Deliberative Democracy in a Globalizing World

A short paper I wrote for a class talking about designing global democratic systems. Thought someone here might find it interesting given the Panama Papers Leaks

Nancy Fraser shows us in her essay, Reframing Justice in a Globalizing World, that many of the institutions that affect people's daily lives operate outside the jurisdiction of any single state or representative governing body. As these institutions are not decided upon or governed democratically, they tend to exploit those of lower socioeconomic statuses and favor the wealthy and powerful. In the wake of the Panama Papers leak, we have seen just how exploitative these systems can be. Several heads of state who were implicated in the leak have since resigned, as the papers proved how widespread corruption and the misuse of power by authorities really is in today's governments. In her analysis, Fraser comes to the conclusion that these global institutions, being completely unaccountable to the people, must be reformed with the global citizen in mind. Some form of democratic control is necessary, but the question of how these new democratic institutions should be designed remains. Fraser tells us of the “all affected principle". She tells us, "On this view, what turns a collection of people into fellow subjects of justice is not geographical proximity, but their co-imbrication in a common structural or institutional framework…" (Fraser pg. 82). So, everyone affected by the institution should have a say in how it works. With this in mind, there are many ways (some better than others) in which these democratic systems can come to a consensus. In wondering about the optimal democratic structure to apply to these global institutions, I turned to Jane Mansbridge's paper, Should Blacks Represent Blacks and Women Represent Women – A Contingent ‘Yes', for insight.
In her paper, Mansbridge discusses the concept of deliberative democracy vs. aggregative democracy and examines ways to improve upon the deliberation aspect of collective decision-making. Her main goal involves the underrepresentation of certain groups in the discussion and formulation of policies relevant to them and the benefits of having representatives with a knowledge of the experiences of these groups. She says, "Although a representative need not have shared personally the experiences of the represented to facilitate communication and bring subtlety to a deliberation, the open-ended quality of deliberation gives communicative and informational advantages to representatives who are existentially close to the issues." (Mansbridge pg. 636). In developing these new international democratic institutions, we must take into account the diversity of races, ethnicities, and cultures amongst the nations involved. With the vast diversity of the global community, forms of descriptive representation have an important place in giving the disadvantaged groups a voice in the decision-making process.
Representative democracy isn't perfect. As is shown in Mansbridge's paper, it doesn't ensure that the true diversity of viewpoints is represented, and it doesn't ensure that the disadvantaged groups have the ability to state their case on issues and provide alternative solutions. On a global scale, this is critical. There are many different languages being spoken, many different circumstances in which there may be conflict, and many different groups that are affected in different ways by these global institutions due to their different political systems, laws, and systems of oppression. In order to make sure that the wealthy, the powerful, and the dominant groups don't have a de facto hold on the system, we must find ways to increase the voices of the disadvantaged by forming large groups of descriptive representatives for each country to be represented by, and by creating a petition process that allows for a greater voice in deliberation. Democracy in global politics has the potential to create better and more equalizing international institutions, but it must be implemented in a way that is inclusive of all groups that may be affected by the decisions these institutions make.
#termpapers