1. Democracy: From City-states to a Cosmopolitan Order?
David Held
Democracy: From City-states
to a Cosmopolitan Order?

2. The ‘Battle in Seattle’ 1999

3. David Held
Some works:
Held, David, Models of Democracy, 3rd Edition (Polity Press, 2007).
Held, David. Global covenant. Polity Press, 2004.
Held, David; Koenig-Archibugi, M (eds.). Taming globalization: Frontiers of Governance. Polity Press, 2003.
Held, David; McGrew, A (eds.). The Global Transformations Reader: An Introduction to the globalization Debate. Polity Press, 2003

5. Held’s Key Idea
Increasing globalization means nation-states are losing control in key policy areas.
We are seeing the `unbundling’ of the relationship between
Sovereignty
Territoriality
Political power
Thus, we need to consider moving toward some forms of transnational democracy.

6. Key Questions for Held Can transnational democracy work?
Is globalization really so severe a threat to democracy as we know it?
Does Held put forth an unsustainable conception of state sovereignty as once absolute, now eroding?

7. Globalization and unbundling
Specific types of `unbundling’ of sovereignty
IGOs and the legalization (constitutionalization) of the global system. WTO, IMF, World Bank, EU—all extend aspects of the rule of law (political power) above the state.
Also, G8, G20, etc.
International Networks of actors: central bankers, environmental ministers, judges (Slaughter’s thesis)

8. Globalization and Unbundling cont.
Other `unbundling’ actors
MNCs and related actors, including international chambers of commerce, establishing their own trans-state regulatory mechanisms.
NGOs and transnational advocacy networks. Oxfam, etc influencing global policy making (MDGs), but also social movements (Stand Up campaign for MDGs)
Fallout from global economic crisis? Global rule of law in banking?

9. IGO pressures WTO assumes increasing “effective” powers of governance.
The IMF, NAFTA, even NATO take decisions that limit state decision-making power
Not to mention the European Union

10. NGOs (or INGOs)
Nongovernmental Organizations—NGOs. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, campaign to ban land mines, Greenpeace.
To reinforce, they are citizens’ groups, rather than groups of state governments working together.
They can sometimes change state behavior.
Check the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines

11. DH’s three steps
The rise of the modern state as the backdrop for modern democracy.
The increasing intensity of globalization.
A proposal for transnational democracy.

12. The Rise of the Nation-State
The modern, “absolute” nation state only dates to about 1648.
1648: Treaty of Westphalia. Ended the Thirty Years War, helped establish states’ control of affairs within their own borders.

13. Pre-Westphalia
Before Westphalia, political communities often overlapped.
You might owe allegiance to a local lord, a higher noble, a king and the Holy Roman Emperor.

14. The Westphalian System
The world is divided into sovereign states which recognize no higher authority.
External sovereignty: states are formally equal
Internal sovereignty: states are the final judge over affairs within their own borders
--de jure vs de facto sovereign power—a key distinction

15. Modern Democracy Modern democracy arose with the modern nation-state
Liberal representative democracy made democratic rule possible in very large states.
Liberal democracy:
Attempt to balance necessary power of the state to impose order (Hobbes,)
With respect for the liberty and rights of the individual (Locke especially)

16. Modern Democracy, cont. Leads to key presumption for Held:
The liberal-democratic state assumes a monopoly on coercive power within its borders
But political equality helps to guard against abuses of power

17. Symmetry and Congruence
Two further presumptions for Held:
Symmetry: those affected by public decisions, issues, or processes have an equal opportunity to shape them (political equality)
Congruence: impacts of decisions are limited to those formally within the political community
In the current age, symmetry and congruence no longer obtain, Held argues.

18. Symmetry and Congruence cont.
Critics: does this presume a form of absolute state sovereignty which has never actually existed?
Don’t all decisions affect somebody, somewhere, at some level? (butterfly’s wings, etc.)

19. Symm and Cong part 3 Held’s response to the latter critique:
There are three kinds of impacts on individuals:
Strong: vital interests are affected, with consequences for life expectancy (global warming?)
Moderate: affects individuals’ abilities to participate in their communities’ economic, cultural and political activities (trade subsidies by rich states?)
Weak: has impact on lifestyle or the range of available consumption choices (US hegemony in film, music?)

20. Rethinking Democracy
We no longer live in self-determining “communities of fate.” We live in overlapping communities of fate.
Thus, defenders of democracy have an obligation to build a transnational democratic structure

21. Moving forward
Held notes “disjunctures” between Westphalian absolute sovereignty and the individual rights norms implicit in the United Nations Charter.
System is still primarily “Westphalian” in its structure—
UN Security Council
Non-binding GA resolutions

22. A Democratic UN?
The UN Charter could be a significant step in “the cross-border regulation of world affairs” (30)
Greater compliance with existing rights conventions
At best, though, would only be a “thin” form of trans-state democracy

23. Cosmopolitan Democracy
1) Create or expand the role of regional parliaments (like the EP)
2) Some form of global parliament, possibly a reformed UN: a second chamber
3) Long-term: a full global parliament with some revenue-raising capacity
Interconnected global legal system

24. Utopian?
“If such a settlement (between coercive power and democratic accountability) seems like a fantasy, it should be emphasized that it is a fantasy to imagine that one can advocate democracy today without confronting the range of issues elaborated here. If the emerging international order is to be democratic, these issues have to be considered, even though their details are, of course, open to further specification”(Held, 1992, 35).

25. Critiques
Is this age of globalization really so different from the first, ?
Laying of the transatlanctic cable, 1866

26. Will Kymlicka
Ordinary people will always want to debate in their own common language: the “vernacular.”
That’s why a truly transnational democracy won’t work.

27. International, not Cosmopolitan, Democ.
Alexander Wendt’s key idea:
Held is right to say that globalization will push democracy beyond the state.
However, it will be a democracy where states have the votes (think a much stronger UN)

28. Actors, cont.
States: They are integrating economically but are jealously guarding their formal sovereignty.
Thus, the world will be ever-more integrated, but formal world government is a long way off (actually, about 200 years: Wendt 2003)