Does Global Democracy Require a World State?

In democratic theory, the question of whether global democracy requires a world state has with few exceptions been answered with an unequivocal ‘No’. However, as has been noted recently by several observers, the dismissal of a world state as the proper institutional arrangement for global democracy has been characterized by straw-man reasoning. This recent literature has taken an important step towards a more nuanced and sophisticated analysis of a world state in democratic theory, and the overall aim of the present paper is to take further steps in this direction. It addresses the question of whether global democracy requires a world state, adopting a so-called ‘function-sensitive’ approach. In brief, a basic presumption of this approach is that the content and justification of principles of democracy is dependent on the aim they are set out to achieve, what functions they are intended to regulate (e.g. decision-making, implementation, enforcement and evaluation), and on the relationship between functions. More specifically, within a function-sensitive framework, the paper sketches the contours of an account of global democracy consisting of five regulative principles and argues – utilizing the notion of ‘sufficient stateness’ – that it would require supranational legislative entities and perhaps supranational judicial entities but not necessarily supranational executive entities. Whether the latter is required is an empirical question. Needless to say, this have to be done in a rough form of broad strokes theorizing, neglecting many complex issues with regard to both democracy and global politics. But the overall aim is to show how the question of whether global democracy requires a world state has to be revised when adopting a function-sensitive approach, and how it takes us from a binary view (yes or no to a world state) to a more differentiated and nuanced analysis of the institutional demands of global democracy.