The United Nations and Global Democracy

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 demonstrates 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’.