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Global Democracy
Heikki Patomäki
Theory Culture Society 2006; 23; 519
DOI: 10.1177/026327640602300294

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Problematizing Global Knowledge – Citizenship/The Political/Global Sovereignty 519

reject. One may regard this radical friendship as Derrida, J. (1997a) ‘Politics and Friendship: A
‘non-canonical’, as Derrida would say. And that Discussion with Jacques Derrida at the Center
would place the right to reject (hospitality) back in for Modern French Thought’, University of
the spirit of a ‘democracy to come’. For ‘democracy Sussex, 1 December. URL:
to come’ is also a question of friendship, according www.hydra.umn.edu/derrida/pol+fr.html
to Derrida, except that the friend there will not be Derrida, J. (1997b) Politics of Friendship, trans.
one who is teleologically determined from the natu- George Collins. London and New York: Verso.
ralized history of friendship. Democracy or ‘democ- Derrida, J. (1997c) Cosmopolites de tous les pays,
racy to come’ is in search of that ‘non-canonical’ encore un effort! Paris: Galilee.
friendship that goes beyond all political, ideological, Derrida, J. (2001) On Cosmopolitanism and
and ethical affinities. It is in search of that figure Forgiveness, trans. Mark Dooley and Michael
who maintains his or her right to reject or abandon Hughes. London and New York: Routledge.
whatever conditions or limits. The actualization of Derrida, J. (2003) ‘Autoimmunity: Real and
that right to reject, without reproach, would be the Symbolic Suicides’, in Philosophy in a Time of
sovereign decision of a free (powerless) body within Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and
a space that promises the multiplicities of freedom Jacques Derrida, interviewed by G. Borradori,
that democracy promises. It would be the first step pp. 85–136. Chicago, IL and London:
towards a freedom that allows anyone to choose University of Chicago Press.
freely, to choose outside the false choice of being Derrida, J. (2005) Rogues: Two Essays on Reason
with a cosmo(s)-political democracy or against it. trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas.
For a ‘democracy to come’ tomorrow, one must let Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
arrive this figure who affirms the right to reject Derrida, J. and A. Dufourmantelle (2000) Of
(hospitality), this friend who is somewhat a little Hospitality, trans. Rachel Bowlby. Stanford,
roguish. CA: Stanford University Press.

References
Blanchot, M. (1997) ‘Refusal’, in Friendship, Irving Goh is Research Scholar and President’s
trans. Elizabeth Rottenberg, pp. 111–12. Graduate Research Fellow at the National
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. University of Singapore. He is also Visiting Fellow
Derrida, J. (1994) Specters of Marx: The State of at Harvard University for Spring 2006. He has
the Debt, the Work of Mourning, & the New published on contemporary politics with a conti-
International, trans. Peggy Kamuf, intro. nental philosophy emphasis in the journals
Bernd Magnus and Stephen Cullenberg. New Cultural Theory and Cultural Politics, and in
York and London: Routledge. Jordan Crandall’s Under Fire 2.

Global Democracy
Heikki Patomäki

tutions (International Monetary Fund, World

Keywords concrete utopia, Kant, linear time,
Bank). The Economic and Social Council,
open-ended process, peace, territory, world
ECOSOC, was designed to be the core of this
state
system of international organizations. According to
the UN Charter, decisions of ECOSOC are made
by a majority of the members present and voting.
Moreover, ECOSOC may make suitable arrange-

I
nternational or planetary democracy was first
discussed systematically in the 1940s when the ments for consultations with non-governmental
United Nations was founded. The ideal of organizations (NGOs) concerned with matters
sovereign equality of all UN members is most within its competence.
clearly embodied in the General Assembly’s one In the 1940s, democracy had become a univer-
country/one vote principle, standing for democ- sally accepted principle but there was no agree-
racy between states. Originally, the UN was placed ment as to the meaning of democracy. Thus the
at the apex of the emerging system of international Cold War and political cleavages in the world
organizations – including the Bretton Woods insti- appeared to make any of the more ambitious
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520 Theory, Culture & Society 23(2–3)

proposals unrealistic. In his classic book Politics the theory of cosmopolitan democracy. This
Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, theory was first outlined in Held’s (1991) essay
the first edition of which was published in 1948, ‘Democracy, the Nation-State and the Global
Hans Morgenthau argued that a world state is System’ and developed further in the book Democ-
eventually necessary as the only possible secure racy and the Global Order (Held, 1995).
guarantee of world peace: ‘The experience of two The Kantian model of cosmopolitan democ-
world wars within a quarter of a century and the racy is based on a selected set of past experiences
prospects of a third one to be fought with nuclear and reflections on them. Apart from the Kantian-
weapons have imparted the idea of a world state Habermasian critical theory, it stems from the
an unprecedented urgency’ (Morgenthau, European experiences of overcoming the tragic
1961[1948]: 501). However, as evidence that dilemmas of inter-state relations by means of inte-
there is as yet no world political community that gration and development of the European Union.
could ground the would-be world state, Morgen- Jürgen Habermas’ social and political theory can
thau (1961: 513) argued that a directly elected itself be seen, in part, as a reaction to Nazism and
world parliament is not viable because ‘none of its the Second World War. Since the end of the Cold
constituent groups [such as the Americans, the War, Habermas (2001) has devoted his attention
Chinese, the Indians, and the Russians] would increasingly to post-national politics and
willingly submit to the majority vote of a legisla- conditions of cosmopolitan democracy. He has
tive assembly thus constituted.’ been arguing, also with Jacques Derrida
In the 1970s, sovereign statehood re-emerged (Habermas and Derrida, 2003), that a more demo-
as a key resource in the global emancipatory cratic European Union, also as a counter-balance
struggles over recognition of agency and autonomy. to the one-sided hegemony of the USA, is a step
With the process of decolonization, the conven- towards world domestic policy and democracy.
tional UN ideal of international democracy had a The post-structuralist suspicion is that the
revival. The institution of state sovereignty model of cosmopolitan democracy is just another
seemed, during and in the immediate aftermath of modern political blueprint. As a straightforwardly
the process of decolonization, to provide a legiti- universalist scheme, it may also be potentially
mate platform for fighting the imperial rule and dangerous. Post-structural political theorists
capitalist exploitation that the majority of (Connolly, 1991; Walker, 1993: ch. 7) have also crit-
humanity experienced outside the core regions of icized the territorial conception of space and linear
the world economy. Hence, in the 1970s, world time implicit in the models of both conventional
democratic aspirations were articulated in terms of and cosmopolitan accounts of democracy. A
inter-state relations. When the Third World had concern is that, as progress is measured in terms of
assumed a majority in the General Assembly and movement towards becoming a full member of the
demanded a New International Economic Order, community of cosmopolitan democracy, the ideal of
it was declared that: cosmopolitan democracy might give rise to a defi-
nition of higher and lower beings – others – located
all states are judicially equal and, as equal
territorially in different parts of the world. This
members of the international community, have
implies moral and political distance from the differ-
the right to participate fully and effectively in
ent others. The others may then be treated as inno-
the international decision-making process in
cents to be converted, as amoralists to be
the solution of world economic, financial and
excommunicated or simply as outsiders (the far
monetary problems. (United Nations, 1975:
away anti-democrats) who can impose a threat of
article 10)
violence on us, i.e. the potential enemies. There also
The inherent ambiguities notwithstanding, this arises the perceived need for coercive powers to
first global recognition of universal agency and ‘protect’ the territory of cosmopolitan democracy.
autonomy can be seen as the beginning of world Pragmatist (Cochran, 2002) and critical realist
politics proper. (Patomäki, 2003) approaches to global democracy
The topic of planetary democracy re-emerged – understood as an open-ended process – are based
in the 1980s with the rise of the globalization on notions such as trans-cultural dialogue, bottom-
discourse and, a little later, the end of the Cold up reforms and concrete utopias. Democracy is
War. Preceded by Jürgen Habermas’ abstract best conceived as a process of democratization.
Kantian speculations about world citizenship and There is no model that would exhaust all demo-
‘a fictive world society’ as the highest stage of cratic possibilities; and without any movement
human learning, David Held’s works on critical towards further democratization, strong tenden-
theory, democracy and state theory in the 1980s, cies to corruption and accumulation of power can
and related early attempts to question the connec- easily take over – within a supposedly stable state
tion between democracy and the state, resulted in of democracy, whatever the context. Moreover, in

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Problematizing Global Knowledge – Citizenship/The Political/Global Sovereignty 521

terms of dialogue, we should allow for other, non- Political Theory Today, pp. 227–35.
European experiences, aspirations and perspec- Cambridge: Polity.
tives as well in assessing different global Held, D. (1995) Democracy and the Global
democracy initiatives. Finally, a concrete utopia is Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan
a model of practical and institutional arrangements Governance. Cambridge: Polity.
that does not currently exist, but should be politi- Morgenthau, H. (1961[1948]) Politics Among
cally possible to achieve, and feasible as an alterna- Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 3rd
tive way of organizing social practices and relations edn. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Patomäki, H. (2003) ‘Problems of Democratizing
Global Governance: Time, Space and the
References Emancipatory Process’, European Journal of
International Relations 9(3): 347–76.
Cochran, M. (2002) ‘A Democratic Critique of
United Nations (1975) ‘Charter of Economic
Cosmopolitan Democracy: Pragmatism from
Rights and Duties of States’, United Nations
Bottom Up’, European Journal of
Office of Public Information, OPI/542,
International Relations 8(4): 517–48.
75–38308, February, 10M.
Connolly, W. (1991) ‘Democracy and
Walker, R.B.J. (1993) Inside/Outside:
Territoriality’, Millennium: Journal of
International Relations as Political Theory.
International Studies 20(3): 463–84.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Habermas, J. (2001) The Postnational
Constellation. Political Essays, trans.
M. Pensky. Cambridge: Polity. Heikki Patomäki is a Professor of IR and the
Habermas, J. and J. Derrida (2003) ‘Europe: Research Director of the Network Institute for
Plaidoyer pour une Politique Extérieure Global Democratisation. His books include After
Commune’, Libération 31 May. International Relations and, with T. Teivainen, A
Held, D. (1991) ‘Democracy, the Nation-State Possible World: Democratic Transformation of
and the Global System’, in D. Held (ed.) Global Institutions.

Global Civil Society

Jeffrey C. Alexander

agreement and persuasion in contrast with the

Keywords civil society, empire, global, peace,
Hobbesian resort to force and fraud. Sociologically,
war
the idea of civil society points to the idea of a
liberal discourse that is at once critical and
tolerant, and to institutions, from factual and

W
hy has ‘globalization’ emerged as a fictional mass media to voting and law, that allow
dominant new imaginary? What collectivities to be guided by symbolic communi-
discourse does it crystallize, what fears cation among independent and rational citizens
does it carry, and what hopes does it represent? who feel bound by ties of solidarity and mutual
‘Globalization’ appeared as a response to the obligation (Alexander, 2006).
trauma of the 20th century, in a moment of hope In what has been called the long 19th century,
when it seemed, not for the first time, that the during the ‘Age of Equipoise’ that followed upon
possibility for a world-wide civil society was finally the end of the Napoleonic wars, there was the
at hand. Since before the Enlightenment, the idea sense, not only among Euro-American elites, that
of world peace has accompanied the expansion of such cosmopolitan peace was close at hand. It
organizational and cultural power. From the 17th seemed possible to believe that, alongside the
century on, the political theory of high and organic expansion of organizational and cultural power,
intellectuals alike has articulated the idea of there was emerging an expanded international civil
peaceful conflict resolution through the concept of sphere. That this civil utopian vision of a peaceful
civil power. The possibility for civil control, as world was shadowed by the expansion of colonial
opposed to military violence or political domi- conquest outside Europe is a fearful symmetry
nation, can be traced back to the idea of the social only visible from our own time.
contract, to the Lockean vision of consensual This dream of reason was shattered by the First
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