 Most voluntarists and sceptics rely on the same implicit view of democratic political agency: citizens are political agents through their participation in institutions and practices that require significant interaction and mutual awareness. In this sense, democratic political agency appears collective rather than individual. Yet this leaves the door open to the sceptics’ objections. If we believe that formal and informal democratic institutions like Parliaments and the public sphere require relatively high levels of horizontal communication between citizens, the existence of a common language appears a necessary condition to democratic agency. This, in turn, sets limits to the potential extension of the political community. Schemes that call for the “institutionalization of national and transnational forms of public debate, democratic participation, and accountability” (Held 2005, 18) for democracy’s global extension appear misguided.