A variety of ideas about global democracy exist, but they generally share the same basic idea: that citizens should have a say in global activities and institutions, whether those are governmental or economic. Moreover, those citizens should be allowed democratic access and participation in that decision-making, as well as a right to monitor how these global activities are carried out.
This is a critical time for democracy. Many scholars warn that democracies are experiencing a deep stress, with a range of forces pulling at them — from social media polarization and disinformation to grotesque levels of economic inequality and the politicization of the judiciary. The evidence of these pressures is borne out in International IDEA’s widely used Global State of Democracy Indices (GSoD), which tracks global trends and patterns and provides regional reports with more in-depth analysis of the specific dynamics at play.
Nevertheless, global democracy is not a lost cause. Its proponents argue that a democratization of the global system could be reached by building democratic institutions in charge of crucial fields of activity, and then gradually changing intergovernmental organizations into global ones, with those federating later into a full-fledged democratic world government.
Some critics, however, charge that a global democracy is impractical, even impossible. They contend that because it relies on the equal inclusion of individuals in global deliberation, and that these individuals are primarily defined by their national political systems, the model is unworkable in practice.