Contextualizing Normative Standards for Legitimate Governance beyond the State

Abstract

What kind of criteria should an appropriate model for the democratization of governance beyond the state fulfil? Can we identify elements of an ideal type for democratic governance beyond the state? Just like the attempt to identify and evaluate the supposed democratic deficit which is generally associated with the internationalization of governance, any discussion about its redemocratization requires a set of appropriate normative criteria which must be compatible with the specific milieu in which governance beyond the state takes place. Any judgement about and preference for certain options heavily depend on how we conceptionalize this milieu and on whether we regard it as receptive to certain standards and requirements of democratic theory in the first place. That said, there is no way around conceptionalizing the space to be democratized in an adequate way before we can develop the normative criteria which may be applicable to it. Even the diagnosis of a supposed democratic deficit will have little persuasive power if we fail to state clearly which demands in regard to legitimation can adequately be brought forward at all if we are dealing with governance beyond the state.