Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights

In her 2004 book Carol Gould addresses the fundamental issue of democratizing globalization, that is to say of finding ways to open transnational institutions and communities to democratic participation by those widely affected by their decisions. The book develops a framework for expanding participation in crossborder decisions, arguing for a broader understanding of human rights and introducing a new role for the ideas of care and solidarity at a distance. Reinterpreting the idea of universality to accommodate a multiplicity of cultural perspectives, the author takes up a number of applied issues, including the persistence of racism, cultural rights, women's human rights, the democratic management of firms, the use of the Internet to enhance political participation, and the importance of empathy and genuine democracy in understanding terrorism and responding to it. Accessibly written with a minimum of technical jargon this is a major contribution to political philosophy.

"[This book] is wide-ranging, thought-provoking, and challenging. There is plenty here to interest political theorists concerned with democracy and justice, human rights, cultural difference, women's issues, economic organization, technology, and the international system. On all these issues, gould's voice is powerful and original." Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, John S. Dryze, Australian National University, "Carol Gould's new book is a state-of-the-art treatment of the most exciting and contested issue in political philosophy today--that of global justice." Omar Dahbour, Social Theory and Practice, "Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights is a magnificent book. The final chapter, 'terrorism, empathy and democracy' is particularly revealing in the current global climate. By highlighting the ways in which the lack of democratic possibilities may contribute to the conditions of terrorism, Gould moves the debate beyond the facile moralizing of good and evil toward an approach grounded in the actual political conditions of the contemporary world order. This book should be required reading not just for political philosophers and international relations scholars but also, and perhaps especially, for foreign policy makers in the world's most powerful countries." - Fiona Robinson, Carleton University

Carol C. Gould is Professor of Philosophy and Political Science and Director of the Center for Global Ethics & Politics at Temple University. She is also Editor of the Journal of Social Philosophy, President of the American Section of the International Society for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy and Executive Director of the Society for Philosophy and Public Affairs. She has been a Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. and a Fulbright Senior Scholar in France, has held the Fulbright Florence Chair at the European University Institute, and has received fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Gould is the author of Marx's Social Ontology (MIT, 1978), Rethinking Democracy (Cambridge, 1988), and Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights (Cambridge, 2004), the editor of seven books including Women and Philosophy, Beyond Domination, The Information Web, Cultural Identity and the Nation-State, and Gender, and has published over sixty articles in social and political philosophy, feminist theory, and applied ethics.