Global democracy is a field of academic study and political activism that investigates how to make the world’s political systems more democratic. It is a subset of established literatures in political philosophy, international relations (IR), and international law. Often in conjunction with global justice, scholars of this area seek to understand how burdens and benefits should be distributed by global institutions. More normatively, some advocate a model that is explicitly cosmopolitan: all people deserve to have a say in the formation of global political rules because their lives are intrinsically shaped by them.
In contrast, others argue that global democracy is infeasible and should remain confined to the national context. They highlight the difficulty of motivating states to give up sovereign power to a global state, particularly when they can retain control over decision-making by using the power of veto in formal IOs. They also point out that the emergence of new forms of governance that bypass the state, such as transnational corporations, non-governmental organizations, and private networks, complicates efforts to democratically shape these institutions.
International IDEA believes that advancing the quality of democracy globally requires collaboration across sectors and fields. This is why we are proud to lead the Global Democracy Coalition, a multi-stakeholder network that brings together democracy organizations from around the world to share ideas and coordinate action. The Coalition supports democracy by catalyzing and connecting research to practice, including through our Democracy Tracker, which provides event-centric data on democracy and human rights developments in 173 countries.
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