INTERNATIONAL TOPICS
DEMOCRATIC COSOPOLITISM AND THE WORLD STATE: NORMATIVE-INSTITUTIONAL PROPOSALS OF DANIELE ARCHIBUGI
Abstract
Democratic cosmopolitanism is a contemporary political theory of transferring the model of representative democracy from the national to the global level in order to transform the fundamental institutional framework of the international community. It is a new, minimal approach that revitalizes the formation of a global rule, that is, a world state in a modern democratic framework. The model advocated by cosmopolitan democrats is decentralized global rule without a global government, without a world state in the full sense of the term as conceived by the original world federalists. The main proponents of contemporary theory of cosmopolitan democracy аre polititical thinkers like David Held, Daniel Archibugi, Mary Kaldor and Richard Falk.
The Paper provides basic conceptual frameworks for the theory of democratic cosmopolitanism through the work of one of its most prominent proponents, Professor Danielе Archibugi of the University of London. It discusses in detail its normative frameworks as well as institutional proposals for reforms of the contemporary international community. In the historical evolution of democratic ideas about supranational association, Archibugi identifies three major contemporary forms, the “ideal – types” of these endeavors. The first form that Archibugi sees was “confederation”, “intergovernmental democratic multilateralism”; second form is “world federation” and the third one is “global governance” or “democratic policentrism”. Archibugi is zelous advocate of third concept. He identifies goals and areas of action that, according to him, is necessary to prioritize and direct activities in line with the ideas of cosmopolitan democracy. These are: 1) control over the use of force (reducing political violence to a minimum within and outside nation states, while force is used as the last resort); 2) convergence of methods of government and even lifestyles not by force, but by free choice 3) strengthening people’s self-determination (which should encompass the internal dimension of effective participation and the external dimension that is, in fact, reflected in the absence of domination) 4) oversight of internal affairs (absence of authoritarian behavior within political communities towards individuals and sub-communities) 5) participatory management of global problems (strengthening political equality in global affairs by expanding it from the state level to the global level). Then, Archibugi turns his concept of cosmopolitan democracy to concrete, detailed proposals for reforms of individual institutions within the United Nations system.
The Paper concludes with a principle critique of both cosmopolitan democracy theory and its Archibugi’s version, and points to the connections of his proposals with the earlier pre-modern and modern proponents of the world state, which Arkibugi, in a new outfit and with several original additions, seeks to revitalize.
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