Time and again, critical voices have highlighted that the EU’s political system suffers from a democratic deficit: EU policy tends to rank low on salience for European citizens while elections to the European Parliament are largely fought out in the shadow of national politics. These assessments would suggest that the European public’s preferences play a negligible role in determining the course of EU policy. Nonetheless, recent studies provide evidence that despite the EU’s democratic deficiencies, its policy output is often remarkably congruent with citizens’ priorities. In his article “Democratically deficient, yet responsive? How politicization facilitates responsiveness in the European Union” published in the Journal of European Public Policy, Iskander De Bruycker addresses this puzzle and shows that the politicization of EU policy processes facilitates EU decision-makers’ responsiveness to demands for new policy initiatives voiced by European citizens. Drawing on evidence from Eurobarometer surveys on 15 policy issues between 2010 and 2016 as well as a content analysis of almost 6,000 media statements by political elites, Iskander shows that civil society groups’ mobilization in the media coupled with citizens’ demands for new initiatives are important determinants of EU decision-making. Iskander concludes that his findings point to a ‘politicization paradox’: “On the one hand, further politicization may derail deeper integration and induce policy deadlock”, yet “[o]n the other hand, politicization is a necessary condition for democratic deliberation and control for the EU to develop into a responsive and democratically mature political system.”