Katrin Winkler demonstrates, using the example of federal and Berlin state levels, how the representative political process can be designed to be participatory yet effective. The foundation is a synthesis of Archon Fung's pragmatic democracy concept and the empirical research program of criteria-based evaluation of democratic innovations. In this context, recommendations for action in democracy and engagement policy are developed. Nevertheless, the work is to be understood as a pragmatically guided conceptual study for the development of a participation-oriented practice in representative democracies, which, despite its theoretical character, possesses the necessary empirical orientation - in the spirit of pragmatism.