Description: The scale, effectiveness and legitimacy of global governance lag far behind the world's needs. This path-breaking book examines how far civil society involvement provides an answer to these problems. Does civil society make global governance more democratic? Have citizen action groups raised the accountability of global bodies that deal with challenges such as climate change, financial crises, conflict, disease and inequality? What circumstances have promoted (or blocked) civil society efforts to make global governance institutions more democratically accountable? What could improve these outcomes in the future? The authors base their argument on studies of thirteen global institutions, including the UN, G8, WTO, ICANN and IMF. Specialists from around the world critically assess what has and has not worked in efforts to make global bodies answer to publics as well as states. Combining intellectual depth and political relevance, Building Global Democracy? will appeal to students, researchers, activists and policymakers.
Brief description: Jan Aart Scholte is Professorial Research Fellow in the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation at the University of Warwick and Centennial Professor at LSE Global Governance in the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Review Quotes: 'The Arab region suffers from weak democracy in global institutions and finds that government-led diplomacy is unable to change that fact. Civil society should have a place to better this situation, and this book proves this reality and shows how CSOs could do so.' Ziad Abdel Samad, Executive Director, the Arab NGO Network for Development. (www.annd.org)