Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T06:58:21.906Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Democracy-Enhancing Multilateralism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2009

Robert O. Keohane ,
Stephen Macedo  and
Andrew Moravcsik
Robert O. Keohane
Affiliation:
Princeton University, E-mail: [email protected]
Stephen Macedo
Affiliation:
University Center for Human Values at Princeton University, E-mail: [email protected]
Andrew Moravcsik
Affiliation:
European Union Program at Princeton University, E-mail: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

International organizations are widely believed to undermine domestic democracy. Our analysis challenges this conventional wisdom, arguing that multilateral institutions can enhance the quality of national democratic processes, even in well-functioning democracies, in a number of important ways: by restricting the power of special interest factions, protecting individual rights, and improving the quality of democratic deliberation, while also increasing capacities to achieve important public purposes. The article discusses conflicts and complementarities between multilateralism and democracy, outlines a working conception of constitutional democracy, elaborates theoretically the ways in which multilateral institutions can enhance constitutional democracy, and discusses the empirical conditions under which multilateralism is most likely to have net democratic benefits, using contemporary examples to illustrate the analysis. The overall aim is to articulate a set of critical democratic standards appropriate for evaluating and helping to guide the reform of international institutions.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 63 , Issue 1 , January 2009 , pp. 1 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bailey, Michael A., Goldstein, Judith, and Weingast, Barry R.. 1997. The Institutional Roots of American Trade Policy: Politics, Coalitions, and International Trade. World Politics 49 (3):309–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barr, Michael S., and Miller, Goeffrey P.. 2006. Global Administrative Law: The View From Basel. European Journal of International Law 17 (1):15–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blackburn, Robert, and Polakiewicz, Jorq, eds. 2001. Fundamental Rights in Europe: The ECHR and Its Member States, 1950–2000. Cambridge: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braithwaite, John, and Drahos, Peter. 2000. Global Business Regulation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchanan, Allen. 2004. Political Liberalism and Social Epistemology. Philosophy & Public Affairs 32 (2):95–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchanan, Allen, and Powell, Russell. Forthcoming. Constitutional Democracy and the Rule of International Law: Are They Compatible? Journal of Political Philosophy.Google Scholar
Calabresi, Steven G., and Zimdahl, Stephanie Dotson. 2005. The Supreme Court and Foreign Sources of Law: Two Hundred Years of Practice and the Juvenile Death Penalty Decision. William and Mary Law Review 47 (3):743–909.Google Scholar
Chayes, Abram, and Chayes, Antonia Handler. 1995. The New Sovereignty: Compliance with International Regulatory Agreements. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahl, Robert A. 1956. A Preface to Democratic Theory: How Does Popular Sovereignty Function in America? Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Dahl, Robert A. 1999. Can International Organizations be Democratic? A Skeptic's View. In Democracy's Edges, edited by Shapiro, Ian and Hacker-Cordón, Casiano, 19–36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahl, Robert A., and Tufte, Edward R.. 1973. Size and Democracy. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Dahrendorf, Ralf. 1999. The Third Way and Liberty: An Authoritarian Streak in Europe's New Center. Foreign Affairs 78 (5):13–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorf, Michael C., and Sabel, Charles F.. 1998. A Constitution of Democratic Experimentalism. Columbia Law Review 98 (2):267–473.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorsen, Norman. 2005. The Relevance of Foreign Legal Materials in U.S. Constitutional Cases: A Conversation Between Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Stephen Breyer. International Journal of Constitutional Law 3:519–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eisgruber, Christopher L. 2001. Constitutional Self-Government. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ely, John. 1980. Democracy and Distrust: A Theory of Judicial Review. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Eylon, Yuval, and Harel, Alon. 2006. The Right to Judicial Review. Virginia Law Review 92 (5):991–1022.Google Scholar
Finlayson, Jock A., and Zacher, Mark W.. 1983. The GATT and the Regulation of Trade Barriers: Regime Dynamics and Functions. In International Regimes, edited by Krasner, Stephen D., 273–314. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Fischer, Stanley. 1995. Central-Bank Independence Revisited. American Economic Review 85 (2):201–6.Google Scholar
Gilligan, Michael J. 1997. Empowering Exporters: Reciprocity, Delegation, and Collective Action in American Trade Policy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldstein, Judith, and Steinberg, Richard H.. 2007. Regulatory Shift: The Rise of Judicial Liberalization at the WTO. UCLA School of Law, Law-Econ Research Paper 07-15. Los Angeles: UCLA.Google Scholar
Grant, Ruth W., and Keohane, Robert O.. 2005. Accountability and Abuses of Power in World Politics. American Political Science Review 99 (1):29–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hafner-Burton, Emilie, Mansfield, Edward D., and Pevehouse, Jon C.. 2008. Democratization and Human Rights Regimes. Available at Social Science Research Network: ⟨http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1123771⟩. Accessed 14 October 2008.Google Scholar
Haggard, Stephan. 1988. The Institutional Foundations of Hegemony: Explaining the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934. International Organization 42 (1):91–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, Alexander, Madison, James, and Jay, John. 1787. The Federalist Papers. New York: New American Library, 1961.Google Scholar
Hathaway, Oona A. 2002. Do Human Rights Treaties Make a Difference? The Yale Law Journal 111 (8):1935–2042.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmes, Stephen. 1995. Passions and Constraint: On the Theory of Liberal Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 2007. Available at ⟨http://www.ipcc.ch⟩. Accessed 14 October 2008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Issacharoff, Samuel. 2007. Fragile Democracies. Harvard Law Review 120 (6):1405–467.Google Scholar
Jackson, Vicki C. 2005. Constitutional Comparisons: Convergence, Resistance, Engagement. Harvard Law Review 119 (8):109–28.Google Scholar
Joerges, Christian, and Vos, Ellen. 1999. EU Committees: Social Regulation, Law and Politics. Oxford, England: Hart.Google Scholar
Johnston, Alastair Iain. 2008. Social States: China in International Institutions, 1980–2000. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kersch, Ken I. 2005. The New Legal Transnationalism, the Globalized Judiciary, and the Rule of Law. Washington University Global Studies Law Review 4 (2):345–87.Google Scholar
Kingsbury, Benedict. 1999. Operational Policies of International Institutions as Part of the Law-Making Process: The World Bank and Indigenous Peoples. In The Reality of International Law: Essays in Honour of Ian Brownlie, edited by Goodwin-Gill, Guy S. and Talmon, Stefan, 323–42. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koh, Harold Hongju. 2004. International Law as Part of Our Law. American Journal of International Law 98 (1):43–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krasner, Stephen D. 1999. Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kumm, Mattias. 2006. Democratic Constitutionalism Encounters International Law: Terms of Engagement. In The Migration of Constitutional Ideas, edited by Choudhry, Sujit, 256–93. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lehnardt, Chia. 2007. European Court Rules on UN and EU Terrorist Suspect Blacklists. ASIL Insights 11 (1). American Society of International Law. Available at ⟨http://www.asil.org/insights/2007/01/insights070131.html⟩. Accessed 14 October 2008.Google Scholar
Lowi, Theodore J. 1969. The End of Liberalism: The Second Republic of the United States. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Ludlow, Peter. 2002. The Laeken Council. Brussels, Belgium: Eurocomment.Google Scholar
Macedo, Stephen. 1990. Liberal Virtues: Citizenship, Virtue, and Community in Liberal Constitutionalism. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Majone, Giandomenico. 2005. Dilemmas of European Integration: The Ambiguities and Pitfalls of Integration by Stealth. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mansbridge, Jane J. 1980. Beyond Adversary Democracy. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Matsubayashi, Tetsuya. 2007. Population Size, Local Autonomy, and Support for the Political System. Social Science Quarterly 88 (3):830–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGinnis, John O., and Movsesian, Mark L.. 2000. The World Trade Constitution. Harvard Law Review 114 (2):511–605.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merry, Sally Engle. 2006. Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Milner, Helen V. 2005. Why Multilateralism? Foreign Aid and Domestic Principal-Agent Problems. In Delegation and Agency in International Organizations, edited by Hawkins, Darren G., Lake, David A., Nielson, Daniel L., and Tierney, Michael J., 107–39. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Ronald B., Clarke, William C., Cash, David W., and Dickson, Nancy M.. 2006. Global Environmental Assessments: Information and Influence. Cambridge: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moravcsik, Andrew. 2000. The Origins of International Human Rights Regimes: Democratic Delegation in Postwar Europe. International Organization 54 (2):217–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moravcsik, Andrew. 2002. In Defence of the Democratic Deficit: Reassessing Legitimacy in the European Union. Journal of Common Market Studies 40 (4):603–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moravcsik, Andrew. 2006. What Can We Learn from the Collapse of the European Constitutional Project? Politische Vierteljahresschrift 47 (2):219–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moravcsik, Andrew. 2008. The European Constitutional Settlement. The World Economy 31 (1):158–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagel, Thomas. 2005a. The Problem of Global Justice. Philosophy and Public Affairs 33 (2):113–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagel, Thomas. 2005b. The Need for Nations. New Republic, 27 June, 19–21.Google Scholar
Ober, Josiah. 2005. Athenian Legacies: Essays on the Politics of Going on Together. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olson, Mancur. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parker, Richard W. 1999. The Use and Abuse of Trade Leverage to Protect the Global Commons: What We Can Learn from the Tuna-Dolphin Conflict. Georgetown International Environmental Law Review 12 (1):123.Google Scholar
Parrish, Austen L. 2007. Storm in a Teacup: the U.S. Supreme Court's Use of Foreign Law. Available at Social Science Research Network. ⟨http://ssrn.com/abstract=891269⟩. Accessed 14 October 2008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parson, Edward A. 2003. Protecting the Ozone Layer: Science and Strategy. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pettit, Philip. 2000. Democracy, Electoral and Contestatory. Nomos 42:105–44.Google Scholar
Przeworski, Adam. 1999. Minimalist Conception of Democracy: A Defense. In Democracy's Values, edited by Shapiro, Ian and Hacker-Cordón, Casiano, 23–55. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rabkin, Jeremy A. 1998. Why Sovereignty Matters. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute Press.Google Scholar
Rabkin, Jeremy A. 2005. Law Without Nations? Why Constitutional Government Requires Sovereign States. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodrik, Dani. 1995. Why Is There Multilateral Lending? NBER Working Paper No. 5160. Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodrik, Dani. 1997. Has Globalization Gone Too Far? Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodrik, Dani. 2007. One Economics, Many Recipes: Globalization, Institutions, and Economic Growth. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rubenfeld, Jed. 2004. Unilateralism and Constitutionalism. New York University Law Review 79 (6):1971–2028.Google Scholar
Sabel, Charles F., and Zeitlin, Jonathan. 2007. Learning from Difference: The New Architecture of Experimentalist Governance in the European Union. European Governance Paper (EUROGOV) C-07-02. Available at ⟨http://www.connex-network.org/eurogov/pdf/egp-connex-C-07-02.pdf⟩. Accessed 14 October 2008.Google Scholar
Salzman, James. 2005. Decentralized Administrative Law in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Duke Law School Legal Studies Research Paper Series. Research Paper No. 77. Durham, N.C.: Duke University School of Law.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scharpf, Fritz W. 1999. Governing in Europe: Legitimate and Effective? Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schattschneider, E.E. 1935. Politics, Pressure, and the Tariff: A Study of Free Private Enterprise in Pressure Politics, as Shown in the 1929–1930 Revision of the Tariff. New York: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Schattschneider, E.E. 1960. The Semisovereign People: A Realist's View of Democracy in America. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Scheppele, Kim Lane. 2006. The Migration of Anti-Constitutional Ideas: The Post-9/11 Globalization of Public Law and the International State of Emergency. In The Migration of Constitutional Ideas, edited by Choudhry, Sujit, 347–73. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya. 1970. The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal. Journal of Political Economy 78 (1):152–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaffer, Gregory. 1999. United States-Import Prohibition of Certain Shrimp and Shrimp Products. American Journal of International Law 93 (2):507–14.Google Scholar
Simmons, Beth. 2007. Theories of Compliance. Unpublished manuscript. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University.Google Scholar
Singer, Peter. 2002. One World: The Ethics of Globalization. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Slaughter, Anne-Marie. 2004. The New World Order. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Slaughter, Anne-Marie, and Zaring, David. 2006. Networking Goes International: An Update. Annual Review of Law and Social Science 2:211–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steinberg, Richard H. 2002. In the Shadow of Law or Power? Consensus-Based Bargaining and Outcomes in the GATT/WTO. International Organization 56 (2):339–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steinberg, Richard H. 2004. Judicial Lawmaking at the WTO: Discursive, Constitutional, and Political Constraints. American Journal of International Law 98 (2):247–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stewart, Richard B. 1975. The Reformation of American Administrative Law. Harvard Law Review 88 (8):1667–813.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stone, Geoffrey R. 2004. Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Tarrow, Sidney. 2005. The New Transnational Activism. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, Alexander. 2006. Screening Power: International Organizations as Informative Agents. In Delegation and Agency in International Organizations, edited by Hawkins, Darren G., Lake, David A., Nielson, Daniel L., and Tierney, Michael J., 229–54. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallach, Lori, and Woodall, Patrick. 2004. Whose Trade Organization? A Comprehensive Guide to the WTO. New York: New Press.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, Rorden. 2006. The WTO: Crisis and the Governance of World Trade. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Winham, Gilbert R. 1980. Robert Strauss, the MTN, and the Control of Faction. Journal of World Trade Law 14 (5):377–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winham, Gilbert R. 2005. The Evolution of the Global Trade Regime. In Global Political Economy, edited by Ravenhill, John, 88–115. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Woods, Ngaire. 2006. The Globalizers: The IMF, the World Bank and Their Borrowers. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Zaring, David T. 2006. Best Practices. New York University Law Review 81:294–350.Google Scholar