Global Democracy: What is at Stake?Global Democracy: What is at Stake?

Klaus Dingwerth Universität St. Gallen / Universität Bremen

NCCR Democracy, Zurich, 02 April 2014

What has happened?What has happened?

• Waves of Democratization: Many nation states have become (more) democratic.

• Globalization: Many nation states have lost part of their decision-making autonomy because

1. External influences on them have increased as a result of economic (but also ecological) interdependence.

2. They have pooled parts of their sovereignty with other states in international organizations.

3. They have delegated some authority to international organizations.

• The world scale is too big for democracy.• There is no global demos, so there cannnot be global

democracy.• There is no world state, so there cannot or should not be

global democracy.• There is no globally shared understanding of what

democracy is. • Moral claims including those about democracy cannot be

universal, this also holds for calls for democracy• Even if global democracy were desirable, the path to global

democracy might be too dangerous. • International organisations are sufficiently democracy and/or

contribute to the democratic quality of their member states.• ...

Global Democracy – Why not?Global Democracy – Why not?

• We can evaluate international institutions in the light of liberal, pluralist, social democratic or deliberative democratic criteria.

• Doing so shows that the EU, for instance, does not suffer from a major democratic deficit.

• That some institutions are isolated from citizen influence is also a common feature of many states we would usually (and for good reasons) describe as „democratic“.

• In short: We should not hold international institutions against standards of ideal democratic theory but against a „realistic“ conception of democracy : “Any democratic metric derived from ideal theory must therefore be ‘calibrated’ in order to assess whether the current arrangements are the best that are feasible under ‘real-world’ circumstances” (337).

• And: “In the real world, democratic politics cannot be pushed beyond the point where powerful, potentially self-sufficient groups prefer withdrawal from collective action“ (346).

Moravcsik (2004)Moravcsik (2004)“Is there a democratic deficit in WP?”“Is there a democratic deficit in WP?”

• International institutions are not only democracy-undermining, but also democracy-enhancing.

• They contribute to the democratic quality of national political systems in at least three ways:

They restrict the power of influential factions. They protect basic rights. They enhance the quality of public deliberation.

Keohane, Macedo & Moravcsik (2009) Keohane, Macedo & Moravcsik (2009) “Democracy-Enhancing Multilateralism”“Democracy-Enhancing Multilateralism”

Why Global Democracy?Why Global Democracy?

• Normative Argument: Personal autonomy or equality of all persons as an intrinsic value

• First principles vs. fact of pluralism

• Different qualities of obligations?

• Empirical Argument: Democracy as a means to achieve other ends such as freedom, welfare or human development

• The argument may hold for national democracies, but not for global democracy.

but:

R. Rorty, R. Rorty, The Priority of DemocracyThe Priority of Democracy

• “It is not evident that [democratic institutions] are to be measured by anything more specific than the moral intuitions of the particular historical community that has created these institutions.

• The idea that moral and political controversies should always be ‘brought back to first principles’ is reasonable if it means merely that we should seek common ground in the hope of attaining agreement.

• But it is misleading if it is taken as the claim that there is a natural order of premises from which moral and political conclusions are to be inferred.”

What is Democracy About?What is Democracy About?

• Democracy is about (unjustified) exclusion from (or inequality of) access to political decision-making processes.

What is Democracy About?What is Democracy About?

• Important distinctions:1. All-subject-to law principle vs. all-affected

principle2. Liberal democracy (focus on individual rights)

vs. republican democracy (focus on popular sovereignty)

3. Models of democracy vs. processes of democratization

4. Democratic procedures vs. socio-economic preconditions for using them

Questions for DiscussionQuestions for Discussion

1. Assume you work for an NGO that seeks to render the WTO more democratic. There is a new Global Democracy Foundation that share some sympathy for this broader goal, with global funds initially set at 1 billion USD. What kinds of projects would you like to propose? Why these?

2. Assume you are who you are: What can you do to advance global democracy? And what are the obstacles that so far prevent you from doing more?