During the past thirty years, several countries have transformed their political system into some form of democracy. This can be regarded as a victory for democracy, but at the same time multinational corporations and supranational organizations such as the European Union have increased their power at the expense of democratically elected governments. We can also see a trend toward increasing dissatisfaction with political parties among voters, and a decreasing turnout rate at the polls. One reason for this seems to be that politicians often don’t consider the wishes of the people affected by the decisions they make.
One of the concerns that we are interested in is how to define the boundary of democratic governance. Should the boundaries be around nation states, regions of different kinds, or perhaps non-geographical units such as international institutions and companies? The idea of democratic principles may need to be reconsidered, opening exciting new ways to understand democracy that have implications for how we want to develop it for the future.
Our research also deals with questions about the scope and limits of democratic governance. What decisions should be made democratically, should there be an “ombudsman” for future generations, should democracy be applied globally and who should have the right to vote in which issues?
In addition, we examine the implications of the fact that there are people who are employed to work in politics, not elected.
