Democratic globalization is a movement towards an institutional system that expands globalization by giving world citizens a say in world organizations. This would, in their view, by-pass nation-states, corporate oligopolies, ideological NGOs, cults and mafias.
These proponents state that democratic globalization's purpose is:
to expand globalization and make people closer and more united
to have it reach all fields of activity and knowledge, not only the economic one, even if that one is crucial to develop the world well-being.
Supporters of this globalization movement draw a distinction between their movement and the one most popularly known as the "anti-globalization" movement, claiming that their movement avoids ideological agenda about economics and social matters. Democratic globalization supporters state that the choice of political orientations should be left to the world citizens, via their participation in world democratic institutions. Some proponents in the "anti-globalization movement" do not necessarily disagree with this position. For example, George Monbiot, normally associated with the "anti-globalization" movement (who prefers the term Global Justice Movement) in his work Age of Consent has proposed a similar democratic reforms of most major institutions, suggesting direct democratic elections of such bodies, and suggests a form of "world government".
Democratic globalization, proponents claim, would be reached by creating democratic global institutions and changing international organizations (which are currently intergovernmental institutions controlled by the nation-states), into global ones controlled by those world citizens. The movement suggest to do it gradually by building a limited number of democratic global institutions in charge of a few crucial fields of common interest. Its long term goal is that these institutions federate later into a full-fledged democratic world government.
Some modern political entities are closest to direct democracies, such as Switzerland or some U.S. states, where frequent use is made of referenda, and means are provided for referenda to be initiated by petition instead of by members of the legislature or the government.
There are also debates about street democracy and electoral reform which emphasize the more local and situated means by which the public comes to know the issues, and directly encounter the consequences of making major decisions.
Skeptics question these statistics (as well as the validity of democracy in various countries; democracy may be regarded as window-dressing over plutocracy, oligarchy, dictatorship or other forms of rule by the few).
Democracy means that the majority of the people have say over the decisions that affect their lives.
The global institutions of the post World War II order, now under the sponsorship of the hegemonic United States, were intended to resolve the problems that were perceived to have caused the military conflagrations and economic disasters of the early twentieth century.
Globaldemocracy requires that local institutions and national states be democratic and democratic institutions of global governance.
Feeds |
Contact