Cosmopolitan democracy in times of globalisation

Although philosophical discourse on cosmopolitanism has a longstanding tradition, the currently ongoing processes of globalisation force this discourse to strike out on radically new paths. Whereas previously cosmopolitanism often remained a merely philosophical idea, the historical circumstances of 21st century open up politically specific perspectives for bringing it into – or at least closer to – reality. Hence arises the need for a thorough reflection on how the idea of cosmopolitanism might be realised through specific democratic mechanisms and structures in times of globalisation. This paper focuses on the significance of globalisation for interpreting ‘cosmopolitan democracy’ in the 21st century. First, we will discuss the general phenomenon of globalisation by specifying the most important political implications of several processes of globalisation in economics, media and culture, environmental issues, law and ethics, etc. We will focus on the political impact of globalisation on notions as ‘political communities’, ‘nation-states’, ‘sovereignty’ and ‘state autonomy’. Secondly, we will offer a critical analysis of two different accounts of ‘cosmopolitan democracy’ in times of globalisation: (1) David Held’s structural approach of cosmopolitan democracy in terms of a layered model of different democratic governments (local, national, regional and global) based on the all affected principle, and his ideological account of cosmopolitan democracy based on the notions of cosmopolitan citizenship, multiple citizenship, and cosmopolitan democracy as a double-sided process, and (2) Michael Saward’s pragmatic view on cosmopolitan democracy based on both the all affected principle and the principle of territoriality, and his so-called fine-grained and intermediary mechanisms for realising cosmopolitan democracy such as deliberative forums, reciprocal representation, functional representation, complex responsibility, and cross-border referenda. We will conclude the paper by advocating the possibility of seeing cosmopolitan democracy both as a Kantian moral utopia and as a Deweyan pragmatic politics in such a way that the former can be realised within and throughout the latter