Deliberation and Global Governance: Liberal, Cosmopolitan, and Critical Perspectives

Abstract

The paper develops a critical analysis of deliberative approaches to global governance. After first defining global governance and with a minimalist conception of deliberation in mind, the paper outlines three paradigmatic approaches: liberal, cosmopolitan, and critical. The possibilities and problems of each approach are examined and a common concern with the scope for “deliberative reflection” in global governance is addressed. It is argued that each approach, to varying degrees, foregrounds the currently underdetermined state of knowledge about global governance, its key institutions, agents, and practices. In doing so, the question “What is global governance?” is retained as an important and reflective element of ongoing deliberative practices. It is suggested that this constitutes the distinctive and vital insight of deliberative approaches to global governance.

Public Reason and International Friendship

“…For example, Joshua Cohen has conceived of a global public reason that is 'global in reach, inasmuch as it applies to all political societies, and global in its agent, inasmuch as it is presented as the common reason of all peoples, who share responsibility for interpreting its principles, and monitoring and enforcing them' (Cohen 2004: 196;Smith and Brassett 2008). Cohen takes up Rawls's notion of an overlapping consensus from Political Liberalism and applies it globally.…”

Global democracy and the democratic minimum: Why a procedural account alone is insufficient

“…In contrast, the latter emphasize that institutions and their decision-making processes are embedded in social and political discourses that structure the formation of political opinions and decisions. As a result, adherents to discursive approaches stress a need for 'discursive designs' that ensure that decision-making builds on a balance between competing discourses on a given issue of political decision-making (Dryzek, 2006(Dryzek, , 2008Smith and Brassett, 2008).…”

Reinventing global democracy

“…In this vein, some activists have in recent years experimented with novel spaces such as the World Social Forum (Sen et al, 2004;Smith et al, 2007;Teivainen, 2002). Meanwhile, certain thinkers have brought ideas of 'deliberative democracy' to global politics, although most formulations of that concept have not made a radical break with conventional notions of civil society and the public sphere (Dryzek, 2006(Dryzek, , 2010Smith and Brassett, 2008). Other theorists have introduced vocabulary of 'cosmopolitanisms' (in the plural), 'critical cosmopolitanism', 'subaltern cosmopolitanism', 'anarcho-cosmopolitanism' and 'grassroots globalism' (Gabay, 2008;Mertes, 2003;Mignolo, 2000;Pollock et al, 2000;Rao, 2010).…”