Delhi welcomes the world!

The workshop was opened by Anand Kumar, the Building Global Democracy programme convener for the South Asia region. Brief personal introductions were made by the circa 40 participants present, including the 10 BGD programme conveners, visiting authors and discussants from 19 countries, and local contributors from academic, civil society, media, official and political party circles in Delhi.

Introducing BGD and our 'Citizen Learning' project

The meeting then reviewed the main themes and objectives of the overall BGD programme, as well as the broad lines of BGD’s Learning for Global Democracy (LGD) project. These two overviews also recalled various debates that were held in the previous BGD workshop at Cairo on the theme of Conceptualising Global Democracy.

The rest of the three-hour opening session of the Delhi workshop was devoted to a plenary discussion of participants’ views of ‘global democracy’, ‘learning’, and connections between these processes. Various points raised in that conversation are set out below.

Participants thoughts on 'global democracy'

• Speakers repeatedly emphasised the need to continue debates about the meaning of global democracy beyond the Cairo workshop and into the Learning for Global Democracy project.

• It was noted that the term ‘democracy’ can be deployed and distorted in dangerous hegemonic and neo-imperial ways. It is thus important to question what kind of democracy is on offer and what interests different notions of democracy can promote. With such critical assessment it could be possible to reclaim ‘democracy’ from tainted discourses and thereby to democratise democracy.

• At the same time speakers also suggested that experiences of dictatorship highlight the indispensability of democracy, however incomplete and imperfect it may be in practice.

• The discussion repeatedly noted the importance of recognising, respecting and learning from diverse expressions of democracy. Yet across that diversity it might be possible to identify certain common underlying principles that unite all constructions of democracy. In this generic vein it was suggested that all democracy entailed ‘active self-rule of society’ and/or ‘participation in decision-making processes by every affected person’ and/or ‘a situation where rulers fear the people rather than the other way around’.

• It was urged to sustain the emphasis on gender dimensions of democracy that characterised the discussions in Cairo. Engendering (global) democracy could open up new and deeper understandings and practices.

• It was urged, when thinking about global democracy, to look less at formal governance institutions and more at the conditions and practices of everyday life. Otherwise debates of global democracy would not resonate in grassroots communities on a day-to-day basis.

Participants thoughts on 'citizen learning'

• It was suggested, as a general starting point, that learning involved a number of dimensions, including the acquisition of information, the development of analytical concepts, the growth of capacities for critical political engagement, and the development of mobilisation skills. Other aspects of learning (e.g. language skills) might emerge as the workshop progressed. It could also be anticipated that project case studies would show that these dimensions of learning take different forms in different contexts around the world.

• Attention was drawn to the selection of the term ‘learning’ rather than ‘education’ in the project title. ‘Education’ could have connotations of one-way top-down dictations of knowledge, whereas ‘learning’ could suggest greater interaction, participation and exploration.

• It was suggested that the concept of ‘citizen’ could not be taken as given. Perhaps citizenship might take new forms in a more global world. Perhaps even the very idea of citizen could be problematic for global democracy (for example, if it were seen to be part of structural violences of the state and modernity).

• It was noted that different forms of citizen learning could serve different purposes. For example, some learning could have the effect of reinforcing dictatorship and imperialism, while other learning could advance struggles for social justice. It is therefore important always to ask what ends a particular learning exercise advances.

• It was suggested that democratising learning is that learning which facilitates citizen participation and accountability; it is a method of creating spaces for citizen action.

• Caution was raised against a possible presumption that citizens, once they are enabled through learning, will automatically become active promoters of democratic practices. This might not always be the case.

Closing comments

At the close of the session it was remarked that the overall tenor of the discussion would have pleased the philosopher Michel Foucault, given the attention to critically examining received ideas about key concepts and values. This process of deconstruction could be somewhat chaotic and unsettling, but it arguably also created the basis for innovative thinking about citizen learning for global democracy in the days to come.

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