Global Democracy: For and Against: Ethical Theory, Institutional Design and Social Struggles

This book defends the case for the expansion of the democratic model to the global political sphere. Concentrating on the democratic deficit of international affairs, it examines the nexus between the phenomenon of international exclusion and the political response of global democracy. Its aim thus rests not so much in providing another theory of moral cosmopolitanism, but in producing an engaged text that deals with the normative and institutional aspects of the discussion on democratic global order. Global Democracy develops its distinctive position through a survey of the principal theories for and against global democracy. Among rival positions, two sets of democratic theories are criticized for being unable to cope with the demand for global justice and the subsequent need for global inclusion. While realism, nationalism and liberal internationalism are disapproved for their domestic centricity, other global theories, such as the project for cosmopolitan globalgovernance, are disputed for their issue centricity. Going beyond these exclusionary paradigms, the study defends a theory able to encompass a consistent and all-inclusive extension of the democratic paradigm at the global level: world federalism.