Critical responses to neoliberal globalization in the Mercosur region: roads towards cosmopolitan democracy?

Abstract

Thus far, the most articulate political theoretical response to the process of globalization is the theory of cosmopolitan democracy: given our democratic ideals and aspirations, globalization requires us to rethink the political community within which these ideals and aspirations can be realized. The problem of many models of cosmopolitan democracy, such as David Held's, is that they are partially detached from the real world historical processes. In this paper, we take a step towards correcting this bias. In the Mercosur region of Latin America, neoliberal globalization has led and will lead to a variety of critical political responses, some of which carry the seeds of cosmopolitan democracy. In Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil, it seems that there has occurred a dialectical deveopment of political consciousness to tackle directly the real conditions of people's lives. After defining our basic concepts - globalization, democracy and civic public spaces - we develop a categorization of different trans- and supranational responses to globalization. Our empirical research indicates the need to redefine the conceptual basis for cosmopolitan democracy in political economy terms. For the actors in the Mercosur region, the most pressing priorities have to do with tackling the problems caused by financial globalization and the repressive governance of the globalising economy. However, instead of legalist blueprints, there seems to be a quest for more imaginative and context-sensitive (radical) reforms.