Democratic globalization
Encyclopedia
Democratic globalization is a movement towards an institutional system of global democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...

 that would give world citizens a say in world organizations. This would, in their view, bypass nation-states, corporate oligopolies, ideological NGO
Non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization is a legally constituted organization created by natural or legal persons that operates independently from any government. The term originated from the United Nations , and is normally used to refer to organizations that do not form part of the government and are...

s, cults and mafias. One of its most prolific proponents is the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 political thinker David Held
David Held
David Held is a British political theorist active in the field of international relations. He will be chair of politics and international relations at Durham University from January 2012 and is currently Graham Wallas Professor of Political Science and co-director of the Centre for the Study of...

. In the last decade he published a dozen books regarding the spread of democracy from territorially defined nation states to a system of global governance
Global governance
Global governance or world governance is the political interaction of transnational actors aimed at solving problems that affect more than one state or region when there is no power of enforcing compliance. The modern question of world governance exists in the context of globalization...

 that encapsulates the entire world.

These proponents state that democratic globalization's purpose is to:
  • expand globalization
    Globalization
    Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...

     and make people closer and more united.
  • have it reach all fields of activity and knowledge, not only the economic one, even if that one is crucial to develop the well-being of world citizens.
  • give world citizen
    World citizen
    World citizen has a variety of similar meanings, often referring to a person who disapproves of traditional geopolitical divisions derived from national citizenship....

    s a democratic
    Democracy
    Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...

     access and a say to those global activities.


Supporters of the democratic globalization movement draw a distinction between their movement and the one most popularly known as the 'anti-globalization
Anti-globalization
Criticism of globalization is skepticism of the claimed benefits of the globalization of capitalism. Many of these views are held by the anti-globalization movement however other groups also are critical of the policies of globalization....

' movement, claiming that their movement avoids ideological agenda about economics and social matters. Democratic globalization supporters state that the choice of political orientations should be left to the world citizens, via their participation in world democratic institutions.
Some proponents in the "anti-globalization movement" do not necessarily disagree with this position. For example, George Monbiot
George Monbiot
George Joshua Richard Monbiot is an English writer, known for his environmental and political activism. He lives in Machynlleth, Wales, writes a weekly column for The Guardian, and is the author of a number of books, including Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain and Bring on the...

, normally associated with the anti-globalization movement (who prefers the term Global Justice Movement
Global Justice Movement
The Global Justice Movement is a network or constellation of globalized social movements opposing what is often known as the “corporate globalization” and promoting equal distribution of economic resources.-Movement of movements:...

) in his work Age of Consent has proposed similar democratic reforms of most major global institutions, suggesting direct democratic elections of such bodies, and suggests a form of "world government."

Democratic globalization, proponents claim, would be reached by creating democratic global institutions and changing international organization
International organization
An intergovernmental organization, sometimes rendered as an international governmental organization and both abbreviated as IGO, is an organization composed primarily of sovereign states , or of other intergovernmental organizations...

s (which are currently intergovernmental
Intergovernmental
Intergovernmental can refer to:*Intergovernmentalism*Intergovernmental Risk Pool*Intergovernmental organization...

 institutions controlled by the nation-states), into global ones controlled by world citizens. The movement suggests to do it gradually by building a limited number of democratic global institutions in charge of a few crucial fields of common interest. Its long term goal is that these institutions federate later into a full-fledged democratic world government.

See also

  • Cosmopolitanism
    Cosmopolitanism
    Cosmopolitanism is the ideology that all human ethnic groups belong to a single community based on a shared morality. This is contrasted with communitarian and particularistic theories, especially the ideas of patriotism and nationalism...

  • Federalism
    Federalism
    Federalism is a political concept in which a group of members are bound together by covenant with a governing representative head. The term "federalism" is also used to describe a system of the government in which sovereignty is constitutionally divided between a central governing authority and...

  • Global governance
    Global governance
    Global governance or world governance is the political interaction of transnational actors aimed at solving problems that affect more than one state or region when there is no power of enforcing compliance. The modern question of world governance exists in the context of globalization...

  • Internationalism (politics)
    Internationalism (politics)
    Internationalism is a political movement which advocates a greater economic and political cooperation among nations for the theoretical benefit of all...

  • Multilateralism
    Multilateralism
    Multilateralism is a term in international relations that refers to multiple countries working in concert on a given issue.International organizations, such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organization are multilateral in nature...

  • National sovereignty
    National sovereignty
    National sovereignty is the doctrine that sovereignty belongs to and derives from the nation, an abstract entity normally linked to a physical territory and its past, present, and future citizens. It is an ideological concept or doctrine derived from liberal political theory...

  • Recursionism
  • Supranationalism
  • Federal World government
  • Democratic peace theory
    Democratic peace theory
    Democratic peace theory is the theory that democracies don't go to war with each other. How well the theory matches reality depends a great deal on one's definition of "democracy" and "war"...


External links

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