The Democratic Legitimacy of Public-Private Rule Making: What Can We Learn from the World Commission on Dams?
Journal
Global Governance
ISSN
1075-2846
ISSN-Digital
1942-6720
Type
journal article
Date Issued
2005-01-01
Author(s)
Abstract
This article attempts to provide answers to one specific and one general question: How should we evaluate the performance of the World Commission on Dams in terms of its democratic legitimacy? And what does the evaluation of the commission's performance tell us about the legitimacy of global rule making in more general terms? Based on these questions, the article comes to two main conclusions. First (measured in terms of its inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability), the democratic legitimacy of the World Commission on Dams' standard-setting process can be challenged in several ways. Second, the difficulties in determining the commission's legitimacy in relation to other mechanisms of rule making demonstrate that we still lack a theoretical understanding of what the idea of democratic governance beyond the nation-state would entail in practice. Achieving a better understanding of this normative aspect of world politics will remain a major task for contemporary political theory.
Language
English
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
HSG Profile Area
SEPS - Global Democratic Governance
Refereed
No
Publisher
Rienner
Publisher place
Boulder, Colo.
Volume
11
Number
1
Start page
65
End page
83
Pages
19
Official URL
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
238721