Summer 2007 (21.2) Feature

The Inconveniences of Transnational Democracy

Despite some limited moves toward openness and accountability, suprastate policy formation in such bodies as the World Trade Organization remains fundamentally exclusive of individuals within states. This article critiques the "don't kill the goose" arguments commonly offered in defense of such exclusions. It highlights similarities between those arguments and past arguments for elitist forms of democracy, where strict limitations are advocated on the participation of non-elites in the name of allowing leaders to act most effectively in the broad public interest. Advocated here is movement toward a strongly empowered WTO parliamentary body that would be guided in practice by a principle of democratic symmetry, attempting to match input to the increasing impacts of WTO governance. A parliament with co-decision powers broadly similar to those of the European Parliament is offered as a long-term institutional ideal.

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More in this issue

Summer 2007 (21.2) Review

Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny by Amartya Sen and Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers by Kwame Anthony Appiah

These two books are the inaugural releases in Norton's Issues of Our Time series, but they are linked by much more than this fact. Each ...

Summer 2007 (21.2) Essay

The Human Rights Council: A New Era in UN Human Rights Work? [Full Text]

Kofi Annan did more than any UN secretary-general before him to stress the close link between human rights and peace and security. With the creation ...

Summer 2007 (21.2) Internal

Editors' Note [Full Text]

Sometimes change is revolutionary, but more often it tends to be evolutionary. That is why many readers might not even notice that there are a ...