| Democracy is gaining a foothold in international politics through the medium of voice. By exercising voice in the international arena, people are able to address collective problems, deal with conflicts, and pursue goods peacefully, collectively, and in a way that reflects their values, needs, and resources. Drawing upon Habermas's work, I propose that when people exercise voice within democratic forums, communicative power develops. I suggest that communicative power exhibits four types of normative potentials: reciprocity, legitimacy, recognition, and natality. These capacities generate and shape understandings and relationships, enabling individuals to act as publics and to create and direct public opinion. Public opinion itself exhibits the normative force of legitimacy.; When states and IGOs are receptive to international public opinion, political power is generated. Political power is grounded in the idea that legitimate norms, institutions, practices, policies, and laws are those subject to citizens' scrutiny, contestation, and modification. Institutions, practices, policies, and laws maintain legitimacy by establishing and protecting the conditions under which public opinion can develop, change, and be expressed, and by remaining responsive to public opinion.; There is evidence of both communicative power and political power in the international realm; however, there is much more evidence of the former than the latter in international politics. While exercises of voice are sometimes backed and/or recognized by governmental institutions (and are likely to have a greater impact on these occasions than does voice alone), more often the force of voice in international politics is solely normative---and indeed, voice is likely to remain the dominant aspect of democracy in international politics. Yet, this makes voice all the more important: when policies and laws reflect public judgments expressed in the international arena, governmental (and sometimes economic and socio-cultural) institutions are responding to the moral quality of public judgment. This makes the use of voice in international politics significant indeed. |
