Democracy is increasingly seen as the only legitimate form of government, but few people would regard international relations as governed according to democratic principles. Can this lack of global democracy be justified? Which models of global politics should contemporary democrats endorse and which should they reject? What are the most promising pathways to global democratic change? To what extent does the extension of democracy from the national to the international level require a radical rethinking of what democratic institutions should be? This book answers these questions by providing a sustained dialogue between scholars of political theory, international law, and empirical social science. By presenting a broad range of views by prominent scholars, it offers an in-depth analysis of one of the key challenges of our century: globalizing democracy and democratizing globalization.

Democracy is increasingly seen as the only legitimate form of government, but few people would regard international relations as governed according to democratic principles. Can this lack of global democracy be justified? Which models of global politics should contemporary democrats endorse and which should they reject? What are the most promising pathways to global democratic change? To what extent does the extension of democracy from the national to the international level require a radical rethinking of what democratic institutions should be? This book answers these questions by providing a sustained dialogue between scholars of political theory, international law, and empirical social science. By presenting a broad range of views by prominent scholars, it offers an in-depth analysis of one of the key challenges of our century: globalizing democracy and democratizing globalization.

Cosmopolitics, the concept of a world politics based on shared democratic values, is in an increasingly fragile state. While Western democracies insist ever more vehemently upon a maintenance of their privileges - freedom of speech, security, wealth - an increasing number of the world's inhabitants are under threat of poverty, famine and war. What is needed, the writers here-suggest is, a deliberate decision to extend the principles and values of democracy to the sphere of international relations. Recent experience does not bode well, but their arguments, which range from reform of the United Nations, reduction of military weapons, additional power for international judiciary institutions and an increase in aid to developing countries, urge new and inspired action.