PR 1450 Introduction to Globalization

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PR 1450Introduction to Globalization

• Lecture 9
• Globalization and democracy
• Chris Rumford

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• Which country is the most democratic in the
  world?
• Answer Sweden

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• Which country is the least democratic?
• Answer North Korea
• Source EIUs index of democracy
• www.economist.com/media/pdf/DEMOCRACY_INDEX_2007_
  v3.pdf

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• This is according to the Economist Intelligence
  Unit
• Other highly democratic counties include
• Iceland
• Netherlands
• Norway
• Denmark
• Countries are measured according to the
  following criteria
• electoral process
• functioning of government
• political participation
• political culture
• civil liberties

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• Britain and the USA did not score as highly
• Britain was ranked 23rd and the USA 17th
• In both countries there was a marked decline in
  civil liberties, and a lack of political
  participation
• The war on terror has been responsible for the
  curtailment of some freedoms

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Democracy and globalization

• Is globalization a threat to democracy?
• On the one hand, globalization may mean that
  democratically elected governments no longer have
  total control over their own affairs
• On the other, globalization has seen the
  world-wide spread of the democratic nation-state
• Since the end of the communism democracy has
  become the universally acceptable form of
  government

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Big questions

• The relationship between globalization and
  democracy provokes some important questions
• Under conditions of globalization is democracy
  tied to the nation-state?
• Or can democracy be trans-national or global?

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Big issues

• Democracy now enjoys universal support
  politicians, leaders and citizens in all parts of
  the world profess respect for democracy
• But globalization makes democracy difficult to
  realize
• calling into question its natural grounding in
  the nation-state
• can we imagine non-national sources of democracy?

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Globalization as a threat

• Benjamin Barber (2001) says that we have
  globalized the marketplace but not democracy
• As a result we have a highly organized system
  of global capital but an anarchic global
  political climate (p.301)
• We are destroying the national institutions,
  including the nation-state itself, which have
  been the seedbed for democratic institutions (P.
  301-2)

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Internationalization of democracy

• The League of Nations (1919) wanted to protect
  minority rights within nation-states and saw
  sovereignty as less important than new
  international norms as the basis for legitimate
  government (Hirst, 2001 256)
• In the post-WWII period the United Nations has
  promoted the idea of human rights that people
  have rights independently of those granted to
  them (or not) by their nation-state
• The UNs Universal Declaration of Human Rights
  dates from 1948 www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

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David Held and cosmopolitan democracy

• Democracy is not always threatened by
  globalization
• Held et al argue for trans-national governance
  to ensure that the democratic state will be the
  global norm
• It is a conception of democracy which recognises
  the continuing significance of the nation-state
  while arguing for a layer of governance to limit
  national sovereignty (Held, 1998)

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• The affairs of nation-states are interrelated
  and many contemporary issues require cooperative
  responses (pollution, diminishing resources,
  terrorist threats, migration)
• Cosmopolitan democracy looks to the creation
  of a democratic community which both involves and
  cuts across democratic states (Archibugi and
  Held, 1995)

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Daniele Archibugi on cosmopolitan democracy

• cosmopolitan democracy aims at a parallel
  development of democracy both within and among
  states (Archibugi and Held, 1995)
• Read Daniele Archibugis article on
  Cosmopolitan democracy at
• http//newleftreview.org/?pagearticleview2261

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Read an interview with David Held

• Globalization, cosmopolitanism and democracy
• www.polity.co.uk/global/globalization-cosmopolita
  nism-and-democracy.asp

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Global democracy

• Cosmopolitan democracy looks towards a global
  institutional framework which works with existing
  system of nation-states
• But reserves the right for cosmopolitan
  institutions to intervene in cases where
• peoples are being oppressed
• actions of states have transnational consequences
  (migration)
• global initiatives are required (transnational
  crime, epidemics)

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The role of citizens

• Cosmopolitan democracy is possible because
  citizens have been empowered (by UN) and through
  INGOs
• Human rights give citizens rights independent of
  membership of nation-state
• human rights have posited and sustained the
  duties of individuals to a legal order beyond
  that of nation-states (Goldblatt, 1997)

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Is the world ready for cosmopolitan democracy?

• Archibugi (1998) says that two important things
  are lacking
• existing forms of global governance lack
  sufficient legal competence
• agencies of existing global governance are not
  necessarily guided by principles of democracy
• However, there is one very good example of
  actually existing cosmopolitan democracy

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Real cosmopolitan democracy?

• the first international organization which
  begins to resemble the cosmopolitan model is the
  European Union
• (Archibugi, 1998)

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Iraq and cosmopolitan democracy

• The USA and Britain have tried to bring about
  democracy in post-Saddam Iraq, and the rudiments
  of parliamentary democracy now exist
• Archibugi (1998) is sceptical about the
  possibility of genuine democracy developing
  under these conditions
• Democracy will only take hold when society is
  willing and able to embrace democratic principles
• The development of democracy is endogenous not
  exogenous

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Concluding comments

• It is not necessarily the case that
  globalization is a threat to democracy
• Globalization has also helped spread democracy
  round the world
• It is possible that in the future globalization
  will also provide the means and the incentive to
  create a truly democratic world order

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References

• Archibugi, D. and Held, D. 1995 Editors
  introduction in D. Archibugi and D. Held (eds)
  Cosmopolitan Democracy An Agenda for a New World
  Order (Polity Press)
• Barber, B. 2001 Challenges to democracy in an
  age of globalization in R. Axtmann (ed)
  Balancing Democracy (Continuum)
• Goldblatt, D. 1997 At the limits of political
  possibility the cosmopolitan democractic
  project New Left Review 225
• Held, D. 1998 Democracy and globalization in
  D. Archibugi, D. Held, and M. Kohler (eds)
  Re-Imagining Political Community (Polity Press)
• Hirst, P. 2001 Between the local and the
  global democracy in C21st in R. Axtmann (ed)
  Balancing Democracy (Continuum)