The increased recourse to soft law by the European Union (EU) as a flexible solution to complex social and policy issues has raised several questions about the democratic legitimacy of decision-making at the EU level. With the aim to provide a normative direction for future empirical assessment of EU soft law, this article explores the democratic credentials that EU soft law measures should fulfil to ensure their legitimacy. Drawing from the intersections of liberal, republican and deliberative conceptions of democracy, this article proposes four democratic legitimacy standards for the evaluation of soft law measures in practice: parliamentary involvement, transparency, participatory quality and reviewability.

中文翻译：

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欧盟法律秩序中的民主合法性与软法：理论视角

作为对复杂社会和政策问题的灵活解决方案，欧盟 (EU) 越来越多地诉诸软法，这引发了一些关于欧盟层面决策的民主合法性的问题。为了为未来对欧盟软法的实证评估提供规范方向，本文探讨了欧盟软法措施应具备的民主证书，以确保其合法性。本文从自由、共和和协商民主概念的交叉点出发，提出了四个民主合法性标准，用于评估实践中的软法措施：议会参与、透明度、参与质量和可审查性。