Cosmopolitan democracy

Last updated

Cosmopolitan democracy is a political theory which explores the application of norms and values of democracy at the transnational and global sphere. [1] It argues that global governance of the people, by the people, for the people is possible and needed. Writers advocating cosmopolitan democracy include Immanuel Kant, [2] David Held, [3] [4] Daniele Archibugi, [5] [6] Richard Falk, [7] and Mary Kaldor. [8] In the cosmopolitan democracy model, decisions are made by those affected, avoiding a single hierarchical form of authority. According to the nature of the issues at stake, democratic practice should be reinvented to take into account the will of stakeholders. This can be done either through direct participation or through elected representatives. [9] The model advocated by cosmopolitan democrats is confederal and decentralized—global governance without world government—unlike those models of global governance supported by classic World Federalism thinkers, such as Albert Einstein.

Contents

In 2021, a global citizen's assembly was organised to coincide with COP26 in Glasgow in October–November 2021. [10] This is the first body that can claim to democratically represent the wishes of the global population.

Origin and development

The victory of Western liberal states ending the Cold War inspired the hope that international relations could be guided by the ideals of democracy and the rule of law. In the early 1990s, a group of thinkers developed the political project of cosmopolitan democracy with the aim of providing intellectual arguments in favour of an expansion of democracy, both within states and at the global level. While some significant successes have been achieved in terms of democratization within states, much less has been attained in democratizing the global system.

In different forms, the necessity to expand democratic procedures beyond the nation-state has been supported by political philosopher Jürgen Habermas, [11] and sociologist Ulrich Beck. [12]

Criticisms of cosmopolitan democracy have come from realist, marxist, communitarian and multicultural perspectives. Democratic theorist Robert Dahl [13] has expressed his doubts about the possibility of expanding democracy in international organizations to any significant degree, as he believes that democracy diminishes with size. Opponents of Dahl's approach point to the fact that bigger countries are not necessarily less democratic. For example, there is no correlation between voters' turnout and population size; in fact it is smallest in countries with fewer than 100,000 citizens. [ citation needed ]

Political programme

The idea of cosmopolitan democracy has been advocated with reference to the reform of international organizations. This includes the institution of the International Criminal Court, a directly elected World Parliament or world assembly of governments, and more widely the democratization of international organizations. [14] Supporters of cosmopolitan democracy have been sceptical about the effectiveness of military interventions, even when they are apparently motivated by humanitarian intentions. They have instead suggested popular diplomacy and arms control.

According to a 2019 study, global democracy would neither lead to an increase in dissatisfaction with policy outcomes nor an increase in persistent minorities relative to the status quo. [15]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Democracy</span> Form of government

Democracy is a system of government in which state power is vested in the people or the general population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitive elections while more expansive definitions link democracy to guarantees of civil liberties and human rights in addition to competitive elections.

World government is the concept of a single political authority with jurisdiction over all of Earth and humanity. It is conceived in a variety of forms, from tyrannical to democratic, which reflects its wide array of proponents and detractors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Democratization</span> Society becoming more democratic

Democratization, or democratisation, is the structural government transition from an authoritarian government to a more democratic political regime, including substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction.

Cosmopolitanism is the idea that all human beings are members of a single community. Its adherents are known as cosmopolitan or cosmopolite. Cosmopolitanism is both prescriptive and aspirational. The idea encompasses different dimensions and avenues of community, such as promoting universal moral standards or developing a platform for mutual cultural expression and tolerance.

Democratic globalization is a social movement towards an institutional system of global democracy. One of its proponents is the British political thinker David Held. In the last decade, Held published a dozen books regarding the spread of democracy from territorially defined nation states to a system of global governance that encapsulates the entire world. For some, democratic mundialisation is a variant of democratic globalisation stressing the need for the direct election of world leaders and members of global institutions by citizens worldwide; for others, it is just another name for democratic globalisation.

In political science, the term polyarchy was used by Robert A. Dahl to describe a form of government in which power is invested in multiple people. It takes the form of neither a dictatorship nor a democracy. This form of government was first implemented in the United States and France and gradually adopted by other countries. Polyarchy is different from democracy, according to Dahl, because the fundamental democratic principle is "the continuing responsiveness of the government to the preferences of its citizens, considered as political equals" with unimpaired opportunities. A polyarchy is a form of government that has certain procedures that are necessary conditions for following the democratic principle.

David Jonathan Andrew Held was a British political scientist who specialised in political theory and international relations. He held a joint appointment as Professor of Politics and International Relations, and was Master of University College, at Durham University until his death. He was also a visiting Professor of Political Science at Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli. Previously he was the Graham Wallas chair of Political Science and the co-director of the Centre for the Study of Global Governance at the London School of Economics.

Seyla Benhabib is a Turkish-born American philosopher. Benhabib is a senior research scholar and adjunct professor of law at Columbia Law School. She is also an affiliate faculty member in the Columbia University Department of Philosophy and a senior fellow at the Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought. She was a scholar in residence at the Law School from 2018 to 2019 and was also the James S. Carpentier Visiting professor of law in spring 2019. She was the Eugene Mayer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Yale University from 2001 to 2020. She was director of the program in Ethics, Politics, and Economics from 2002 to 2008. Benhabib is well known for her work in political philosophy, which draws on critical theory and feminist political theory. She has written extensively on the philosophers Hannah Arendt and Jürgen Habermas, as well as on the topic of human migration. She is the author of numerous books, and has received several prestigious awards and lectureships in recognition of her work.

A Concert of Democracies or League of Democracies is an alternative international organization proposed by Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay in a May 2004 Washington Post op-ed. The concept is broader than a military organization, hence “concert” instead of “alliance.” In a subsequent article in The American Interest, they affirm that roughly 60 countries would qualify for membership under these criteria. They conceive such a "Concert" as a "D-60" group within the UN.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniele Archibugi</span> Italian economic and political theorist

Daniele Archibugi is an Italian economic and political theorist. He works on the economics and policy of innovation and technological change, on the political theory of international relations and on political and technological globalisation.

John S. Dryzek is a Centenary Professor at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra's Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Kaldor</span> British academic (born 1946)

Mary Henrietta Kaldor is a British academic, currently Professor of Global Governance at the London School of Economics, where she is also the Director of the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit. She also teaches at the Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals (IBEI). Kaldor has been a key figure in the development of cosmopolitan democracy. She writes on globalisation, international relations and humanitarian intervention, global civil society and global governance, as well as what she calls New Wars.

<i>Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch</i> 1795 book by Immanuel Kant

Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch is a 1795 book authored by German philosopher Immanuel Kant. In the book, Kant advances ideas that have subsequently been associated with democratic peace, commercial peace, and institutional peace.

Types of democracy refers to the various governance structures that embody the principles of democracy in some way. Democracy is frequently applied to governments, but may also be applied to other constructs like workplaces, families, community associations, and so forth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Embedded democracy</span>

Embedded democracy is a form of government in which democratic governance is secured by democratic partial regimes. The term "embedded democracy" was coined by political scientists Wolfgang Merkel, Hans-Jürgen Puhle, and Aurel Croissant, who identified "five interdependent partial regimes" necessary for an embedded democracy: electoral regime, political participation, civil rights, horizontal accountability, and the power of the elected representatives to govern. The five internal regimes work together to check the power of the government, while external regimes also help to secure and stabilize embedded democracies. Together, all the regimes ensure that an embedded democracy is guided by the three fundamental principles of freedom, equality, and control.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raffaele Marchetti</span>

Raffaele Marchetti is an Italian political scientist and editorialist.

Cristina Lafont is Harold H. and Virginia Anderson Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern University.

Carol C. Gould is an American philosopher and feminist theorist. Since 2009, she has taught at City University of New York, where she is currently Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Hunter College, and in the Doctoral Programs of Philosophy and Political Science at the CUNY Graduate Center, where she is Director of the Center for Global Ethics and Politics at the Ralph Bunche Institute. Gould is also editor-in-chief of the Journal of Social Philosophy. Her 2004 book Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights received the 2009 David Easton Award which is given by the American Political Science Association "for a book that broadens the horizons of contemporary political science." Her 2014 book Interactive Democracy: The Social Roots of Global Justice received the 2015 Joseph B. Gittler Award from the American Philosophical Association for "an outstanding scholarly contribution in the field of the philosophy of one or more of the social sciences."

World federalism or global federalism is a political ideology advocating a democratic, federal world government. A world federation would have authority on issues of global reach, while the members of such a federation would retain authority over local and national issues. The overall sovereignty over the world population would largely reside in the federal government.

References

  1. Marchetti, Raffaele (2011). "Cosmopolitan Democracy". Encyclopedia of Global Justice. pp. 201–202. doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5_81. ISBN   978-1-4020-9159-9.
  2. Immanuel Kant, Immanuel Kant, To perpetual peace: a philosophical sketch, Hackett Publishing, 2003.
  3. Daniele Archibugi & David Held, eds., Cosmopolitan Democracy. An Agenda for a New World Order, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1995.
  4. David Held, Democracy and the Global Order, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1995
  5. Daniele Archibugi, The Global Commonwealth of Citizens. Toward Cosmopolitan Democracy, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2008
  6. Archibugi, Daniele; Held, David (2011). "Cosmopolitan Democracy: Paths and Agents". Ethics & International Affairs . 25 (4): 433–461. doi: 10.1017/S0892679411000360 .
  7. Richard Falk, On Humane Governance, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1998
  8. Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1999
  9. Daniele Archibugi, Principles of Cosmopolitan Democracy Archived 2013-12-02 at the Wayback Machine .
  10. Harvey, Fiona (5 October 2021). "Global citizens' assembly to be chosen for UN climate talks". The Guardian . Retrieved 15 November 2021.
  11. Jürgen Habermas, The Post-National Constellation, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2001
  12. Ulrich Beck, World Risk Society, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1999
  13. Robert Dahl, Can International Organizations be Democratic?, in Ian Shapiro and Casiano Hacker-Cordón (eds) (1999) Democracy's Edges. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  14. For an attempt to identify the political forces acting in favour of cosmopolitan democracy and the issues to be addressed, see Daniele Archibugi and David Held, Cosmopolitan Democracy: Paths and Agents Archived 2013-12-03 at the Wayback Machine , Ethics & International Affairs, 25, no. 4 (2011), pp. 433-461.
  15. Hale, Thomas; Koenig-Archibugi, Mathias (2018-11-06). "Could Global Democracy Satisfy Diverse Policy Values? An Empirical Analysis". The Journal of Politics. 81 (1): 112–126. doi:10.1086/700106. ISSN   0022-3816. S2CID   158241234.

See also