The transformation of democracy: new facts and explanations

Democracy has become paradoxical.

Why do people in a world that is more global than ever turn to national politics to secure their democracy, sometimes with the result that politics becomes more authoritarian and less democratic?

And why are other people, who also praise democracy, prepared to transfer decision-making power to the international level where “might trumps rights” and “West is the best” in many cases?

This project explains the paradoxes and highlights new opportunities for democrats to achieve their goals by clarifying how democracy and global politics are intertwined and influence decisions at all levels.

The knowledge is available in unpublished form or is spread between different publications and research programs in which the applicant has participated for about ten years.

To avail the knowledge for academic debate and political improvements, an extensive work of synthetization and an ambitious publication (at present planned with Oxford University Press) are needed.

The project completes the work of developing, applying, and testing a theory of how global and international politics develop as a consequence of how democratic they are on the basis of a fundamentally reconstructed concept of democracy.

The issues explained in the planned monograph include war and peace, foreign policy strategies, migration among countries, economic resource allocation, and the effectiveness of international institutions to protect the environment and human rights.