This panel is part of the symposium “The Functioning, Challenges and Opportunities of Representative Democracy”, which consists of 2 sessions. The symposium is concerned with contemporary representative democracies, and focuses on the functioning of, challenges to and opportunities for representative democracy. Papers deal with important topics concerning the functioning of and challenges to representation, and deal with these in an empirical way. The symposium thus aims to shed light on contemporary strengths and difficulties within European democracies, and explores which measures could potentially improve their current state. This second session extends the focus of the first to possible challenges and opportunities for contemporary representative democracies. It specifically examines challenges and opportunities in terms of (potential) institutional responses to structural and value change, and the way citizens react to such change. Two papers examine the way citizens react to the challenges and proffered solutions. Paper one aims to find what type of democratic process people prefer as well as how variation in such preference can be explained, whereas paper two examines people’s satisfaction with the way democracy functions in a response to the current economic crisis, focusing on EU member states. Furthermore, two papers study the role of institutions in responses to challenges. Paper three identifies variation in the ‘representation gap’ among European democracies and aims to identify structural explanations for this variation, while paper four looks at the possibly re-vitalising effect of the institutionalisation of direct democracy on political parties.