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The scope of issues of justice extends globally on many issues. Governance of global society therefore needs transformed institutions. A vision of global democracy assumes a relational model of self‐determination as non‐domination in the context of inclusive and stronger global institutions.

W. E. B. Du Bois’s blueprint for an alternative global democracy—“the fourth dimension”—finds its fullest articulation in the aftermath of two world wars. In Darkwater and Dark Princess, Du Bois outline for socioeconomic and governance reform squarely locates the politically marginalized and colonized “colored world” at the center of a new global democracy. A proponent of republicanism, Du Bois rejects a “tyranny of the Majority,” and celebrates meaningful political participation by every member of society irrespective of race or gender. Du Bois’s critically cosmopolitan vision acknowledges the interrelation between intranational race conflicts and colonial and imperial projects practiced throughout the world. Addressing the primacy of race within domestic and international debates over national security, employment, resources, poverty, and health, Du Bois cites global democracy as a predicate for sustainable peace. Both governance strategy and critique, Du Bois’s “fourth dimension” revises the concept of citizenship and civil obligation, focuses on hinges on educational reform and the wellbeing of (black) American children. Prefiguring the arguments of mid and late 20th-century political philosophers, Du Bois insists that the disenfranchisement of one community within a society (specifically black Americans in the U.S.) risks the well being of the entire polis.

The chapter explores the methods to introduce democratic devices in global governance. The first part makes an attempt to define what a democratic deficit is. The second part provides some benchmark to identify when and how international organizations, the most important and visible part of global governance, correspond to the values of democracy. The third part presents the internal and external levers. The internal lever is defined as the ways in which democratization within countries helps to foster more transparent, accountable, and participatory forms of global governance. The external lever is defined as the ways in which international organizations contribute to promote democratic transition and consolidation in their members. Neither the internal nor the external levers work effectively if they are left to intergovernmental bargaining only. An active participation of non-governmental actors is needed to ensure efficiency. The chapter finally discuss a list of proposals to democratize global governance.

Chapter 5 argues that we have good reasons to doubt that establishing formal political institutions at the global level in the form of a global democracy will generate the benefits associated with democratic institutions in Western liberal democracies. In particular, institutional reform of this type is accompanied by a high degree of variance, and consequently, the risk associated with sweeping institutional change is substantial and the benefits uncertain. The empirical literature on rule of law reforms in Latin America and on organizational behavior show that at the very least, we simply do not know what it takes to create working, effective formal institutions from scratch. Moreover, we have good reason to be concerned that the dysfunctional behavior of existing international institutions and states will be grafted onto and magnified by a comprehensive cosmopolitan scheme for institutional reform.

Is there a human right to democracy (HRD)? How does the achievement of human rights, including the human right to democracy, contribute to the pursuit of global justice? The chapter identifies three reasons for favoring democracy and explores their significance for defending it as a human right. It answers important worries that acknowledging an HRD would lead to intolerance and lack of respect for people’s self-determination, exaggerate the importance of democracy for securing other rights, generalize institutional arrangements that only work in some contexts, and tie human rights to specific ideas of freedom and equality that do not have the same universal appeal and urgency. Tackling the second question, the chapter argues that by providing a floor of dignity on which people can stand in the organization of their social life, democratic political empowerment is crucial for the pursuit of both basic and maximal global justice.

As a prelude to the three themes in the volume, this chapter explores more generally the turn towards legitimacy in global governance research. The chapter suggests that this turn is partly explained by shortcomings in normative research on global democracy, and the potential of research on legitimacy to overcome those problems. The chapter discusses the merits and demerits of alternative conceptualizations of legitimacy in serving these purposes. The chapter concludes in favor of a normative-sociological understanding of legitimacy that is sensitive to beliefs among members of relevant audiences about the normative qualities of political institutions that are ultimately specified by analysts.

This chapter argues that being a good democrat in the twenty-first century requires, rather than precludes, engaging in both domestic and international political reform and struggle that will culminate in the establishment of a world state, or a global political authority that can command and enforce duties of cosmopolitan justice. Cosmopolitan justice constitutes the background essential supporting conditions for the proper functioning and legitimacy of domestic, regional, and global political orders. Under contemporary global circumstances, the effective realization of cosmopolitan justice requires institutional cosmopolitanism in the form of an impartial global political authority that can adjudicate and enforce the rights and duties of states so that they are consistent with their cosmopolitan duties. Only with the realization of institutional cosmopolitanism in the form of a cosmopolitan world state can the principles and values of collective self-determination and social justice championed by democratic theorists be based on a morally acceptable foundation.

This chapter considers some objections lodged by universalist moral theorists. First it addresses Martha Nussbaum’s rejection of robust cosmopolitan institutions on grounds that they would not respect collective domestic choices. Such a stance is shown to give too little attention to domestic repression. Simon Caney’s partly instrumental model of cosmopolitan democracy is shown to provide important insights. It places such strong emphasis on respecting “reasonable disagreement” among persons, however, that it could affirm democratic outcomes deeply skewed in favor of the global majority. An alternative is outlined, informed by Ambedkar’s “soul of democracy” vision of social democracy. It would work to constitutionalize some global economic aim rights, including freer movement of persons, and support the development of related challenge mechanisms. Some practical insights to inform the development of such a framework, and rights specifications processes within it, are taken from the case of the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights, and from the European and other regional governance contexts.

Is a global institutional order composed of sovereign states fit for cosmopolitan moral purpose? This question has lain near the heart of cosmopolitan thought at least since Kant’s interventions of the 1780s and 1790s. Kant seemed torn between supporting large-scale global institutional reforms—the creation of a world republic—and promoting a more modest transformation of states and their interrelations within a voluntary union. Likewise, in the more recent flowering of cosmopolitan thought, dating to the 1970s and intensifying from the immediate post–Cold War period, a persistent question has been whether states can be ascribed duties consistent with a cosmopolitan moral orientation, or whether, as Harold Laski memorably put it in 1925, state sovereignty is simply “incompatible with the interests of humanity.” Such institutional questions are central to this volume. This chapter introduces the major themes examined here and summarizes each author’s contribution.

This chapter shows how the construction of a more applicative form of the sound conception of substantive pluralism would proceed through such an improved foundation. This kind of pluralist approach leads to a further refinement of the substantive pluralist building blocks observed in the existing pluralist theories thus far, and to the development of further key substantive pluralist building blocks in the field of democracy. This sketches a more complete picture of substantive pluralism and its enhancement of democracy as the upshot of the process. Provided that Europe gets it right at its constitutional foundations, it can open the route for humanity to gradually, but inevitably, reach a further historic stage of democracy. This has been unattainable throughout our monist age, and because of monism. We conclude that the branch of constitutional pluralism thus reoriented and refined has the potential to be considered the superior new approach within constitutional thought.

This chapter explores the relation between nomad citizenship and global democracy. It discusses nomad science, nomad music, nomad games, and nomad management and nomad citizenship. It explains that the concept of nomad citizenship developed here derives from the concepts of nomadism and nomadology expounded by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus. It contrasts nomad science with what Deleuze and Guattari call royal or state science.

In recent years, a number of powerful arguments have been given for thinking that there should be suprastate institutions, and that the current ones, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and United Nations Security Council, need to be radically reformed and new ones created. Two distinct kinds of argument have been advanced. One is instrumental and emphasizes the need for effective suprastate political institutions to realize some important substantive ideals (such as preventing dangerous climate change, eradicating poverty, promoting fair trade, and securing peace). The second is procedural and emphasizes the importance of political institutions that include all those subject to their power in as democratic a process as possible, and builds on this to call for democratically accountable international institutions. In this chapter, the author argues that the two approaches need not conflict, and that they can in fact lend support to each other.

This chapter concludes the book by examining how Ambedkar’s own thought on democracy and individual rights within the deeply diverse Indian context could inform efforts to develop a framework of more cosmopolitan, more democratically accountable political institutional at the regional and ultimately global levels. It reviews the argument of the book by chapter, then explores a possible “Ambedkarian” model for advancing the development of democratic institutions and forms of political humility beyond the state. Such a model would focus on softening barriers and promoting interaction between national communities, while promoting some types of broader identification as a means of advancing rights protections. The chapter closes with discussion of a future project on feasibility issues related to the development of such a framework.