Although the BGD programme does not advocate a particular vision or design of global democracy, it does have a unifying set of core questions. Across the various projects, participants in the programme are asked to consider certain key questions that any effort to promote global democracy must prominently address.

 

One such overarching and unifying issue is the centrality of power relations in shaping both the possibilities for and the obstructions to building global democracy. Matters of power lie at the heart of each of the five main shortfalls in global democracy identified above, and by implication different kinds of power relations would be required in order to redress these problems. In developing concepts of global democracy, for example, it needs to be asked who formulates the ideas and in whose interest? Regarding citizen learning for global democracy it must be asked who teaches, what is learned, by whom, and for what purpose? Concerning institutional accountability it has to be asked who is accountable, for what, to whom, and to what end? In terms of structural redistribution it has to be asked redistribution from whom and to whom, as decided by whom, and against what opposing forces? In relation to intercultural recognition it needs to be asked who determines the principles that should guide communication and negotiation among diverse life-worlds, and to whose benefit?

 

A second core question that runs through the BGD programme as a whole is the causal dynamics that generate current failings of global democracy – forces that must be addressed in order to overcome those problems. Again, the programme itself does not take a position on this matter and instead invites debate among different perspectives. Thus, for example, liberals tend to highlight deficiencies in institutional design as the source of present shortfalls in global democracy. In contrast, Marxists focus on the logics of capitalism to explain the problems and prospects of global democracy. For their part some poststructuralists may attribute the subversion of democracy in contemporary global politics to the panopticon of a surveillance society and its pervasive ‘security’ apparatuses. Some constructivists might ascribe current obstructions of global democracy to prevailing dynamics of identity politics, in which a concentration on national affiliations tends to silence subordinations on lines of caste, class, faith, gender and race. Meanwhile radical feminists could account for current absences of global democracy in terms of a ubiquitous social structure of patriarchy. Whatever position one takes, it is clear that strivings to reconceptualize democracy, to further citizen learning, to enhance institutional accountability, to promote structural redistribution and to advance intercultural recognition need to be informed by a diagnosis of the social forces that shape global relations.

 

A third question for all of the projects in the BGD programme concerns the actors that are involved in building global democracy. Where does agency lie in these efforts? What role is played by states, including their executive, legislative and judiciary branches? What part is played by substate (municipal and provincial) governments as well as suprastate (regional and global) governance bodies? How do civil society associations, political parties, the mass media and firms fit into a democratization of the regulation of global affairs? The question of agency arises in respect of all of the projects: which actors promote (or inhibit) the requisite reconceptualization, learning, inclusion, redistribution, and interculturality?

 

A fourth general problem in respect of building global democracy relates to the scale of action. Is public participation and control in the governance of transplanetary affairs best furthered with a focus on global arenas, including in particular the various governance institutions that have transplanetary jurisdictions? Or is global democracy best promoted through regionally focused strategies? Or is global democracy best advanced through country domains and the nation-state? Or is global democracy best achieved through local action in smaller spheres such as districts, neighbourhoods, workplaces and households? Alternatively, does the multi-layered geography of contemporary society point towards trans-scalar action as the most effective politics of democratization? If so, how is a principle of ‘transscalarity’ enacted in practice?

 

A fifth pervasive issue for the BGD programme is that of collective identity and associated ideas and practices of citizenship. What is the shape of ‘the people’ that seeks to shape its common life and future destiny through global democracy? What ‘demos’, ‘public’, and ‘community’ are in play; or is such vocabulary even suitable in relation to global democracy? Territorial democracy centred on the state generally constructed ‘the people’ in terms of the nation, but what role do national identity and community hold in global democracy? What of national peoples whose homelands do not correspond to the territories of existing states? What of nonterritorial publics such as disabled persons, faith groups, sexual minorities, and humanity as a whole? The question of collective identity lies at the heart of conceptualizing global democracy and also figures large in matters of how people organize learning, inclusion, redistribution and interculturality in transplanetary politics.

 

A sixth cross-cutting underlying question for all BGD programme discussions is the relationship between individual and collective interests in global democracy. In global affairs, as in any other sphere of politics, democracy must concurrently serve the self-realization of individuals as well as the common good. Harmonization of these two imperatives can be challenging, as seen with the socially destructive individualism that has afflicted some territorial regimes and the authoritarian collectivism that has afflicted others. Could the construction of global democracy provide an occasion better to combine individual rights and collective needs?

 

A further major consideration in building global democracy concerns the relationship between popular rule and questions of conflict, violence and war. How have armed expressions of conflict impeded – or in some respects perhaps also encouraged – the construction of global democracy? Under what circumstances, if any, is violence permissible in strivings for global democracy? How could global democracy create a field for constructive expression of hitherto repressed and smothered conflicts? What forms of global democracy would promote peaceful settlement of disputes, so that people can have civil co-existence amidst their disagreements? Positive outcomes in this regard would depend in good part on how one conceives of global democracy, what is learned of global politics, how well the full range of constituents are included in global governance, how far just distributions of world resources are achieved, and what ethics of intercultural relations are practiced.

 

In sum, then, building global democracy is a primary challenge for the emergent more global society of present times. That challenge has interrelated conceptual, pedagogical, institutional, distributional and cultural aspects. In pursuing each of these dimensions of building global democracy it is necessary to keep to the fore questions of power, causality, agency, scale, identity, individual/collective relations, and conflict.