Skip to main content

Some Conceptual and Structural Problems of Global Cosmopolitanism

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

Abstract

The chapter develops the thesis of the co-evolution of national and transnational (or international) statehood further, which was introduced by a couple of earlier essays of Chris Thornhill, Matthias Albert and the author. The particular concern of the chapter is democracy. It is assumed that democracy is not just an invention of the national state but has deep roots in both national and international public law and its evolution. However, evolution must not support democracy; it can also turn against it. This is discussed with respect to the project of cosmopolitanism. As it has been realised during the process of globalisation, it is not yet democratic, and turns out to be in ever greater tension to democratic principles and hopes. A good example is the EU. However, the game is not yet over because technocratic cosmopolitanism without democracy has to face serious problems of legitimisation.

I have to thank Chris Engert for his sensitive work on the text and the translation (it was even more than that) of my poor German English into rich English English.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    See Charles Tilly, “States, State Transformation, and War”, in: Jerry Bently (ed), The Oxford Handbook of World History, quoted from the draft chapter, Columbia University 6 November 2007, p. 4 (forthcoming, quoted from the electronic manuscript).

  2. 2.

    Tilly, European Revolutions 1492–1992, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1995), p. 26.

  3. 3.

    On these elements, see Mathias Albert & Rudolf Stichweh (eds), Weltstaat und Weltstaatlichkeit (Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2007); Martin Shaw, Theory of the Global State. Globality as Unfinished Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); B.S. Chimni, “International institutions today: an imperial global state in the making”, in: (2004) vol 15 no. 1 European Journal of International Law, pp. 1–37.

  4. 4.

    Albert (2005): Politik der Weltgesellschaft und Politik der Globalisierung: Überlegungen zur Emergenz von Weltstaatlichkeit, in: Zeitschrift für Soziologie. Sonderheft Weltgesellschaft, 223–239, at 229.

  5. 5.

    Armin von Bogdandy & Ingo Venzke, “In wessen Namen? Die internationale Gerichtsbarkeit diskurstheoretisch betrachtet”, Lecture: Zurich 05/28/2009.

  6. 6.

    Isabelle Ley, “Brünn betreibt die Parlamentarisierung des Primärrechts. Anmerkungen zum zweiten Urteil des tschchischen Verfassungsgerichtshofs zum Vertrag von Lissabon vom 3. 11. 2009”, in: Juristen Zeitung 4/2010, 165–174, at 170, see also 169.

  7. 7.

    Halberstam, Local, Global, and Plural Constitutionalism, forthcoming: G. De Búrca & J.H.H.Weiler, Eds., The Worlds of European Constitutionalism, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press 2010, 1–38, p. 3; see also: Halberstam, “Constitutional Heterarchy: The Centrality of Conflict in the European Union and the United States”, in: Michigan Law Working Papers 111, June 2008.

  8. 8.

    For a scathing criticism of the fancy use of governance: Claus Offe, “Governance: An ‚Empty Signifier?’”, in: 16 Constellations 4/2009, 550–562. For a proceeding discussion of the problem of responsibility: Regina Kreide, “The Responsibility of Non-State Actors. Transnational Corporations and Human Rights Obligations”, unpublished paper 2010.

  9. 9.

    The term was invented by Karl Jaspers, Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte, München: Piper 1966 (1949).

  10. 10.

    See for controversial contributions: Aleida Assmann, Jaspers’ Achsenzeit, oder: Vom Glück und Elend der Zentralperspektive in der Geschichte, in: D. Harth, Hg.: Karl Jaspers. Denken zwischen Wissenschaft, Politik und Philosophie, Stuttgart 1989, 187–205; Stefan Breuer, Kulturen der Achsenzeit. Leistung und Grenzen eines geschichtsphilosophischen Konzepts, in: Saeculum 45, 1–33, 2 Jörg Dittmer, “Jaspers’ ‘Achsenzeit’ und das interkulturelle Gespräch”, http://www.chairete.de/Beitrag/TA/jaspers_achsenzeit.pdf.

  11. 11.

    Talcott Parsons, “Evolutionary Universals in Society”, in: American Sociological Review Volume 29, Number 1–6, 339–357. In Luhmannian terms, one could speak of an “evolutionary advance”: Niklas Luhmann, Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 1997, 505ff.

  12. 12.

    Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, “Allgemeine Einleitung”, in: Eisenstadt, Hg.: Kulturen der Achsenzeit, Bd. 1, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 1987, 21.

  13. 13.

    On this and the following points, see: Harold Berman, “Faith and Law in a Multicultural World”, in: Mark Juergensmeyer. Ed.: Religion in Global Civil Society, Oxford: Univ. Press 2005, 69–89, pp. 78–79.

  14. 14.

    See inter alia: William Seagle, Weltgeschichte des Rechts, München/Berlin 1951 (The Quest of Law, New York 1941), 103; Hans Hattenhauer, Europäische Rechtsgeschichte, Heidelberg: C. F. Müller, 1992, 66, 72; Otfried Höffe, Demokratie im Zeitalter der Globalisierung, München: Beck 1999, 236.

  15. 15.

    On the latter: Max Weber, Gesammelte Aufsätzte zur Religionssoziologie I, Tübingen: Mohr 1978 (1920), pp. 243–246.

  16. 16.

    Uwe Wesel, Geschichte des Rechts, (Munich: Beck, 1997), p. 156.

  17. 17.

    Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990–1990, Malden MA: Basil Blackwell, 1990, p. 70.

  18. 18.

    I am thankful to Hubert Cancik for a discussion of that point.

  19. 19.

    Robert I. Moore, Die Erste Europäische Revolution. Gesellschaft und Kultur im Hochmittelalter, München: Beck 2001 (1. engl. Aufl. 2000); Guy Bois, Umbruch im Jahr 1000, Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta 1993; Berman, Law and Revolution. The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition, Cambridge MA: Harvard Univ. Press 1983; Jacques Le Goff, Kultur des Europäischen Mittelalters, München: Droemer 1970.

  20. 20.

    On the internal relation of class struggle and normative learning see: Klaus Eder, Collective Learning Processes and Social Evolution: Towards a Theory of Class Conflict in Modern Society’ (1983) 1 Tidskrift för Rätssociologi 23–36.

  21. 21.

    Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, Köln: Kiepenheuer 1964, 432, 480, 549, s. a. 615f; vgl. a. Weber, Das antike Judentum, 7.

  22. 22.

    On the juridification: Johannes Fried, Fried, Die Entstehung des Juristenstands im 12. Jahrhundert, Köln: Böhlau 1974; on the institutionalization of lasting conflicts: Berman, Law and Revolution; on the beginning of constitutionalism: Brian Tierney, Religion, law, and the growth of constitutional thought 1150–1650, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press 1982.

  23. 23.

    Berman, Law and Revolution, quoted from the German translation: Recht und Revolution, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 1991, pp. 364, 366; Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 615; Tilman Struve, Staat und Gesellschaft im Mittelalter, Berlin: Dunker&Humblot 2004, p. 14; Graham Maddox, Religion and the Rise of Democracy, Londen: Routledge 1996, p. 99; Peter Landau, “Die Bedeutung des kanonischen Rechts für die Entwicklung einheitlicher Rechtsprinzipien“, in: Heinrich Scholler, Ed., Die Bedeutung des kanonischen Rechts für die Entwicklung einheitlicher Rechtsprinzipien, 23–47, at 42.

  24. 24.

    Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 549, see: 615f.

  25. 25.

    Dictatus papae, c. 2, 8, 9 (Ecclesia Universalis); see: Moore, Erste Europäische Revolution, pp. 72, 189f, 225; Franz Wieacker, Privatrechtsgeschichte der Neuzeit, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck 1967, 74f; Klaus Schatz, Der päpstliche Primat, Würzburg: Echter 1990, 107, vg. a. 103; Norman F. Cantor, Medieval History. The Life and Death of a Civilization, London: Macmillan 1969 (1963), pp. 228, 273f.

  26. 26.

    James A. Brundage, Medieval Canon Law, London: Longman 1995, 39f, 55f, 62ff, 152, 164ff; Brundage, “The Rise of the Professional Jurist in the Thirteenth Century”, in: Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce 20, 1994, 185–190; Berman, Recht und Revolution, pp. 24f, 129, 145, 367; following Berman: Luhmann, Das Recht der Gesellschaft, Frankfurt aM: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1993, 25.

  27. 27.

    Berman, Recht und Revolution, pp. 53f, 259, 262, 286, 622, 791.

  28. 28.

    See: Joseph Reese Strayer, On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State, Princeton 1970; in particular on the constitutive and unique role of the Western European system of parishes see: Moore, Erste europäische Revolution, 268, 294.

  29. 29.

    See only: Berman, Law and Revolution II: The Impact of the Protestant Reformation on the Western Legal Tradition, Cambridge MA: Cambridge Univ. Press 2006; Philip S. Gorski, The Disciplinary Revolution. Calvinism and the Rise of the State in Early Modern Europe, Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press 2003.

  30. 30.

    See for an illuminating analysis: Gorski, Disciplinary Revolution.

  31. 31.

    Peter Blickle, Von der Leibeigenschaft zu den Menschenrechten. Eine Geschichte der Freiheit in Deutschland, München: Beck 2003; Blickle, Die Revolution von 1525, München: Oldenbourg 2004.

  32. 32.

    Besides the works of Berman see only: Strayer, Medieval Origins of Modern State, 22.

  33. 33.

    Rainer Schmalz Bruns, “Political Normativity”, paper for the Prague-conference of RECON Oct 2009.

  34. 34.

    Karl Marx, Der 18. Brumaire des Louis Bonaparte, MEGA Bd. I/11, Berlin: Dietz 1985, 112, In the English translation: A splendid invention (…) freeing civil society completely from the trouble of governing itself” (available at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch02.htm).

  35. 35.

    See, already, Talcott Parsons, “Order and Community in the International Social System”, in: James N. Rosenau (ed), International Politics and Foreign Policy, (Glencoe IL: The Free Press, 1961), pp. 120–129.

  36. 36.

    Tilly, European Revolutions, p. 243.

  37. 37.

    Daniel Maul, The ILO involvement in decolonisation and development, ILO Century Project 2010, available at: http://www.ilo.org/public/english/century/information_resources/download/maul.pdf.

  38. 38.

    Fassbender, United Nations Charter, p. 103; see Hersch Lauterpacht, “The Covenant as the ‘Higher Law’”, British Year Book of International Law, Vol 17, New York and London: Oxford University Press 1936, p. 54; on the revolutionary character of the Treaty of Versailles, see Kelsen, “Der völkerrechtliche Strafanspruch wegen völkerrechtswidriger Kriegshandlungen”, in: Neue Freie Presse, 8. September, Vienna 1920, p. 3–4; idem, “La Théorie générale du Droit International Public”, in: Recueil des Cours (de l’Académie de droit international), Vol. 42, (Leiden: Niejhuss, 1932), pp. 117–351, p/at 151, & p/at 155; Cristina Hoss, “Kelsen in Den Haag. Die Haager Vorlesungen von Hans Kelsen”, in: Brunkhorst & Rüdiger Voigt (eds), Rechts-Staat, (Baden-Baden: Nomos 2008), pp. 149–168, at 157 et seq; Jochen von Bernstorff, Der Glaube an das universale Recht: zur Völkerrechtstheorie Hans Kelsens und seiner Schüler, (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2001), p. 128 et seq. The whole (Wilsonian) construction of the Covenant closely followed Kant’s outline for a League of Nations from 1795; see Gerhard Beestermöller, Die Völkerbundidee (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1995); Oliver Eberl, “Demokratie und Frieden. Kants Friedensschrift in den Kontroversen über die Gestaltung globaler Ordnung”, Diss. Univ. Bremen 2007, p. 75.

  39. 39.

    The first monograph under the title of a constitution of international law had already appeared after the First World War, going back to a broad discussion during the war: Alfred Verdross, Die Verfassung der Völkerrechtsgemeinschaft (Vienna: Julius Springer, 1926). For the German discussion, see Eberl, Demokratie und Frieden. For the French discussion of that time, see Anja Wüst, Das völkerrechtliche Werk von Georges Scelle im Frankreich der Zwischenkriegszeit (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2007). On the Kadi-cases, see Isabelle Ley, “Legal Protection Against the UN-Security Council. Between European and International Law: A Kafkaesque Situation?”, in: (2007) 8 German Law Journal, pp. 279–293; Christoph Möllers, “Das EUG konstitutionalisiert die Vereinten Nationen”, in: idem/J.P. Terhechte (ed), Europarecht 3, (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2006), pp. 426–431; Halberstam, Constitutionalism, pp.18.

  40. 40.

    See: Möllers, “Pouvoir Constituant—Constitution—Constitutionalisation”, in: E.O. Eriksen J.E. Fossum & A.J. Menéndez (eds), Developing a Constitution for Europe, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2007).

  41. 41.

    See: Volker Sellin, Die geraubte Revolution, Göttingen: Vandenhoek 2001.

  42. 42.

    Tilly, European Revolutions, pp. 36.

  43. 43.

    Weber, Religionssoziologie I, 252.

  44. 44.

    Brilliant analysis by Moore, Erste Europäische Revolution.

  45. 45.

    On growth: Thomas Franck, Book Review, vol. 77, Harvard law Review 1565 (1964), quoted from Fassbender, United Nations Charter, p. 5; on the fragmentation (and de-constitutionalization): Martti Koskenniemi, “Global Governance and Public International Law”, 37 Kritische Justiz (2004), 241–254; Martti Koskenniemi & Päivi Leino, “Fragmentation of International Law. Postmodern Anxieties?”, Leiden Journal of International Law, vol. 15 (2002) pp. 553–579; Jürgen Bast, ‚Das Demokratiedefizit fragmentierter Internationalisierung’, in Brunkhorst, Demokratie in der Weltgesellschaft, Soziale Welt Sonderband 18 (Baden-Baden 2009).

  46. 46.

    Bogdandy & Venzke, Internationale Gerichtsbarkeit; Halberstam, Constitutionalism.

  47. 47.

    Krysztof Skubiszewski, Implied Powers of International Organizations, in: Yoram Dinstein/Mala Tabory, eds., Essays in Honour of Shabtai Rosenne, Doodrecht: Nijhoff, 855–868.

  48. 48.

    Anne Peters, “Compensatory Constitutionalism: The Function and Potential of Fundamental International Norms and Structures”, in: (2006) vol 19 Leiden Journal of International Law, pp. 579–610; Bardo Fassbender, The United Nations Charter as the Constitution of the International Community, (Leiden-Boston MA: Nijhoff, 2009), p. 103 et seq.

  49. 49.

    Christan Jörges, Gunther Teubner & Inger-Johanne Sand, Transnational Governance and Constitutionalism, Hart: Oxford 2004; Rainer Nickel, “The missing link in global law: Regime collisions, societal constitutionalism, and participation in globalk governance”, in: Nicolás López Calera (ed.), Globalisation, Law and Economy, Proceedings of the 22nd IVR World Congress Granada 2005, Volume IV (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2007), pp. 237–250.

  50. 50.

    Halberstam, Constitutionalism; Bruce Ackerman, We the People, 2 Vol. (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press 1998).

  51. 51.

    Verdross, Die Quellen des universellen Völkerrechts: Eine Einführung, Breisgau: Rombach 1971, p 20–21; Fassbender, United Nations Charter, pp. 43–44 & 123–128.

  52. 52.

    Halberstam, Constitutionalism.

  53. 53.

    See: Fassbender, United Nations Charter, pp. 27ff; Andreas Fischer-Lescano, Globalverfassung: Die Geltungsbegründung der Menschenrechte, Weilerwist: Vellbrück 2005.

  54. 54.

    Christian Tomuschat, “Obligations arising for States without or against their Will”, in: 241 receueil des Cours 1993, 195–374, p. 344; Fassbender, United Nations Charter, p.95–96.

  55. 55.

    See: Fassbender, United Nations Charter, 96.

  56. 56.

    See: Fassbender, United Nations Charter, p. 31&54, pp. 103.

  57. 57.

    Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870–1960, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 126.

  58. 58.

    Maul, The ILO involvement in decolonization and development.

  59. 59.

    Maul, The ILO involvement in decolonization and development.

  60. 60.

    Maul, The ILO involvement in decolonization and development.

  61. 61.

    Charles E. Merriam, “The Content of an International Bill of Rights”, in: W.D Lewis & J.R. Ellinston (eds), Annals of the American Academy, Vol. 243, Essential Human Rights, (Jan., 1946), pp. 11–17, at 11 et seq., re-published in: Sage Publications/JSTOR, available at: http://www.jstor.org/pss/1025049.

  62. 62.

    UN General Assembly, Declaration of Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation Among States in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, 24 October 1970, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3dda1f104.html [accessed 4 March 2010].

  63. 63.

    Barrington Moore, Injustice. The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt (New York: Sharpe, 1978).

  64. 64.

    Jean Piaget, Das moralische Urteil beim Kinde, (Frankfurt aM: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1973), p. 311, my translation; see, also, Brunkhorst, Theodor W. Adorno: Dialektik der Moderne, (Munich: Piper, 1990), p. 163 et seq.

  65. 65.

    Habermas, “Das Konzept der Menschenwuerde und die realistische Utopie der Menschenrechte”, unpublished paper 2009, p. 6 et seq.

  66. 66.

    Immanuel Kant, Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, my translation. In German it is: “Die Würde der Menschheit besteht (in der) Fähigkeit, allgemein gesetzgebend (…) zu sein.“ Quoted from: http://www.ac-nice.fr/philo/textes/Kant-GrundlegungSitten.htm.

  67. 67.

    Ingeborg Maus, Aufklärung der Demokratietheorie, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 1994.

  68. 68.

    Maus, “Zur Theorie der Institutionalisierung bei Kant”, in: Gerhard Göhler u.a., Hg., Politische Institutionen im gesellschaftlichen Umbruch, Opladen: Westdt. Verlag 1990, pp. 358–385, at 373.

  69. 69.

    Maus, Institutionalisierung, pp. 350–51, 371–72.

  70. 70.

    Quoted from Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), p. 201.

  71. 71.

    Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action was White: An untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America (New York-London: W.W. Norton, 2005). See, also, Tom McCarthy, Race, Empire, and the Idea of Human Development (Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

  72. 72.

    On the other sources, see Christopher McCrudden, “Human Dignity and Judicial Interpretation of Human Rights”, in: (2008) 19 The European Journal of International Law, pp. 655–724; Jan Werner Müller, “Die eigentlich katholische Verschärfung. Jacques Maritain und die christdemokratischen Fluchtwege aus dem Zeitalter der Extreme”, in: (2008) Zeitschrift für Ideengeschichte, No. II/3 (Fall 2008), pp. 40–54.

  73. 73.

    See Transcript of Discussion Between Breyer and Scalia; and now also: Supreme Court 08–7412 (Nv. 9, 2009, available under: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-7412.pdf); see further and in particular on Drittwirkung: Bogdandy & Venzke, Internationale Gerichtsbarkeit; Rainer Nickel, (2009), Transnational Borrowing Among Judges: Towards a Common Core of European and Global Constitutional Law?, in: Rainer Nickel (ed), Conflicts of Law and Laws of Conflict in Europe and Beyond, (Oslo: Arena, 2009), pp. 281–306.

  74. 74.

    See: Cass Sunstein, The Second Bill of Rights, (New York: Basic Books 2004), p. 100 et seq.

  75. 75.

    Stichweh, Die Weltgesellschaft, (Frankfurt aM: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2000), p. 52.

  76. 76.

    Benedict Kingsbury, Nico Krisch, & Richard B. Steward, The Emergence of Global Administrative Law; available at: http://law.duke.edu/journals/lcp; Andreas Fischer-Lescano, “Transnationales Verwaltungsecht” (2008) 63 Juristen-Zeitung, pp. 373–383.

  77. 77.

    Brunkhorst, Solidarity. From Civic Friendship to a Global Legal Community, (Cambridge MA-London: The MIT Press, 2005), p. 338. On the empirical impact of the world public, see Thomas Risse, Stephen C. Ropp & Sikkink Kathyrn (eds), The Power of Human Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

  78. 78.

    David Held, Democracy and the Global Order: From The Modern State To Cosmopolitan Governance, (Oxford: Polity Press 1995); Rhamatulla Khan, “The Anti-Globalization Protests: Side-show of Global Governance, or Law-making on the Streets?”, (2001) vol Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht, pp. 323–355; Nickel, “Participatory Transnational Governance”, in: Christian Jörges & Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann (eds.), Constitutionalism, Multilevel Trade Governance and Social Regulation, (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2006), pp. 157–195, also available at: CLPE Research Paper 5/2006, http://ssrn.com/abstractid=885380. On the legal problem of participation of NGOs in International Organisations, see Jochen von Bernstorf, “Procedures of Decision-Making and the Role of Law in International Organizations”, (draft paper MPI Heidelberg 2008). For further research literature and internet sources, see, only, NGO Research Guide: http://library.duke.edu/research/subject/guides/ngo_guide/ngo_links/a-e.html; Index Page for Work by Peter Willetts on NGOs: http://www.staff.city.ac.uk/p.willetts/NGOS/ngo-home.htm#Articles.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Brunkhorst, H. (2018). Some Conceptual and Structural Problems of Global Cosmopolitanism. In: Giri, A. (eds) Beyond Cosmopolitanism. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5376-4_16

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5376-4_16

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-10-5375-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-10-5376-4

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics