Pathways to global democracy? Escaping the statist imaginary (original) (raw)
The literature on global democracy has often been accused of trading in institutional fantasies, divorced from the constraints of the real political world. Miller for instance has criticised the literature on global democracy for asking “only about where democracy is needed ... without considering whether it is actually possible to conjure the necessary democratic body into existence (or if this is possible, in a formal sense at least, how it is likely to perform).” Even supporters of aspects of normative democratic projects often express scepticism of this kind, Buchanan and Keohane for example claiming that: “... the social and political conditions for democracy are not met at the global level and there is no reason to think that they will be in the foreseeable future”. Scholars of global democracy are taking such practical questions about the necessary social foundations for a global democratic project increasingly seriously.4 Attention is turning both to the analysis of existing social conditions to assess the extent to which democratic institutions might already be feasible, and to questions about the social forces and mechanisms that could at least move global institutions in a more democratic direction.
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The problems and prospects of the expansion of democracy at international, transnational and/or global levels were the focus of numerous fascinating and penetrating analyses by the participants in the 2008 Millennium Conference. However, there were also a number of gaps and unresolved issues. This article attempts to identify and evaluate several potential pitfalls confronting the expansion of democratic institutions and processes. Five of those potential pitfalls are particularly problematic and interact with each other to reinforce and intensify the obstacles to wider democratisation processes at several levels. The first of these can be illustrated by examining the problematic historical ‘roads to democracy’ taken within nation states. The second looks at some of the paradoxes in empirical democratic theory, especially questions like democratic stability and the background role of non-democratic infrastructures. The third concerns normative dimensions of democratic theory, in particular the existence of different conceptions of democracy and the gap between procedural democracy and substantive democracy. The fourth asks ‘Who democratises?’ and considers the democratising potential of different types of various actors and the challenges they face. The fifth focuses on international regimes and institutions – ‘global governance’ – and argues that this system actually constitutes a major obstacle to wider democratisation. The challenges confronting democratisation are significantly greater than the potential for the spread of genuine democracy across borders, although some niches and relatively circumscribed issue areas may develop limited forms of quasi- democratisation more akin to pluralism.
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Related papers
Introduction: mapping global democracy
in D.Archibugi, M.Koenig-Archibugi, and R. Marchetti (eds.) Global Democracy: Normative and Empirical Perspectives, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1-21 (with D.Archibugi and M.Koenig-Archibugi, 2011