Mapping global democracy initiatives should not be content with merely listing and describing them. To enable and deepen discussion on democratic political possibilities, the existing initiatives have to be analysed in terms of their pre-conceptions, justification, support and feasibility.
 

Pre-conceptions

Every initiative for global democracy presupposes a theory of democracy. What does it mean to say that actors themselves should rule? What would democratic equality and self-determination mean in a global context?

Democracy is best conceived as a process of democratisation. There is no model that would exhaust all democratic possibilities; and without any movement towards further democratisation, strong tendencies to corruption and degeneration can easily take over - within a supposedly stable state of democracy.

An important traditional distinction is that between representative and participatory democracy. The problems with representation are manifold. Who is supposed to represent whom or what? Literally, representation means to re-present, to make something, which is absent somewhere, present. Periodical elections within a given set of franchised actors is only one possible solution to the problems of re-presentation. Another would be a constant process of will-formation within various smaller groups or organs or councils or whatever, which would send a representative to higher level meetings to make their opinions count in the decision-making process. But how representative would these smaller groups etc. be?

Those suspicious of the practices of re-presentation argue for participatory democracy. But who should participate where on what terms? There are a number of possibilities here as well. A simple liberalist solution is to demand that all major decisions should be taken by direct votes (referendums). Many republicans would see this as encouraging further atomism, which undermines the basis of participatory democracy: pluralist action and speech in a shared public space. According to these conceptions, the essential problem is to build shared public spaces for democratic will-formation, where-ever.

Dryzek (1996: 5 et.passim) has argued that there are at least three different criteria to identify democratisation: 

1. Franchise, i.e. the number of participants in any political setting.

2. Scope, i.e. the domains of life and social relations under democratic control.

3. Authenticity, i.e. the degree to which democratic control is substantive rather than symbolic, informed rather than ignorant, and competently engaged.

It is important to add also a fourth criterion, concerning the self-delimitation of democratic political action (see Held 1995: 156-158):

4. The self-binding of democracy, i.e. a democracy should not be allowed to destroy democratic practices and procedures of non-violent disagreement and conflict resolution; and a majority should not be allowed to destroy its own learning capacities or to deny others' voice and equal access to the decision-making positions.

Furthermore, in international, transnational, regional and global contexts it is also important to determine the actors. There are three main answers: (i) states, re-presenting people within the boundaries of a nation-state; (ii) self-organised political actors of global civil society; and/or (iii) people (citizens of an imagined cosmopolis).

These answers imply different responses to the problems of representation and participation, as well as different views on the meaning and importance of the criteria of democratisation. Of course, they also imply different accounts about the real practices and power mechanisms of the world we are living in.
 

Justification

What is the value of democracy? And more concretely, how are specific global reform proposals justified?

Basically, there are (i) political arguments for democracy; and (ii) arguments that say that democracy is good because it tends to bring about other valued outcomes, such as peace, economic efficiency, distributive justice or ecological care.

Political arguments say that democracy is the best or most justified way to organise political life because of the nature of political beings and life. For instance, epistemologically, we can't trust anybody to know a priori better than others. Without free speech and everybody's equal access to will-formation, a community may be led astray. There is also the spectre of a vicious circle of the accumulation of power in the hands of a powerful actor or group, just because it is powerful. The end-result may be a repressive and violent tyranny (particularly given the potential powers of modern states).

A more positive argument would be based on an ontological analysis of human possibilities. Arendt (1958) for instance argues that political action and speech - which are by definition pluralist - constitute higher forms of human existence than a mere satisfaction of physical needs, or technical work for the production of material goods to satisfy those physical needs. In public political space, human beings recognise each other as free actors, capable of exposing and developing their identities; demonstrating their virtues; and creating something new.

The value of democracy can also be explicated in terms of peace, efficiency, justice or ecological care. Democracy is thus envisaged asmeans to an end. For instance, the argument may be that democracy provides a peaceful way to resolve domestic conflicts - and the criterion (4) is meant, in part, to reinforce this. Many in International Relations argue further that liberal-democratic states do not fight each other. In contrast, Gilbert (1999) argues that states following the rule of election-based competition between elites in capitalist market society have also often been war- and violence-prone. Bottom-up democratic internationalism has provided an important counter-veiling power to these tendencies, setting a common good against 'democratic' imperialism.

Similar differences can be found within arguments that see democracy as a means to efficiency, justice or ecological care. For the Western orthodoxy, the starting point is competitive elitist vision of liberal democracy ('capitalist oligarchy'). Often these thinkers hold that there is a strong positive correlation between this model and achieving another good, say X. Empirical and theoretical criticism of these alleged correlations is sometimes reactionary. But also radical democrats argue that these correlations are non-existent (not supported by evidence); artificial (mere results of data-coding procedures); or over-determined (due to many other contextual factors than mere liberal-democratic institutions of nation-states). In the view of radical democrats, however, a more genuine, deeper democracy would in fact bear the promise of delivering X (peace, welfare, justice, ecological care).

Any of these arguments for democracy can provide justification for a concrete democratic reform. In addition, however, a case for a concrete reform proposal may stem from more specific geo-historical considerations, such as failure of a particular authoritarian model in a particular country or field of social activity; or from a lesson that in pluralist contexts the only arrangement that works, without threatening everybody, is based on particular democratic procedures. 

Last but not least, democratic reforms can also be a means for a group or collectivity to gain a voice in political will-formation. If generalised, this demand implies a moral argument for democratic self-determination.

It is obviously difficult to make an assessment of any particular initiative without taking a stand on these complex issues. The first step of analysis is to understand the reasons behind a proposal. The second step is to assess the validity of the implied claims.
 

Political support

There are other important distinctions. Independently of actual support right now, it may be more or less reasonable to expect an initiative to be supported by a number of significant actors. It is thus crucial whether reform proposals are based on a realistic analysis of political possibilities or not. 

Blueprints for future may be visionary, but they may also be indicators of an 'unhappy consciousness' - in one form or another. A 'beautiful soul', for instance, is trying to find ground for his or her high ideals, and thus starts to believe that the many aspects of the ideal are already actual.

Instead of the well-intending illusions of a 'beautiful soul', there has to be a careful analysis of the world historical context of political action, including relevant rules, resources, actor-identities, structures and mechanisms. What kinds of social forces could be expected to support a change? What would the feedback, possibly cumulative effects of a reform be? Any indications of a potential backlash? What novel possibilities would be opened up by this particular reform? 

The fact that history is open provides both hope for emancipatory change and tends to undermine any attempt to envisage a closed model for cosmopolitan democracy. Initiatives should thus be assessed also in terms of their implicit philosophy of history. Do they enable further democratic emancipation in the long run; or do they attempt to force world history into a strait-jacket of actual or potential 'end of history'?
 

Feasibility

According to Heidegger (1962: 68), human existence 'is essentially its own possibility', both as available practical possibilities here and now, and as potential possibilities that may be enabled by changes of current context. Yet, not everything is possible, now nor later.

Hence, what has to be assessed as well is the feasibility of the proposed new institutional arrangement. What are the intended effects on democratisation (given the four criteria) and on other relevant values? Would these effects be significant in any way? Would the proposed arrangement really work the intended way - or at all? 

The realisation of a reform involves practical wisdom; lessons drawn from past or contemporary models; counterfactual reasoning about the possible effects of an altered context; as well as thought-experiments about the consequences of the transformed practices and systems. (See Sayer 2000: 160-5; Patomäki 2002: 158-160)

A concrete utopia can remedy some problems while generating others. The new problems could even be worse than the old ones. A realist global democracy initiative cannot assume that any idea or concept can construct any social realities. To the contrary, it is necessary to study the viability of concrete utopias by all available means. In any given geo-historical context, there are thus limits to programmatic imagination. But by changing parts, or the nature of, the wider context, new 'concrete utopias' may well become possible.

Hence, when a democracy initiative is assessed, it has first to be checked whether there is any feasibility analysis. How plausible is that analysis? If there is no feasibility analysis, it has to be created.
 

Conclusion

A global democracy initiative may well lack grounding in terms of its theoretical presuppositions; normative justification; political support; and/or feasibility. It is thus essential that these are scrutinised carefully.

What is the theory of democracy, and justification for it? How does the proposal tackle the problem of, say, representation? What is the envisaged political support for this proposal; and the strategy to make it real? Is the proposed arrangement itself feasible?

Ultimately, there can never be any absolute guarantee about the prospects of a reform. Nonetheless, the failure or success of any serious attempt at a democratic change depends also on rigorous preparations for it. Meticulous assessment of its basis is an essential part of those preparations.

Social sciences are also about Aristotelian 'practical wisdom'. They can contribute to ascertaining what is ethico-politically good and how to reach that good - if it is achievable at all. In the ideal world of mutually reinforcing and cumulative reforms, however, humankind may triumph over anything we can now imagine.
 

REFERENCES

Dryzek, John (1996) Democracy in Capitalist Times. Ideals, Limits and Struggles, Oxford University Press: Oxford.

Gilbert, Alan (1999) Must Global Politics Constrain Democracy? Great-Power Realism, Democratic Peace and Democratic Internationalism, Princeton University Press: Princeton.

Heidegger, Martin (1962) Being and Time, transl. by J.Macquerrie & E.Robinson, Basil Blackwell: Oxford [1927].

Held, David (1995) Democracy and the Global Order. From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance, Polity Press: Oxford.

Held, David (1996) Models of Democracy, 2^nd edition, Stanford University Press: Stanford, CA.

Patomäki, Heikki (1997) "Problems of Democratization: Towards Overcoming the Theory/Practice Dichotomy", in R.Hjerppe et.al. (eds.): Democracy, Economy and Civil Society in Transition. The Cases of Russia and Baltic States, Stakes & UPI: Helsinki, pp.113-122.

Patomäki, Heikki (2002) After International Relations. Critical Realism and the (Re)Construction of World Politics, Routledge: London & New York (forthcoming December 2001).

Sayer, Andrew (2000) Realism and Social Sciences, Sage: London.