Rights, culture, and cosmopolitan democracy

This essay examines the promise of universal democratization in relation to the threat of cultural homogenization. Does the Promotion of human rights represent an unacceptable form of global cultural homogenization? How might it be possible to respect the dignity of individual cultures even while advancing the cause of rights as a matter of right versus wrong? The paper argues the case that these two conflicting impulses can be addressed within a discursively oriented theory of global democracy, The argument relies on Habermas's theory of communicative action, applying his discursive theory of democracy to the prospect of cosmopolitan democracy at the global level. An analysis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights illustrates the application of discursive democracy in a cosmopolitan setting.