Problems of Democratizing Global Governance: Time, Space and the Emancipatory Process

Abstract

David Held's model of cosmopolitan democracy is thus far the most articulate response to the quest to democratize global governance. After criticizing the territoriality, Eurocentrism and linearity of proposed cosmopolitan democracy, I argue that a necessary condition for a global democratization is the development of a global, and pluralist, security community. Therefore it is imperative to tackle questions of who `we' are and where `we' are heading, and also to address explicitly the problem of cultural violence. Further, I argue against totalizing blueprints that are not grounded in realist analysis of the relevant context, concrete embodied actors, social relations and mechanisms, and transformative possibilities. Finally, in terms of space, democratic alternatives should not automatically follow the logic of territoriality. With a post-colonial globalist consciousness, we should work for new forms of democratic governance, new forms of democratic participation, representation and accountability, in the context of radically open world history. Concrete utopias can also be innovative.

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