Democracy as Human Rights: Freedom and Equality in the Age of Globalization

Extract

Democracy as Human Rights: Freedom and Equality in the Age of Globalization. By Michael Goodhart. New York: Routledge, 2005. 256p. $95.00 cloth, $26.95 paper.

Globalization, which had its modern origins in the capitalist expansion of the nineteenth century, has reached a level of development that challenges the sovereign independence, power, and authority of the nation-state, the primary actor in international politics for the last three hundred years. In so doing, it undermines popular sovereignty as traditionally understood in contemporary democracies. In his book, Michael Goodhart provides a tightly reasoned analysis of globalization's challenge to sovereignty and democratic theory, and puts forward a provocative redefinition of democracy that, he argues, can withstand globalization, even flourish in a globalized world.