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Civil society

This is a report on the proceedings from the Global Democracy: Civil Society Visions and Strategies (G05) Conference in Montreal, Canada (May 29-June 1, 2005).

The report discusses the two main questions: in light of the shifting trends in global governance, what are civil society's proposals to build a more democratically governed world? What visions and strategies can civil society, diverse in its interests but potentially united in its actions, propose as means of attaining global democracy?

Participants at the conference considered a number of themes based on the following principles for civil society engagement in advocating for the democratisation of global governance:

• global institutions and agenda should be subjected to democratic political accountability
• democratic policy at the global level requires legitimacy of popular control through representative and direct mechanisms
• citizen participation in decision making at global levels requires equality of opportunity to all citizens of the world
• multiple spheres of governance, from local to provincial to national to regional and global, should mutually support democratisation of decision making at all levels
• global democracy must guarantee that global public goods are equitably accessible to all citizens of the world.

Conference participants considered the viability of these and other possibilities throughout the conference in plenaries and breakout sessions that touched on the major crosscutting themes for advancing global democracy in G05’s following six tracks:

• track 1: civil society engagement: changing territorial priorities?
• track 2: international treaties/international law: a hierarchy of values?
• track 3: global security: undermining democracy?
• track 4: civil society participation; opportunities and responsibilities
• track 5: how to democratically regulate the global economy?
• track 6: maintaining cultural diversity in global solidarity?

In addition, papers were presented within the self-organised workshops.

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