Can European democracy survive globalization?

DEMOCRACY today is under serious pressure, not least in Europe. The pressure, notably on representative or parliamentary democracy, is such that we will have to rethink the very constitution of liberty. This pressure comes moreover from two sides at the same time. Within countries, several developments conspire to set in motion a kind of creeping authoritarianism. These internal developments are reinforced by what is crudely called globalization, that is, the emigration of important decisions to spaces for which democratic processes and institutions do not exist.

Americans recognize some of these problems, but for a number of reasons the American position is different. Like Larry Siedentop in his influential book, Democracy in Europe, my concern focuses on the countries of Europe and with the European Union since 1989.1 Many of us still remember with joy those months twelve years ago when country after country east of the crumbling Iron Curtain emerged from nomenklatura rule to the first halting steps toward democracy. As a Popperian I never subscribed to the view that threats to liberty were forever dispelled and that Hegel's (or Kojeve's) final synthesis had arrived. At the same time I did not anticipate that within little more than a decade the risks to democracy would become so powerful.