Given the antagonism between rights-based claims to sovereignty and democratic self-determination by groups of people and similarly rights-based claims to human rights by individuals, can Habermas’ theory of cosmopolitan law offer a solution which does not jeopardize the construction of a political community that regulates itself through the control of relationships between the interior and the exterior?
Jürgen Habermas’ notion of a cosmopolitan democracy conceptualizes a legalized regulation of world politics through the formulation of a collected system of mediated institutions, transnational organisations and regional economics in such a way as to promote the individualistic, cosmopolitan rights of the individual as well as the strengthening of the democratic processes within the state itself. This paper will attempt to show, however, that such a framework is largely unsuccessful because it is incapable of legitimating the internal and external democratic structure through the creation of a shared political and social culture. This seems to depend, for the most part, on the nature of the democratic ideals towards which the cosmopolitan order would have to lend itself.
Democracy appears to necessitate the constitution of the person as part of a demos; that is to say, as an individual within a meta-community whose functional capacities are governed by identifiable rules establishing the relational modes that exist between those on the inside and those on the outside, which for Habermas represents the construction of a system for the exclusion of the other (reference). This system of exclusion, which can be understood with reference to the rule of law - that which governs the relationships of all parts of a demos - is authored, ...
... middle of paper ...
...s implementation problematic.
Works Cited
Fine, R. & Smith, W. (2003) Jürgen Habermas’s theory of cosmopolitanism, Constellations, 10(4), pp. 469-487.
Habermas, J. (1989) The New Conservatism: Cultural Criticism and the Historians’ Debate, Trans. S. W. Nicholsen (Cambridge, Ma: MIT Press).
Habermas, J. (2001) The Postnational Constellation, Ed. & Trans. Max Pensky (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
Habermas, J. (2002) The European nation-state and the pressures of globalization, pp. 217-234 in P. De Grief and C. Cronin (Eds) Global Justice and Transnational Politics (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
Held, D. (1995) Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance (Cambridge: Polity Press).
Lupel, A. (2005) Tasks of a Global Civil Society: Held, Habermas and Democratic Legitimacy beyond the Nation-State, Globalizations, 2(1), pp. 117-133.
1. Janda, Kenneth. The Challenge of Democracy. Houghton Mifflin Co. Boston, MA. 1999. (Chapter 3 & 4).
Brookes, Julian. "Cosmopolitanism: How To Be a Citizen of the World." Mother Jones. N.p., 23 Feb. 2006. Web. 20 Apr. 2014.
Stavrianos, L.S. A Global History: From Prehistory to the Present. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1988.
Since the inception of a democratic government in the United States’ early history, many have held that a liberal democracy should be the standard to which all other governments should attempt to emulate (CNN.com, 1). As the world’s leading super power, the United States sets an exampl...
Judd Owen, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Emory University, attempts to defend the liberal interpretation of Hobbes’s political philosophy by demonstrating his promotion of a “liberal politics of toleration” (pg. 133). Owen begins by asking the following question: “How can Hobbes’s political philosophy be directed to a tolerant regime, and yet be hostile to the granting of unconditional freedoms or rights?” (pg. 134). In truth, those who enter into a commonwealth via the social contract forfeit almost all of the rights and liberties that they possessed in the state of nature (except the right to self-defense). However, Owen proceeds to explicate how the aim of Hobbes’s civil society is not the alienation of individual liberties (although individual rights are in fact alienated). Rather, this forfeiture of rights is only a means by which to secure the greatest amount of liberty that can actually be enjoyed by the individual. In other terms, human beings possess unrestricted liberty rights in the state of nature, but they are neither free enough nor secure enough to enjoy them without constant threat of violence or death. Thus, individuals consent to engage in civil society because it is the only condition in which they can enjoy a modicum of liberty and true freedom of will. Although the subjects of a commonwealth must give up their claims to absolute liberty, the sovereign authority and civil law allow for a great deal of individual toleration. For example,
Each day, billions of people throughout the world affirm their commitment to a specific idea; to be part of a society. While this social contract is often overlooked by most citizens, their agreement to it nevertheless has far-reaching consequences. Being a member of society entails relinquishing self-autonomy to a higher authority, whose aim should be to promote the overall good of the populace. While making this decision to become part of a commonwealth is usually performed without explicit deliberation, there is a common consensus amongst philosophers that something unique to the human experience is the driving force behind this decision. Contained within this something are highly contested points of debate amongst both past and contemporary political philosophers. Two such philosophers are Thomas Hobbes and Thomas Aquinas. Each of these political writers provide detailed arguments regarding the concept of natural law, the role that reason plays in this law, whether some laws are considered truly rational, and why some people choose not to follow certain principles even when they recognize them to be rational. By analyzing each of these arguments, we will arrive at the conclusion that even though the rational principles that reason provides us can easily be disregarded by the populace, that we can still find a common good within promulgating rational doctrine.
Edkins, Jenny, and Maja Zehfuss. Global Politics: A New Introduction. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2009. Print.
However, he notices that despite the difficulty of following the cosmopolitan order (laws of war and human rights) “states and emerging powers have demanded inclusion in the multilateral order” (38), and have not abandoned it. This allows Hed to say that “a political space has opened up to re-forge the multilateral order on a more inclusive basis” (38): once again, the ability to imagine a new cosmopolitan project (which would be hard to oppose with, say, “traditional values” project) becomes a key question. Hed thinks that is possible, but he is also afraid that just like the shaping of the modern national state took centuries to happen, the cosmopolitan order will take long time to come into action; time, during which global challenges (e.g. ecological) will “reshape the conditions of human life” forever (39). And because of the danger that cosmopolitanism “as a world-making project will continue to try to encompass [these] alternative words, and their aspirations for the universal, within a single frame, reducing discussion to a debate about principle and pluralism” (Moore 108), the task of every individual to seek for alternatives is getting more urgent. The road to
In making this argument this essay seeks to five things. Firstly, to define democracy within the contemporary context offering the key characteristics of a modern re...
Tarrow, Sidney. “Transnational Politics: Contention and Institutions in International Politics.” Annual Review of Political Science, 2001.4.
Thomas Hobbes is frequently credited as being a forefather to modern liberalism. With his beliefs on individualism, along with his agreeance and acceptance of intellectual and moral autonomy it is easy to understand why many modern liberals would agree with Hobbes’s political philosophy. However, Thomas Hobbes does not support the concept of a democratic government, rather he supported the notion of a absolutist government up until his death. Special attention must be given to Hobbes’s denial that autonomy can be thought of, or conceived as, a form of self-government. It is important to take note that Hobbes’s argument against democracy is significantly more exhaustive than merely autonomy. Hobbes believes that democracy cannot work as a form of government due to numerous reasons, three of which will be the focus of this paper. Initially, we will lay a foundation to demonstrate how democracy is not equal to other forms of government, rather it acts more like a launch point for other, more preferable, types of government regimes. Secondly, we will demonstration that democracy reproduces the instability and despair that is accustom with, and found in, the state of nature, which is contradictory to the entire idea of a sovereign. And finally we will establish that while Hobbes consents to and also protects intellectual and moral autonomy, the notion of autonomy, in its political form, as self-government (which may be taken to imply democracy), cannot work because of its contradictory nature. This is a result of the notion, that government, for Hobbes, is responsible for the creation and subsequent enforcement of the laws. Hence, these reasons put forth by Hobbes, in addition to the arguments that will be made against ...
The classical social contract tradition of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau have, in spite of their variation in themes and emphases, enjoyed such fame and acceptance as being basic to the development of liberal democratic theory and practice that it would be almost heresy for any scholar, especially one from the fringes or margins of mainstream (socio-political) philosophical academia, to post frontal, side, arial, rear or sub-surface attack and critique. But the social contract tradition poses challenges that must be accepted on various counts, with new insights and interpretations, given the fluxed reality in contemporary socio-political universe that at once impels extreme nationalism and unavoidable globalism. This becomes all the more important, not simply in order to dislodge the primacy of the loyalty and the reverence of devotion from the followers of this tradition
Zakaria, F. (2007). The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (Revised Edition). New York: W. W. Norton.
Boyer, Mark A., Natalie Florea. Hudson, and Michael J. Butler. Global Politics: Engaging a Complex World. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013. Print.
Childress, Diana, and Bruce Watson. "The fall of the west." Calliope 11, no. 5 (January 2001): 27.