Deborah Z. Cass
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199285846
- eISBN:
- 9780191713798
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199285846.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Private International Law
This is a book about the constitutionalization of the World Trade Organization, and the contemporary development of institutional forms and democratic ideas associated with constitutionalism within ...
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This is a book about the constitutionalization of the World Trade Organization, and the contemporary development of institutional forms and democratic ideas associated with constitutionalism within the world trading system. It is about constitutionalization enthusiasts who promote institutions, management techniques, rights discourse, and quasi-judicial power to construct a constitution for the WTO. It is about constitutional sceptics, who fear the effect the phenomenon of constitutionalization is having on the autonomy of states; the capacity of the WTO to consider non-economic and non-free-trade goals; and democratic processes at the WTO and within the nation-state. The aim of the study is to disentangle debates about the various meanings of the term ‘constitution’ when it is used to apply to the World Trade Organization, and to reflect upon the significance of those meanings for more general international law conceptions of constitutions. It argues that the WTO is not and should not be described as a constitution either by the standards of any received account of that term, or by the lights of any of the current WTO models. Under these definitions, serious issues of legitimacy, democracy, and community are at stake. The WTO would lack a proper political structure to balance the work of its judicial bodies; it may curtail the ability of states to decide matters of national economic interest; it lacks authorization by a coherent political community; and it risks an emphasis upon economic goals and pure free trade over other, equally important, social values. Instead, the book argues that what is needed is a constitutionalized WTO which considers the economic development needs of states and takes account of the skewed playing field of international trade and its effect on the economic prospects of developing countries. In short, trading democracy, legitimacy, and community, and not trading constitutionalization, are the biggest challenges facing the WTO.Less
This is a book about the constitutionalization of the World Trade Organization, and the contemporary development of institutional forms and democratic ideas associated with constitutionalism within the world trading system. It is about constitutionalization enthusiasts who promote institutions, management techniques, rights discourse, and quasi-judicial power to construct a constitution for the WTO. It is about constitutional sceptics, who fear the effect the phenomenon of constitutionalization is having on the autonomy of states; the capacity of the WTO to consider non-economic and non-free-trade goals; and democratic processes at the WTO and within the nation-state. The aim of the study is to disentangle debates about the various meanings of the term ‘constitution’ when it is used to apply to the World Trade Organization, and to reflect upon the significance of those meanings for more general international law conceptions of constitutions. It argues that the WTO is not and should not be described as a constitution either by the standards of any received account of that term, or by the lights of any of the current WTO models. Under these definitions, serious issues of legitimacy, democracy, and community are at stake. The WTO would lack a proper political structure to balance the work of its judicial bodies; it may curtail the ability of states to decide matters of national economic interest; it lacks authorization by a coherent political community; and it risks an emphasis upon economic goals and pure free trade over other, equally important, social values. Instead, the book argues that what is needed is a constitutionalized WTO which considers the economic development needs of states and takes account of the skewed playing field of international trade and its effect on the economic prospects of developing countries. In short, trading democracy, legitimacy, and community, and not trading constitutionalization, are the biggest challenges facing the WTO.
Paul Woodford
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199363032
- eISBN:
- 9780199363063
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199363032.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, Performing Practice/Studies
There has been a renewed interest of late among Western music educators in promoting democratic ideas and practices in school, university, and community music programs. Yet the concept of democracy ...
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There has been a renewed interest of late among Western music educators in promoting democratic ideas and practices in school, university, and community music programs. Yet the concept of democracy as it applies to music and music education remains ill-defined. This chapter outlines two differing, and often conflicting, conceptions of democracy and their implications for music education. The bulk of the chapter argues that a democratic purpose for music education implies that students should be helped to identify and critically examine the musical or other ideologies and political forces in their world that would shape their understandings of music and its power in their lives. This type of music education requires that students learn fundamental democratic principles while also being introduced to the most controversial problems or issues of the day in which music and music education are implicated.Less
There has been a renewed interest of late among Western music educators in promoting democratic ideas and practices in school, university, and community music programs. Yet the concept of democracy as it applies to music and music education remains ill-defined. This chapter outlines two differing, and often conflicting, conceptions of democracy and their implications for music education. The bulk of the chapter argues that a democratic purpose for music education implies that students should be helped to identify and critically examine the musical or other ideologies and political forces in their world that would shape their understandings of music and its power in their lives. This type of music education requires that students learn fundamental democratic principles while also being introduced to the most controversial problems or issues of the day in which music and music education are implicated.
