The draft Constitution for Europe begins by invoking Pericles’ Funeral Oration: ‘Our Constitution ... is called a democracy because power is in the hands ... of the greater number’. But that is not quite true. Instead of rule purely by ‘the greater number’ – simple majority rule – the draft Constitution prescribes ‘qualified majority’ rule, with decisions of the European Council or Council of Ministers sometimes requiring the consent of as many as two-thirds of the Member States, ‘representing at least three fifths of the population of the Union’.1 Such ‘special’ (or ‘qualified’ or ‘super’) majority requirements are not uncommon.2 It may take only a majority vote of both houses of the US Congress to declare war; but it takes a two-thirds majority to override a President's veto or three-fifths to close Senate debate.3 Increasing taxes requires the support of between three-fifths and three-quarters of legislators in many American states.4 Criminal verdicts must be unanimous, or nearly so. 5 Super-majorities are sometimes seen as second-best forms of unanimity rules, employed where decisions ought ideally to be unanimous but where the costs of securing unanimity would be too high. 6 The plain political fact is that the larger the majority required, the less likely it can be secured. Special-majority rules of the ordinary form leave existing arrangements in place unless there is some positive decision to change them. Hence such rules have a powerful conservative bias.7 That is precisely their attraction, for those attracted to them. Justifying special-majority rules thus appears to be largely a matter of justifying their conservative bias. Sometimes the bias seems justified. Most of us, for example, think it right that there be a presumption of innocence in criminal trials, and that it should be hard to...