The transformation of democracy: new facts and explanations
Democracy has become paradoxical. Why do people in a world that is more global than ever turn to national politics to secure their democracy, sometimes with the result that politics becomes more authoritarian and less democratic? And why are other people, who also praise democracy, prepared to transfer decision-making power to the international level where “might trumps rights” and “West is the best” in many cases? This project explains the paradoxes and highlights new opportunities for democrats to achieve their goals by clarifying how democracy and global politics are intertwined and influence decisions at all levels. The knowledge is available in unpublished form or is spread between different publications and research programs in which the applicant has participated for about ten years. To avail the knowledge for academic debate and political improvements, an extensive work of synthetization and an ambitious publication (at present planned with Oxford University Press) are needed. The project completes the work of developing, applying, and testing a theory of how global and international politics develop as a consequence of how democratic they are on the basis of a fundamentally reconstructed concept of democracy. The issues explained in the planned monograph include war and peace, foreign policy strategies, migration among countries, economic resource allocation, and the effectiveness of international institutions to protect the environment and human rights.
Final report
Nationalism is back as a dominating force in world politics (Trump, Brexit, Putin). Politics is also more global than ever before (migration, the economy, digital communication). The situation creates paradoxes in research on democracy. Why do some people turn to national politics to secure their democracy while they live in a world that is more global than ever – sometimes with the result that their politics becomes more authoritarian? Why do other people, who praise democracy just as much, struggle to transfer decision-making power to international levels where “might trumps rights” and “West is the best” in particular in nationalist times? The larger aim of this project was to explore these paradoxes and highlight new opportunities for democrats to achieve their goals by clarifying how democracy and global politics are intertwined and influence outcomes of politics at all levels.
The specific purpose was to complete a book manuscript, which I published in 2022 under the title Democratism: Explaining international politics with democracy beyond the state. The book presents and argues for a new approach to study and to practice global and international politics, named “Democratism”. Drawing on an originally constructed concept of democracy beyond the state, the book describes variation in democracy at the level of global and international politics, in order to explain observable outcomes. Rejecting conceptions of democracy that refer only to domestic politics, the book reconstructs normative theories of global democracy into an empirical research paradigm. Specific applications of the book apply to explain and predict how a broad range of concrete issues are handled in world politics, e.g. resource distribution, peace and conflict, institutional effectiveness, migration politics, foreign policy strategies, and the varying effects of anarchy and legitimacy in different settings (e.g. in the Cold War and the post-Cold War settings, respectively). The book reports empirical studies, original or adapted for this publication, which as a whole provide significant support the key idea: democracy beyond the state affect how actors created outcomes in global and international politics.
The theory that emerges from the book supplements and occasionally challenges the familiar research paradigms of international relations (IR), such as realism, liberalism, Marxism and constructivism, and thus aims to strengthen the relevance of that discipline in wider academic conversations. At the same time, the book offers a means to conceive of democracy in semi-anarchical and border-transcending social processes, and ultimately to practise it differently under those increasingly prevalent international political conditions. The book has been described by one critic as “truly remarkable and ambitious. It argues that democratism affects almost all outcomes in world politics and international policy processes. It is a most important theoretical contribution to IR, and it develops a fresh perspective on the concept of democracy – both on a very high level.’ (Michael Zürn, professor of political science, WZB Berlin Social Science Center).
Based on the publication of the book, I have been invited to develop its ideas further in other publications. One of the collaborations resulted in my article “Democracy beyond the state in the age of cities: Explaining crisis dynamics in national democracy”, which currently awaits publication in the volume The Crisis of Democracy in the Age of Cities (edited by Juval Portugali, Professor of Human Geography at Tel Aviv University). This chapter introduces the concept of democracy beyond the state to research on the age of cities, and suggests new ways to explain dynamics of democratic crises. The age of cities refers to the historical era when more humans live in urban than in rural settings, which happened for the first time in year 2010. In parallel with the growing size of cities, the experience of urban life changes as well. For example, the megacities in Western democracies attract migrants from poorer countries. The main argument is that crisis dynamics of democracy in the age of cities depend critically on political structures at the global and international levels.
Another collaboration resulted in the article “Adaptive Democracy in Times of Crisis: Lessons From Sweden” (co-authored with Tommy Möller), which has appeared as a chapter in the volume Democracy under Pressure: Resilience or Retreat? (edited by Ursula Van Beek). This chapter traces democracy in Sweden during the past decade and looks at factors that might conceivably make this democracy more vulnerable in the future. It assesses stability and change of democracy within central political institutions and the party system, specifically in view of the Sweden Democrats and the challenges this party has posed other parties. The chapter then goes on to assess democracy in Sweden in relation to globalisation, digitalisation, increasing global inequality and the individualisation of political cultures –processes that have often been invoked to explain the global backsliding of national democracy – by asking why Sweden, despite being highly exposed to these processes, does not show signs of weakening of its democracy (as of 2020). The main argument is that Swedish democracy is resilient because of an unusual ability among central actors to adapt to new circumstances in domestic politics, including new parties and new ideological conflict lines, as well as new circumstances globally, for example social media and modernisation more broadly.
Still one extension of the research project overlaps with the book Global legitimacy crises: decline and revival in multilateral governance (co-authored with Thomas Sommerer, Fariborz Zelli and Bart Bes). Chapter 4 in the book Democratism attempts to overcome a set of longstanding disagreements in IR on how anarchy, legitimacy, power-transition and social recognition affects decisions made by international actors. It does so by spelling out alternative assumptions on how much democracy beyond there is in particular cases of international politics. The book Global legitimacy crises tests of one of those arguments by means of a multi-variate statistical analysis of how democratic institutions in 32 inter-governmental organisations, from year 1985 to 2020, condition the effects of legitimacy crises on the capacity of those inter-governmental organizations to rule. The results reported in Global legitimacy crises supports the theory presented in Democratism.
In addition to scholarly publications, I have applied the theory in Democratism to debate Swedish and international politics in two op-ed articles for the Swedish biggest daily newspaper, Dagens Nyheter. One of the articles debated the international role of Sweden after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and I listed a number of recommendations for how to sustain peace based on its explanation in the book with the concept of democracy beyond the state (Chapter 6 in Democratism). In the other op-ed, I used the theory to argue for a more inclusive and holistic approach to politics in Sweden and elsewhere. Here I elaborated on the definition of democracy motivated first and foremost by the need to mitigate persistent disagreements (see Introduction in Democratism). In addition to disseminating the research through op-ed articles, I have used the book in my teaching and presented it at meetings in Stockholm and Paris (in the latter case invited by William Howell and Susan Stokes, professors at the University of Chicago and active at the University of Chicago Centre in Paris).
The specific purpose was to complete a book manuscript, which I published in 2022 under the title Democratism: Explaining international politics with democracy beyond the state. The book presents and argues for a new approach to study and to practice global and international politics, named “Democratism”. Drawing on an originally constructed concept of democracy beyond the state, the book describes variation in democracy at the level of global and international politics, in order to explain observable outcomes. Rejecting conceptions of democracy that refer only to domestic politics, the book reconstructs normative theories of global democracy into an empirical research paradigm. Specific applications of the book apply to explain and predict how a broad range of concrete issues are handled in world politics, e.g. resource distribution, peace and conflict, institutional effectiveness, migration politics, foreign policy strategies, and the varying effects of anarchy and legitimacy in different settings (e.g. in the Cold War and the post-Cold War settings, respectively). The book reports empirical studies, original or adapted for this publication, which as a whole provide significant support the key idea: democracy beyond the state affect how actors created outcomes in global and international politics.
The theory that emerges from the book supplements and occasionally challenges the familiar research paradigms of international relations (IR), such as realism, liberalism, Marxism and constructivism, and thus aims to strengthen the relevance of that discipline in wider academic conversations. At the same time, the book offers a means to conceive of democracy in semi-anarchical and border-transcending social processes, and ultimately to practise it differently under those increasingly prevalent international political conditions. The book has been described by one critic as “truly remarkable and ambitious. It argues that democratism affects almost all outcomes in world politics and international policy processes. It is a most important theoretical contribution to IR, and it develops a fresh perspective on the concept of democracy – both on a very high level.’ (Michael Zürn, professor of political science, WZB Berlin Social Science Center).
Based on the publication of the book, I have been invited to develop its ideas further in other publications. One of the collaborations resulted in my article “Democracy beyond the state in the age of cities: Explaining crisis dynamics in national democracy”, which currently awaits publication in the volume The Crisis of Democracy in the Age of Cities (edited by Juval Portugali, Professor of Human Geography at Tel Aviv University). This chapter introduces the concept of democracy beyond the state to research on the age of cities, and suggests new ways to explain dynamics of democratic crises. The age of cities refers to the historical era when more humans live in urban than in rural settings, which happened for the first time in year 2010. In parallel with the growing size of cities, the experience of urban life changes as well. For example, the megacities in Western democracies attract migrants from poorer countries. The main argument is that crisis dynamics of democracy in the age of cities depend critically on political structures at the global and international levels.
Another collaboration resulted in the article “Adaptive Democracy in Times of Crisis: Lessons From Sweden” (co-authored with Tommy Möller), which has appeared as a chapter in the volume Democracy under Pressure: Resilience or Retreat? (edited by Ursula Van Beek). This chapter traces democracy in Sweden during the past decade and looks at factors that might conceivably make this democracy more vulnerable in the future. It assesses stability and change of democracy within central political institutions and the party system, specifically in view of the Sweden Democrats and the challenges this party has posed other parties. The chapter then goes on to assess democracy in Sweden in relation to globalisation, digitalisation, increasing global inequality and the individualisation of political cultures –processes that have often been invoked to explain the global backsliding of national democracy – by asking why Sweden, despite being highly exposed to these processes, does not show signs of weakening of its democracy (as of 2020). The main argument is that Swedish democracy is resilient because of an unusual ability among central actors to adapt to new circumstances in domestic politics, including new parties and new ideological conflict lines, as well as new circumstances globally, for example social media and modernisation more broadly.
Still one extension of the research project overlaps with the book Global legitimacy crises: decline and revival in multilateral governance (co-authored with Thomas Sommerer, Fariborz Zelli and Bart Bes). Chapter 4 in the book Democratism attempts to overcome a set of longstanding disagreements in IR on how anarchy, legitimacy, power-transition and social recognition affects decisions made by international actors. It does so by spelling out alternative assumptions on how much democracy beyond there is in particular cases of international politics. The book Global legitimacy crises tests of one of those arguments by means of a multi-variate statistical analysis of how democratic institutions in 32 inter-governmental organisations, from year 1985 to 2020, condition the effects of legitimacy crises on the capacity of those inter-governmental organizations to rule. The results reported in Global legitimacy crises supports the theory presented in Democratism.
In addition to scholarly publications, I have applied the theory in Democratism to debate Swedish and international politics in two op-ed articles for the Swedish biggest daily newspaper, Dagens Nyheter. One of the articles debated the international role of Sweden after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and I listed a number of recommendations for how to sustain peace based on its explanation in the book with the concept of democracy beyond the state (Chapter 6 in Democratism). In the other op-ed, I used the theory to argue for a more inclusive and holistic approach to politics in Sweden and elsewhere. Here I elaborated on the definition of democracy motivated first and foremost by the need to mitigate persistent disagreements (see Introduction in Democratism). In addition to disseminating the research through op-ed articles, I have used the book in my teaching and presented it at meetings in Stockholm and Paris (in the latter case invited by William Howell and Susan Stokes, professors at the University of Chicago and active at the University of Chicago Centre in Paris).