Democracy Beyond the State?: The European Dilemma and the Emerging Global Order

Edelgard E. Mahant is a professor of political science at York
University. She is the co-author of Invisible and Inaudible in
Washington: American Policies Toward Canada and An Introduction to
Canadian–American Relations.

This book deals with one of the most important political issues facing
the citizens of the advanced democracies at the turn of the century: can
we preserve the essential characteristics of liberal democracy at the
political level while the economy, society, and culture are becoming
increasingly globalized? No, say the demonstrators in Seattle, Prague,
Davos, and Quebec City. Maybe, says this book.

After Louis Pauly’s rather labored introduction, Stephen Newman urges
us not to be afraid to imagine utopias, for they can at least be a
starting point for our aspirations. He is right, of course. Two of the
contributors do even better than Newman suggests. Michael Zьrn and
Edgar Grande make concrete suggestions as to how West Europeans, and
perhaps the people of other regions as well, could preserve the
essentials of democracy with new types of procedures and institutions at
the regional level. Zьrn’s inspiration seems to come primarily from
the Swiss confederation, Grande’s from the American constitution. Both
make useful, concrete suggestions as to how European-wide democracy
could be achieved (e.g., through European-wide referenda or a
European-wide system of institutional checks and balances). Both also
deal with the troublesome, but not to be dismissed, concept of
European-wide neocorporatism (though they do not use that term).

Stephen Clarkson, in the only contribution that bases itself on the
North American system, makes one brilliant point. Has NAFTA not made a
major contribution to the democratization of Mexico? Clarkson may well
be right, even though he had the misfortune of having his article go to
press before Mexico took major strides toward democracy at the end of
2000.

Democracy Beyond the State? is a useful book. Anyone who wants to
demonstrate against globalization as a killer of democracy should read
at the least the three chapters cited in this review.