The post-war period has seen the development of what Held calls the UN Charter
model (1995: 86). However, although this has made inroads into the concept of
state sovereignty (hence the US hostility to the UN), it coexists uneasily with what
Held calls the ‘the model of Westphalia’ – the notion that states recognise no
superior authority and tackle conflicts by force (1995: 78). A first step forward
would involve enhancing the UN model by making a consensus vote in the General
Assembly a source of international law, and providing a means of redress of human
rights violations in an international court. The Security Council would be more
representative if the veto arrangement was modified, and the problem of double
standards addressed – a problem that undermines the UN’s prestige in the south
(Held, 1995: 269). Welcome as these measures would be, they still represent, Held
contends, a very thin and partial move towards an international democracy.
Held’s full-blown model of cosmopolitan democracy would involve the formation
of regional parliaments whose decisions become part of international law. There
would be referenda cutting across nations and nation-states, and the establishment
of an independent assembly of democratic nations (1995: 279). The logic of this
argument implies the explicit erosion of state sovereignty and the use of international
legal principles as a way of delimiting the scope and action of private and public
organisations. These principles are egalitarian in character and would apply to all
civic and political associations.
How would they be enforced? It is here that Held’s commitment to the state as
a permanent actor on the international scene bedevils his argument. The idea of the
state remains but it must, Held contends, be adapted to ‘stretch across borders’
(1995: 233). While he argues that the principle of ‘non-coercive relations’ should
prevail in the settlement of disputes, the use of force as a weapon of last resort
should be employed in the face of attacks to eradicate cosmopolitan law.
Held’s assumption is that the existence of this force would be permanent. Yet
these statist assumptions are in conflict with the aim of seconding this force, that
is ‘the demilitarisation and transcendence of the war system’ (1995: 279). For this
is only possible if institutions claiming a monopoly of legitimate force give way to
what we have called governments, and the logic of government is, it has been argued
above, profoundly different from that of the state. Held contends that we must
overcome the dualisms between (for example) globalism and cultural diversity;
global governance from above and the extension of grass-roots organisations from
below, constitutionalism and politics. These polarities make it impossible to embed
utopia in what Held calls ‘the existing pattern of political relations and processes’
(1995: 286).
As challenging as this model is, its incoherence is manifest in Held’s continuing
belief in the permanence of the state. In an analysis of democracy and autonomy,
he argues that the demos must include all adults with the exception of those
temporarily visiting a political community, and those who ‘beyond a shadow of a
doubt’ are legitimately disqualified from participation ‘due to severe mental
incapacity and/or serious records of crime’ (Held, 1995: 208). Temporary visitors
would, it is true, be citizens of other communities, but excluding the mentally
incapacitated from citizenship is far from self-evident, and while there may be a
tactical argument for excluding serious criminals from voting (although the position
on this is changing), the very existence of such a category of intransigent outsiders
indicates how far we are from having a democracy.
Chapter 5 Democracy 111