In this article, representative democracy and, in particular, parliamentary democracy are conceptualised as regimes of reconciliation that ensure the peaceful coexistence between hu-man beings and between different groups. To this end, democracies have to deal with the tri-lemma of order, plurality and constitutional legality. Parliaments and political parties, be-cause of their linkage function between society and institution, have been crucial instruments for this purpose. The article reconstructs, therefore, the two polar variants of parliamentary democracy (majoritarian and consensual) as attempts to find a balance between the three values-objectives. Or also as ways of achieving an acceptable trade-off between costs/risks of oppression and efficiency. However, the external challenges and internal transformations to the 21st century democracies (decline of traditional parties and rise of populism) seem to indicate that democracies must display not only decision-making capacity, but above all toler-ance, justice and non-domination.