By Marko Ulvila
Within the framework of the NIGD project on global political parties and in order to facilitate the inclusion of voices outside the world of writing, the NIGD organized four dialogs encouraging discussions on political parties, democracy, and globalization. This Working Paper includes complete reports on the four dialogs, presentations of the Party Internationals, and selected background documents.
In September 2005, the Network Institute for Global Democratization (NIGD) launched the project "Elements for a Dialogue on Global Political Party Formations." The objective of the project was to hear views on the idea of global political parties from a diverse political and social spectrum. NIGD invited experts to write analyses on a certain theme, based on a background paper. This background paper was written by Heikki Patomäki and Teivo Teivainen.
In order to facilitate the inclusion of voices outside the world of writing, the NIGD organized four dialogues encouraging discussions on political parties, democracy and globalization. The first dialog took place in Helsinki in September 2005, a second one followed in New Delhi in November. The third and fourth dialogues were held in January 2006 in conjunction with the polycentric World Social Forum in Bamako, Mali, and Caracas, Venezuela. This Working Paper, "Dialogues on Party Systems and Global Democratisation," includes complete reports on the four dialoguess, presentations of the Party Internationals, and selected background documents.
Two main aims inform this project: first, the political aim, providing tools that may be conducive to comprehensive democratization and just transformation, and second, the intellectual aim, enhancing our self-understanding. The links and tensions between these aims are an ongoing reflective concern.
Some of the important issues and questions dealt with during the dialogues were: the history and future of the parties; global governance; relations of political parties, civil social actors and social movements, including the World Social Forum; the dichotomy between political-party and non-party kind of political actors in global politics; elitism, lack of legitimacy and erosion of the traditional national parties; ideological global movements and their evolution; and the fight against global disparities as a cause to be defended by global parties, among others.
Source: Network Institute for Global Democratization (NIGD)
_ www.nigd.org