The democratic paradox and cosmopolitan democracy

Millennium: Journal of International Studies

Volumn 34, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 137-155

  Doucet, Marc G ^a  

^a SAINT MARY S UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 27844518404     PISSN: 03058298     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/03058298050340011401     Document Type: Article

References (79)

1. Anthony McGrew, 'Globalization and Territorial Democracy', in The Transformation of Democracy? Globalization and Territorial Democracy, ed. Anthony McGrew (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997), 12.
2. Jürgen Habermas, 'The European Nation-State and the Pressures of Globalization', New Left Review May-June 1999, 48.
3. As Barry Holden notes, there are several other terms being used in the literature including 'global democracy', 'transnational democracy and 'supranational democracy'.
4. See Holden, introduction to Global Democracy: Key Debates, ed. Barry Holden (London: Routledge, 2000), 2.
5. Daniele Archibugi and David Held, editors' introduction to Cosmopolitan Democracy: An Agenda for a New World Order, eds. Daniele Archibugi and David Held (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995), 13.
6. The notion of a 'democratic deficit' is meant to indicate how the processes of globalisation redistribute sites of power in such a way as to undermine democratic arrangements confined to the territorial boundaries of the nation-state. As summarised by McGrew: '[U]nder conditions of globalization this correspondence [between government and the demos] is disrupted since, in an increasingly interconnected world system, sites of power can be a continent away from, communities or constituencies which are subjects of its exercise'. McGrew, 'Globalization and Territorial Democracy', 12.
7. See also Anthony McGrew, 'Transnational Democracy', in Democratic Theory Today, eds. April Carter and Geoffrey Stokes (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002): 269-294. Much of the literature on cosmopolitan democracy begins from a similar view of the corrosive effects of globalisation on contemporary democratic arrangements.
8. A critical evaluation of these two broad approaches is provided by James Anderson, 'Questions of Democracy, Territoriality and Globalization', in Transnational Democracy: Political Spaces and Border Crossings, ed. James Anderson (London: Routledge, 2002), 29-33.
9. See also Falks own description of these two approaches. Richard Falk, 'Global Civil Society and the Democratic Prospect', in Global Democracy, 162-178.
10. Jürgen Habermas quoted in Andrew Linklater, 'Cosmopolitan Citizenship', Citizenship Studies 2, no. 1 (1998): fn. 12, 39.
11. Authors who have examined this problem specifically as it relates to the form democracy takes and whose work this research note broadly draws from include Claude Lefort, Marcel Gauchet, Jacques Derrida, Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, William Connolly, and Bonnie Honig. It should be cautioned that these authors can not be seen as forming a single body of thought on democracy. Even though I draw on points of commonality between their writings, there remain significant differences between them.
12. It is perhaps worth recalling here that autonomy comes from the Greek word, autonomia, combining autos (self) and nomos (law), meaning to give oneself one's own law.
13. Maurits Cornelis Escher. Drawing Hands. 1948. Lithograph, 28.2x 33.2cm. A copy of the drawing can be viewed on the website of the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. [http://www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/ ggescher/ggescher-53953.0.html] (20 July 2005).
14. Sofia Näsström, 'What Globalization Overshadows', Political Theory 31, no. 6 (2003): 809. Näsström provides an excellent summary of the problem and how it relates specifically to models of cosmopolitan democracy, although as will be made clear later, at the end her analysis of the paradox is different than mine.
15. By 'ethos of cosmopolitan democracy' I mean, following William Connolly, a form of democracy that does not require 'the statification' of the democratic adventure.
16. See William E. Connolly, The Ethos of Pluralization (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), 153-161.
17. I focus on Held's work for two main reasons. First, his emphasis on cosmopolitan democracy as a project which seeks to expand 'democratic public law' beyond the confines of the nation-state in order to follow the patterns of globalisation resonates across a broad range of literature both within and outside academia. Second, his theorisation of democracy rests primarily on the concept of autonomy, which, as already noted, is at the heart of the democratic paradox.
18. David Held, Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995), 231, emphasis added.
19. Ibid., 231-32.
20. Cosmopolitan democratic law is based on a cluster of rights including health, social, cultural, civic, economic, pacific, and political rights. A cosmopolitan democratic order would work towards extending these rights beyond the confines of national democracies in order to provide 'a common structure of political action' in which people, regardless of their citizenship, can exercise self-determination and self-rule.
21. Cosmopolitan democratic law is based in a cluster of rights including health, social, cultural, civic economic, pacific, and political rights. A cosmopolitan democtratic order would work towards extending these rights beyond the confines of national democracies in order to provide 'a common structure of political action' in which people, regardless of their citizenship, can exercise self-determination and self-rule.
22. As he states: 'The rights and obligations which inherein democracy are not naturally given or universally diosen; they require a decision or commitment to the notion that in political communities it ought to be adult citizens who determine freely the conditions of their own association and the course of their polity. Once this decision is made, the conditions for the institutionalisation of democracy can begin to be pursued and debated'.
23. As he states: 'The rights and obligations which inhere in democracy are not naturally given or universally chosen; they require a decision or commitment to the notion that in political communities it ought to be adult citizens who determine freely the conditions of their own association and the course of their polity. Once this decision is made, the conditions for the institutionalisation of democracy can begin to be pursued and debated'
24. As he states: 'The rights and obligation which inhere in democracy are not naturally given or universally chosen; they require a decision or commitment to the notion that in political communities it ought to be adult citizens who determine freely the conditions of their own association and the course of their polity. Once this decision is made, the conditions for the institutionalisation of democracy can begin to be pursued and debated'
25. See also David Held, 'The Changing Contours of Political Community: Rethinking Democracy in the context of Globalisation', in Global Democracy, 29.
26. See for example James Goodman, 'Contesting Corporate Globalism: Sources of Power, Channels for Democratisation', in Transnational Democracy: 215-235;
27. Jan Aart Scholte, 'Civil Society and Democracy in Global Governance', Global Governance 8, no 3 (2001): 281-304;
28. Michael Edwards and John Gaventa, eds., Global Citizen Action (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2001);
29. Cecelia Lynch, 'Social Movements and the Problem of Globalisation', Alternatives: Globa, Local, Political 23, no. 2 (1998):149-173;
30. and Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998).
31. Earlier literature would include Warren Magnusson, 'Social Movements and the Global City', Millennium: Journal of International Studies 23, no. 3 (1994): 621-645;
32. Martin Shaw, 'Civil Society and Global Politics: Beyond a Social Movements Approach', Millennium: Journal of International Stydies 23, no. 3 (1994): 647-667;
33. R. B. J. Walker, 'Social Movements/World Politics', Millennium: Journal of International Studies 23, no. 3 (1994): 669-700;
34. and Ronnie Lipschutz, 'Reconstructing World Politics: the Emergence of Global Civil Society', Millennium: Journal of International Studies 21, no. 3 (1992): 389-420.
35. An overview of this and more recent literature can be found in Catherine Eschle and Neil Stammers, 'Taking Part: Social Movements, INGOs and Global Change', Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 29, no. 3 (2004): 333-72.
36. It should be noted that most authors exclude 'for profit' transnational actors such as multinational corporations and the international associations that represent their interests. These are seen as part of the forces that contribute to the redistribution of sites of power that have created globalisation's democratic deficit. Furthermore, much of the literature also makes clear that civil society groups and transnational movements do not always or necessarily act in ways that will further the cosmopolitan project. As Scholte, for instance, remarks, even among the groups that would be considered advocates of socially desirable goals, specific activities can work towards undermining democratic ideals, cosmopolitan or not.
37. See Scholte, 'Civil Society, Democracy', 295-299.
38. Anderson, 'Questions of Democracy', 25;
39. and William E. Connolly, 'Democracy and Territoriality', Millennium: Journal of International Studies 20, no. 3 (1991): 463-84.
40. Ibid., 27.
41. Näsström, 'What Globalization Overshadows', 819.
42. Ibid., 815-819.
43. This was the solution used by social contract theorists for instance. As Jean Hampton notes, most social contract theorists from Hobbes onward recognised in one way or another that they were faced with a dilemma. The actual consent of the people which they relied upon to ground the legitimacy of the political order was never really given. It remained an abstraction.
44. See Jean Hampton, Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 132-137.Nonetheless, social contract theorists believed that this abstraction could serve the purpose of theorising what rational people would or could consent to, and more importantly, that it could serve as the basis from which the legitimacy of a political order could be theorised. The dilemma could be resolved, if only theoretically.
45. Näsström, 'What Globalisation Overshadows', 824.
46. Jens Bartelson,'Three Concepts of Globalization', International Sociology 15, no. 2 (2000), 192.
47. See also Jens Bartelson, 'Facing Europe: Is Globalization a Threat to Democracy?', Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory, no. 8 (2004): 47-60.
48. Näsström, 'What Globalization Overshadows', 826.
49. Ibid., 827.
50. Jacques Derrida, Otobiographies: l'enseignement de Nietzsche et la politique du nom propre (Paris: Editions Galilée, 1984), 16-32.
51. See also Bonnie Honig, 'Declarations of Independence: Arendt and Derrida on the Problem of Founding a Republic', American Political Science Review 85, no.1 (1991): 97-113.
52. Derrida, Otobiographies, 22;
53. and Paul Ricoeur, 'The Political Paradox', in Legitimacy and the State, ed. William Connolly (New York: New York University Press, 1984), 253-54.
54. See also Connolly's use of Ricoeur in Connolly, The Ethos of Pluralization, 138-39.
55. It should be noted that for Derrida the problem of founding authority is of course a problem that is not unique to political authority within the democratic regime. It marks all forms of authority. See most notably his well known essay, 'Force of Law: The 'Mystical Foundation of Authority, reprinted in Jacques Derrida, Acts of Religion, ed. Gil Anidjar (London: Routledge, 2002): 230-298.
56. Ibid., 255.
57. Responding to this point of Ricoeur's, Connolly adds: 'A political act is legitimate if it reflects the previous consent (or will, or decision, or tacit agreement or rational consensus, etc.) of a sovereign authority (a people, an elected assembly, a ruler following a constitution, etc). But, Ricoeur persuasively argues, no political act ever conforms perfectly to such a standard. If it did it would not be a political act, but one of administration or execution; because it does not, a political act always lacks full legitimacy at the moment of its enactment. It always invokes in its retrospective justification of the act, presumptions, standards, and judgements incompletely thematized and consented to at its inception.'
58. Connolly, Ethos of Pluralization, 139.
59. Derrida, Otobiographies, 25.
60. Derrida, 'Force of Law', 241.
61. Honig, 'Declarations of Independence', 105.
62. The following section draws from my review of Honig's Democracy and the Foreigner (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), in Politique et sociétés 21, no. 3 (2002): 189-194,
63. and my 'Territoriality and the Democratic Paradox: the Hemispheric Social Alliance and its Alternative for the Americas', Contemporary Political Theory 4, no. 3 (200), 275-295.
64. Honig, Democracy, the Foreigner, 18.
65. Ibid., 21, gloss in original.
66. It is worth highlighting here the gender of the foreign founders in these stories. As Honig points out, feminishing the founder can be made to help domesticates the needed element of foreignness by playing on the cultural politics of femininity. A female foreign founder would be presumably less threatening and less likely to upset the political act of founding within the patriarchal patterns of moderm politics since her intervention can be scripted as supportive and helpful rather than determines and forceful. Thus, the community is more capable of retaining the appearance of autonomy and agency when the founder is feminished. However, as Honig notes in her reading of the Book of Ruth, conventional assumption about the limited supportive and nurturing role of female foreign founders do not always bear themselves out completely in the actual foreign founder stories. One can read Ruth not only as a motherly figure seeking to help Israelites, but also as an immigrant working to make a place for hersel
67. It is worth highlighting here the gender of the foreign founders in these stories. As Honig points out, feminising the founder can be made to help domesticate the needed element of foreignness by playing on the cultural politics of femininity. A female foreign founder would be presumably less threatening and less likely to upset the political act of founding within the patriarchal patterns of modern politics since her intervention can be scripted as supportive and helpful rather than determinative and forceful. Thus, the community is more capable of retaining the appearance of autonomy and agency when the founder is feminised. However, as Honig notes in her reading of the Book of Ruth, conventional assumptions about the limited supportive and nurturing role of female foreign founders do not always bear themselves out completely in the actual foreign founder stories. One can read Ruth not only as a motherly figure seeking to help the Israelites, but also as an immigrant working to make a place for herself within a new community. As will be developed below, this would suggest that the labour performed by the foreign founder in service to the ideal community may be more complicated than it first appears.
68. It is worth highlighting here the gender of the foreign founders in these stories. As Honig points out, feminising the founder can be made to help domesticate the needed element of foreignness by playing on the cultural politics of femininity. A female foreign founder would be presumably less threatening and less likely to upset the political act of founding within the patriarchal patterns of modern politics since her intervention can be scripted as supportive and helpful rather than determinative and forceful. Thus, the community is more capable of retaining the appearance of autonomy and agency when the founder is feminised. However, as Honig notes in her reading of the Book of Ruth, conventional assumptions about the limited supportive and nurturing role of female foreign founders do not always bear themselves out completely in the actual foreign founder stories. One can read Ruth not only as a motherly figure seeking to help the Israelites, but also as an immigrant working to make a place for herself within a new community. As will be developed below, this would suggest that the labour performed by the foreign founder in service to the ideal community may be more complicated than it first appears.
69. As it used by authors such as Derrida, the concept of the supplement invokes a double meaning. It refers to 'an inessential extra, added to something complete in itself, but ... added in order to complete, to compensate for a lack in what was supposed to be complete in itself'. Jonathan Culler quoted in Jenny Edkins, Poststructuralism and International Relations (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1999), 70.
70. As it used by authors such as Derrida, the concept of the supplement invokes a double meaning. It refers to 'an inessential extra, added to something complete in itself, but ... added in order to complete, to compensate for a lack in what was supposed to be complete in itself'. Jonathan Culler quoted in Jenny Edkins, Poststructuralism and International Relations (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1999), 70. Ibid., 32.
71. On this line of argumentation see notably Ernesto Laclau, 'Democracy and the Question of Power', Constellations 8, no.1 (2001): 3-14;
72. Fred Dallmayr, 'Beyond Fugitive Democracy: Some Modern and Postmodern Reflections', in Democracy and Vision: Sheldon Wolin and the Vicissitudes of the Political, eds. Aryeh Botwinick and William E. Connolly (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001): 58-78;
73. Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox (London: Verso, 2000);
74. and David Campbell, National Deconstruction: Violence, Identity, and Justice in Bosma (Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota University Press, 1998): 165-208.
75. These authors generally formulate their understanding of democracy by drawing from the initial work of Claude Lefort. Of his works translated into English, see Democracy and Political Theory, trans. David Macey (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1988).
76. As Lefort cautions, the democratic form as understood here clearly nourishes political forces that would seek to arrest this undecidability in favour of non-contestable and non-negotiable ground. Undecidability then must be understood as marking both the political genius and the Achilles' heel of democracy because it points to a hiatus within its narrative that can serve both to expand and limit, or worse foreclose, the democratic experience. Claude Lefort, La complication: retour sur le communisme (Paris: Fayard, 1999).
77. Ernesto Laclau, 'Deconstruction, Pragmatism Hegemony', in Deconstruction and Pragmatism: Simon Critchley, Jacques Derrida, Ernesto Laclau and Richard Rorty, ed. Chantal Mouffe (London: Routledge, 1996), 47-48.
78. Laclau, 'Democracy', 10, emphasis in the original.
79. Jacques Rancière. On the Shores of Politics (London: Verso, 1998), 47.