Democracy Beyond the Nation-State

It was a little more than 150 years ago that the transition from the feudal order to the democratic nation-state was debated in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt during the German Revolution. Today we have to begin a debate on the transition from the nation-state to a transnational and cosmopolitan democracy. This transition will not happen on its own. If the idea of a transnational democracy is to achieve political shape and power, a new political subject will have to be brought into being: the transnational party of global citizens.

But how can transnational parties engage themselves in the so-called internal affairs of so-called other countries? This question applies most immediately to Europe. Imagine that the European Union (EU) itself applied for membership in the European Union. The response is obvious: it would be rejected. For the European Union does not meet the democratic requirements for membership. This story can be given a further twist: imagine that a few weeks after this rejection, all the member states of the EU are notified that the EU unfortunately has to cancel their membership. Why so? Because France, Germany, Britain, and all the others no longer live up to the membership requirements. As members, they d...