International functionalism and democracy

Abstract

International functionalism as proposed by David Mitrany envisions non-territorial functional agencies to supplant the states system. Mitrany makes no provision for democracy in functional agencies. Instead, he assumes that the policies of international technocrats would be ‘technically self-determined’ and uncontested – a stance several critics deem antidemocratic and naive. A second, related criticism holds that even if functional agencies were formally democratic, democracy could not operate effectively since functional polities would be too ‘thin’ and fragmented to sustain democratic commitments among their members. The article qualifies the first charge and rejects the second. First, defined as an institutional decision-making principle, ‘technical self-determination’ is Mitrany’s add-on to the underlying functionalist logic, not an inseparable part of it. That logic instead holds that institutions work best if their form and scope of authority follow their function and that function-specific agencies therefore could meet some needs better than the state. Contra Mitrany, this does not privilege technocratic over democratic decision-making and it does not imply that functional agencies would be free from political conflict. Nor, second, would functional agencies necessarily be unsuitable for democracy in practice. Several strands of democratic theory suggest that even people who do not share a ‘thick’ communal identity can develop a commitment to meet shared needs democratically. If one accepts this, it loosens functionalism’s technocratic stigma, highlights its potential as a democratically viable alternative to both state-centric and supranational models of international order and broadens our conception of possible democratic futures.