The transformation of political community: rethinking democracy in the context of globalization

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the changing nature of political community in the context of globalization – in brief, the growing interconnectedness, and intensification of relations, among states and societies. The chapter has a number of parts. In the first part, I explore the changing forms of political association and, in particular, the rise of the modern nation state as a background against which modern conceptions of democracy developed. With this in mind, I examine some of the key assumptions and presuppositions of liberal democracy; above all, its conception of political community. In the second part, I explore changing forms of globalization. In my view, globalization has been with us for some time, but its extent, intensity, and impact have changed fundamentally. In the third and final part of the essay, the implications of changing forms of globalization are explored in relation to the prospects of democratic political community. A particular conception of democracy is elaborated, a form of transnational democracy, which, it is argued, is more appropriate to the developing structure of political associations today. The future of democracy is set out in cosmopolitan terms – a new democratic complex with global scope, given shape and form by reference to a basic democratic law, which takes on the character of government to the extent, and only to the extent, that it promulgates, implements, and enforces this law. This is by no means a prescription for the end of the nation state or the end of democratic politics as we know it – far from it.