Discursive representation and the struggle for democracy

Essay from the year 2006 in the subject Politics - International Politics - General and Theories, grade: 1.0, The Australian National University, language: English, abstract: The World Trade Organization (WTO) has become the guardian angel of trade liberalisation, but its growing global power especially after the 1999 Seattle debacle has engendered growing public scrutiny.2 A number of scholars, activists and critics are concerned with the democratic deficit in system-level institutions, in particular the WTO, and are searching for solutions and alternatives to promote democratic legitimacy an accountability in global institutions.3 In this modern era of globalisation and democracy, in which the forces of a globalised economy constrain and elude the control of the nation state and its populus, a crucial question comes to the fore4: Can democracy in its present form, as bounded to territorial and sovereign states, address the increasing transnationalisation of society or is there a need to advocate a new pillar of democratic interaction more suitable to counteract real existing globalisation and its proponents? This

Dr. Lüdert is Assistant Professor and Associate Program Director in the School of Applied Leadership at City University of Seattle. Jan holds a PhD in International Relations from the department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. He is a Liu Institute for Global Issues scholar alumnus and recipient of the Killam Graduate Teaching Award. Jan holds a First Class Honors Masters of Arts in International Relations from the Australian National University and a Bachelor of Business Administration and Public Policy from Hamburg University for Economics and Politics. Jan studied at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania focusing on sociology and economics. He coordinated grassroots' community programs in Botswana for Skillshare International. His research includes Leadership Theory, International Relations, Political Theory, Intergovernmental Organizations, Non-State Actors, Transnational and Cyberspace Politics, Global Norms, Human Rights. Jan is deeply involved in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning research projects. Jan writes for the Ivory Tower, an E-International relations blog.