Would a global commitment to international human rights norms provide enough of a sense of community to sustain a legitimate and sufficiently democratic global order? Skeptics worry that human rights cannot help maintain the mutual trust among citizens required for a legitimate political order,...

This chapter looks at the New Modes of Governance (NMG) from a normative perspective, assessing their democratic legitimacy. Of the four questions underlining the New Modes of Governance Project, therefore, we concentrate on evaluation, discussing only briefly and at the beginning how NMG...

Federal political orders often exhibit a conflict between the ideals of equality and political autonomy, since individuals in different sub-units often enjoy systematically different standards of living conditions. While federal arrangements may be theoretically attractive to avoid despotism,...

Welfare states tend towards egalitarian principles of distribution of social opportunities and wealth. Thus many citizens hold that a just society should not only allow them to meet their basic needs: the domestic institutions should prevent large inequalities of shares of power and wealth. This...

Giandomenico Majone and Andrew Moravcsik have argued that the EU does not suffer a ‘democratic deficit.' We disagree about one key element: whether a democratic polity requires contestation for political leadership and over policy. This aspect is an essential element of even the ‘thinnest'...

DELIBERATIVE democracy has traditionally been defined in opposition to self-interest, to bargaining and negotiation, to voting, and to the use of power. Our assessment differs in two ways from the traditional one. First, we contend that self-interest, suitably constrained, ought to be part of...

Giandomenico Majone and Andrew Moravcsik have argued that the EU does not suffer a 'democratic deficit'. We disagree about one key element: whether a democratic polity requires contestation for political leadership and over policy. This aspect is an essential element of even the 'thinnest'...