An enduring embarrassment of democratic theory is that it seems impotent when faced with questions about its own scope. By its terms democracy seems to take the existence of units within which it operates for granted. It depends on a decision rule, usually some variant of majority rule, but the rule's operation assumes that the question “majority of whom?” has already been settled. If this is not done democratically, however, in what sense are the results that flow from democratic decision rules genuinely democratic? A chicken-and-egg problem thus lurks at democracy's core. Questions relating to boundaries and membership seem in an important sense prior to democratic decision-making, yet paradoxically they cry out for democratic resolution.

One need not consider such extreme cases as Northern Ireland, the former Yugoslavia, or the West Bank for evidence supporting this contention, though they surely do. Arguments about the legal status of Turkish “guestworkers” in Germany, removing full British citizenship from members of the Commonwealth, or denying public education to the children of illegal immigrants in California are all challenging to think about as matters of democratic politics partly because they render problematical assumptions about who constitutes the appropriate demos for majoritarian decision. Indeed, virtually every aspect of a country's policies dealing with immigrants or minorities can be shown to involve this paradox in some way. Democratic theorists often acknowledge the existence of the difficulty, but surprisingly little headway has been made in dealing with it to date.

In his thought-provoking chapter David Held argues that we need to rethink our traditional, state-centric understanding of democracy in a more cosmopolitan direction because the forces of globalization are gradually eroding the territorial, Westphalian conceptualization of political community upon which it is based. I agree with Held on both counts. However, I think he does not emphasize sufficiently the role that the institution of sovereignty will play in channeling the impact of globalization, creating path-dependencies which raise both empirical and normative questions about the possibility of cosmopolitan democracy. If a non-territorial democracy does evolve, for the forseeable future it seems much more likely to be a democracy of states than of individuals, an “international” rather than “cosmopolitan” democracy, and this might even be normatively acceptable in a way that an analogous democracy at the domestic level based on groups is not.

I have divided my remarks into two parts, focusing first on how we get from the here of a world of sovereign states to the there of a nonterritorial democracy, and then on some normative issues that arise when we get there.

From here to there

Held's chapter, and the book on which it builds (Held 1995), offers a strong and nuanced account of the many forces in the late twentieth century that are eroding purely territorial conceptions of political community and creating transnational “communities of fate.” However, saying that national conceptions of community are being eroded by globalization is not the same thing as saying that transnational ones are being created.

The question “should there be group rights?” is ill put. Proposed rights cannot be evaluated without reference to the contexts in which they are asserted or to the purposes for which they will be exercised. I believe a further constraint is also necessary, concerning the impact of group aspirations on democratic politics. Because it seems to me to be the most fundamental question, I begin with it, turning second to questions of context and purpose, and concluding with some remarks on institutional design in the light of the intervening discussion.

Democracy's constraint

In most countries of the modern world, democracy exhibits a non-optional character that other political ideals lack. In the United States, for instance, few would take seriously the proposition that the state may require people to be liberal or conservative, or religious or secular, but equally few would deny the proposition that they can be required to accept the results of appropriately functioning democratic procedures. We are thought free to despise the government, but not its right to be the government. Of course different people understand different things by democracy, and every democratic order will be thought by some not to be functioning as it should, in the corrupt control of an illicit minority, or otherwise in need of repair. But the very terms of such objections to democracy affirm its obligatory character, since it is the malfunction or corruption of democracy which is being objected to.

This chapter focuses on the changing nature of political community in the context of globalization – in brief, the growing interconnectedness, and intensification of relations, among states and societies. The chapter has a number of parts. In the first part, I explore the changing forms of political association and, in particular, the rise of the modern nation state as a background against which modern conceptions of democracy developed. With this in mind, I examine some of the key assumptions and presuppositions of liberal democracy; above all, its conception of political community. In the second part, I explore changing forms of globalization. In my view, globalization has been with us for some time, but its extent, intensity, and impact have changed fundamentally. In the third and final part of the essay, the implications of changing forms of globalization are explored in relation to the prospects of democratic political community. A particular conception of democracy is elaborated, a form of transnational democracy, which, it is argued, is more appropriate to the developing structure of political associations today. The future of democracy is set out in cosmopolitan terms – a new democratic complex with global scope, given shape and form by reference to a basic democratic law, which takes on the character of government to the extent, and only to the extent, that it promulgates, implements, and enforces this law. This is by no means a prescription for the end of the nation state or the end of democratic politics as we know it – far from it.

Until early 1943, a muddy canal near Pike Road, just outside a hamlet called Pantego, had traced the northern rim of Ardie Winsley's life. On the warm evening of Monday, 5 April, she was sent north by train, beyond Beaufort County and even North Carolina itself. The nine-year-old girl's train ride started in the unfamiliar town of Wilson, on the trunk line running up from Florida to Boston and beyond. The Atlantic Coast Line's Train 76 – known to the road's scheduler as the “Havana Special” – all but forbade her the venture:

Train 76 carried Ardie and her reverend uncle out of Carolina about dusk, and ran on through the darkened silence of Virginia. Richmond, Washington, Baltimore and a score of lesser towns passed in darkness before dawn came near 30th Street Station, Philadelphia. As she tells the story, it is easy to imagine Ardie glued in fascination at the metallic gloom of Trenton, Elizabeth, and Newark, to say nothing of the subriparian rush beneath the Hudson and into the catacombs of New York's Penn Station.

The literature is replete with discussions of the impact of globalization on us as workers, consumers, investors, or as members of cultural communities. Less attention has been paid to its impact on us as citizens – as participants in the process of democratic self-government. This is a vitally important issue, for if people become dissatisfied with their role as citizens, the legitimacy and stability of democratic political systems may erode.

This question in fact arises at two levels – domestically, and transnationally or globally. David Held's chapter provides a clear and balanced assessment of the possible consequences of globalization for citizenship at both levels. In effect, Held argues that globalization is eroding the capacity for meaningful democratic citizenship at the domestic level, as nation states lose some of their historic sovereignty and become “decision-takers” as much as “decision-makers.” If meaningful citizenship is to exist in an era of globalization, therefore, it will require democratizing those transnational institutions which are increasingly responsible for important economic, environmental, and security decisions.

In this short commentary, I would like to pursue a couple of Held's points in more depth. While I do not disagree with any of his substantive claims, I would like to suggest that there is more room for optimism regarding the prospects for domestic citizenship than he suggests, but perhaps less ground for optimism about global citizenship.

Domestic citizenship

First, then, let me consider the impact of globalization on citizenship at the domestic level.

Can international organizations, institutions, or processes be democratic? I argue that they cannot be. Any argument along these lines raises the question, “What is democracy?” or, better, “What do I mean by democracy?” If I can say what democracy is, presumably I can also say what democracy is not, or to put it another way, what is not a democracy. In brief: an international organization is not and probably cannot be a democracy.

Democracy

Yet to say what democracy is and is not is far more difficult than we would like. This is so for many reasons, of which I will offer three.

First, as we all know, the term democracy has been and continues to be used indiscriminately. Although the word may be applied most frequently to a form of government, it is not restricted to forms of government. What is more, government itself is a protean term. Not only do states have governments; so also do economic enterprises, trade unions, universities, churches, voluntary associations, and other human organizations of infinite variety, from families and tribes to international organizations, economic, military, legal, criminal, and the rest. Even when the word democracy is applied to governments, and further restricted to the government of a state, the concept unfolds into several complex dimensions. In usage, then, the meaning of the term is virtually unbounded – indeed so unrestricted that it has even been used to signify dictatorship.

To explain why international institutions and processes will be non-democratic, I intend to consider just two of the innumerable aspects of democracy.

Much political and democratic theory in the Rawlsian and post-Rawlsian era is located at the site of the tension between liberalism and communitarianism. The perceived tension, simply put, lies in disagreements over the source of morality. Liberals appeal to a universal, supposedly rational, minimal Kantian standard that they believe everyone could agree to (Rawls 1971; Macedo 1990). Communitarians believe that standards of morality derive from community, and are therefore particular. The community must, as a consequence, have a place in public life (Bellah 1991; Walzer 1997; Maclntyre 1984). Partly because this debate does in fact rest on irreconcilable differences regarding fundamental principles, it has largely stalemated. The enterprise now is to find a “third way” between, and yet separate from, the two. This is the project of Isaac, Filner, and Bivins in their contribution to this book. The dominant line of attack in their argument is against political liberalism; yet they hesitate to embrace communitarianism. They invite the community into the public realm and make an appeal to democracy to adjudicate the conflicts their invitation will engender. Democracy, they hope, can include communities, and yet still provide a universal standard.

In order that we begin from the same set of premises, I outline briefly and sympathetically what I take to be the argument of Isaac, Filner, and Bivins, hereafter known as “IFB.” IFB's argument is constructed around a critique of Macedo's defense of political liberalism in the case of Mozert v. Hawkins (Macedo 1995).

Introduction

The dramatic political rise of religious fundamentalism in American politics, symbolized by the growing political presence and influence of the Christian Coalition, is one sign, among others, of the unravelling of the social contract on which postwar American liberalism rested. This liberalism was distinguished by a preoccupation with solving distributional problems by promoting economic growth and satisfying the demands of a consumerist society, and its breakdown has seen the rise of what has been called a “politics of identity,” a politics of proliferating demands for legal and cultural recognition on the part of a range of identity-based groups. Many of these groups – feminists, gays, and Afrocentrists, for example – are outgrowths of the New Left, and of the cultural radicalism of the 1960s, and see themselves, and are widely seen, as “liberatory” or “left-wing” movements.

But equally important have been a number of identity-based groups that have emerged in reaction to 1960s cultural radicalism and have sought to counter many of its more liberatory achievements. Among these the New Christian Right stands out, as a loose coalition of groupings, organizations, and movements that have sought to combat what they consider the permissiveness of American society, and to promote “family values,” in the name of “decent Americans” and “traditional Christian values.” In many ways the New Christian Right has upped the ante of identity politics, by mirroring the New Left in its “grass-roots” organizing strategies, its resolutely ideological style, and in its claim to speak on behalf of purportedly marginalized and victimized Americans.

One of the liveliest debates engaging democratic theory at century's end concerns the relationship between civic equality and the public recognition of cultural differences among citizens. A number of theorists have begun using the phrase “politics of recognition” (Taylor 1992; Honneth 1992; Fraser 1995a and 1997) to refer to the chorus of claims and aspirations voiced on behalf of groups defined by a sense of shared cultural, national, ethnic, racial, religious, gender, or sexual identity. Proponents of a politics of recognition assert that democratic justice requires affirmative public acceptance of such identities. Mere tolerance of difference is not enough, nor is it sufficient for democratic societies to allow citizens to express different identities in the private realm. Equal moral and political status, and hence democracy, cannot be achieved unless social institutions and sensibilities become more attentive to, and reflective of, cultural differences.

It is important not to exaggerate the historical novelty of the politics of recognition. Democratic struggles have often been fought by, and in the name of, newly assertive identity groups, and democrats have mobilized as much against cultural domination as they have against autocratic rule. For instance, both the European revolutions of 1848 and the anti-colonial struggles of the middle of this century were demands for national or cultural recognition as much as (and often more than) they were efforts to replace autocratic political institutions with democratic ones.

What is new about the contemporary politics of recognition is more a matter of degree than of kind: demands for recognition by identity groups have gained greater immediacy and sharper theoretical focus.

Introduction: three dilemmas of democratic order

In the democratic order, in principle, citizens make political decisions under conditions of freedom and equality. Procedures and rhythms of this decision-making follow from a historically specific spatio-temporal regime constituted in a long-lasting process since the beginnings of the “age of liberalism.” The spatial boundaries of sovereign nation states define a limited territory within the “pluriverse” (Schmitt 1963: 54) of nation states. The territory endows citizens with rights (and duties) of participation in decision-making procedures. But because citizens also are involved in economic activities, they are construing an economic space which transcends the limited political territory. The contradiction between economic boundlessness and political limitedness with regard to time and space of action has already been conceptualized by Adam Smith (Rosanvallon 1988). Today the contradiction between political territoriality and economic (global) space has become a common argument in the discourse on “globalization.”

In addition to formal and procedural dimensions of participation, the equality of citizens is material and substantial. After World War II the substance of material citizens' rights emanated from the collective welfare state in the form of individual claims which within the United Nations system are considered social, economic, and cultural rights (“human rights of second generation”). In the postwar period, they have become prerequisites of the modern democratic discourse and in some cases they claim the dignity of constitutional principles. But recently globalization processes, including the dissolution of political sovereignty on the one hand and the ecological crisis on the other, have undermined claims to substantial rights.

Dahl discusses several aspects of the feasibility of democracy in an international setting. He is pessimistic, convincingly so. Let me mention some thoughts about his topic that may reflect the disciplinary perspective of an economist.

Governance of international institutions

Typically the members are nation states, and the organization operates under a constitution agreed by treaty among them. The members are often vastly different in population, and they are usually not all democracies. What would democratic governance mean? Even if all members were democracies, they would not be likely to agree that each member have votes proportionate to its population. For example, the countries whose pecuniary contributions are essential to the functioning of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund are not about to let China run these institutions. Germany and France are not about to let the new euro central bank be run by a board of EU member representatives with votes weighted by population.

Exit as a substitute for voice

Albert Hirschman (1970) pointed out that internal democracy is not the only possible source of moral legitimacy for an institution. If membership is voluntary, if “exit” is permissible and not terribly costly, then governance by “voice” of members is not essential. Indeed it may be unfair to let members with transient attachments participate in governance on equal terms with those having long records of “loyalty” – a third Hirschman concept. Exit is fair when competing institutions exist or can be established.

As many of the chapters in this volume indicate, some aspects of globalization present challenges to our accustomed ideas about democracy. For many, globalization means the global movement of capital and the increased exploitation of labor. In those places around the world where labor is inexpensive, global capitalists have set up manufacturing. In those places where labor is relatively expensive, the threat of possible relocation of production enhances capital-owners' bargaining position vis-à-vis labor. Where economic power is easily translated into political power, such globalization poses problems for democracy. In places where the World Bank and IMF have imposed structural adjustment policies, the poor who benefit from entitlements have suffered and, in the name of maintaining political control, governments have imposed constraints on democratic freedoms. In these ways, globalization can be seen as promoting antidemocratic tendencies.

However, there are some aspects of globalization that, far from endangering democracy, present new opportunities for democratic participation and popular influence to emerge and to affect international law-making. Increased population mobility opens up opportunities for people from very different cultures to mingle with and learn from each other. Vastly faster and less expensive means of long-distance communication, global media, and greater levels of interest in global issues enable and encourage groups and individuals to communicate. Ideas generated at the grass roots spread to, and influence, international diplomats and policy-makers and, in turn, ideas adopted in international fora are able to affect people's thinking and their daily lives with unprecedented speed.

This volume and its companion, Democracy's Value, grew out of a conference on “Rethinking Democracy for a New Century” held at Yale in February 1997. The conference was sponsored by Yale's Program in Ethics, Politics, and Economics, with financial support coming from Yale's Olmsted Fund, Castle Fund, and Kempf Fund. Thanks are due to Kellianne Farnham for going well beyond the call of duty in organizing the conference and helping us assemble the manuscript. We are also pleased to record our gratitude to John Haslam of Cambridge University Press for his interest in the project from the beginning, and for facilitating the timely appearance of the volumes.