Which demos for (global) democracy?

The proper scope of the democratic system represents a core, yet still under-explored issue in political science. Too often political debates on democracy concentrated on the handling of the kratos rather than on the subject constituting the demos. From Plato to Rawls, the typical assumption has been that of the political community as a self-contained social enterprise (which often entailed its correlate of power politics towards foreigners). This autarchic assumption is, however, unsustainable in the current world. Today we are forced to reconsider the traditional boundaries of our political communities because of the phenomenon of intensified interdependence. The boundaries and accountability of public power are increasingly under scrutiny. One of the merits of the debate on global democracy is precisely that of having provoked a reassessment of a number of fundamental tenets of the democratic ideal itself, among which the scope of the demos is key.

When the democratic ideal is extended at the global level, the question of which constituency has to be taken into account and prioritized is obviously crucial insofar as conflicts on jurisdictional boundaries generate continuous controversies in current international affairs. If many are suffering the consequences of actions that cross national boundaries, who is entitled to be included in the decision-making procedure on those cross-national actions? Who is entitled to demand accountability for those decisions? Citizenship, political participation and accountability are intermingled notions that are put under strain at the international level by increasing interdependence. Finding a consistent reconceptualization of these notions that is more adequate to the current international reality requires tackling the issue of the proper scope of democracy, here taken to be the core issue of the general theory of democracy.