Globalization and democratic theory

Polity

Volumn 33, Issue 2, 2000, Pages 330-342

  Scheuerman, William E ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0034360535     PISSN: 00323497     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (15)

1. See David Held, Democracy and the Global Order (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 1995); Daniele Archibugi and David Held, eds., Cosmopolitan Democracy: An Agenda for a New World Order (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 1995). For a period of time, this research was conducted under the auspices of the European Commission-sponsored Network of European Scholars on the Theme of the Political Theory of Transnational Democracy.
2. See David Held, Democracy and the Global Order (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 1995); Daniele Archibugi and David Held, eds., Cosmopolitan Democracy: An Agenda for a New World Order (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 1995). For a period of time, this research was conducted under the auspices of the European Commission-sponsored Network of European Scholars on the Theme of the Political Theory of Transnational Democracy.
3. Because of the space limits of this essay, I am forced to neglect those contributions to Democracy's Edges only tangentially related to the relationship of globalization to democracy, including thoughtful contributions by Douglas Rae, Elizabeth Kiss, and Jeffrey Isaac and two co-authors, Matthew Filner, and Jason Bivins. One might legitimately ask whether the problem of political boundaries - the unifying theme of Democracy's Edges - represents a useful device for creating a sufficiently coherent collection of essays. But no matter: Shapiro's and Hacker-Cordon's volume is rich enough to justify bracketing pedantic concerns of this type.
4. On the empirical diagnosis of globalization developed here, see also David Held, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt, and Jonathan Perraton, Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999).
5. I am using the term liberal democracy in accordance with Archibugi's and Held's (conventional) usage, namely as referring to a representative democracy committed to liberal principles (including the protection of individual rights and the rule of law). When describing challenges facing contemporary liberal democracy, they see the social welfare state as constituting one of its crucial components. As a normative matter, they also believe that the extension of liberal democracy to transnational affairs ultimately requires the realization by transnational legislative and judicial bodies of an ambitious set of social and economic rights. In their account, the social welfare state also needs to be refurbished along transnational lines. Held, Democracy and the Global Order, 189-201.
6. In this vein, Mary Kaldor (RPC) describes how the gradual decline of the nation-state needs to be seen as a causal factor in the emergence of novel "decentralized" forms of warfare (for example, in the former Yugoslavia) involving paramilitary groups and organized criminals committed to ethnic cleansing and dependent on light weapons and land mines; these wars are often characterized by widespread atrocities directed against civilians.
7. Radical critics suggest that this has already taken place. See Peter Gowan, The Global Gamble (New York: Verso, 1999).
8. This is precisely why elements of the U.S. business community are so hostile to the U.N. See Carol Adelman, ed. International Regulation (San Francisco: Lehrman Institute, 1988).
9. In a similar vein, the Berlin jurist Ulrich Preuss underscores how tentative and underdeveloped the move towards transnational citizenship remains even within the EU (RPC).
10. In the two volumes reviewed here, Archibugi and Held say relatively little about the broader philosophical foundations of their account. But there is no question that Held has been heavily influenced by Habermas's recent (neo-Kantian) theorizing. See Matthias Lutz-Bachmann and James Bohman, Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant's Cosmopolitan Ideal (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997), which includes an essay by Held. Habermas seems to have repaid the debt by recently relying on Held's work on globalization. See Jürgen Habermas, Die postnationale Konstellation. Politische Essays (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1998), 91-169.
11. In the two volumes reviewed here, Archibugi and Held say relatively little about the broader philosophical foundations of their account. But there is no question that Held has been heavily influenced by Habermas's recent (neo-Kantian) theorizing. See Matthias Lutz-Bachmann and James Bohman, Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant's Cosmopolitan Ideal (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997), which includes an essay by Held. Habermas seems to have repaid the debt by recently relying on Held's work on globalization. See Jürgen Habermas, Die postnationale Konstellation. Politische Essays (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1998), 91-169.
12. I realize that it may seem unfair to group Kymlicka among the communitarian critics of cosmopolitan democracy since he has expressly criticized communitarianism - in part, for neglecting the linguistic sources of political identity (Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy [New York: Oxford University Press, 1999], 231-2). Nonetheless, it is striking that his emphasis on the virtues of a shared vernacular ends up generating a political critique of transnational democracy closely akin to that of those who openly embrace communitarianism.
13. Martin Heidegger, cited in David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1989), 208.
14. See William E. Scheuerman, "Globalization and the Fate of Law," in Recrafting the Rule of Law, ed. David Dyzenhaus (Oxford, UK: Hart, 1999), 243-266; Scheuerman, "Reflexive Law and the Challenges of Globalization," Journal of Politikal Philosophy 9 (2001).
15. See William E. Scheuerman, "Globalization and the Fate of Law," in Recrafting the Rule of Law, ed. David Dyzenhaus (Oxford, UK: Hart, 1999), 243-266; Scheuerman, "Reflexive Law and the Challenges of Globalization," Journal of Politikal Philosophy 9 (2001).