Democratic Accountability in Global Politics: Norms, not Agents

R apid growth in the reach and influence of global governance arrangements has triggered broad concern among citizens and scholars alike about the lack of democratic accountability in global politics. This important question bears directly on the legitimacy of global governance regimes and on the prospects for democratizing power in the supranational context (Nye 2001). Keohane (2006) sees the prospect of interdependence without accountable governance as a ‘‘deadly mix,’’ and the widespread calls for greater democracy and accountability emanating from civil society suggest that such fears are neither isolated nor exaggerated. Yet despite consensus on the urgency of making global governance more accountable, there is little agreement on whether or how this might be possible. The present debate centers on whether concepts and models of democratic accountability worked out within states can or should be applied in the global context. Some scholars, following Dahl (1999), argue that the political preconditions of democratic accountability—a taken-for-granted demos within a bounded political community and clear mechanisms tying power wielders in the community to that demos—are absent in global politics and unlikely to emerge, making democratic accountability beyond the state impossible. Others, following Held (1995, 2004), insist that familiar models of democratic accountability can be adapted globally through overlapping and multilayered institutional forms designed to restore the aforementioned symmetry between rulers and ruled at all levels of governance. Still others, most notably Keohane and his collaborators (Grant and Keohane 2005; Keohane 2003, 2006; Keohane and Nye 2003), agree that the stark differences between the state and global contexts render familiar notions of democratic accountability unworkable globally. They advocate a more ecumenical approach to accountability that, while not strictly democratic, would effectively curb abuses of power and be more appropriate for the global context. I refer to these as the pessimistic, cosmopolitan, and pluralistic approaches, respectively. Despite their divergent views, all three conceive democratic accountability in the same way, as a question of making those who wield power answerable to the appropriate people. For pessimists, only the demos can legitimately authorize power and hold it to account; for cosmopolitans, all those affected by political decisions constitute a new kind of demos empowered through cosmopolitan institutions; for pluralists, the demos problem is insoluble and sets too demanding a standard, making nondemocratic mechanisms of accountability the best option. I argue that this focus on who should hold power to account reflects an unnecessarily narrow understanding of democratic accountability and develop an alternative approach emphasizing why power must be accountable in democracy. This approach suggests a model of global democratic accountability to norms, not agents, that offers a clear and pragmatic alternative to the three positions just described. The essay begins by analyzing the standard model of democratic accountability endorsed by pessimists, cosmopolitans, and pluralists, showing how its emphasis on the appropriate accountability holders