Since the September 11 attacks, depending on the month or even the day, one might or might not reply in the affirmative to the question of whether there is an emerging international or even global political order. President George W. Bush justified the United States March 2003 invasion of Iraq as the preservation and enhancing of that order and of the United Nations itself. A few months later, the UN secretary general suggested that the U.S. invasion was illegal. And even if one grants the emergence of a nascent global political order, its character is uncertain: Is it democratic, consensual, and egalitarian, or hierarchical and undemocratic?

Rodger Payne and Nayaf Samhat are convinced that there is an emerging global political community, that it is becoming more democratic, and in particular that its institutions are increasingly rooted in and characterized by norms of participation, inclusiveness, and accountability. Their key contention in Democratizing Global Politics is that coercion and self-interest cannot be the basis for sustainable political order (pp. 126–27). Rather, legitimacy is the key: “[W]e call into question the ultimate staying power of international norms, institutions, laws, and regimes that lack legitimacy” (p. 2). And for Payne and Samhat, democratic legitimacy rests less on the substance of the agreement or on who makes decisions than on the process of decision making. They do not argue that the global order is already democratic—in fact, they appear to agree with those who argue that many international institutions suffer from what has been called a “democratic deficit.” Rather, they are suggesting that there is a trend toward democratization evident in the practices of particular regimes and issue areas.

Payne and Sahat's procedural conception of legitimacy, rooted in critical theory and the work of Jürgen Habermas's theories of discourse ethics, stresses democratic deliberation within the public sphere. Specifically, they argue that “an international regime can serve as a public sphere featuring dialogic processes intended to establish shared rules, norms and principles of governing a specific issue area of world politics” (p. 40). Their most far-reaching claim is that the nature of world politics is changing; the increased democratization of world politics, specifically the growing participation of nongovernmental-organization and social-movement actors, and the institutionalization of accountability marks a shift to an emerging “global polis” (p. 12) based on a “thin universalism” based on (a thick) procedural norm of transparency and participation. Thin universalism is opposed to the thick universalism of shared substantive beliefs and principles.

The theoretical claims of the book are elaborated and substantiated in two empirical chapters, considering, respectively, the deliberative potential of the Global Environmental Facility and the gradual, if incomplete, democratization of the World Trade Organization. They argue, in particular, that the Global Environmental Facility has “unusually open and inclusive decision-making procedures” (p. 81), and that although the WTO is “much less participatory and open than the GEF” (p. 99), it too has been characterized by growing transparency and more inclusive participation. In both cases, they suggest and show that a primary engine of change toward greater openness has been the work of nongovernmental organizations and social movements.

Payne and Samhat are not alone in reflecting on the functions and processes of international institutions and their democratic and democratizing potential. For example, John Dryzek, David Held, and Richard Falk, among others, have labored to analyze and catalyze global democracy for many years. A cluster of new books makes for interesting comparison with Payne and Samhat. For instance, Anne Marie Slaughter argues in A New World Order (2004) that routine international interactions, such as those by bureaucrats and other officials, are the stuff of an already existing international order. Closer to Payne and Samhat are two other new books. Ann Florini emphasizes the importance of transparency in The Coming Democracy: New Rules for Running a New World (2005), and Heikki Patomäki and Teivo Teivainen, who are even more prescriptive than Payne and Samhat, discuss ongoing and proposed efforts to democratize international institutions in A Possible World: Democratic Transformations of Global Institutions (2004).

Although I found areas to question and disagree with the authors, on the whole I found this to be an interesting and important book on several levels. First, in their articulation of a theory of emergent global democracy within the practices of international institutions and the nascent global sphere, Payne and Samhat are joining and usefully expanding a growing conversation about the constitution of global political order. As they suggest, “To the extent that legitimate authority is increasingly exercised in global politics through the rules, norms and principles of various international regimes, it is possible to argue that the space of anarchy is, too, increasingly displaced by a system of decentralized governance institutions” (p. 128). By admitting and articulating their commitment to a reflexive political theory, they are also honest about their normative perspective in a way that is refreshing: Their aims are democratization and emancipation; their approach is reflexive in the sense of “deny[ing] the neutrality and objectivity of theory, the theorizer, and the world” (p. 15).

Second, the authors are offering a clear articulation and application of Habermas's theories of communicative action and discourse ethics to world politics. Again, they are not alone in suggesting the potential salience of Habermas for theories of an emergent political order, but they may be among the most developed in their analysis.

Third, the case studies of the democratization of the Global Environmental Facility and the WTO are well executed and documented. Indeed, these two chapters would find interesting reading among scholars and observers of both those institutions, even if they were not convinced of Payne and Samhat's theoretical arguments.

Finally, although they do not stress this element, the book is a useful caution for the advocates and observers of democratization at the global level. The case studies suggest how it is that ostensible transparency can be constructed to be less than full, how inclusion can be limited, and how the criteria for competence can be so narrowly described (e.g., in ideological terms) that participation might ostensibly be wide, but actually be limited to like-minded actors. In the case of the WTO, for example, participation is wide, but limited ideologically to those who share a neoliberal approach to international economics. In a word, as they stress, there is the “possibility” for democratizing global politics. What remains is the institutionalization of democratic procedures across a wide range of international regimes and institutions.