Davis, James W.James W.Davis2023-04-132023-04-132012-06https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/9155210.1111/j.1662-6370.2012.02069.xThis article suggests that various dimensions of the larger project of global governance are incoherent and illegitimate. Three dimensions of global governance - the provision of global public goods; processes of transnational regulation; and efforts to spread universal human rights - are examined and found to be deficient in terms of the ability of affected populations to participate in decisions over value trade-offs. Citizens' rights to participation in democratic processes often have been diminished as the locus of political decision making has shifted: on the one hand, to institutions beyond the territorial borders of the nation state; on the other, away from political institutions and towards "global civil society," which seems oddly intolerant of diversity. But if global governance is anti-pluralist and disenfranchising, it risks devolving into an imperial project. Hence, the paper concludes with a plea for a return to international politics as a control on the threat of empire.enGlobal governanceHuman rightsTransnational regulationTransnational politicsAccountabilityjournal article