Globalization and Democracy-Enhancing Multilateralism: A Structuralist Interpretation

International cooperation, especially on a multilateral basis, has lost ground in recent years. This process has been accompanied by the devaluation of core democratic values in many developing and developed countries. The specific form adopted by globalization since the late eighties and early nineties (Rodrik’s “hyper-globalization”) is central for understanding why this has occurred. Keohane et al (2009) define a set of conditions required for a “democracy-enhancing multilateralism,” which would allow multilateralism and constitutional democracy to go hand in hand. Drawing from the Structuralist tradition in the theory of economic development and trade, we argue that these conditions are necessary but not sufficient. A viable form of multilateralism requires an additional condition, namely the provision of global public goods to curb the negative economic and political externalities that inevitably emerge in an international system marked by strong asymmetries in specialization and technological capabilities.