## 1. Democracy and the Global System


### 1.1 Democracy, Globalization, and the Nation-State




A review of global democracy must begin with how globalization has
impacted the nation-state and the consequences for national democracy
(Bray and Slaughter 2014). Although volumes have been written about
the theory and practice of democracy, the concept remains difficult to
define. Etymologically the term is simple enough: democracy means rule
by the people (*demos* meaning 'people' and
*kratos* meaning 'rule' or 'power').
This basic definition can be extrapolated in many different ways. At
its core, however, most scholars agree that democracy refers to a
political practice in which individuals govern themselves through some
form of equitable decision-making process. This leaves open two
fundamental issues: who constitutes 'the people' and how
'rule-making' should occur.




Historically, democracy first took hold in the ancient city states of
Mesopotamia and Greece through direct mechanisms such as sortition
(Keane 2009). Since the 18th Century, though, the ideal of
democracy has become wedded to rise of the nation-state. The modern
state is a distinctive form of political organization based on
sovereign autonomy over a delimited territory and population. Through
a centrally organized government, the state wields a monopoly over the
legitimate use of violence as well as the right to taxation (Giddens
1985). In exchange for these coercive powers, the state generates its
legitimacy through democratic mechanisms: giving its citizenry equal
say in how national laws and public policy are formed.




National democracy is typically institutionalized as a representative
system that involves competitive elections and a publicly determined
rule of law. Although there are many different national voting systems
(majority rule, proportional representation, etc.), the basic idea is
that each enfranchised citizen of the state has one vote at the ballot
box and can thus freely choose their preferred representative, leader,
or party. Through the American and French Revolutions, and the
'Third Wave of Democratization' (where representative
democracy spread to Latin America, the Asia-Pacific, and the Eastern
bloc), the notion that the nation-state is the natural container for
democracy became dominant (Huntington 1991). Over time, then,
'the people' in democracy has been assumed to correspond
neatly with the citizenry of each particular nation-state.




In recent years, however, the supposed alliance between democracy and
the nation-state has come unstuck. This is due predominantly to
globalization: the increased extent, velocity, and scope of
cross-border interactions, transactions, and relations (Scholte 2000).
Globalization intensifies social, political, and economic relations
through technological changes and the flow of people, resources and
ideas across state lines. The expansion of global connections has gone
hand-in-glove with increased efforts to govern global affairs.
Countless formal measures, informal norms and overarching discourses
for regulating global affairs are now formulated and implemented
through complex transnational networks that combine substate agencies,
nation-states, regional bodies, global institutions, and non-state
actors (Scholte 2014, 4). Although the state is often an active
participant in globalization, many scholars have argued that increased
transnational activity undermines national democracy (Sassen 2003).
Globalization pierces the sovereignty of nation-states by subjecting
domestic affairs to transnational decision-making. Moreover, citizens
of each state are often said to be problematically excluded from
global activities in ways that lead to a democratic deficit (expanded
upon below).


### 1.2 The Global Democratic Deficit




The array of transnational institutions that govern social, political,
and economic processes is bewildering. Formal institutions include
international organizations (IO), intergovernmental organizations
(IGO), non-governmental organizations (NGO), and private bodies
(Tallberg et al. 2013). Informal institutions include epistemic
communities, transnational networks, and the basic structure of
transnational norms that make the world 'hang together'
(Ruggie 1998).




As the number of these transnational institutions has increased with
globalization, so too has their capacity to exercise authority
(Zurn et al. 2012). Many scholars have noted that this authority
often enables international institutions to wield pervasive forms of
*public power* that impact (and potentially constrain) the lives
of individuals (Macdonald 2008). This occurs through international
law-making, regulatory standard-setting, and the promotion of new
norms. As decisions are taken outside the state, national leaders are
unable to control the forces which impact domestic institutions and
citizens. Correspondingly, and resultantly, individuals within each
state have no direct say in how global rules are forged. This
undermines the notion that individuals can collectively govern their
joint affairs. This gap--between individual rule-takers and
transnational rule-makers--is referred to as the global
democratic deficit.




The global democratic deficit is compounded by at least three
additional factors. First is an issue of procedure: international
bodies often operate with unaccountable and non-transparent processes.
This makes it difficult to identify the steps in a causal chain which
link transnational rule-makers with rule-takers. The second factor is
scope: current arrangements of transnational institutions seem
incapable of tackling the most pressing issues of a globalizing world
--climate change, spread of infectious diseases, volatile
financial markets, enormous poverty rates, unjust supply chains, just
to name a few. Third is an issue of constituency: globalization is
actually reshaping who constitutes 'the people' due
democratic standing in decision-making processes. As Andrew Linklater
(1998) notes, globalization generates postnational communities of fate
not based on national boundaries but upon shared problems and mutual
allegiances.




This final point bears emphasis because it has (re-)ignited debates
in democratic theory over the so-called 'boundary problem':
who is entitled to take part in democratic decision-making processes
(Agne 2006)? This question is often thought to be paradoxical
because democratic theory offers no internal solution for delineating
'the people': unless we already know who is eligible to
participate in democratic procedures, we do not know who to include in
the initial decision-making process. As globalization erodes the idea
that the citizenry represents a natural embodiment of 'the
people', we need to search for alternate ways to justify
democratic inclusion.




Although a full survey is neither possible nor necessary here, two
prominent responses have been advocated in the literature (Goodin
2007). First, all individuals *subjected* to rules, laws, and
regulations should take part in writing those rules. Second, all
individuals significantly *affected* by a decision-making
process should have an equal say in how that power is exercised. While
these two positions provide a basis for delineating the people in a
globalizing world, there are clear differences between them. The former
is relatively narrow: only individuals to whom rules actually apply
should be part of the decision-making. By contrast, the latter is much
broader: global decisions often have wide-reaching and indirect
consequences beyond those subjected. To take a simple example:
individuals in a country not a member of the WTO are not
*subjected* to WTO rules, but they are *affected* by the
general system of international tariffs that the WTO regulates. Should
these individuals be entitled to a democratic right of participation in
WTO decisions? From this, we can see that whether we chose
subjectedness or affectedness matters because each criterion entails a
significantly different domain of democratic inclusion. As such,
further research is required to shed light on how, or even if, the
boundary problem can be resolved, and its implications for global
democracy.


### 1.3 Why Global Democracy?




Global democrats thus share the view that individuals should
collectively rule themselves. To the extent that decision-making power
migrates beyond the state, democracy should follow. There is, of
course, a prior question about why individuals should have roughly
equal say in decision-making in the first place. On one level, it is a
simple definitional requirement of democracy. But this point simply
begs the question: why should we pursue democracy at all? As with
theoretical discussions of democracy, a variety of intrinsic and
instrumental reasons for global democracy can be discerned in the
literature. Intrinsic justifications point to democracy as a valuable
method of decision-making in-and-of-itself. Instrumental claims hinge
upon the outcome of democracy being beneficial, especially compared to
alternatives.




The most common intrinsic claim relates to cosmopolitanism, which
many proponents of global democracy have drawn upon as a moral
foundation motivating the project (Kant 1991[1795]). Thomas Pogge
(1992: 48-9) has argued that cosmopolitans share at least this set of
beliefs: 1) that human beings are the ultimate units of moral concern;
2) this status applies to all humans equally; 3) everyone should be
treated as ultimate units of concern by all others. Global democracy
helps realize this cosmopolitan ideal by treating all individuals as
moral beings capable of exercising equal control over shared destinies.
It is important to note, however, that differences between global
democrats exist in terms of the scope of their cosmopolitan commitment.
While almost all global democrats see individuals as the fundamental
object of concern, many proponents argue that relational qualities
still matter in generating normative prescriptions (Miller 1995). As
such, 'national communities' or 'humanity' may
well be important groups that deserve standing in global democratic
politics for moral or pragmatic
reasons.




Several other intrinsic arguments, though, have been made in
literature. These claims all suggest that global democracy is morally
desirable irrespective of the benefits generated. For instance, many
scholars have suggested that global democracy embodies equality,
autonomy, non-domination, and human rights (see respectively: Erman
2012; Held 1995; Bohman 2007; Goodhart 2008). These fundamental rights
should be valued for their own sake and therefore provide an additional
moral foundation--related to, but sometimes distinct from,
cosmopolitanism--for pursuing democracy beyond borders. These
arguments are most common amongst liberal democrats and neo-Roman
republicans (Pettit 1997).




Other scholars put instrumental considerations at the fore. In this
vein, proponents have maintained that global democracy is required for
epistemic, problem-solving, justice, and legitimacy-based reasons. John
Dryzek (2000) has noted that democracy enables a wide-variety of
perspectives to shape policy and thus increases the chances of making
the 'correct' decision (see also Landemore 2013).
Similarly, scholars in the pragmatist tradition of John Dewey have
suggested that global democracy is required to generate compliance with
international rules and thus solve collective action problems such as
climate change (Bray 2013). By participating in the formation of
law-making, individuals are more likely to comply with the agreement.
Laura Valentini (2012) has claimed that global democracy is required
for global justice. Democratic mechanisms need to be in place to sort
out reasonable disagreements as to how resources should be allocated.
Finally, Michael Zurn and his co-authors (2012) suggest that
global democratic procedures can help provide IOs with important stocks
of sociological legitimacy and hence avoid complications of
politicization (see also Buchanan and Keohane 2006).


## 2. Models of Global Democracy




There are many different proposals for global democracy and,
correspondingly, many different taxonomical divisions have been
developed. For instance, Scholte (2014) divides the literature into
'statist' and 'modern cosmopolitan' approaches.
Archibugi et al. (2012, 7) suggest a tripartite (ideal-typical) break
between federalist (world state), confederalist (intergovernmental
democratic states), and polycentric (pluralist) prescriptions for
global democracy. And Grainne de Burca (2008, 117)
identifies three strands in the current literature to which she affixes
the nomenclature of a 'denial approach,' a 'wishful
thinking approach,' and a 'compensatory approach.'
This entry takes a different tack by presenting five different
'models' of global democracy. Models represent idealized
theoretical constructions designed to express the normative qualities
of a democratic system as well as its constitutive institutions. Models
tend to fit together as whole pieces, and are thus relatively discrete
and well-developed proposals. The following subsections outline five
prominent models. Specific attention is paid to the normative
underpinnings, institutional design, and problems of feasibility and
desirability associated with each model.


### 2.1 Intergovernmental Democratic States




Proponents of this model contend that world politics is democratic
to the extent that each sovereign state is internally democratic with a
functioning government and rule of law. Citizens thus have democratic
representation beyond the state through their national government. This
tradition has been developed and continued by Immanuel Kant, Robert
Dahl, Ingeborg Maus, John Rawls, and many others. The crucial normative
ideal underpinning this model is liberal and cosmopolitan in
orientation: all individuals deserve an equal chance to participate in
the rule-making that governs their lives. This is necessary for
citizens to have liberty and self-determination. Unlike other
cosmopolitans, though, these theorists argue that the nation-state
plays a key normative and practical role in global democracy.




Befitting a model that has a long history in democratic thought,
different institutional designs have been offered. In *Perpetual
Peace*, for instance, Kant (1991 [1795]) argued for a global
federation of peoples composed of republican (i.e. democratic) states.
In this federation, states would observe a cosmopolitan right to
hospitality, aid, and territory. John Rawls (1999) similarly advocated
an international 'law of peoples' in which liberal
democratic states (and decent states) establish international laws that
generate a peaceful and tolerant international order. Some scholars in
this line, such as Robert Keohane, Andrew Moravcsik, and Stephen Macedo
(2009), have gone even further and suggested that IOs can help keep
peace between states (a core Kantian claim), and safeguard democracy,
deliberation, and human rights. Transnational activities are
democratically legitimate from the perspective of citizens so long as
each nation-state maintains autonomy and sovereignty in global affairs.
This allows supranational competences to be controlled and even revoked
by member-states and their leaders (Zurn 2000).




Although this model has been prominent in the global democracy
field, it has several problems. First, only around 50 per cent of
nation-states today are democratic. As such, much of the world's
population is without democratic representation at either the national
or transnational level. Second, nation-states do not have complete
control over international institutions. IR scholars increasingly note
that IOs, which are delegated authority from nation-states, suffer from
'agency slack'. This means that actors within IOs
(diplomats, bureaucrats, and so on) are able to carve out their own
space for action. This power cannot easily be controlled or recaptured
by member-states. Finally, transnational networks and private forms of
governance have proliferated beyond the state. These agents often have
the capacity to create global regulations which impact on domestic
citizens. Nation-states typically have no direct say in these bodies.
As such, the intergovernmental model provides many interesting
insights, but has failed to keep pace with empirical developments.


### 2.2 Cosmopolitan Democracy




Cosmopolitan democracy is perhaps the most well-known model of
global democracy. The core idea is to lift statist institutions to the
global level in an on-going effort for democratization. David Held,
Daniele Archibugi, and Simon Caney have all been prominent advocates.
Normatively, the model rests on a foundation of autonomy: creating
global political conditions that allow individuals to shape and direct
their own lives. This requires, at the least, a system which protects
human rights and provides democratic mechanisms for citizen input
(Goodhart 2005). This model is also explicitly cosmopolitan as it is
supposed to apply to all individuals across the globe.




Institutionally, cosmopolitan democracy stops short of a fully-fledged
world government. As David Held (2003, 478) notes, "a
cosmopolitan polity does not call for a diminution *per se* of
state power and capacity across the globe. Rather it seeks to entrench
and develop political institutions at regional and global level as
necessary complements to those at the level of the state." This
occurs by replicating national democratic institutions at the
transnational and global levels, such as the creation of a global
parliamentary assembly, international courts, and a constitutional
rule of law (Falk and Strauss 2001; Goodin 2010). These institutions
provide a framework to shield human rights and exercise individual
autonomy by voting in global elections. Moreover, these institutions
are charged with effectively regulating transnational problems that
national institutions cannot tackle alone: climate change, the
diffusion of nuclear weapons, and financial markets. This particular
model has given rise to a long-running campaign for the creation of a
United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (see Other Internet Resources
section).





This model is also not without complication. First, the proposals are
often thought to be infeasible. By this, critics usually mean that
there is a lack of political will to establish organizations such as a
global parliament which would remove some sovereign powers from
nation-states. Although Held (1995) and Archibugi (2008) often claim
that cosmopolitan democracy should be separated into short-term
targets and longer-term ideals, it is not always clear which agents
would pursue the model nor how current institutional arrangements
could be overcome (though see Archibugi and Held (2011) for some
suggestions). Would the IMF, the World Bank, or the International
Accounting Standards Board, for example, readily give up their control
over global financial governance? Some critics also charge the
cosmopolitan model with being undesirable. Although the project is
designed to reduce the global democratic deficit, it does so by
reproducing liberal democratic institutions beyond the
state. Postcolonial arguments have been made against this reliance on
liberal institutions which represent a specific form of (Western)
democracy that emerged from Europe and the United State (Scholte
2014).


### 2.3 World Government




A world government has also been seen as a potential response to the
global democratic deficit. Scholarship on world government has a long
history in academia and social commentary: Hugo Grotius, Jeremy
Bentham and Abbe de Saint-Pierre in the former camp; Albert
Einstein, HG Wells, and Martin Luther King in the latter. Recently,
the concept has seen a revival in the work of Luis Cabrera (2004),
Andrew Kuper (2004), Torbjorn Tannsjo (2008), and
Jurgen Habermas (2006). World government proposals are justified
in terms of both intrinsic and instrumental concerns. On the intrinsic
side, world government advocates take a cosmopolitan stance and demand
equal respect for all individuals. As such, individuals should have
equal say in how transnational rules are formed to reduce the global
democratic deficit. This intrinsic claim is often coupled with
justice-based arguments concerning a fairer distribution of resources
(Marchetti 2008). On the instrumental side, those such as
Tannsjo (2008) contend that a world government is necessary
to overcome global problems such as war and ecological disaster.




World government proponents seek a highly centralized and federal
global system. As Cabrera (2004, 71) notes, a world government would
require a "restructuring of the global system to bring states
under the authority of just supranational institutions." A
central government would sit at the core with autonomous and coercive
decision-making potential. As with cosmopolitan democracy, a world
government would also entail a directly-elected global parliament,
empowered courts, and a singular global constitution which explicates
basic rights and duties for all. In many cases, proponents stipulate
that a world government could come about through a major recalibration
of the United Nations General Assembly. Famously, Habermas has also
argued for a three-tiered hierarchical global system in which
supranational, transnational, and national institutions are
implemented to secure rights, peace, and global democracy. Although
Habermas might deny advocating a world government, William Scheuerman
(2008, 148) argues that Habermas's attempt to pursue stronger
supranational governance combined with a global constitution would
have that result.




Despite Alexander Wendt's (2003) teleological claim that a world
government is 'inevitable', many people deride the concept
as infeasible. Without another major crisis (such as a world war) to
prompt international action, it is difficult to envisage why states
would readily give sovereign power to a global state and who precisely
would take the lead in this process. Although UN reform is often cited
as one pathway forward, the veto position held in the Security Council
by the United States, China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom
undermines that option. From the perspective of desirability,
moreover, opponents have argued that a world government would actually
exacerbate the global democratic deficit. For example, Kant argued
that a world government would become a 'soulless
despotism' as global leaders abused their power without
appropriate checks and balances. Other scholars have also suggested a
world government--in which citizens have one vote from a
constituency of seven billion--would be essentially meaningless
and not enable individuals to participate meaningfully in their
collective governance.


### 2.4 Deliberative Democracy




Global democracy scholarship has also been infused by myriad
deliberative democratic proposals. This model suggests that global
politics can be democratized by pursuing deliberation--the give
and take of non-coercive and reasoned arguments--in various
formal and informal sites. A vast number of authors have promoted this
model, including John Dryzek, Seyla Benhabib, Karin Backstrand,
and James Bohman. The fundamental normative ideal is that
non-coercive, reciprocal, and generalizable deliberation should guide
action, and that decision-making be justified to those affected (Forst
2011). Individuals should be free to put their ideas forward under
egalitarian conditions, take on-board the ideas of others, and
recalibrate preferences in line with 'better
arguments'. This helps to respect the autonomy of different
agents while also enhancing the epistemic quality of
decision-making. This model has clear connections with a
'stakeholder model' of global democracy, in which those
individuals significantly affected by a global decision should be able
to deliberate over how public power is exercised and how power
wielders are held to account (Macdonald 2008).




This model seeks the deliberative democratization of informal and
formal sites of *existing* governance arrangements from the
local to the global level. As such, the institutional design task is
usually about recalibrating current institutions and organizations to
reflect non-coercive argumentation rather than creating new bodies. At
the informal level, some deliberative democrats point to transnational
public spheres as appropriate sites for democratic agency (Steffek
2010). Indeed, some claim that a global civil society has emerged
which provides a space--separate from the state and the
market--for individuals to deliberate, shape preferences, and
create shared goals (Dryzek 2000). The model also calls for the
deliberation democratization of formal sites, such as WTO
negotiations, IMF loan deals, and regional treaty agreements
(Backstrand 2006). By making negotiations more
deliberative--responsive to the reasoned arguments of affected
individuals--world politics becomes more democratic. At the
intersection of formal and informal proposals, deliberative democrats
often point to the increasing inclusion of non-state actors in formal
organizations as a step toward global democracy (Dryzek 2012). As
NGOs, youth groups, epistemic communities, and business organizations
gain access to sites of international decision-making, this helps
increase the diversity of viewpoints and provides non-state groups
with a way to contest traditional IGO negotiations (Tallberg et
al. 2013). Many actors in global civil society have accused IOs of
suffering from a democratic deficit as a strategy to gain
inclusion. This highlights the interconnections between academia and
policy practice in terms of global democracy.




Global deliberative democracy has had many proponents and even more
critics. A fairly standard complaint is that the model fails to
provide a specific institutional design which can be sought or
realized under existing conditions. Moreover, deliberation is said to
suffer from a lack of decisiveness. Voting mechanisms always allow for
individuals to cast their preferences with the understanding that 50
per cent plus one vote wins the election. Deliberation provides no
mechanism for groups to make definitive decisions, and talking until
agreement (consensus) is reached is both time-consuming and
potentially unrealizable. In terms of desirability, Eva Erman (2012)
has argued that deliberative democrats do not take the notion of
equality seriously enough, thus undermining a core ideal of
democracy. It is difficult to envisage, Erman suggests, how
individuals can have equal opportunity for deliberation in a world of
inequality. Relatedly, the inclusion of non-state actors in formal IOs
is often seen as a form of cooptation in which civil society actually
works in subservience to (and thus legitimates) the established
system. This line of criticism could be classified as a
'governmentality' critique in the tradition of
Foucault. As such, there is a concern that including civil society in
deliberation with formal sites of global decision-making
exacerbates--rather than reduces--the global democratic
deficit.


### 2.5 Radical Democracy




This model is grounded in an ethics of revolution, in which
autonomous, self-governing communities can resist and overthrow the
global system of sovereignty and its hierarchical capitalist relations
(Bray and Slaughter forthcoming, 158). Variants on this position have
been promoted by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Chantal Mouffe, and
Jan Aart Scholte. The fundamental normative claim is that collectives
can only be emancipated through the rejection of capitalism, property
rights, and class-based notions of governance. In other words, these
structures create systems of domination and alienation that need to be
overcome. According to Hardt and Negri (2000), communities and social
movements should challenge the current liberal order of politics and
seek new forms of global governance based on cooperation, affection,
and nature. This model has close connections with direct forms of
democracy.




The institutional design of radical democracy is, almost by
definition, underspecified. Proponents argue against the existing
global system in which sovereignty has been eclipsed by empire: the
subservience of politics to capitalism. It is therefore up to
collectives to overhaul current arrangements and establish new forms
of governance, the design of which can only emerge through the process
of reconstruction itself. Both Chantal Mouffe (2009) and Jan Aart
Scholte (2014) are clear that radical democracy entails the rejection
of Western, liberal democratic institutions (such as parliaments and
constitutions) and their reliance on individualism and
capitalism. Rather, Scholte (2014) argues that we should open up our
conception of how global democracy *should* look to take due
consideration of transscalarity, plural solidarities,
transculturality, egalitarian distribution, and ecology that
constitute social and material life.




In terms of feasibility, it is difficult to know how radical global
democracy might come about. Although we can point at potential
examples--such as the Occupy Wall Street movement or the
Zapatista Army--concrete institutional moments are difficult to
come by. Moreover, radical democrats are often quick to note that
globalization has been coopted by capitalism, and that it reinforces
colonial legacies in developing countries. It is hard to comprehend
how collectives of free and equal individuals can form in a
transnational context where much of the global South is removed from
the technological and communicative benefits of
globalization. Paradoxically, then, the groups most in need of
democratic revolution are precisely those groups with less access to
means of transnational activism (the Internet, attending global
protests, signing petitions, etc.). Finally, on the issue of
desirability, there is little guarantee that a revolution will lead to
a better state of global democracy. Revolutions are by definition
disruptive, and although capitalism comes with many problems, it is
conceivable that the revolutionary outcome of radical democracy may be
more deleterious than the current state of affairs.


## 3. From 'Model of Democracy' to 'Values of Democratization'




The preceding five models provide a brief schematic of how global
democracy proposals have typically been crafted in the academic
literature. In the recent few years, however, global democratic
debates have taken a turn away from 'models' toward
'values of democratization'. This section outlines the
core impetus behind this turn and its methodological foundation, and
then discusses several prominent examples in the literature.


### 3.1 Methodological Rationale




Democratic models, as should be clear, provide relatively
parsimonious, holistic, and idealized packages that can be pursued at
the global level. Archibugi et al. (2012) describe them as
'terminal endpoints' that can be strived toward. Although
some models provide more detailed and exact institutional design than
others, this general way of thinking has dominated global democracy
scholarship. However, as Dryzek (2008, 471) has contended, while
"models help in thinking, they also constrain thinking."
As such, various authors have argued that global democracy can more
usefully be thought of as an on-going process of democratization in
which a set of values are more or less fulfilled.




The core idea of this approach is that, instead of treating democracy
as an idealized set of institutions which need to be induced beyond
the state, we should think about the fundamental principles that
democracy demands and strive for them under existing conditions. Such
values may include inclusiveness, equality, popular control,
transparency, accountability, deliberation, or something else. These
values are supposed to be pursued in different institutional locations
by various actors in an on-going process. It does not demand any
specific 'end-point' to work toward. Global politics is
more democratic the more these values are fulfilled. This approach has
several key methodological advantages over pursuing models of
democracy.




First, democracy is often understood as an essentially contested
concept (Gallie 1956). Essential contestation does not just mean that
different models have different strengths and weaknesses that require
attention. Rather, it means that contestation over the meaning of
democracy is inherent to the concept itself. Because models provide a
holistic bundle of normative commitments and institutions, this is
often thought to undercut the dynamic nature of democracy-building
(Dryzek 2008). Moreover, because the international system is
pluralistic and complex, absolute agreement on any one model to pursue
seems unlikely. Focusing on how different democratic values arise in
different contexts helps to allay this concern.




Second, engendering models of democracy beyond the state is often
derided as being infeasible. This argument stands on several
sub-claims (discussed above), but a general problem is that each model
of democracy was developed within the national context. As is fairly
obvious, the global system is not a state. As such, we cannot know in
advance which model is best suited to the global system, or how to go
about the initial stages of design. Although scholars such as Mathias
Koenig-Archibugi (2011) have done terrific and laborious work showing
how the necessary conditions for national democracy can all be met at
the global level, it might still be preferable to open our conception
of democracy and think about alternate ways, values, and procedures
that should be pursued.




Finally, striving for values of democratization helps gain traction on
the non-ideal conditions of world politics. Models are, by definition,
idealizations and thinking about the transformative process toward any
ideal is fraught with difficulties about the nature of the future. In
this vein, Amartya Sen (2006) has recently argued that we should not
aim for the full realization of any specified model, but rather we
should seek to rank alternative values and arrangements derived from
the normative concept in question. Erman (2012) has objected to the
notion that democracy can be treated as an aggregate concept composed
of different democratic values because it fails to recognize that the
different values are inter-related. While this is true, other scholars
have claimed that separating democracy into core values helps to
"identify more clearly how different democratic values relate to
each other, to what extent they are in conflict and how such conflicts
should be resolved in particular circumstances" (Dingwerth
2014, 18).


### 3.2 Examples in the Literature




There are many ways to think about pursuing values of democratization
in world politics. One prominent example comes from recent
international political theory and the work of Adrian Little and Kate
Macdonald (2013). These authors argue that the notion of
'democratic practice' should guide global reform. This
approach frees itself from 'institutionally-specific'
goals and rather seeks "a progressive process of
democratization" (Little and Macdonald 2013, 749). These authors
identify political control and popular equality as requisite values
that should be employed to guide social critique and
transformation. To the extent that individuals have more equitable
control over how transnational political power is exercised, global
democratization is enhanced. A similar approach is employed by Terry
Macdonald and Kate Macdonald (2006) in their work on democratizing
supply chain governance. These authors argue that global politics can
be democratized through a series of decentralized, non-electoral
mechanisms that help reassert public control over decision-making.




Values of democratization have also been promoted by international
lawyers (Cohen and Sabel 2006). Grainne de Burca, in a
2008 article, advocates a 'democracy striving approach'
which highlights the dynamic and inchoateness of democracy. The basic
idea is to identify the core principles (or 'building
blocks') of democracy and strive for those values beyond the
state. De Burca (2008, 129-36) identifies political
equality, participation, and representation as key values. Nico
Krisch, in a book from 2010, has argued that international law can be
democratized by seeking accountability, deliberation, and contestation
in different issue spaces. Krisch suggests that the heterarchical and
uneven terrain of global legal orders actually allow these values to
come to the fore, and underscores this argument through case study
analysis of the European Human Rights regime, UN Security Council
rulings on terrorism, and genetically modified food governance.




Finally, several IR scholars have also contended that global affairs
can be democratized by pursuing democratic values in different ways.
Karin Backstrand (2006), for instance, suggests that global
climate governance could be democratized through a stakeholder model
which blends deliberation, participation, and accountability. Jonathan
Kuyper (2014) argues that different issue areas of world politics can
likewise be democratized by pursuing values of equal participation,
accountability, and revisability. This argument is tested and
developed in the issue space of intellectual property rights
governance. Magdalena Bexell and her co-authors (2010) focus on the
values of participation and accountability in global governance and
document how non-state actors help induce (or undercut) these
desiderata.




Overall, the notion that world politics can be democratized by myriad
agents pursuing different democratic values in diverse fora has
emerged as a nascent way to think about reducing the global democratic
deficit. While this approach has clear benefits, it also comes with
complications. First, the lack of an institutional blueprint makes the
design process much more opaque than several of the models offered
previously. Second, it is not immediately clear why we should seek
some values over others and what we should do when values conflict
with one another. Finally, this approach might unnecessarily reify the
status quo. Without systematic and comparative analysis, proponents
risk 'cherry picking' good examples that highlight how
democratic values can be attained while failing to elaborate how
really difficult situations can be transformed. This all indicates
that this turn in the literature requires much further research.


## 4. Persistent Criticisms and Future Research




Although democracy is widely regarded as an ideal worth attaining,
critics of global democracy have been numerous and persistent (Miller
1995; Dahl 1999; Moravcsik 2004). A variety of strong objections have
been raised to the fundamental project of global democracy, as well as
specific criticisms about institutional proposals and methodology. It
is not possible to undertake a survey of all criticisms in the
literature (and several core issues have already been discussed in the
previous sections). The final section, however, will outline two core
issues that global democrats need to grapple with in current and
future research. Both subsections relate to the issue of power.


### 4.1 Realism and Global Politics




Scholarship on global democracy is often charged with failing to deal
with issues of power. This is particularly problematic because IR
theorists have, for many years, highlighted the anarchical and
power-laden nature of international politics (Morgenthau 1954). This
view is especially prominent among realists and neo-realists who claim
that states are the fundamental units of world politics, and that
power--understood as material capabilities--is the main
currency of transnational interaction. Drawing parallels with
Hobbes's state of nature, realists argue that anarchy forces
states into a situation of self-help which, in turn, creates security
dilemmas as states seek to defend their sovereign borders.
International institutions, when they do exist, reflect the prevailing
distribution of power and the interests of dominant states. Although
neo-liberal theorists (such as Robert Keohane) and constructivists
(such as Alexander Wendt) have argued that cooperation between states
can be attained under anarchy, these camps still agree that power
politics dominates transnational affairs.




Global democracy, as should be clear, requires the equal inclusion
of individuals in transnational decision-making processes. For most IR
theorists, this is simply impossible. States are the key players in
world politics, and individuals have standing only through their
national political system. Although Pareto optimal (i.e.
mutually-beneficial) forms of international cooperation can occur in
world politics, states will always strive for more power and exploit
relative differentials in material capabilities to fulfill national
preferences. The drive and desire of each national government to
maximize their absolute and relative power vis-a-vis other
states directly undercuts the cosmopolitan ideal upon which global
democracy is (typically) predicated.




Although realist theories have much explanatory power, neo-liberal and
constructivist scholars increasingly point to the constraining nature
of law and ideas in world politics. Constructivists, in particular,
have forcefully noted that 'anarchy is what states make of
it' (Wendt 2003, 491). In other words, the realist
interpretation of world politics is precisely that:
a *cultural* and *historical* interpretation. The
fundamental nature of international society can and does change over
time, and therefore new forms of social and political interactions are
always possible. This suggests that power politics is not some
immutable condition of international affairs, but rather a situation
that can be overcome through new forms of cognition, cooperation, and
contestation. As such, cosmopolitan notions of global democracy are
certainly conceivable. As Linklater (1998) argues, emerging dialogical
communities of affected peoples are creating transnational social
relations that are more universalistic, less unequal, and have greater
sensitivity to cultural differences.




In sum, global democrats would do well to tackle more directly issues
of power politics and engage with core debates in IR. This may allow
for insights to be shed on both topics. IR schools--such as
realism, neo-realism, neo-liberalism, constructivism, and
communicative action--have traditionally been concerned with
social-scientific, historical, and explanatory analysis. These camps
have been less willing or able to question their own normative
underpinnings or offer critical prescriptions for future design.
Inversely, global democrats have had a predominantly normative
orientation, but neglected to engage rigorously with social-scientific
methodology or make full use of the empirical analysis offered by IR
scholars. As such, fruitful cross-fertilization may be possible as we
seek to understand how normative values can be pursued under existing
conditions of material differentials where the threat of international
and civil war, climate change disaster, financial crises, and many
other issues still loom large.


### 4.2 Global Democracy, Legitimacy, and Justice




It is not just IR scholars who have accused global democrats of
failing to deal adequately with issues of power. Increasingly within
the broader field of normative international political theory, there is
recognition that questions of power and conflict have been relegated in
favor of global justice (Beitz 1979). Of course, global democrats
are fundamentally interested in how transnational decision-making is
exercised and who has a democratic say in the formulation of rules and
norms. But these issues are often eclipsed by issues of poverty,
resource distribution, and inequality (Pogge 1992).




When global democrats tackle the notion of power, they do so through a
specific lens: they are interested, predominantly, in how 'the
people' can collectively rule themselves and potentially check
the exercise of arbitrary power (Bohman 2007). Recently, several
scholars have complained that this focus is too narrow to take proper
consideration of how power can be legitimated within the global
system. Macdonald and Ronzoni (2012), following in the footsteps of
Bernard Williams, suggest that legitimacy may be a value separable
from--and not reducible to--democracy or justice. As such,
we need to think about different ways of legitimating global power
that take seriously the unique context of world politics. This might
entail looking at values such as stability, sociological acceptance,
juridification, or arbitration. Analyzing how these standards foster
legitimacy in transnational institutions may actually help shed light
on the fundamental constitutive features of the global political order
(Macdonald and Ronzoni 2012, 525) and the limits of global
democratization.




At any rate, much work remains to think about how justice, democracy,
and legitimacy intersect and diverge in both theoretical and empirical
terms (Dingwerth 2014). This will entail looking at whether the
current arrangements of international institutions are sufficiently
strong to trigger demands of justice, democracy, or both (Nagel 2005;
Sangiovanni 2007). It will also require analysis of legitimacy as a
separable virtue of global political institutions with its own
character and composition that may only tangentially relate to
democracy. Finally, questions remain over whether a demos--a
group of individuals due democratic standing in the exercise of
political power--can emerge across national borders in coherent
and stable ways. These future directions for research--as well as
many of the other issues addressed in this review--should ensure
that global democracy remains an active, vibrant, and important field
of practice and study in years to come.