Democracy on a global level - feasible or utopian? Cosmopolitan Democracy vs. Deliberative Democracy?

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject Politics - International Politics - General and Theories, grade: 1,3, Bielefeld University, course: Global Governanance by Global Frameworks, 24 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: In this written homework I will use the term 'globalization' to 'describe the growth and spread in investment, trade, and production, the introduction of new technology, and the spread of democracy around the world'. (ibid. 2003: 1). It has to be noticed that this economic globalization 'would affect not only production, finance, technology, media and fashion, but also the international political system, leading also to a globalization of democracy' (Archibugi 2004: 438) Here it is important to note, that on the one hand I support the claim that the ideas of democracy are globalized, on the other hand , however, there has to be kept in mind, the constraint that democracy is only global as a formal or structural blueprint. The flexible characteristics and focuses of democracy differ in many ways; therefore it is not possible to state that an all-embracing final democratic model exists. According to Pauly the impact of globalization shortens national capacities so that they become 'inefficient regulators of markets that cross their borders, ..' (Pauly 2000: 4) This raises questions about the democratic legitimacy of an increasingly internationally operating government and international institutions with an indefinite and not clearly defined designation of legitimacy caused by a weak democratic proportion on a global level. Additionally one can observe a rapidly growing number of non-state actors and rising influence like TNCs and NGOs. Approaches concerning the processing of these topics are described under the wide field of 'global governance'.The theoretical discussion and their discourse offer help to take a look on today's institutionsand their problems, the role of the state and the possible implementation approaches of theoretical ideas towards a democratic form of global governance. One solution, obviously, would be a transfer of states sovereignty to a regional or global level. I will concentrate on the confrontation of two basic models of democracy beyond the nationstate, the Cosmopolitan Democracy and the Deliberative Democracy. Based on different normative assumptions they have different ideas of how to create a more adequate form of governance. I will present both concepts separately followed by an all-embracing valuation and a conclusion.

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