Discursive representation and the struggle for democracy

Essay from the year 2006 in the subject Politics - General and Theories of International Politics, grade: 1.0, The Australian National University, language: English, abstract: The World Trade Organization (WTO) has become the guardian angel of tradeliberalisation, but its growing global power especially after the 1999 Seattle debaclehas engendered growing public scrutiny.2 A number of scholars, activists and criticsare concerned with the democratic deficit in system-level institutions, in particular theWTO, and are searching for solutions and alternatives to promote democraticlegitimacy an accountability in global institutions.3 In this modern era of globalisationand democracy, in which the forces of a globalised economy constrain and elude thecontrol of the nation state and its populus, a crucial question comes to the fore4: Candemocracy in its present form, as bounded to territorial and sovereign states, addressthe increasing transnationalisation of society or is there a need to advocate a newpillar of democratic interaction more suitable to counteract real existing globalisationand its proponents?This