the extreme of continuous participation, where all publicly relevant is- sues would have to be voted on by the electorate. We can conclude that the more citizens can influence decisions through direct democratic decision making procedures (elections, refe- renda, assemblies etc.), the more competition 
exists. 4.1.2.2 Inter-organizational competition The existence and degree of inter-organizational competition is another very important feature of publicly provided goods. «Classic» public goods are generally non-competitive in this sense, since they are provi- ded only by a single public agency, like, e.g., foreign policy. Inter na tion - alization, nevertheless, has been challenging this more or less territo rial monopoly through the creation of institutions which are, normally, de- signed to complement national institutions but sometimes go so far as to compete with national institutions. Institutions of the European Union are a treasure trove of examples of this kind of «competition»: Think, for example, of the recently established High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy as a complement to the national foreign policy. There are other European institutions which resemble the competition analogy even more closely than the example of foreign policy, since they are enabled to overrule national institutions, like, e.g., the European Court of Human Rights.70 It is obvious that the competition in the examples mentioned above seems – at best – weak, but when some other commonly consumed, pub - licly provided goods are at stake, like health care, social security and education, one may be astonished by the rapid increase of 
competition. 4.1.2.3 Competition and VSC Generally, there is a relatively clear correspondence between the degree of publicness and the degree of competition. Given the definition of pub lic goods and the definition of publicness, competition and public - 76 
Very small countries: organizational choice and international outsourcing 70One may also consider every public good not separately, but as a set of public goods and apply the concept of competition to jurisdictions.