David Held is Graham Wallas Professor of Political Science at the London School of  Economics and co-director of the Centre for the Study of Global Governance. His recent writings have been concerned to understand the dynamics of globalisation and to reconfigure democratic theory for a global age. These two concerns were brought together, and given a political and programmatic expression in his book Global Covenant: The Social Democratic Alternative to the Washington Consensus (2004). The interview took place on November 21 in London.