Discursive representation and the struggle for democracy

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has become the guardian angel of trade
liberalisation, but its growing global power especially after the 1999 Seattle debacle
has engendered growing public scrutiny.2 A number of scholars, activists and critics
are concerned with the democratic deficit in system-level institutions, in particular the
WTO, and are searching for solutions and alternatives to promote democratic
legitimacy an accountability in global institutions.3 In this modern era of globalisation
and democracy, in which the forces of a globalised economy constrain and elude the
control of the nation state and its populus, a crucial question comes to the fore4: Can
democracy in its present form, as bounded to territorial and sovereign states, address
the increasing transnationalisation of society or is there a need to advocate a new
pillar of democratic interaction more suitable to counteract real existing globalisation
and its proponents?
This