ABSTRACT
In order for processes of globalization to continue without resulting in a corresponding loss of the collective capacity to make legitimately binding decisions, new mechanisms of democratic politics need to be developed. This article addresses three forms of transnational politics that could serve to broaden democratic legitimacy beyond the nation-state: (i) cosmopolitan democracy, (ii) democratic regionalism, and (iii) democratic network governance. Part one begins by examining David Held’s important contributions to the project of rethinking liberal and social democracy in the context of globalization. It argues that if cosmopolitan democracy is to meet the challenges of globalization and address the need for transnational forms of democratic politics, it must be able to illuminate the very serious political obstacles to the democratization of transnational power. It must be able to articulate the forms of politics necessary to chart the course from globalizing present to cosmopolitan future. Parts two and three examine forms of politics seeking to chart such a middle course: Part two examines democratic regionalism through Jürgen Habermas’ ‘postnational constellation’, and part three examines democratic network governance through the concept of ‘global civil society’. Each model, it is argued, encounters a tension between the particular contexts of democratic legitimacy and the universalism demanded of a transnational or even global political culture.
