There is widespread recognition of a democratic deficit in global governance. While recognizing this deficit is easy, remedying it is going to be hard. Many existing proposals for global democratization are not very imaginative in that they begin from the assumption that the model for global democracy already exists in something like the form already taken by developed liberal democracies. One of the more prominent such models is the ‘popularly elected global assembly’ or PEGA. We accept the basic justifications for global democracy advanced by PEGA campaigners, but believe there is a need to move beyond facile invocations of electoral democracy at the global level. We examine the contribution to the development of global deliberative democracy that could be made by Deliberative Global Citizens’ Assemblies of ordinary citizens drawn from all the countries of the world. Such assemblies would be both deliberative and composed of ordinary citizens of the world – not elected politicians. We do not proclaim this kind of innovation as the solution to the problem of effective and democratically legitimate global governance. Rather, we call for its exploration as a complement to existing international institutions and a focal point for global deliberative systems. Policy Implications  Deliberative Global Citizens’ Assemblies constitute an institutional alternative to prominent proposals for a Popularly Elected Global Assembly.  A DGCA would provide novel and potentially substantial contributions to accountability, legitimacy and deliberative quality in global governance.  A DGCA could help remedy the global democratic deficit, giving a voice to ordinary people.  A DGCA could serve as an institutional focal point to make international interactions in general more deliberative and inclusive, and so more democratically defensible.  A DGCA would not have to be a general‐purpose quasi‐legislative body. Assemblies could be issue specific and advisory.

Since the end of the Cold War, multilateral treaties have again become a central vehicle for international cooperation. In this article, we study states' commitment to 76 multilateral treaties concluded between 1990 and 2005. The article offers a systematic account of present-day multilateral treaty-making efforts and asks what explains variation in states' participation as witnessed in the act of treaty ratification. We test existing explanations and provide a novel argument that accounts for the strong participation of new European democracies in multilateral treaties. We find that regime type and being part of the European Union (EU) strongly affect treaty ratification. New EU democracies, in particular, are much more likely to ratify multilateral treaties than are other new democracies.

Increased complexity and density of transnational problems create unprecedented challenges and opportunities for contemporary international governance. “Issue linkage” is one institutional arrangement through which states address these changing circumstances. In this article, we examine the widening scope of the nontrade agenda in preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Nontrade issues (NTIs) such as human rights, democracy, environment, corruption, and labor standards are increasingly linked to PTAs. This issue linkage has important implications for understanding changing patterns of international trade, including the shift to PTAs and the rise of NTIs. We show that (1) states’ choices to commit to bilateral or plurilateral versions of traditional PTAs and to PTAs with NTIs are highly interdependent, (2) states increasingly incorporate NTIs into PTAs, as the associated costs of policy change are lowered through earlier agreements, and (3) network pressures favor the increasing adoption of bilateral and especially plurilateral NTIs over time. Using an original data set on NTIs covering 522 PTAs and spanning the period 1951 to 2009, we evaluate states’ motives behind the widening nontrade agenda of trade agreements using longitudinal network modeling. We employ multiplex coevolution stochastic actor-oriented network models in a novel design to account for interdependencies within and across states’ decisions. Following a descriptive mapping of major NTIs, we evaluate our theoretical arguments. Testing against the alternative explanations of power and commitment, we find that endogenous cost considerations are the most significant factor explaining the inclusion of NTIs into PTAs.

Why do new EU democracies engage in multilateralism?The dominant explanation proposes that new democracies use international treaties to lock in domestic reforms. This article offers a novel explanation as to why new EU democracies participate in multilateral treaties. We argue that ratifying a treaty serves three external signaling purposes (addressing recognition concerns; increasing strategic autonomy, and pleasing the EU). We test our argument through a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods. First, we apply event history analysis. Drawing on a new ratification data set comprising 76 multilateral treaties, we illustrate the prominent role of new EU democracies in multilateralism as compared to other new democracies. Second, to assess the importance of external signaling in the decision to ratify multilateral treaties, we examine parliamentary ratification debates in selected Central and Eastern European countries. Third, we compare parliamentary discussions across European and non-European new democracies to demonstrate the different motives driving their approaches toward multilateralism.Recent empirical studies confirm the conventional wisdom that European states are at the forefront of multilateralism in the post-Cold war era. What is particularly noteworthy is the high commitment level of new European democracies to multilateral treaties (Elsig, Milewicz, and Stürchler 2011). These countries are much more likely to ratify multilateral treaties than other new democracies. Yet, the democratization literature is short on theoretical explanations to account for the observed variation in ratification patterns. The leadingThe Hidden World of Multilateralism 2 explanation refers to new democracies' use of international law as a "lock-in" instrument (Moravcsik 2000). The argument suggests that governments join multilateral institutions in order to cement domestic reforms and policies. But no explanation is offered for the variation among newly democratized states in terms of their engagement with the multilateral system. This article tackles this puzzle and offers a novel explanation for why newly democratized states in Europe are among the top ratifiers of post-Cold War multilateral treaties. We suggest that these states use treaties not as an internal lock-in signal, but as an external signal communicating specific foreign policy objectives. These signals are intended to strengthen their international reputation, to increase strategic autonomy, and to please the European Union (EU) as the key sponsor of multilateralism. The Conventional Argument: New Democracies, Credibility and Lock InAn important body of literature addresses the role of new democracies in international relations and in international law, and shows that newly democratized states are more likely to join international organizations and ratify international treaties than are other states. One important reason for the active use of international law is related to the governments' need to address concerns of (domestic) credibility. New democr...

Theories of deliberation, developed largely in the context of domestic politics, are becoming increasingly relevant for international politics. The recently established Universal Periodic Review (UPR) operating under the auspices of the UN’s Human Rights Council is an excellent illustration. Our analysis of responses to its reports and recommendations suggests that the deliberative processes surrounding the UPR do indeed evoke co-operative responses even from countries with poor human rights records. Its highly inclusive, deliberative, repeated-play and peer-to-peer nature can serve as a model for how international organizations more generally can enhance deliberative capacity across the international system.