This paper focuses on the analysis of empirical data on customer satisfaction and the relationship with hard organisational performance data. The organisation is a Flexcompany with its headquarters in The Netherlands, but also operating in other countries in Europe. The empirical data on customer satisfaction and business performances stem from 1998 and 1999. Based on the empirical data it can be concluded that it is possible to find evidence for the hypothesis that there is a positive relationship between customer satisfaction and organisational performance indicators, although the relationship is not very strong. Various factors might influence the timelag between a change in customer satisfaction and an expected effect in sales, margin, or other output indicators. However, the analyses do give answers to questions related to the quality dimensions as underlying factors behind the items in the customer satisfaction questionnaire and some indications for the changing behaviour of the customer in relation to his perception.

Last year the European Commission published its Action Plan on European contract law. That plan forms an important step towards a European Civil Code. In its Plan, the Commission tries to depoliticise the codification process by asking a group of academic experts to prepare what it calls a 'common frame of reference'. This paper argues that drafting a European Civil Code involves making many choices that are essentially political. It further argues that the technocratic approach which the Commission has adopted in the Action Plan effectively excludes most stakeholders from having their say during the stage when the real choices are made. Therefore, before the drafting of the CFR/ECC starts, the Commission should submit a list of policy questions regarding the main issues of European private law to the European Parliament and the other stakeholders. Such an alternative procedure would repoliticise the process. It would increase the democratic basis for a European Civil Code and thus its legitimacy.

This article examines the relationship between European private law and scientific method. It argues that a European legal method is a good idea. Not primarily because it will make European private law scholarship look more scientific, but because a debate on the method of a normative science necessarily has to be a debate on its normative assumptions. In other words, a debate on a European legal method will have much in common with the much desired debate on social justice in European law. Moreover, it submits that, at least after the adoption of the Common Frame of Reference by the European institutions, European contract law can be regarded as a developing multilevel system that can be studied from the inside. Finally, it concludes that the Europeanisation of private law is gradually blurring the dividing line between the internal and external perspectives, with their respective appropriate methods, in two mutually reinforcing ways. First, in the developing multi-level system it is unclear where the external borders of the system lie, in particular the borders between Community law and national law. Second, because of the less formal legal culture the (formerly) external perspectives, such as the economic perspective, have easier access and play an increasing role as policy considerations.

This article discusses the normative relationship between contract law and democracy. In particular, it argues that in order to be legitimate contract law needs to have a democratic basis. Private law is not different in this respect from public law. Thus, the first claim made in this article will be that also for contract law a democratic basis is a necessary condition for legitimacy. A fully democratic basis may also be a sufficient condition for a legitimate and just contract law. However, my argument in that regard is more conditional. If all relevant reasons and arguments (including moral arguments), made by people from different corners in society, have had a fair and equal chance of influencing the contract law making process, then the outcome may be hard to challenge on the basis of an external standard, such as justice, morality, tradition, efficiency or private law's purported essential nature. These two claims, if successful, have important implications for contract theory. In particular, they lead to a largely procedural theory of contract law, which is pluralist with regard to contract law's content: arguments based on party autonomy, weaker party protection, corrective justice, economic efficiency, or legal traditions, will have to demonstrate their strength within the democratic debate and cannot claim to represent some essential truth with regard to the nature of contractual obligation. The justice and legitimacy of contract law cannot be determined in advance by theoretical analysis but will have to establish itself within the democratic debate. Private law theorists have no privileged access to the truth of contract law and contractual justice.Résumé: Cet article contribue au débat sur le rapport entre le droit des contrats et la démocratie. En particulier, il fait valoir qu'afin d'être légitime, le droit des contrats doit avoir un fondement démocratique. Le droit privé n'est pas différent à cet égard du droit public. Ainsi, la première proposition formulée ici est que, pour le droit des contrats, un fondement démocratique est une condition néces-saire de légitimité. Il se peut qu'un fondement pleinement démocratique soit également une condition suffisante pour un droit des contrats légitime et juste. Cependant, la position tenue ici à cet égard est plus nuancée. Si tous les raisons et arguments (y compris les arguments d'ordre moral) avancés par des personnes venant de l'ensemble de la société ont pu être pris en considération lors du processus législatif, alors le résultat peut être plus difficile à contester à partir de paramètres externes telles la justice, la moralité, la tradition, l'efficience ou encore la nature supposée essentielle du droit privé. Cette double proposition, si elle est vérifiée, comporte des implications impprtantes pour la théorie des contrats. En particulier, elle conduit à une théorisation proceduraliste du droit des contrats, qui reste pluraliste quant au contenu de celui-ci. Ainsi, des arguments tirés de l'autonomie des parties, de la protection des faibl...