What is it about?

Global governance is not democratic. Neither is it entirely undemocratic. This article asks why the WTO contains vestiges of 'democracy'. Drawing upon the work of Laclau and Mouffe, the argument is made that the discourse of democracy embodied in the WTO, as the article demonstrates, reflects the wider process through which the institution is legitimated as the body of global trade politics.

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Why is it important?

This has implications for understanding not only how global governance is discursively formed, but also whether civil society groups critiquing the WTO threaten or may, by accepting the premise of its predominance in global trade politics, be actually strengthening the WTO.

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This page is a summary of: Discursivity of Global Governance, Alternatives Global Local Political, August 2011, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0304375411418601.
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