Book Review: The Democracy Deficit by Alfred C. Aman

Abstract:     
The study of globalization is burgeoning across the academy, and is increasingly a topic of legal scholarship. While critiques and defenses of globalization are myriad, the theme most commonly propounded in legal circles is that of a democratic deficit. As decisions previously taken at the national level are constrained by, or undertaken through, the acts of international organizations, policies are increasingly harmonized and, some argue, shifted in a free market direction. Traditional administrative law concepts and solutions appear increasingly feeble; the challenge is to update administrative law for the age of treaties. In this essay, which reviews Alfred Aman's The Democracy Deficit: Taming Globalization Through Law Reform (2004), I situate the book in the broader literatures on globalization and global governance and evaluate the alleged challenges to democracy and due process posed by these twin phenomena.

Keywords: global governance, administrative law

Accepted Paper Series