Democracy and the Global Order

Reviews / Votes

"David Held has produced a magisterial account of democratic theory as it applies to a world of intensifying global relations ... I regard this book as indispensable reading for scholars and citizens alike - a comprehensive rethinking and remapping of the terrain of democracy." Richard Falk, Princeton University "A comprehensive account ... Democracy and the Global Order is both an impressive combination of philosophical analysis, sociological inquiry, and practical observation, and an excellent synthesis of traditional political theory and International Relations. It's accessibility is one of its resounding strengths. Many parts of the book can be recommended for use in a variety of survey undergraduate courses and specialist courses in international law, international organisations, European studies and global governance. No other work introduces the main strands of democratic theory, analyses the rise of the modern state and the contemporary pressures on state autonomy, considers developments in international or "cosmopolitan" law and explores models of cosmopolitan democracy so lucidly and systematically. It is an important contribibution to modern democratic theory and to the larger project of bridging the peculiar gulf between political theory and IR." Millennium

"Held has provided an immensely powerful manifesto for our times in a judicious and meticulously constructed framework." Sociological Review

"He draws upon previous contributions to provide in this book a comprehensive and powerful synthesis of his thought. Such an ambitious and wide-ranging enterprise is bound to provide the material of discussion for many years to come." Sociology


"Democracy and the Global Order is a significant scholarly achievement and, more importantly, a considerable political resource. We could do worse than to approach such a debate with the same mixture of philosophical rigour, institutional imagination and political nerve that David Held has displayed." New Left Review

"Held has produced a very important discussion of the meaning and practice of democracy at the end of the century." Ethics