A Critique of Held's Cosmopolitan Democracy
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A Critique of Held’s Cosmopolitan Democracy Takeshi Nakano 19-503 9, 3, Tagara Nerima, Tokyo, Japan. E-mail: [email protected]
This essay criticizes David Held’s proposal of cosmopolitan democracy. Held argues that cosmopolitan realities are emerging, which help to open up the possibility of a cosmopolitan democracy. However, the author argues that Held tends to exaggerate cosmopolitan realities. What Held sees as cosmopolitan realities are international realities rather than cosmopolitan, and what he calls ‘transnational civil society’ is in fact the product of nation-states. Held endorses ‘the institutionalization of cosmopolitan principles’, which implies two different institutionalizations, though Held does not explicitly recognize this difference: the global and national institutionalization. However, the global institutionalization of cosmopolitan principles would not only fail to work but also cause undesirable consequences, in particular, global cultural homogenization, while the national one does not deserve the name of cosmopolitanism. Instead of introducing a cosmopolitan democracy, the author proposes that we should utilize and enhance the capacities of nation-states and develop the existing international order so as to cope with global problems. Contemporary Political Theory (2006) 5, 33–51. doi:10.1057/palgrave.cpt.9300167 Keywords: globalization; David Held; cosmopolitan democracy; cosmopolitan principles; the capacities of nation-states; international order
Introduction Globalization is a phenomenon which is widely regarded as generating serious problems for the contemporary world — such as global warming, the international drugs trade, global terrorism, the spread of mass destruction, North–South inequality, the instability of global financial markets and so forth. Economic liberalism, the hegemonic ideology of modern political economy, is frequently criticized not only for being unable to solve these problems, but indeed also for being largely responsible for them. For example, John Gray argues that the global free market is created by specific policies based on ideological commitment to economic liberalism, rather than being spontaneously generated, as economic liberals themselves believe. He sees the ideal of the free-market order as nothing but a ‘false dawn’ (Gray, 1998). An alternative to economic liberalism is thus required. One possible candidate is cosmopolitanism. For example, David Held proposes cosmopolitan democracy — the multilayered and cooperative
Takeshi Nakano A Critique of Held’s Cosmopolitan Democracy
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institutions of local, national, regional and global democratic governance — as the best means for coping with global political and economic problems (Held, 1993, 1995, 1998, 2002a, b). Held rightly points out the defects of economic liberalism and asserts the necessity of a new paradigm (Held, 1995: chapter 11). More importantly, unlike utopian cosmopolitan thinkers, he endeavours to base his proposal upon a sophisticated and comprehensive analysis of contemporary
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