Too little, too late

• Technocratic forms of international governance have spurred the rise of populist nationalists in Europe and around the globe. Joachim Blatter argues that we should tackle these intertwined challenges to representative democracy by transnationalising national democracies. In his kick-off text for the GLOBALCIT forum, he illustrates the underlining general problematique with the example of the Euro crisis, describes concrete steps towards a system of overlapping and transnationalised national democracies and outlines the potential benefits that would arise from a horizontal expansion of national demoi, elections and representation for democratic parties, parliaments and peoples. Blatter proposes that democracies should sign "joint declarations of interdependence" in which they express their commitment to the democratisation of their joint forms of governance and reciprocally offer their citizens the status of "consociated citizens." These consociated citizens enjoy the right to elect a limited number of "consociated representatives" in the parliaments of the consociated states. The elected and thereby directly authorised consociated representatives bring the perspectives and interests of the consociated citizens into the collective will-formation and decision-making process of the consociated states. According to Blatter, politicians and political parties would benefit since the current trade-off between being responsive and responsible would become weaker. National parliaments would regain their core place in the democratic process by serving as the central spaces for the necessary reconnect between international rule making and nationally embedded will-formation. Democratic nations would provide each other a legitimate pathway for getting involved in their domestic will-formation and decision-making processes. Citizens receive additional and constructive means for political participation and contestation. GLOBALCIT has invited eleven scholars to engage with Blatter'

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Statsvetenskap -- Statsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Political Science -- Political Science (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kap (subject category)