Eva Erman

University of Stockholm

With large and growing power asymmetries between rule-makers and rule-takers in global politics, it is important to build global democracy. Many policymakers and activists have approached this challenge in terms of making institutional reforms such as, for example, adding more seats to the United Nations Security Council. However, before rushing into one or the other institutional change it is important to think through what ‘rule by the people’ actually means in a global context.

A first step in conceptualizing global democracy is to identify the core conditions of any democracy: whether it is local, national or global; and whether it is in Africa, the Americas, Asia or Europe. Although democracy is practiced very differently in different times and places, it is argued here that it must always meet two basic criteria. One of these necessary conditions is political equality, by which is meant that, in a democracy, anyone who is affected by a public decision has an equivalent possibility to participate (directly or indirectly) in the making of that decision. The other necessary condition is political bindingness, by which is meant that most of the people who are affected by a governing order actively give their approval to it.

How well do the three main conceptions of global democracy proposed by western political theory stand up to these criteria? One conception, the human rights approach, suggests that ‘rule by the people’ is achieved in global politics when everyone everywhere on the planet enjoys certain fundamental enabling circumstances. A second conception, the civil society approach, suggests that global democracy is achieved when affected people are able through transnational associations such as NGOs and social movements to participate in, deliberate over, and contest governance of global affairs. A third conception, the federalist-representative approach, suggests that global democracy is achieved through a world government with an elected global parliament.

The first two of these three conceptions are not able to fulfil the two basic criteria of democracy. A global human rights framework can provide an ethical basis for political equality of citizens across the world. However, human rights do not of themselves put that equality into practice or offer a way for affected people to bind themselves to global public decisions. Global civil society provides a political space where affected people can voice their views (approving or disapproving) of global-level regulations. However, global civil society is not a space that is available to all affected people, so it fails to meet the criterion of political equality.

The third, federalist-representative, approach could fulfil the two criteria, but it leads to an overly formalistic conception of global democracy. Even if we were able to create global parliaments directly elected by universal suffrage worldwide and thereby provide a thin notion of political equality, this public participation would be too formal and too removed from people’s actual political activities. Moreover, a global state could become a monstrous centralized power.

A way forward in conceptualizing global democracy might therefore be to adopt a two-track deliberative notion. On the one hand, global democracy needs a track of formal institutionalized formation of the collective will, such as through directly and universally elected global parliaments. On the other hand, global democracy needs a track of informal public discussion through global civil society where affected people can identify problems, propose responses, scrutinize rule-makers, and demand accountability. The two tracks are complementary, each making up for some of the shortcomings of the other.

In actual global politics today more attention is being given to the civil society track than to the parliamentary track. In fact, some steps have been taken to formalize the involvement of NGOs in taking global public decisions. Thus employer federations and trade unions have seats in the annual International Labour Conference, and NGOs have voting seats on the board of the Global Fund to Fights AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. However, so far global governance has not been acquiring the complementary track of elected universal representative institutions which can provide a guarantee of equal opportunity to participate. This balance needs to be righted.

In addition, more attention is required to the human rights dimension of global democracy. Two developments are needed in this area. First, it is necessary to move beyond the articulation of human rights norms in global legal instruments to their realization in practice. Second, it is necessary to give more attention alongside traditional liberal civil human rights to socioeconomic human rights. As circumstances in the Nordic countries illustrate, socioeconomic welfare and high political participation go hand in hand. Thus all affected people in global politics must have socioeconomic rights as well as civil rights in order to satisfy the condition of political equality that is fundamental to democracy.