The Critical Analysis of the Viability of Cosmopolitan Democracy in the 21st Century: Cosmopolitanism, the Present and the Future

Abstract

This review aims to critically analyse the concept of cosmopolitanism as applicable to global democracy. It firstly questions the viability of cosmopolitan democracy from the practicality of this concept on a pragmatic, rather than an idealistic lens, to its 'world state' concept where a decentralised system of governance is sustained by various decision-making sources whilst honouring states with some level of national autonomy. Issues raised, such as distributive justice, coercion and partiality, the cosmopolitan conceptual legitimacy at a global level, citizenship, reciprocity and sovereignty, oppose the legitimacy and practicality of this concept, giving statists, sovereigntists, nationalists and other sceptics of the cosmopolitan Agenda reasons to question this ideology. The second part of this review aims to answer these questions, explaining how this concept practically fits into today's global society as an effective form of global governance. The Moderate-Moral Cosmopolitan ideology will be used to critically address the issues of military interventions: the legality of human rights, the preference for transnational laws over international laws in the propagation of cosmopolitan rights and the role of expert bodies in ensuring that the enforcement of these rights whilst spreading cosmopolitan democracy is effective.