Bohman, James. Democracy across Borders: From Demos to Demoi.

• Author: Benjamin, Dave O.
• Position: Book review

Bohman, James. Democracy across Borders: From Demos to Demoi. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007. 232 pages. Cloth, $35.

A fascinating and thought-provoking contribution to political philosophy, Bohman's book presents a framework in which to redefine and reconstruct democracy and governance in a diverse transnational community. The challenge is to engineer new modalities for the structure of government and governance to be more inclusive, less exclusive (to the elite), and more reflexive in a global context. As Bohman puts it, the task of his book is "to redefine democracy ... to make it appropriate for transnational settings" (p. 2).

Bohman notes a number of contradictions and paradoxes in Western political theory and culture, many of which are systemic. Citizens are free and equal only insofar as government allows them to be. Democracy is inclusive to the extent that the sovereign people may have a right to vote, but exclusive in that enquiries and demands by the people may be deemed intrusive on a process that is exclusive among representatives of the people. Emerging technologies are democratizing access to information and the ability of the people to mobilize and make demands, but they also result in clashes with governments that are more inclined to constrain the rights of the people.

Bohman entertains a global level of analysis that sees a division between haves and have-nots such that those who have access to the means of information and organization in the industrial world enjoy a measure of power and influence that those in the non-industrial world do not. One consequence is polarization between systems, political values and norms, and concepts of democracy and governance that are increasingly dictated by those who hold power in the non-industrial world.

Democracy is defined by Bohman as "that set of institutions by which individuals are empowered as free and equal citizens to form and change the terms of their common life together[,] including democracy itself" (p. 2). To that end, he sees democracy as having certain features: It is reflexive, consists of rules and norms, is the subject of deliberate consideration by its citizens, is an ideal of self-determination with terms and boundaries set out by its citizens, and applies to the modern nation-state with a concept of positive and negative rights and a concept of social rights to public benefits. However, globalization has presented a number of challenges to this traditional...