find the labels 'non-departmental public body' and 'non-ministerial department' in the UK, people come across 'independent administrative authorities' in France and Italy, 'independent statutory authorities' in Australia and 'independent federal agencies' in Germany. Following Dahl's distinction between Madisonian and populist democracy, scholars working on this regime type today often make a distinction between two pillars of democracy a constitutional and a popular pillar. Popular sovereignty and political equality the constitutional pillar, which is associated with the liberal part of liberal democracy.
