The Intercultural Construtions of Global Democracy (ICGD) project is prompted by widespread objections that prevailing frameworks of global governance lack democratic legitimacy on the grounds of Western cultural domination. The main rules and regulatory institutions for global affairs have been crafted in the West and in effect imposed on the rest. The arrangements reflect the values and experiences of one life-world and give little recognition and voice to others. As a result, various parts of the world – especially in Africa and Asia – pursue at best lukewarm participation in much of existing global governance.

 

The ICGD project complements the Structural Redistribution for Global Democracy project. Whereas the SRGD project explores ways to redress arbitrary material inequalities in global governance, the Intercultural Constructions of Global Democracy project investigates ways to counter the ideational inequalities that arise when certain ways of knowing the world are arbitrarily subordinated and sometimes also forcibly repressed. How can cultural unilateralism in global governance be replaced with a positive interculturality? An ethics of cultural pluralism is not only justified on democratic principle, but has also become the more practically pressing as significant global power grows in Brazil, China, India, Russia, South Africa and South East Asia.

 

The ICGD project will assemble researchers, civil society actors and officials who have explored various modes of constructive interculturality in respect of global problems. Possible case studies could include the Parliament of the World’s Religions, policies of interculturality in certain global cities, cultural pluralism at the World Social Forum, and perhaps even a critical examination of the Building Global Democracy programme itself. As ever in the Building Global Democracy programme, participants in the ICGD project will be drawn from diverse regions, cultures, disciplines and political visions.

 

It is provisionally intended that the workshop for the ICGD project will be held in Moscow. Various presentations and publications will follow. It is hoped to launch the eventual book in South East Asia.