The United Nations and Global Democracy
| Date | 01 December 2009 |
| Published date | 01 December 2009 |
| Author | Madeleine Bélanger Dumontier,Jean-Philippe Thérien |
| DOI | 10.1177/0010836709344447 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
The United Nations and Global Democracy
From Discourse to Deeds
JEAN-PHILIPPE THÉRIEN AND
MADELEINE BÉLANGER DUMONTIER
ABSTRACT
This article shows that the idea of global democracy has been a driving
force in UN discourse and policies for the past two decades. In the first
part, we use official rhetoric to explain that the promotion of global
democracy by the UN rests on a particular set of values and beliefs. In
an analysis that parallels the interpretation proposed by cosmopolitan
democratic theorists, UN leaders argue that international governance
must be democratized in order to reflect the recent reconfiguration of
political forces. We then examine how UN ideas are put into practice
through global public policies. Structured in line with the distinction
between input- and output-based legitimacy, this second part demons-
trates how UN policies foster greater participation by non-state actors
in the organization’s deliberations and operations. The article suggests
that the UN is an effective intellectual actor. By promoting civil society’s
greater involvement in world politics, the discourse and policies of
the UN have indeed succeeded in advancing the idea of a democracy
‘without borders’.
Keywords: civil society; global democracy; global governance;
international organizations; non-state actors; partnerships; United
Nations
Introduction
On 17 October 2007, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon led the largest
political demonstration in history. Together with 43.7 million people in 127
countries, Ban stood up to ‘speak out against poverty’ (2007). Coordinated
by the UN and a wide range of civil society organizations, the demonstration
was held to call on political leaders around the world to honour their pledge
to meet the Millennium Development Goals. The so-called ‘Stand Up’
event is a telling example of growing UN efforts in favour of a more parti-
cipatory and more democratic global order. Surprisingly, these efforts have
so far received little attention from students of international politics. To
help correct this paucity, our article seeks to explain why and how, over the
Cooperation and Conflict: Journal of the Nordic International Studies Association
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0010-8367. DOI: 10.1177/0010836709344447
356 COOPERATION AND CONFLICT 44(4)
past two decades, the idea of global democracy has been a driving force in
the work of the UN.
Global democracy is a highly contentious concept in world politics. As
Barry Holden recalls, ‘what global democracy is, and to what extent its
existence is likely or desirable, are matters about which there is consider-
able controversy’ (2000: 1). Within the UN context, the term has at times
referred to an interstate project, the goal of which is to grant all states,
large and small, the fullest opportunity to participate in global decision-
mak ing, based on the principles of the UN Charter (Boutros-Ghali, 1994:
para. 134; Annan, 2002a: 139). In recent years, however, UN discourse has
considerably broadened the notion of global democracy in order to address
the need to give non-state actors the ‘means of participation in the formal
system’ (Boutros-Ghali, 1996a: 25; see also Archibugi, 1998a: 223–4). Our
analysis focuses on this second, more societal, conception of global demo-
cracy. In stressing the role of non-state actors — NGOs, the private sector,
local authorities and parliamentarians, among others — the bottom-up
vision of global democracy defended by the UN is consistent with the
inter pretation of those who view global democracy as a process aimed at
creating ‘new institutional channels that will allow popular participation
and the political control over global choices to be increased’ (Archibugi,
2008: xvi). Often identified as the key challenge for the future of multilateral
cooperation (Cox, 1997; Knight, 1999; O’Brien et al., 2000; Cooper and
Legler, 2006), the advancement of global participatory democracy has also
been portrayed as ‘a new task of our time’ (Boutros-Ghali, 1996a: 25) by
former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Though arguably a
remote prospect, global democracy understood as a truly inclusive form of
world political organization has now become an integral part of the debate
on global governance and the UN system.
Our analysis draws on three bodies of scholarly literature associated with
the fields of international relations, political theory and public policy. The
approach we have adopted is modelled, first and foremost, on recent research
emphasizing the importance of the production of ideas by international
organizations. Owing to their roles in setting the global agenda, establishing
norms and socializing international agents, international institutions are rec-
ognized to a growing extent as intellectual actors (Emmerij et al., 2001). This
has been the case in particular for the UN, and was the analytical starting
point of the UN Intellectual History Project (UNIHP), initiated in 1999 by
Louis Emmerij, Richard Jolly and Thomas Weiss.1 UNIHP collaborators
have published over 10 books which show that social and economic ideas
‘are arguably the most important legacy of the UN’ (Emmerij et al.,
2001: 3), and that UN ideas ‘have had a significant influence on national
and international action’ (Jolly et al., 2005: 3). Following a similar line of
thought, we propose to demonstrate that the UN actively supports the idea
of global democracy. To this end, we, like Emmerij, Jolly and Weiss, adopt
the view that the UN, far from being a unitary actor, encompasses ‘three
United Nations’: the intergovernmental forum (First UN), the international
civil service (Second UN) and the UN of NGOs and experts (Third UN)
(Jolly et al., 2009: 32–3). Our article is centred mainly on the discourse and
policies promoted by the Second UN.
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