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International Relations (IR) needs democratising. Currently, IR theorising remains under the hegemony of a singular worldview (`warre of all against all') with a singular logic (`conversion or discipline') for all actors and activities. This top-down, sta

WASHINGTON, Mar 19 (IPS) - The U.S. should stop focusing on universalising Western democracy and instead work on constructing an international order that grants full legitimacy to responsible non-democratic states, argues an influential new paper that has

Amartya Sen's enlarged conception of freedom has augmented the scope of economic analysis but it also has had the surprising effect of being more supportive of the free market than conventional welfare economics. It is argued here that a comparison of Sen's position with that of the American institutionalist, J R Commons, highlights some problems with Sen's approach and points to possible ways in which they might be addressed.

This article addresses the effects of inequality on the globalisation process. It is argued that the recent financial and economic crisis is a manifestation of a tendency of the aggregate demand to fall relatively to aggregate supply, generated by an asymmetric income distribution, which in turn both increases, and is reinforced by, the mobility of goods, capital and labour, in a process of cumulative causation. This process has not become manifest earlier due to counteracting tendencies generated by the financial system, that were disrupted during the crisis. It is also argued that mainstream economics does not have the adequate framework for explaining the crisis, and actually contributed to the crisis through its theories and policies. Hence an alternative economic framework is suggested for addressing the crisis, drawing upon the contributions of several heterodox economic traditions, especially post-Keynesianism.

The purpose of this article is to analyse one of the very first European-level instances of trade union and social movement interaction in defence of the public sector, namely, the Coalition for Green and Social Procurement, an alliance of European trade unions and green and social non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and its campaign for an amendment of the new public procurement directives from 2000 to 2003. It will be examined to what extent this campaign was able to change the directives and counter neoliberal restructuring effectively as well as what the possibilities but also limits of trade union and social movement cooperation are as exemplified in this particular case study.

What if we listened to issues with the same level of attention we bring to music? What if we participated in our democratic forums and processes like practiced musicians? Using music as a model, are there ways we could improve the quality of discourse in our communities and our country?

In this article we first trace the ideological development and collective framing of the World Social Forum (WSF) as a non-hierarchical gathering for collaboration and networking within the global justice movement. We then analyze the consequences of organizational design, thematic resonance, and technological innovations implemented to produce more open and horizontal collaboration. We do this by conducting two-mode network analysis of organizations that facilitated sessions and workshops during two separate meetings (2003 and 2005) of the WSF in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Our findings indicate that organizational affiliations were less hierarchical in 2005, but we uncover mixed results from analyzing patterns of interaction produced by individual organizations and groups of organizations. Finally, we discuss the implications of such macro-level innovations on the dynamics of multi-organizational fields (collaboration, coalition building, and thematic resonance) and the contributions of such an approach to the study of transnational organizational networks.

Forest struggles and movements in India were a part of the rich tradition of anti-colonial struggle. In North Bengal, the recorded history of forest movements dates back to the 1960s and the movements themselves have been continuous ever since. However, despite the sincere efforts of those movements the livelihood opportunities of the forest dwellers worsened daily. The 1972 Wildlife Act together with the 1980 Forest Conservation Act strengthened further the oppressive structure of the forest bureaucracy. After the introduction of the Joint Forest Management Programme in the 1990s backed by the 1988 Forest Policy in India, it was expected that the forest dwellers would become more empowered economically and socially in lieu of their participation in the forest protection activities. But this failed miserably in the region and in 2000, against such a backdrop, a movement was started to demand land and livelihood rights for the forest dwellers. Following the Notification of the Forest Rights Act (2006) the movement has gained a new momentum while continuing its struggle against the biased implementation of the Act. This article presents a brief account of the movement in order to assess its significance and changing focuses over the years

This paper elaborates on the deliberative democracy argument for freedom of expression in terms of its relationship to different dimensions of autonomy. It engages the objection that Enlightenment theories pose a threat to cultures that reject autonomy and argues that autonomy-based democracy is not only compatible with but necessary for respect for cultural diversity. On the basis of an intersubjective epistemology, it argues that people cannot know how to live on mutually respectful terms without engaging in public deliberation and developing some degree of personal autonomy. While freedom of expression is indispensable for deliberation and autonomy, this does not mean that people have no obligations regarding how they speak to each other. The moral insights provided by deliberation depend on the participants in the process treating one another with respect. The argument is related to the Danish cartoon controversy.

This is a revised text of the distinguished lecture on South Asia delivered in Melbourne on 3 July 2008 at the 17th Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA). My deep thanks are to ASAA and the South Asian Studies Association (SASA) in particular. I am also indebted to the members of the audience there who discussed the text with me. My similar debt is to the members of the audience at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, where this was also presented as a public lecture on 22 December 2008.

Arthur Okun famously argued that "effciency is bought at the cost of inequalities in income and wealth". Okun's trade-off represents the antithesis to Karl Polanyi's view of the relationship that the more embedded markets are in society, the better the social and economic outcomes they produce. This paper refines both these views. We argue that not all forms of market embeddedness are created equal, and that the relationship between equality and efficiency can be both positive and negative. We show this by examining how different ways of embedding economic activity in society through market regulation produce different combinations of efficiency and equality. We identify empirically three broad patterns: market liberal regulatory frameworks that promote competitive markets without decommodifying institutions; embedded liberal regulations that allow markets to work efficiently, but within the framework of decommodification and equality; and embedded illiberalism, where regulations hinder markets in favor of powerful social groups and where decommodification undermines both efficiency and equality. Okun's trade-off emerges as a special case limited to the English-speaking democracies: other OECD countries tend to exhibit either efficiency and equality together, or inefficiency and inequality together. These findings suggest a corrective to both nave market liberal views of the incompatibility of efficiency and equality, but also to the more sophisticated Varieties of Capitalism framework, which pays insufficient attention to the ways in which markets can be embedded in stable but apparently dysfunctional institutional arrangements.

This article explores the ideational dynamics that shaped the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) campaign to establish capital mobility as a formal obligation of IMF membership during the 1990s. First, the article examines how the IMF made the issue of capital account liberalisation 'legible' through constructing a particular 'legibility map' on capital mobility, which was rigorously promoted across its membership. Second, the article explores the processes through which the IMF's legibility map on capital mobility was accepted by the organisation's member states. The article traces debates within the IMF Executive Board relating to the decision to amend the IMF's Articles of Agreement to give the organisation a formal mandate and jurisdiction over capital account liberalisation to complement its existing mandate and jurisdiction over current account transactions.

International organisations (IOs) often serve as the 'engine room' of ideas for structural reforms at the national level, but how do IOs construct cognitive authority over the forms, processes and prescriptions for institutional change in their member states? Exploring the analytic institutions created by IOs provides insights into how they make their member states 'legible' and how greater legibility enables them to construct cognitive authority in specific policy areas, which, in turn, enhances their capacity to influence changes in national frameworks for economic and social governance. Studying the indirect influence that IOs can exert over the design of national policies has, until recently, often been neglected in accounts of the contemporary roles that IOs play and the evolution of global economic governance

A stark contrast exists between the popular image of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) as a uniquely powerful international organisation (IO) and its actual capacity to monitor national policies and to enforce compliance with WTO rules among its member states. Rather than overseeing policy implementation itself like the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank, the WTO relies much more heavily than other high-profile IOs on a legalist method of surveillance. This article suggests that the notion of a 'member-driven legalism' is central to how the WTO 'sees' the world. In particular, the WTO's processes reflect a strong institutional belief that neo-liberal policies can be implemented by a consensus- and member-driven legalistic WTO system.

Governance architectures are strategic and long-term institutional arrangements of international organizations exhibiting three features; namely, they address strategic and long-term problems in a holistic manner, they set substantive output-oriented goals, and they are implemented through combinations of old and new organizational structures within the international organization in question. The Lisbon Strategy is the most high-profile initiative of the European Union for economic governance of the last decade. Yet it is also one of the most neglected subjects of EU studies, probably because not being identified as an object of study on its own right. We define the Lisbon Strategy as a case of governance architecture, raising questions about its creation, evolution and impact at the national level. We tackle these questions by drawing on institutional theories about emergence and change of institutional arrangements and on the multiple streams model. We formulate a set of propositions and hypotheses to make sense of the creation, evolution and national impact of the Lisbon Strategy. We argue that institutional ambiguity is used strategically by coalitions at the EU and national level in (re-)defining its ideational and organizational elements.

This paper analyzes the case of Porto Alegre, Brazil as a counter-hegemonic global city. Porto Alegre is a city with no particular relevance to neoliberal globalization that, nevertheless, was launched to a global scale by transformations in local governance. New mechanisms of deliberative democracy captured the attention of social actors constructing a movement of globalization from below, making Porto Alegre the de facto capital of the World Social Forum. In this paper I focus on the educational policies created in the city, which expanded the social imaginary in education and are a key component of Porto Alegre's 'globalization'.

This article seeks to extend feminist critiques of Habermasian discourse ethics in International Relations by engaging with the feminist ethics of care. Using the work of Andrew Linklater as a starting point, it argues that neither the existing critiques nor the responses have adequately addressed the key features of care ethics. The article critiques the idea of ethics as dialogue among 'human beings as equals' through an elaboration of several features of the ethics of care: firstly, the importance in care ethics of 'dependency' and 'vulnerability' not as conditions to be overcome, but rather as ways of being for normal human subjects; secondly, the focus on the responsibilities for listening attentively to the voices of others rather than on rights of individuals to be included in dialogue; thirdly, the need for patience and commitment in the recognition that responsibilities to others are fulfilled over the long, rather than the short, term; and, finally, the idea of care ethics as a substantive, democratic ethic of responsibility. These arguments emerge out of the basic ideas of care ethics - that relations and responsibilities of care are central to human life, and that care is a public value that must be negotiated at a variety of levels, from the household to the international community.

In a commentary on Coleman and Bassi's study of hegemonic masculinities in the British anti-globalization movement, the author brings to bear the scholarship on the gendered culture of the World Social Forum and through this, suggests the importance of contextualizing such studies in particular places and incorporating race, nation and class as salient dimensions.

Are information technologies good for democracy? Could cyberspace be a more democratic "place" in the world? To explore these questions, this article juxtaposes the supposedly democratizing effects of information technologies against Walt Whitman's and John Dewey's idealized "aesthetic democracy," a passionate relationship that embodies a public spirit toward oneself and one's fellow citizens. Although information technologies are often understood as a means to increase or deepen democracy, such claims equate democracy with a set of practices or forms, but the forms themselves are not inherently democratic. Aesthetic democracy, I argue, sheds light on the democratic pitfalls and possibilities of information technologies and cyberspace. This article provides a theory of aesthetic democracy for the cyber-environment by first exploring the difference between effects on democratic governance versus effects on democracy and then developing the concept of aesthetic democracy. The next section applies aesthetic democracy as a critique of information technologies and cyberspace. The final section suggests a way to reconstruct an aesthetic democracy that transcends borders and could thereby open up the possibility of a global, democratic, unbordered cyberpolis.

"A large body of European Union (EU) law - EU administrative law - is not made by the EU's democratically elected bodies, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament (EP). Instead, most administrative laws are made by the unelected European Commission. That, of itself, does not mean that the EU is insufficiently democratic: most democracies delegate the power to make administrative laws to unelected regulators. In those democracies, however, elected legislatures can at least change administrative laws after they are promulgated. This article contends that the EU is different: the Council and EP are effectively unable to change administrative laws. This article identifies 'design flaws' in the EU's lawmaking processes that are responsible for this democratic shortcoming. It then surveys relevant provisions of the new Lisbon Treaty in order to determine whether Lisbon will remedy that shortcoming: whether it will empower the Council and EP - or citizens directly - to change administrative laws."