mit dem "Hebel" qualifizierter Mehrheiten

14:40 Oct 8, 2013 

"qualified" seems to suggest "meeting the criteria" rather than "restricted" or "limited".

10:08 Oct 8, 2013 

@ gangels Whereas a simple majority means having more votes in favour than against, qualified majorities require additional thresholds or conditions to be achieved. This is what the author is referring to in the text. For amendments to constitutions, qualified majorities are usually required e.g. (fictitious example) 2/3rds of the representatives in the lower house and votes representing at least half the population in the upper house.

Hence, in the text at hand, the author is criticising the departure from the principle which s/he advocates of simple majority rule by use of the device which s/he calls a "lever" of qualified majority rule. HTH Paul

18:29 Oct 7, 2013 

IMO, 'qualified' does not refer to an 'eligible' or 'bona fide' majority, but instead disparagingly suggests a 'conjured-up' or 'artificial' majority, else the whole sentence is without meaning. Besides, they use the 'leverage' a majority offers, not the 'lever'. The gist of the argument clearly seems to call into question the concept of unbridled majority rule (usually at the expense of the minority).