Published in: Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy (2009); 12:2; pp. 297-312

Globalization can undermine as well as enable public discourse at the national, international, and supranational levels. A challenge for political theory is to imagine how a global public realm might be constituted. Because the public realm has flourished in states whose citizens are related under the rule of law, one might ask whether this model of civil association can be extended to a broader and potentially universal context. Given the contingent obstacles to a global state, realizing civil association globally implies a universal confederation of rule-of-law states. If the public realm means free deliberation on the laws of a civil association, the ‘global public realm’ would include deliberation at all three levels.