Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-16T09:21:16.923Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How to diagnose democratic deficits in global politics: the use of the ‘all-affected principle’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2017

Mathias Koenig-Archibugi
Mathias Koenig-Archibugi*
Affiliation:
Department of Government and Department of International Relations, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, United Kingdom
*
E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Is there a ‘democratic deficit’ in global politics? If so, which changes in institutions and practices can mitigate it? Empirically oriented scholars who ask such questions often use as a yardstick the normative principle that people significantly affected by a decision should be able to take part in reaching that decision. This ‘all-affected principle’ is also endorsed by prominent political theorists. However, its most logically consistent interpretation seems so demanding that it casts doubt on the principle’s usefulness to guide the assessment of real-world situations, since it appears to require that virtually everyone in the world should have a say on any proposal or any proposal for proposals. The argument presented here intends to rescue the principle as a tool for empirical assessments of real-world situations by stressing its role in comparative judgments and especially by showing that its implications are not too expansive and/or indeterminate, once we take into account that certain types of prior decisions significantly restrict the agenda of other decisions in a systematic way. The theoretical guidance for empirical research offered in the first part of the article is then illustrated with an application to global child labor policies.

Keywords

global governanceglobal policydemocratic deficitall-affected principle
Type
Original Papers
Information
International Theory , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , July 2017 , pp. 171 - 202
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2017 

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

Abbott, Kenneth W., and Snidal, Duncan. 2009. “The Governance Triangle: Regulatory Standards Institutions and the Shadow of the State.” In The Politics of Global Regulation, edited by Walter Mattli, and Ngaire Woods, 44–88. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Abebe, Tatek, and Bessell, Sharon. 2011. “Dominant Discourses, Debates and Silences on Child Labour in Africa and Asia.” Third World Quarterly 32:765–786.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Abizadeh, Arash. 2012. “On the Demos and its Kin: Nationalism, Democracy, and the Boundary Problem.” American Political Science Review 106:867–882.Google Scholar
Agné, Hans. 2006. “A Dogma of Democratic Theory and Globalization: Why Politics Need Not Include Everyone it Affects.” European Journal of International Relations 12:433–458.Google Scholar
Agné, Hans. 2010. “Why Democracy Must Be Global: Self-Founding and Democratic Intervention.” International Theory 2:381–409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anner, Mark. 2001. “The Paradox of Labor Transnationalism: Northern and Southern Trade Unions and the Campaign for Labor Standards in the WTO.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, CA, August 30–September 2, 2001.Google Scholar
Archibugi, Daniele. 2008. A Global Commonwealth of Citizens: Toward Cosmopolitan Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Baccini, Leonardo, and Koenig-Archibugi, Mathias. 2014. “Why Do States Commit to International Labor Standards? Interdependent Ratification of Core ILO Conventions, 1948–2009.” World Politics 66:446–490.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banik, Dan. 2001. “The Transfer Raj: Indian Civil Servants on the Move.” The European Journal of Development Research 13:106–134.Google Scholar
Bass, Loretta Elizabeth. 2004. Child Labor in Sub-Saharan Africa. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.Google Scholar
Bray, Daniel. 2013. “Pragmatic Ethics and the Will to Believe in Cosmopolitanism.” International Theory 5:446–476.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brighouse, Harry, and Fleurbaey, Marc. 2010. “Democracy and Proportionality.” Journal of Political Philosophy 18:137–155.Google Scholar
Brown, Garrett Wallace. 2010. “Safeguarding Deliberative Global Governance: The Case of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria.” Review of International Studies 36:511–530.Google Scholar
Burgoon, Brian. 2004. “The Rise and Stall of Labor Linkage in Globalization Politics.” International Politics 41:196–220.Google Scholar
Cabrera, Luis. 2014. “Individual Rights and the Democratic Boundary Problem.” International Theory 6:224–254.Google Scholar
Conradt, Larissa, and List, Christian. 2009. “Group Decisions in Humans and Animals: A Survey.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 364:719–742.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cooney, Sean. 1999. “Testing Times for the ILO: Institutional Reform for the New International Political Economy.” Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal 20:365–400.Google Scholar
Cox, Robert W. 1996. Approaches to World Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahl, Robert A. 1970. After the Revolution? Authority in a Good Society. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Dimitrov, Radoslav S., Sprinz, Detlef F., DiGiusto, Gerald M., and Kelle, Alexander. 2007. “International Nonregimes: A Research Agenda.” International Studies Review 9:230–258.Google Scholar
Drèze, Jean, and Sen, Amartya Kumar. 2002. India: Development and Participation, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dryzek, John S. 2006. Deliberative Global Politics: Discourse and Democracy in a Divided World. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Dryzek, John S., and Niemeyer, Simon. 2008. “Discursive Representation.” American Political Science Review 102:481–493.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dryzek, John S., Bächtiger, André, and Milewicz, Karolina. 2011. “Toward a Deliberative Global Citizens’ Assembly.” Global Policy 2:33–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckersley, Robyn. 2000. “Deliberative Democracy, Ecological Representation and Risk: Towards a Democracy of the Affected.” In Democratic Innovation: Deliberation, Representation and Association, edited by Michael Saward, 117–132. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Erman, Eva. 2016. “Global Political Legitimacy Beyond Justice and Democracy?”. International Theory 8:29–62.Google Scholar
Forst, Rainer. 1999. “The Basic Right to Justification: Toward a Constructivist Conception of Human Rights.” Constellations 6:35–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraser, Nancy. 2008. Scales of Justice: Reimagining Political Space in a Globalizing World. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Fung, Archon. 2013. “The Principle of Affected Interests: An Interpretation and Defense.” In Representation: Elections and Beyond, edited by Jack H. Nagel, and Rogers M. Smith, 236–268. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Goodin, Robert E. 2007. “Enfranchising All Affected Interests, and its Alternatives.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 35:40–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gould, Carol C. 2004. Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grant, Ruth W., and Keohane, Robert O.. 2005. “Accountability and Abuses of Power in World Politics.” American Political Science Review 99:29–43.Google Scholar
Griffin, Gerry, Nyland, Christopher, and O’Rourke, Anne. 2003. “Trade Unions and the Trade-Labour Rights Link: A North-South Union Divide?” International Journal of Comparative Labour Law and Industrial Relations 19:469–494.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 2006. Time of Transitions. Cambridge, UK and Malden, MA: Polity.Google Scholar
Hahn, Kristina, and Holzscheiter, Anna. 2013. “The Ambivalence of Advocacy: Representation and Contestation in Global NGO Advocacy for Child Workers and Sex Workers.” Global Society 27:497–520.Google Scholar
Held, David. 1995. Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
ILO. 1996. “Child Labour: What is to Be Done?” Record of the Proceedings of the Informal Tripartite Meeting at the Ministerial Level, No. Itm/3/1996, International Labour Office, Geneva, June 12.Google Scholar
Invernizzi, Antonella, and Milne, Brian. 2002. “Are Children Entitled to Contribute to International Policy Making? A Critical View of Children’s Participation in the International Campaign for the Elimination of Child Labour.” International Journal of Children’s Rights 10:403–431.Google Scholar
Jupille, Joseph, Mattli, Walter, and Snidal, Duncan. 2013. Institutional Choice and Global Commerce. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Keohane, Robert O. 2003. “Global Governance and Democratic Accountability.” In Taming Globalization : Frontiers of Governance, edited by David Held, and Mathias Koenig-Archibugi, 130–159. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Kies, Raphaël, and Nanz, Patrizia. eds. 2013. Is Europe Listening to Us? Successes and Failures of EU Citizen Consultations. Farnham: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Koenig-Archibugi, Mathias. 2012. “Fuzzy Citizenship in Global Society.” Journal of political philosophy 20:456–480.Google Scholar
Koenig-Archibugi, Mathias. Forthcoming. “International Organizations and Democracy: An Assessment.” In Institutional Cosmopolitanism, edited by Luis Cabrera. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kolben, Kevin. 2006. “The New Politics of Linkage: India’s Opposition to the Workers’ Rights Clause.” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 13:225–260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kosack, Stephen. 2014. “The Logic of Pro-Poor Policymaking: Political Entrepreneurship and Mass Education.” British Journal of Political Science 44:409–444.Google Scholar
Kumar, Ajay. 2003. Integrated Area Specific Approach Against Hazardous and Exploitative Forms of Child Labour in Mirzapur: An Evaluation Report. Allahabad: G. B. Pant Social Science Institute.Google Scholar
Liebel, Manfred. 2004. A Will of Their Own: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Working Children. London and New York: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Macdonald, Kate, and Macdonald, Terry. 2010. “Democracy in a Pluralist Global Order: Corporate Power and Stakeholder Representation.” Ethics & International Affairs 24:19–43.Google Scholar
Macdonald, Terry. 2003. “Boundaries Beyond Borders: Delineating Democratic ‘Peoples’ in a Globalizing World.” Democratization 10:173–194.Google Scholar
Macdonald, Terry. 2008. Global Stakeholder Democracy: Power and Representation Beyond Liberal States. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Marchetti, Raffaele. 2008. “A Matter of Drawing Boundaries: Global Democracy and International Exclusion.” Review of International Studies 34:207–224.Google Scholar
Mehrotra, Santosh. 2006. “Governance and Basic Social Services: Ensuring Accountability in Service Delivery Through Deep Democratic Decentralization.” Journal of International Development 18:263–283.Google Scholar
Meyer, John W., Boli, John, Thomas, George M., and Ramirez, Francisco O.. 1997. “World Society and the Nation-State.” American Journal of Sociology 103:144–181.Google Scholar
Moore, Margaret. 2006. “Globalization and Democratization: Institutional Design for Global Institutions.” Journal of Social Philosophy 37:21–43.Google Scholar
Näsström, Sofia. 2011. “The Challenge of the All‐Affected Principle.” Political Studies 59:116–134.Google Scholar
Nordtveit, Bjorn Harald. 2010. “Discourses of Education, Protection, and Child Labor: Case Studies of Benin, Namibia and Swaziland.” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 31:699–712.Google Scholar
Orbie, Jan, and Tortell, Lisa. 2009. “The New GSP+ Beneficiaries: Ticking the Box or Truly Consistent With ILO Findings?” European Foreign Affairs Review 14:663–681.Google Scholar
Papadopoulos, Yannis. 2010. “Accountability and Multi-Level Governance: More Accountability, Less Democracy?” West European Politics 33:1030–1049.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parekh, Bhikhu. 2003. “Cosmopolitanism and Global Citizenship.” Review of International Studies 29:3–17.Google Scholar
Pogge, Thomas. 2010. Politics as Usual: What Lies Behind the Pro-Poor Rhetoric. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Rixen, Thomas, and Zangl, Bernhard. 2013. “The Politicization of International Economic Institutions in US Public Debates.” The Review of International Organizations 8:363–387.Google Scholar
Roozendaal, Gerda van. 2002. Trade Unions and Global Governance: The Quest of Trade Unions for a Social Clause. New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Saunders, Ben. 2012. “Defining the Demos.” Politics, Philosophy & Economics 11:280–301.Google Scholar
Saxena, NC. 2010. “The IAS Officer–Predator or Victim?” Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 48:445–456.Google Scholar
Scholte, Jan Aart. ed 2011. Building Global Democracy?: Civil Society and Accountable Global Governance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scholte, Jan Aart. ed 2008. “Reconstructing Contemporary Democracy.” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 15:305–350.Google Scholar
Scholte, Jan Aart. 2014. “Reinventing Global Democracy.” European Journal of International Relations 20:3–28.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya. 2009. The Idea of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Ian. 2003. The State of Democratic Theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sharma, Alakh N., Sharma, Rajeev, and Raj, Nikhil. 2000. The Impact of Social Labelling on Child Labour in India’s Carpet Industry. New Delhi: Institute for Human Development.Google Scholar
Song, Sarah. 2012. “The Boundary Problem in Democratic Theory: Why the Demos Should be Bounded by the State.” International Theory 4:39–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steffek, Jens. 2015. “The Output Legitimacy of International Organizations and the Global Public Interest.” International Theory 7:263–293.Google Scholar
Steffek, Jens, and Nanz, Patrizia. 2007. “Emergent Patterns of Civil Society Participation in Global and European Governance.” In Civil Society Participation in European and Global Governance: A Cure for the Democratic Deficit? , edited by Jens Steffek, Claudia Kissling, and Patrizia Nanz, 1–29. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Tallberg, Jonas, and Uhlin, Anders. 2011. “Civil Society and Global Democracy: An Assessment.” In Global Democracy: Normative and Empirical Perspectives, edited by Daniele Archibugi, Mathias Koenig-Archibugi, and Raffaele Marchetti, 210–232. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valentini, Laura. 2011. “A Paradigm Shift in Theorizing About Justice? A Critique of Sen.” Economics and Philosophy 27:297–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valentini, Laura. 2014. “No Global Demos, No Global Democracy? A Systematization and Critique.” Perspectives on Politics 12:789–807.Google Scholar
Waldron, Jeremy. 1999. Law and Disagreement. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiner, Myron. 1991. The Child and the State in India: Child Labor and Education Policy in Comparative Perspective. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Whelan, Frederick G. 1983. “Prologue: Democratic Theory and the Boundary Problem.” Nomos 25:13–47.Google Scholar
Young, Iris Marion. 2000. Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Zürn, Michael. 2000. “Democratic Governance Beyond the Nation-State: The EU and Other International Institutions.” European Journal of International Relations 6:183–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zürn, Michael. 2010. “Global Governance as Multi-Level Governance.” In Handbook on Multi-Level Governance , edited by Hendrik Enderlein, Sonja Wälti, and Michael Zürn, 80–99. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Zweifel, Thomas D. 2006. International Organizations and Democracy: Accountability, Politics, and Power. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar