Within three decades, democratic discourse has changed drastically. Attention has shifted from how European virtue and wisdom could be spread to the world, to alarms that European democracy, institutions, and ways of life are in danger. Backlashes challenge the democratic-optimistic faith in the ruled as rulers, rational organization, and decision-making - narratives found in both official self-portrayals and academic narratives.

The situation invites rethinking, and the book offers an organizational-institutional approach to these developments, the general relationship between government organization and civilized coexistence, and how government organization, decision-making, sense-making, capacities, effects, and dynamics are influenced by institutional arrangements. Key issues are: normative, societal, and political-organizational foundations of government; whether government organization contributes to democracy and civilized coexistence; and the organizational forms through which democratic institutions and identities are fostered, and political-societal integration is achieved through government forming society and adapting to society.

The book presents a less heroic view than the democratic-optimistic faith. Democracies cope with ambiguity, uncertainty, limited control, and enduring dilemmas and balancing acts. Political orders are differently institutionalized, integrated, and settled. A distinction is made between governing within a stable order and governing when the order is in play. Now, the future of European democracy is uncertain. And the European Union is an open-ended experiment in government organization that faces challenges that can be met either with defending current practices, or fostering a new democratic order, a new deal, and a new narrative, giving direction and hope to Europe and beyond.