Cosmopolitan Democracy: An Agenda for a New World Order

by Daniele Archibugi (editor), David Held (Editor)

The form of international regulation which dominated world politics for more than forty years has collapsed, while no alternative has yet emerged. The end of the Cold War has created new opportunities for developing an international order based upon the principles of legality and democracy. But if these opportunities are not seized, there is the danger that force will again prevail in the settings of international politics, both within Europe and beyond.
The contributors to this volume offer an analysis of the contemporary conjuncture in international politics and present an alternative model of international organization: cosmopolitan democracy. This model is based upon the recognition of the continuing significance of nation-states, while arguing for a layer of governance that would constitute a limitation on national sovereignty. The case is made for the creation of new cosmopolitan institutions which would coexist with the system of states but would override states in clearly defined spheres of activity. The term democracy in this context refers not merely to the formal construction of new democratic institutions, but also the possibility of broad civic participation in decision-making and the redistribution of power at regional and global levels.
The six essays which comprise this volume present a highly original overview of the key international issues of our times as well as a novel agenda for the extension of democracy on a transnational basis. The contributors are Norberto Bobbio, Luigi Bonanate, Mary Kaldor, David Held, Daniele Archibugi and Richard Falk.

Genres: Nonfiction

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Daniele Archibugi is a Research Director at the Italian National Research Council (CNR) in Rome, affiliated at the Institute on Population and Social Policy (IRPPS), and Professor of Innovation, Governance and Public Policy at the University of London, Birkbeck College, Department of Management. He works on the economics and policy of technological change and on the political theory of international relations. He has graduated in Economics at the University of Rome "La Sapienza" and taken his D.Phil. at the SPRU, University of Sussex. He has worked and taught at the Universities of Sussex, Naples, Cambridge and Rome, London School of of Economics and Political Science and Harvard. In June 2006 he was appointed Honorary Professor at the University of Sussex.

He is an adviser to the European Union, the OECD, several UN agencies and various national governments. He has led many research projects for the European Commission and other international organisations. He has chaired the European Commission's Expert Group on "A Wide Opening of the European Research Area to the World" and he has been a member of the Expert Group of the European Commission "Global Europe 2030/2050".

At the IRPPS-CNR he directs the research project titled Globalization: Economic, Technological and Poltical Determinants and Impact, where the most important recent publications are listed and can be downloaded.

He is the author of several books and more than 150 articles in refereed journals. Among his books, he has co-edited The Globalising Learning Economy (Oxford University Press, 2001), and has edited Debating Cosmopolitics (Verso, 2003). His latest book, The Global Commonwealth of Citizens. Toward Cosmopolitan Democracy was published by Princeton University Press in October 2008 and translated in Italian, Japanese and other languages. He has co-edited Global Democracy: Normative and Empirical Perspectives (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and co-authored Innovation and Economic Crisis. Lessons and Prospects from the Economic Downturn (Routledge, 2011).