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Human Rights Do Not Make Global Democracy
Eva Erman
(Draft version, please do not quote or circulate)
Abstract
On most accounts of global democracy, human rights are ascribed a central function. Still, their
conceptual role in global democracy is often unclear. Two recent attempts to remedy this deficiency
have been made by James Bohman and Michael Goodhart. What is interesting about their proposals
is that they make the case that under the present circumstances of politics, global democracy is best
conceptualized in terms of human rights. While the article is sympathetic to this ‘human rights
approach’, it defends the thesis that human rights are not enough for global democracy. It argues
that insofar as we hold on to the general idea of democracy as a normative ideal of self-determination
(self-rule) or popular control, i.e. that people should determine their own lives and rule over
themselves, the concept of democracy accommodates two necessary conditions, namely, political
bindingness and political equality. Further, it argues that neither Bohman nor Goodhart’s account
fulfils these conditions and that one explanation for this could be traced to a lack of clarity
concerning the distinction between democracy as normative ideal and democracy as decision method
or rules (e.g. institutions, laws, norms) for regulating social interactions. This ambiguity has
implications for both Goodhart and Bohman. In Goodhart’s work it manifests itself as a vagueness
concerning the difference between political agency and democratic agency; in Bohman’s work it
becomes unclear whether he contributes a normative democratic theory or a theory of
democratization. While the paper develops both a conceptual and a normative argument against
their proposals, the aim is not to find faults with them but to point at questions that are in need of
further elaboration to make them more convincing.
Keywords: global democracy; human rights; Bohman; non-domination; Goodhart; political equality
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Introduction
On most accounts of global democracy, human rights are ascribed a central role. It is
generally agreed that, to the extent that we wish to apply democracy globally, we must
apply some basic rights globally too. At the same time, the conceptualization of human
rights in these proposals is often unclear. They are commonly expressed as a moral standard
for politics, as a legal and institutional framework for democratic decision-making, or as a
way of ‘doing’ global politics in themselves. Two recent attempts to remedy this deficiency
have been made by James Bohman and Michael Goodhart, each of whom in a novel way
makes an effort to clarify the conceptual role of human rights in global democracy. What is
particularly interesting about their proposals is that they make the case that under the
present circumstances of politics, global democracy is best conceptualized in terms of human
rights. Thus, both in different ways challenge contemporary conceptions by radically
reformulating democracy in light of the current conditions of world politics, detaching it
from traditional characteristics such as representation, electoral vote, self-legislation,
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territoriality and unity. While I am very sympathetic to this ‘human rights approach’, not
least its innovative way of rethinking democracy on the global level, important questions are
still left unanswered. The article defends the thesis that human rights are not enough for
global democracy. The argument pursued is that insofar as we hold on to the general idea of
democracy as a normative ideal of self-determination (self-rule) or popular control, i.e. that
people should determine their own lives and rule over themselves, the concept of democracy
accommodates two necessary conditions, namely, political bindingness and political equality.
Further it is argued that neither Bohman nor Goodhart’s account fulfils these conditions and
that one explanation for this can be traced to a lack of clarity concerning the distinction
between democracy as normative ideal and democracy as decision method or rules (e.g.
institutions, laws, norms) for regulating social interactions. This ambiguity has implications
for both Goodhart and Bohman. In Goodhart’s work it manifests itself as a vagueness
concerning the difference between political agency and democratic agency; in Bohman’s
work it becomes unclear whether he contributes a normative theory of democracy or a
theory of democratization. While the paper develops both a conceptual and a normative
argument against their proposals, the aim is not to find faults with them but to point at
questions that are in need of further elaboration to make them more convincing.
I. Global democracy through human rights
Goodhart and Bohman both point at several features of the present day conditions of politics
which warrant a further and more radical rethinking of democracy, not only concerning
form but also at the basic conceptual level. Processes of globalization have produced a
massive growth in governance beyond traditional nation-state structures, which have fuelled
a debate about democratic legitimacy in light of increasing asymmetries between rulemakers and rule-takers, inequalities among states, and disparities in scope between global
political problems and existing democratic state institutions (Goodhart 2005: 13; 2008: 39597). These emergent patterns have been met by two major responses in political theory. One
solution is offered by cosmopolitan democratic theorists, such as David Held, who argue that
these problems are best handled by supranational governance structures within a firm legal
framework. Another is offered by civil society theorists, such as John Dryzek, who
emphasize the key role played by transnational non-state actors for decreasing the
democratic deficit of international organizations (Held 1995, 2002; Dryzek 2006). Both
Goodhart and Bohman are dissatisfied with these two proposals, or at least find them
insufficient, in part because they do not expose the richness of human rights spelled out as
the core of global democracy.
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Cosmopolitan democrats suggest the creation of institutions and channels of
representation for all individuals so that they could be “directly represented in global affairs”
(Archibugi 2002: 32). A few cosmopolitan principles constitute an overarching cosmopolitan
law which specifies the organizational basis of legitimate public power, according to Held.
This way sovereignty, the idea of rightful authority, is divorced from the idea of fixed
territorial boundaries and thought of as an attribute of basic cosmopolitan law (2002: 32). In
Goodhart’s view, however, Held analyzes human rights primarily in juridical terms (2005:
24-25). Laying stress on how supranational courts should monitor and enforce human
rights, he does not have much to say about human rights understood in terms of
empowerment (2008: 399).
The civil society approach, or what Goodhart calls discursive global democracy, pays
even less attention to human rights than cosmopolitan theorists. It emphasizes the role
played by civil society actors such as social movements and NGOs in encouraging the
protection and promotion of human rights, but overlooks the rights framework which make
such actions possible (Goodhart 2008: 404). A general problem of both of these
contemporary conceptions of global democracy, Goodhart argues, is that they focus mainly
on democracy’s mechanisms rather than its core principles and key functions.
Going through the numerous struggles to end oppression in history, Goodhart wishes
to expose the human rights core of democracy, defining this core as a political commitment
of universal emancipation through the securing of basic human rights for everyone (2005: 5,
137-38). Democracy on Goodhart’s account is animated by the two fundamental principles of
freedom and equality, which in his view at the minimum require constraints on the exercise
of power and political agency. Constraining power and enabling political agency constitute
two core aims or functions of democracy that “derive from the fundamental principles of
freedom and equality and are widely accepted” (2008: 406). While constraint on power
ensures the integrity and autonomy of persons, political agency provides opportunities for
them to deliberate, contest and have an influence on political processes and outcomes.
Human rights dovetail into this view precisely because they also articulate aims rather than
mechanisms (Goodhart 2005: 141-48). They describe what should be achieved rather than
how it should be achieved, and thus constitute “ethical standards for legitimate governance
at all levels and binding on all actors” (Goodhart 2008: 403).
On the global level, constraining power and enabling political agency require the
protection of human rights, and Goodhart makes the case that the conceptual role that
human rights play in global democracy is that they “are a necessary condition for global
democracy” (2008: 396). Furthermore, he offers four reasons why “[h]uman rights are
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necessary for achieving democracy”. Firstly, they attach to persons rather than specific
jurisdictions; secondly, they are globally recognized standards of legitimacy, binding to both
state and non-state actors; thirdly, they have the advantage of not requiring a
comprehensive political framework such as that elaborated by cosmopolitan theorists; and
finally, they articulate what should be achieved and are therefore flexible enough to adapt to
diverging forms of governance structures globally (2008: 403). Goodhart in fact pushes the
argument one step further, suggesting that human rights are possibly “a sufficient condition
for global democracy as well” (2008: 416). While the argument for necessity relies on the
idea that the two main functions of democracy (viz. constraint on power and political
agency) can be translated into human rights requirements, the argument for sufficiency
relies on the idea that democracy could reasonably be interpreted “precisely as a political
commitment to realizing freedom and equality for everyone through the protection of
human rights” (2008: 416).
Another innovative human rights approach to global democracy is offered by Bohman.
Bohman attempts to lay out the conceptual foundations of transnational democracy by way of a
theory of republican federalism, the normative core of which is not freedom and equality as
general principles, in line with Goodhart, but freedom as nondomination. Domination is
ascribed the republican meaning of ‘rule by another’ and political domination alludes to the
arbitrary use of normative powers to impose obligations on others. In a political context,
robust nondomination on Bohman’s account means to have the normative status to be able
to create and regulate obligations together with others (Bohman 2007: 9).
Similar to Goodhart, Bohman is dissatisfied with both Held’s cosmopolitan democracy
and Dryzek’s civil society approach because neither embrace “the most fundamental
necessary condition for democratization: the power to initiate effective public deliberation”
(2007: 14). Even though Held emphasizes a multilayered system and a variety of institutions
the idea of a self-legislating demos, of citizens ruling and being ruled in return, is still
fundamental. Held insists that a global political framework—functioning as a would-be
sovereign by way of an attribute of cosmopolitan law—is the subject of popular will and
consent. In order to be overarching, however, this framework must be constituted by a
hierarchy of authority, and as such it cannot exercise the power of the demos without being
a potential dominator, according to Bohman (2007: 42). In contrast to Held’s institutional
maximalism, the problem with Dryzek’s minimalist account is that in emphasizing informal
networks in which civil society actors play a crucial discursive and contestatory role, it
neglects the importance of active and empowered citizenship. Bohman is sceptical of whether
contestation is really what the dominated require (Bohman 2007: 43). From Bohman’s more
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institutional point of view, deliberation rather than contestation is the proper democratizing
activity.
In contrast to both the cosmopolitan and civil society-based conceptions of global
democracy, Bohman argues that his republican account is better suited to fulfil the power to
initiate effective public deliberation, which constitutes a necessary condition for
democratization. This is done through the so-called democratic minimum, which is sufficient
to accommodate not only the constitutive features of democratic citizenship, but also the
necessary conditions for nondomination (2007: 43). Thus, this minimum alludes to the
“minimum set of powers and conditions that would make it possible for citizens to not be
dominated and thus be free to make claims to justice” (2007: 35) viz. for citizens to be able to
form and change the terms of their life (2007: 46). The advantage of the minimum is that it
is realizable without appealing to a single democratic demos tied to a juridical model of selflegislation, as suggested by cosmopolitans. Rather, the idea of nondomination decentres this
conception and demands that citizenship is exercised in a variety of overlapping demoi
(Bohman 2007: 11).
While Bohman’s argument for moving from demos to demoi draws on social facts
about globalization and pluralism and some basic conditions of the public sphere, the
argument for the distinctly republican view of transnational democracy “follows as a
consequence of these conditions” (2007: 12). Rather than considering rights to be claims of
juridical subjects to the protection from interference, which is a standard liberal view,
transnational democracy reconstructs rights as normative powers and statuses in the
political sphere sufficient to promote nondomination. Thus, on this view, political rights are
rights against domination (2007. 13).
II. Global democracy: concept and conception
Both Goodhart and Bohman criticize Held for interpreting the democratic ideal of selfdetermination (self-rule) in terms of a self-legislating singular demos and Dryzek for
eschewing the role of democratic institutions for self-determination. In their view, neither
conception does full justice to the multiple normative resources inhabited by human rights.
While Goodhart expresses his normative democratic theory in terms of enabling rights and
agency rights, Bohman expresses his ideal of transnational democracy through the
democratic minimum, which is articulated in terms of basic human rights. Both disengage
from the traditional conception of democracy defined as self-legislation or self-government
through an electoral system within a bounded political community, but at the same time
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wish to keep the normative ideal of democracy as self-determination (self-rule) or popular
control.
Bohman explicitly says that democracy is “an ideal of self-determination in that the
terms of self-rule are made by citizens and not by others” (2007: 45). Moreover, he argues
that this particular kind of self-rule is achieved in a robust way by republican transnational
democracy (2010: 72). Expressed through basic human rights, the democratic minimum
refers precisely to the conditions which make it possible for citizens to form the terms of
their own lives. Similarly, although Goodhart is not as explicit about articulating the core of
democracy as self-determination—perhaps because it is too easily associated with selflegislation and electoralism within a bounded territorial unit—he acknowledges it as
fundamental. Indeed, the very purpose of constraining power and enabling political agency
through human rights is to enable people “to shape the terms of their collective interactions
and enterprises and to hold government to account” (Goodhart: 2008: 401). In radically
rethinking global democracy in light of globalization and the new circumstances of politics,
it is important that the original meaning of democracy “remains unchanged”, according to
Goodhart (2008: 402).
Thus, Bohman and Goodhart both wish to separate the normative democratic ideal of
self-determination from mechanisms connected to the Westphalian model, such as
representative institutions, voting, legislation and a bounded community. In their view,
these mechanisms are only one way of achieving this goal, a way which is not particularly
suited for democracy beyond or across the nation-state (Goodhart 2008: 401). Instead, on
the transnational and global levels, basic human rights are claimed to better achieve this.
My argument here is conceptual and normative. I argue that to the extent that
Bohman and Goodhart aspire to conceptualize democracy as a normative ideal of selfdetermination—broadly understood as the idea that people should shape their own lives and
the terms of self-rule—two necessary conditions need to be fulfilled, namely, political
equality and political bindingness. Since these conditions are conceptually necessary from
the point of view of normative democratic theory, or so I argue, they are part of the very
concept of democracy (understood as self-determination). However, I cannot see how their
respective human rights approach manage to accommodate them. For that reason I am
doubtful as to whether or not Bohman and Goodhart contribute novel normative theories of
democracy on the global level.
The debate on global democracy attempts to rethink the concept of democracy in light
of globalization, transferring democracy from the nation-state to the global level in search
for a suitable solution of transnational and global governance structures. This is often
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described in analytical terms as a distinction between concept and conception. Conceptions
share some central characteristics, without which they wouldn’t refer to the same concept.
So the different conceptions of global democracy discussed earlier share some necessary
conditions that must be fulfilled in order to speak about one and the same thing, namely,
democracy. This distinction is a useful tool in political theorizing.1 If we didn’t differentiate
between a general concept of democracy and more specific conceptions, we could neither
identify any necessary conditions or features of democracy, without which we could not
compare different normative democratic proposals, nor know when there are enough
differences in our conceptions to arrive at a different concept. As soon as we have done the
latter, we have removed the prefix ‘re’ from the word ‘rethink’ in our analysis of democracy.
Of course, as acknowledged by Wittgenstein, a boundary of a concept is always bound up
with its purpose. For scholars engaged in the debate on global democracy the purpose is to
give suggestions for how to best strengthen the democratic legitimacy of global governance.
So, while concepts are indeed reformulated and reshaped by their application or use in
discourse, conceptions only belong to the same concept if they share some characteristics, or,
some ‘family resemblances’ (Wittgenstein 1953). And different networks of family
resemblances are kept apart in relation to the purpose of the concept at hand.
If one finds it reasonable to define normative democratic theory as an ideal of selfdetermination, i.e. of people forming their own lives and ruling over themselves (directly or
indirectly) by taking decisions about matters of common concern, then one has to specify in
more detail what makes this self-determination democratic. One characteristic that
distinguishes democracy from other forms of government, such a dictatorship, monarchy, or
aristocracy, is that it is egalitarian. In a democracy everyone is equal in the sense that they
have the same political power, i.e. a necessary condition is political equality. While equality
plays an important role in democracy in several respects (e.g. in terms of equal respect or
equal concern for everyone’s interest), what is of concern here is democracy as a system of
self-determination in which anyone who is affected by or subjected to a political decision (or
law), has the free and equal possibility of participating (directly or indirectly) in egalitarian
decision-making about it.2 Further, democracy as a political system of self-rule requires that
those that are affected by or subjected to a political decision (or law) as its addressees are
simultaneously made authors of it, viz. that they bind themselves to a political authority
through a particular kind of political action. This means that another necessary condition for
democracy is political bindingness. Note that the argument here does not hinge upon a certain
reading of these conditions, for example, in terms of a specific version of the all-affected
principle. Rather, they are compatible with both an ‘all affected’ view (e.g. in line with
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cosmopolitan democracy) and an ‘all subjected’ view (e.g. in line with Jürgen Habermas’
democratic principle) (Habermas 1996).
Let me dwell a little bit more on these two conditions. Both Bohman and Goodhart are
sceptical of democratic self-determination interpreted as self-legislation (Bohman) and selfgovernment (Goodhart), since the mechanisms that are supposed to secure this ideal are still
intimately connected to the state as the natural container of politics. In Goodhart’s view, the
Westphalian conception of the state is characterized by a presupposed symmetry among
citizens and the political authority, self-rule through a system of elections and
representation, and supremacy within a unified territory. However, this is not what the two
necessary conditions require. Conceptually, it would be odd to argue that democratic selfdetermination is premised on a system of elections connected to a unified territory, since we
could reasonably call a small group of people democratic, a small political organization if you
will, which fulfilled political equality and political bindingness. Thus, rather than being a
necessary condition for the concept of democracy, Bohman is correct to argue that the selflegislation model constitutes only one conception of global democracy.
In fact, the two necessary conditions proposed here are not premised on a territorial
boundary at all. Again, we do not have to presuppose that the members of a small political
organization would have to live near one another in order to determine their own lives, rule
themselves, through egalitarian decision-making. The territorial boundary is not the kind of
boundary on which democracy as an ideal of self-determination relies. Moreover, it seems to
be primarily an empirical, not a conceptual question, whether large-scale democracy is best
realized within a territory or not.
Still, democracy is not borderless. Rather, it presupposes a boundary (or boundaries if
we refer to a multilayered system or a republican ‘horizontal’ demoi) within which people
participate in egalitarian decision-making and bind themselves to political authority as free and
equals. Regardless of whether it is a national, regional or global boundary, territorial or
non-territorial, held together by social solidarity or not, it is in this particular sense that a
democracy is bounded. Hence, when we refer to the members inside, we are not referring to
any kind of people or whichever people, but a people of a specific political sort, namely,
citizens.
If we take a closer look at the condition of political equality, equality is a fundamental
or core principle for Goodhart. It is from the core principles of equality and freedom that he
arrives at democracy. But the concept of equality is too broad to do the normative work
required by the political kind of equality presupposed by a democratic system. Indeed, any
contemporary moral theory, be it concerning justice or something else, starts out from
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equality. For example, in the global justice debate the controversy is not about equality or
not; it is about whether equality is best understood as a value, norm or principle, and about
its appropriate scope or applicability. So, the concept of equality in the abstract does not take
us very far, either in moral theorizing generally, or in democratic theorizing. Political
equality is a specific conception of equality, which is a necessary condition for the concept of
democracy. It refers to the free and equal possibility of participating (directly or indirectly)
in egalitarian democratic decision-making, i.e. an equal possibility of an equal say in the
taking of decisions or in the making of the law. This means that in democratic theory,
political equality has to do with a particular kind of agency, namely, democratic agency.
The closest Goodhart gets to meeting this condition is when stating that the
democratic function of agency is to ensure opportunities for people to influence, participate
in, and contest decisions that affect them. It is primarily enabling rights which are supposed
to protect such agency. Translated into human rights, they are supposed to be integrated
into the rules and procedures of global governance institutions to create and secure sites of
access, public debate, transparency, contestation and deliberation.3 However, it is not clear
to me how sites of public debate, contestation and deliberation are able to secure political
equality. Without doubt, we might have unequal access to these sites and most probably
will. To our present knowledge, the most feasible way of securing such an equality in
modern pluralist societies is through the idea of ‘one person, one vote’. However, this option
is not open to Goodhart since elections of any kind are immediately coupled together with
Westphalian thinking. I am not saying that elections are the only possible means to
guarantee political equality. Rather, it is argued that political equality is a necessary
condition for democracy (elections are one way to achieve this), and that securing sites of
public input alone will not fulfil this. Admittedly, on many accounts of democracy, ‘formal’
political equality through voting, while being a necessary condition is not a sufficient one,
but must be complemented with an ‘informal’ kind of the sort that Goodhart elaborates. But
this is a different matter.
Bohman too takes agency seriously by placing communicative freedom in terms of the
capacity to initiate deliberation in the focal point of the analysis, emphasizing that the
republican ideal of transnational democracy requires at least some common global
institutions to secure liberty and nondomination, i.e. the capacity of citizens to initiate
democratic reform. In his view, the problem of the democratic deficit of global governance
institutions is not a general deficit but a “deliberative deficit” in terms of a lack of this
capacity among citizens (Bohman 2007: 16). However, although political equality is
mentioned in Bohman’s working definition of democracy, according to which individuals
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should be empowered as free and equal citizens, he never elaborates what this would mean
on a republican account. On a few occasions he describes political rights as “equally basic
freedoms” but it is far from clear what equal freedoms mean in terms of political equality. In
my view, Bohman would have to offer a reinterpretation of this condition in republican
terms in order for his transnational democracy to accommodate the necessary condition of
political equality. Thus, while both Goodhart and Bohman pronounce the possibility of
agency, they do not say much about equal agency.
The second necessary condition for democracy is what I referred to as political
bindingness. This condition is not only concerned with equal agency but also with actual
agency i.e. the ‘doing’ rather than the possibility or capacity of doing. A democratic system
consists of two parts, a political authority and a citizenry, i.e. a group of people affected by or
subjected to its rule. To say that, for example, a state has authority is to say that the state
and its subjects have a certain kind of normative relationship. In political philosophy the
concept of legitimacy is commonly used to describe the normative aspects of this relationship
(Christiano 2008). It refers to a rightful authority or a rightful powerholder. While there
have been many candidates for how to best ground rightful authority, for example in
associative obligations (Dworkin), in reasonable consensus (Rawls), or in tacit consent
(Locke), what is of interest here is one kind of legitimacy, namely democratic legitimacy. As
mentioned, a democratic system requires that those affected by or subjected to a political
decision (or law) as its addressees are at the same time authors of it. Thus, in order for a
political authority to uphold its democratic legitimacy, people in one way or the other
(directly or indirectly) have to give their approval—thereby accepting its decisions as binding.
Of course, depending on which democratic model is favoured, this moment of bindingness
occurs in different ways, for example, by a periodical formal voting procedure on
Schumpeter’s account, or by a combination of formalized deliberative decision-making and
continuous informal opinion- and will-formation on Habermas’ account (Schumpeter 1950;
Habermas 1996).
Since the notion of bindingness might invite to a Kantian or a Rousseauian reading, let
me specify this condition more carefully to avoid a misreading along these lines. While
political bindingness is a normative condition, it must be interpreted in sufficiently weak
terms in order to be a necessary requirement for the concept of democracy. For one, it
should not be interpreted in terms of obligations, neither as an individual obligation in the
Kantian sense, nor as a collective obligation to participate in a general or common will.
Further, the condition does not presuppose moralized political action in terms of doing what
is right. What political bindingness alludes to is something much weaker. It presupposes the
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following: that at least some people (among those being affected by or subjected to the
decisions/laws) at least sometimes affect the political outcome of the democratic decisionmaking processes. This means that the condition of political bindingness is to be understood
in objectivist rather than subjectivist terms. For it is not enough that citizens feel that their
interests are somehow being represented by the political authority in question. Some factual
political action is required. For that reason, political bindingness cannot be hypothetical all
the way, so to speak, relying solely on an idea of reasonableness or acceptability, because
then we are not dealing with normative democratic theory anymore but with some other
normative ideal, e.g. a theory of justice.
Goodhart’s emphasis on the possibility of political agency through enabling rights for
improving the possibilities of access, deliberation and contestation, would not suffice to meet
the condition of bindingness, since it could mean that no one approved of the political
authority in practice. Furthermore, it is hard to see how a ‘negative’ view of agency in which
political rights are defined as rights against domination, such as Bohman’s, could ever secure
political bindingness, since bindingness requires political action. On the republican view,
citizens exercise their political powers, most importantly the power to initiate deliberation,
in multiple overlapping demoi. The democratic minimum refers to the set of powers and
conditions that would make it possible for citizens to not be dominated and to determine
their own lives. Expressed in terms of human rights, this minimum requires that political
rights, i.e. rights against domination, be universalized. However, standing by itself, this
minimum cannot fulfil the condition of bindingness. For even if we dismiss the idea of selfdetermination understood in juridical terms, as self-legislation, for citizens to
rule/determine over themselves, they must have the equal possibility of participating
(directly or indirectly) in egalitarian decision-making about rules or norms by which they
are supposed to abide. Since citizens’ political rights are only actionable by their having a
say in the outcome of the democratic decision-making procedure, at least some of them
sometimes, the power to initiate deliberation, no matter how well performed, is not enough
for democracy even on a minimal account.
A similar criticism against Bohman is raised by Cristina Lafont. She argues that, pace
Bohman’s polemic dismissal of the traditional conception of democracy, a political system in
which members are subject to political decisions but at no point authors of them would not
be democratic. A minimal condition would require that they have control over at least some
outcomes of the decision-making process. What Lafont misses in Bohman’s republican
account is a specification of the mechanisms that would “transform deliberative freedom into
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effective control of the outcomes of some (transnational) political decision-making processes”
(Lafont 2010: 17).
Thus, it is argued here that a moment of bindingness is not merely to do with the
capacity of agency but of acting agents. Consider a political system within which every
citizen had the possibility of influencing the political decision-making but no one ever did. It
would be absurd to call this system democratic. We rarely give this a thought since we
always presuppose that enough people do. While the condition of political bindingness itself
does not specify a threshold, it presupposes that there is such a threshold. Similar problems are
sometimes labelled the Sorites paradox in analytic philosophy. The paradox refers to ‘littleby-little’ arguments and to the question of when, for example, a heap of wheat is a heap. For
if we remove one grain at a time, we cannot tell when it ceases to be a heap. Thus, no
particular grain can be identified as making the difference. Still, we know that only a few
grains do not make a heap. Although there is a threshold, it is characterized by vagueness.
Similarly, the justified threshold for the number of people necessary to approve of a political
authority (directly or indirectly) to make it democratically legitimate, will probably vary
between different democratic theories. The point made here is only that political
bindingness, which harbours a threshold, is a necessary condition for democracy.
I am not suggesting that voting is the only way to achieve political bindingness, but it
is one way, and it is difficult to see how large-scale pluralist societies could do without it if
they are to fulfil this necessary condition. For even if an electoral system does not itself
guarantee any votes, it is an indirect warranty for bindingness in that we would know when
a threshold had been reached and could do something about it if it hadn’t. Thus, without it
we would not even know whether people in fact have had an influence over some of the
outcomes of the political decision-making processes.
III. Democracy as normative ideal vs. democracy as decision method
What I have tried to show so far is, firstly, that a normative democratic theory (defined in
terms of an ideal of democratic self-determination) which does not accommodate the two
necessary conditions of political equality and political bindingness is hard to reasonably call
democratic; and secondly, that Goodhart and Bohman in articulating transnational or global
democracy through human rights seem unable to offer a specification of how to secure these
two conditions. In other words, human rights are not a necessary and sufficient condition for
global democracy, but at the most a necessary condition. In the present section, this failure
is traced to a lack of clarity concerning the distinction between democracy as normative
ideal and democracy as decision method (or rules) for regulating social interactions. My
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contention is that both Goodhart and Bohman could avoid much of my criticism were they
to remove this ambiguity.
The two defended necessary conditions for democracy concern democracy as
normative ideal, or what usually in political theory comes under the heading of normative
democratic theory. Roughly, a normative ideal specifies an ultimate goal that we strive
towards, such as the just or the good society, for example articulated as a regulative ideal or
an ideal to be realized or approximated. Democracy broadly defined as self-determination
(self-rule) is one such ideal, alongside of numerous others, such as utilitarianism, which
states that we should strive towards maximizing people’s (expected) well-being. In political
theory, we are familiar with different versions of the democratic ideal of self-determination,
e.g. representative democracy, agonistic democracy and deliberative democracy. The version
that both Goodhart and Bohman primarily oppose is democratic self-determination
understood as self-legislation.
But democracy could also be theorized as a decision method, a practical device or as a
matter of institutional arrangements. Moral philosophers carefully separate normative ideals
from practical decision methods for regulating social interactions (e.g. norms, rules,
institutions, laws) used to achieve the goal specified by an ideal. The ideal is used together
with empirical considerations to evaluate alternative practical devices for different social
contexts, such as institutions, social norms and laws, in respect to how well they would
promote the ideal. However, as acknowledged by Gustaf Arrhenius, this distinction is
sometimes overlooked in the debate on democratic theory (Arrhenius 2005: 15-16). If one
defends democracy as the ultimate foundation of legitimate political authority, one has
democracy as normative ideal in mind. But one might also justify democracy as decision
method from another normative ideal. In this case legitimate political authority does not
derive from democracy. For example, for a libertarian, democracy is justified only insofar as
it protects the right to life and property; while for a utilitarian, it is justified if and only if it
maximizes people’s well-being better than other methods (Arrhenius 2005: 17-18). Of
course, viewing democracy as decision method does not mean that it is necessarily reduced
to an instrumental value. It might have intrinsic value as well (as we will see in Bohman’s
case below), depending on how democracy is defined.
Now, if we take a look at the two versions of the human rights approach in light of this
distinction, important questions arise. As we have seen, Goodhart clearly wishes to
contribute a novel normative democratic theory, which in his view is more fit for the present
circumstances of world politics than contemporary alternative normative democratic ideals,
such as cosmopolitan democracy, since it is not linked normatively and empirically to the
14
sovereign state (2008: 401). Indeed, he even expresses disappointment with Dryzek’s
discursive theory for being a theory of the process of democratization rather than a
normative theory of democracy.
At the core of democracy lies the political commitment to universal emancipation, on
Goodhart’s account (2005: 5, 137-38); in later work also expressed as a commitment to
freedom and equality for everyone. This is the democratic ideal. Democracy “can be
interpreted precisely as a political commitment to realizing freedom and equality for
everyone” (2008: 416). Democracy conceptualized as a commitment to universal
emancipation (freedom and equality for everyone) is constituted by two basic aims or
functions, namely, constraining power and enabling political agency, which supply
opportunities for people to shape the terms of their own lives and hold political authority to
account. This way democracy secures “meaningful political agency”, according to Goodhart
(2008: 401).
From the standpoint of this normative ideal of democracy, it makes perfect sense to
claim that human rights are “necessary for achieving democracy” in a global context
(Goodhart 2008: 403). On Goodhart’s view, only by protecting human rights can the two
fundamental aims of democracy, viz. constraining power and enabling agency, be realized
globally. However, at the same time Goodhart argues that human rights constitute the
ethical standards for legitimate governance at all levels and binding on all actors (2008:
403). Thus, legitimate political authority does not derive from democracy but from human
rights. On the latter view, human rights constitute the ultimate normative ideal from which
democracy is justified, while on the former, the opposite is the case.
I argue that the ambiguity in Goodhart’s work concerning democracy as normative
ideal and democracy as a practical device for achieving (or approximating) an ideal has
implications for his conceptualization of democratic agency. Due to this indistinctness, he
cannot capture the crucial difference between democratic agency and political agency.
Goodhart claims that his conception of global democracy, realized through the protection of
constraining rights and enabling rights, makes possible meaningful political agency, viz.
ways for individuals and groups to deliberate, contest and influence political processes and
outcomes. On the global level this is done through a human rights regime consisting of a
global set of formalized rules and procedures embodying appropriate norms and ethical
standards enabling supranational political agency. Through such a regime, structures of
democratic agency are created at the transnational and global levels (Goodhart 2008: 410,
402).
15
Thus, the terms political and democratic agency are used interchangeably by
Goodhart. While this does not necessarily have to be a problem (if it is made explicit), it
becomes a problem as long as it is not clear whether Goodhart develops a normative
democratic theory or a moral theory expressed as an ideal of universal emancipation
(freedom and equality for everyone). For what he describes as democratic agency would
better be described as political agency, suitable as part of a moral ideal. From what I have
argued so far, democratic agency ought to be regarded as a very specific form of political
agency. Following from the concept of democracy defined as self-determination (self-rule),
democratic agents are agents that not only contest and deliberate about political matters of
common concern but also rule over themselves. What is more, they do so as political equals, viz.
they have an equal say in the taking of the political decisions or in the making of the laws. In
addition, democratic agency is not primarily about the possibility of deliberation and
contestation through institutional avenues secured by a human rights regime, but about
actual agency, about people actually binding themselves to a political authority (or authorities)
as free and equals in egalitarian decision-making of some sort.
Thus, what Goodhart describes as democratic agency is in my view more
appropriately understood as political agency within a moral ideal expressed through human
rights. From this point of view, political agency would for example promote better (but not
necessarily more democratic) global governance, by realizing ethical standards and
strengthen values that are crucial to democracy, such as freedom, equality and emancipation.
However, to the extent that Goodhart wishes to stick to the normative democratic path, he
would be better off retreating from his sufficiency claim, arguing instead that human rights
are a necessary but not sufficient condition for democracy. As it stands, though, he does
neither, but rather expresses a moral ideal of universal emancipation as well a democratic
ideal, both of which are articulated in terms of the same set of human rights. The democratic
agent is thus not democratic in the sense that she is a political equal who participates and
binds herself in egalitarian decision-making, but an agent who is ascribed a set of rights
secured by a human rights regime; rights which she might utilize, but again, she might not.
A similar ambiguity is evident in Bohman’s theory. Indeed, it is impossible to do full
justice to Bohman’s rich and ambitious work on transnational democracy in this essay. The
task will be confined to examining his central aim of laying out the conceptual foundations of
a “complex democratic ideal”, an ideal of transnational democracy (Bohman 2007: 2).
Current democratic theory can no longer provide an appropriate framework at the basic
conceptual level, according to Bohman (2007: 3). In his view, the basic core of democracy is
an ideal of self-determination in that the terms of self-rule are made by citizens and not by
16
others, and transnational democracy is a robust way to achieve self-rule (2010: 72). The
democratic minimum, expressed in terms of a set of basic human rights, is sufficient to
accommodate the constitutive features of democratic citizenship (2007: 43, my italics). It describes
the necessary conditions for democratic arrangements (2007: 49). What the minimum seems
to specify, then, is a threshold for democracy, consisting of those conditions that are
required in order for an arrangement to qualify as minimally democratic.
However, as was stated before, since none of these conditions are political equality and
political bindingness, I am sceptical of whether it is actually a democratic ideal of selfdetermination that Bohman has in mind. In fact, for the most part, democracy does not seem
to be the ultimate foundation of legitimate political authority for Bohman, but rather a
practical device for realizing a republican ideal of nondomination, justified to the extent that
it realizes justice in terms of nondomination. Bohman argues that the democratic minimum
is made up of those human rights that are able to embrace the statuses that are implied by
the basic right against domination (2007: 45-46). Transnational democracy thus
reconstructs rights as normative powers and statuses sufficient to promote nondomination.
In fact, political rights are rights against domination (Bohman 2007: 13). Moreover, while the
democratic minimum is a set of basic human rights, its realization requires democracy, because
“meaningful political activity” is a constitutive condition for the exercise of human political
rights (2007: 46-47). The most clear-cut example of the view that democracy is a practical
device for realizing a republican ideal on Bohman’s account is his claim that the aim of
democratic institutions is to secure the conditions for nondomination (2007: 10).
This reading is also consistent with Bohman’s claim that the main task of transnational
democratic theories is to analyze the basic conditions of global democratization. Indeed, the
ability to initiate (effective public) deliberation is the most fundamental necessary condition
for democratization, according to Bohman. At the same time, from this it does not follow
that democracy only plays an instrumental role. In fact, Bohman is very critical of purely
instrumental justifications of democracy made by, for example, Allen Buchanan (Buchanan
2004). For even if democracy is justified instrumentally as a means to justice because it
protects basic human rights, it is also justified intrinsically to the extent that it realizes
justice (Bohman 2007: 28). In Bohman’s view, democracy promotes justice precisely because
it makes possible for citizens to demand justice (2007: 45). Admittedly, one might wonder
what ‘intrinsically justified’ alludes to here, but the important point is that democracy with
or without an added intrinsic value is still justified in relation to an ideal of justice
articulated in terms of nondomination. This ideal is used in conjunction with empirical
17
considerations of the new circumstances of politics in order to evaluate those practical
devices that would best promote it.
However, it is argued here that a threshold for democracy (democratic arrangements) and
a threshold for democratization are two very different things. Although we might reasonably
claim that the fulfilment of (most) human rights would lead to or at least increase the
possibilities for processes of democratization world-wide, if Bohman’s democratic minimum
is designed to set out a threshold for democratization, he does not contribute a transnational
democratic theory articulated as a democratic ideal of self-determination (self-rule). And if it
is meant as a minimal requirement for democracy, I have made the case that he would have
to include the conditions of political equality and political bindingness.
On an alternative reading, Bohman defines the very democratic ideal, not as an ideal of
self-determination (self-rule) but as an ideal of nondomination. This certainly seems to be
what he has in mind when claiming that nondomination constitutes “the basic democratic
ideal” (2007: 43). But a ‘democratic’ ideal of nondomination and a democratic ideal of selfdetermination are not the same thing. An ideal of nondomination seems to do perfectly fine
without, for example, political equality. We do not have to be political equals and have the
equal possibility of participating in egalitarian decision-making in order to be nondominated
and have the power to initiate deliberation. At the same time, this makes me wonder what
exactly is democratic about the democratic ideal of nondomination. Moreover, if this
‘democratic’ ideal is the best we can do on the global level, the future for democracy beyond
or across borders looks rather bleak. Such a normative theory seems to be a poor candidate
precisely because it would accommodate neither the condition of political equality nor of
political bindingness.
I think that much of the criticism directed against Bohman’s Democracy Across Borders
could be traced to the ambiguity between democracy as an ideal of self-determination and
democracy as a practical device for realizing a republican ideal of nondomination (Bohman
2007: 49), from which the blurred distinction between democracy and democratization
arises. In light of Bohman’s most recent writing, in a reply to Lafont and Rob Walker on
this point, there is some indication that he intends to defend a normative theory of justice,
which brings along with it a theory of democratization (2010: 77-78). Indeed, I think this is
the best way forward for his republican approach.
Conclusion
The main thrust of the argument in this paper has been that human rights are not enough
for global democracy. Even if a system of basic rights are required, democracy also involves
18
institutionalized processes and decision-making procedures, both in order to concretize and
apply these rights and for people to be able to bind themselves to a political authority. It has
been argued that the human rights approach faces challenges as a normative theory of global
democracy expressed as an ideal of self-determination (self-rule), since it is not able to
accommodate the conditions of political equality and political bindingness. In my view, these
conditions are essential for any democratic ideal of self-determination and it is difficult to
imagine what would be left of normative democratic theory without them. Further, and
related to this, it has been argued that the human rights approach has difficulty making
sense of the difference between political and democratic agency in Goodhart’s liberal
version, and between democracy and democratization in Bohman’s republican version.
Nonetheless, I see both theories as strong candidates of other normative ideals,
contributing to democratization on the global level by promoting political agency and
effective public deliberation through the implementation of enabling rights, constraining
rights and rights against domination. However, if Goodhart and Bohman were to be clearer
on the distinction between normative ideals and decision methods and rules (e.g. norms,
institutions, law) for regulating social interactions, I argue that their respective theories
would become even more attractive. For then we would be able to compare their proposals
to those contemporary normative theories they both find insufficient and defend one or the
other for the right reasons. Insofar as Goodhart and Bohman wish to contribute novel
versions of the democratic ideal of self-determination, we compare their strengths and
weaknesses as versions of this ideal with, say, that of cosmopolitan democracy. If they are
intended as moral theories harbouring another normative ideal in which democracy is
justified to the extent that it realizes it, on the other hand, then we might for example
compare this ideal with that of democracy. However, if such an alternative normative ideal
were to be defended, we would expect arguments against cosmopolitan democracy on this
ground, not on the grounds of an alleged novel normative democratic theory. I am not
suggesting that we cannot have more than one normative ideal, or that we cannot defend
one ideal as part of another. But in order to assess the strengths of the human rights
approach from the point of view of normative democratic theory, the distinction between
normative ideals and practical devices for regulating social interactions in order to promote
these ideals is vital.
19
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Endnotes
1
For a fruitful use of the distinction between concept and conception, see Rawls (1971) and Dworkin (1986).
For insightful thoughts on different conceptions of equality in democracy, see Christiano (1996).
3 It is surprising how little attention Goodhart pays to international law, considering the burden that human
rights are supposed to carry in achieving global democracy. On this point, see Burchill (2008: 18).
2