At Reid Hall (Paris) - from 12:30 to 2:00 pm

Summary :

Over the past decades, the production of governance arrangements has internationalized, concomitantly to globalization and the emergence of global-scale policy challenges. Has democracy too? At a time when intergovernmental policymaking is increasingly contested, what role can — and should — play civil society in making global governance more democratic and accountable? This seminar’s session will explore the prospects of global democracy, both from a research and policy standpoint.  

The past half-century has seen major expansions of global governance. Globalization has generated needs for many more rules and regulatory processes that operate on a world scale. Yet many worry that this enlarged global governance is undemocratic, unjust, illegitimate. Repeatedly this unhappiness has erupted in public protests such as the alterglobalization movement and Occupy Wall Street.

So how, if at all, can global governance be made democratic? Jan Aart Scholte reviews six general ways to bring public participation and control into global governance. These approaches include anti-globalism, multilateralism, cosmopolitanism, multistakeholderism, deliberation, and resistance. The talk will identify key features of each framework, describe several attempts to put them into practice, and assess their promises and problems. Particular attention will be given to the role of civil society in these different roads to a democratization of global governance.

The talk will be of interest to policymakers, researchers, civil society activists, and concerned citizens in general.

In the discussion, Carole-Anne Sénit will further examine the democratizing potential of civil society participation in intergovernmental policymaking, centering her analysis on the influence of civil society actors on the definition of global sustainability agreements such as the Sustainable Development Goals.

The session will be held in English without any interpretation.

Vidéo

Interview of Jan Aart Scholte