ABSTRACT
Cosmopolitanism has a long history that dates back at least to classical Greece, experienced a modern renaissance during the Enlightenment period, and finally went through a revival in contemporary times. Throughout its history, the formulation of cosmopolitanism has oscillated between an interpretation in terms of a highly idealistic project and one in terms of a long-term process of socio-economic and political change.1 This tension has characterized the cosmopolitan fate, for it provided both enthusiastic appraisals and severe criticisms aimed alternately (and at time confusingly) at its prescriptive and descriptive ambitions. This chapter aims to disentangle some of the controversial issues related to the tension between the cosmopolitan project and the cosmopolitan process. It develops this analysis mainly through an examination of the key institutional output of cosmopolitanism, namely global democracy.
