Towards a Narrative of a Robust Global Democracy: Critical Democratic and

Decolonial Perspectives
Mary A. Drinkwater

I begin to write on “Towards a Narrative of a Robust Global Democracy: Critical

Democratic and Decolonial Perspectives” acknowledging Mary A. Drinkwater
experiences that contributes significantly to my reading this chapter. I usually consider
ideals of various kinds: about the sort of person I want to be, the job I want to have, or the
partner I want to build a life with. Ideals are familiar entities in our horizon of thought,
but not all of them are worth pursuing. I suggest that, in order to be worth pursuing,
ideals must meet some necessary and sufficient conditions. An ideal is desirable if it
depicts a state of affairs in which “good things” are realized. I drew from the work of
Mary A. Drinkwater; p-52 who believes in the form of “good things” education becomes
a question of thought as much as governance. What I believe even though education by
itself cannot directly change the economic, political or social structure of a country until
it connects with the head, heart and hand and act for the purpose of contributing social
change. In my viewpoint, if a country wants to prepare its youth to participate as active
and engaged global citizens for social transformation, it requires educational system to be
informed by a more robust and global conception of democracy. This viewpoint shows
concern about the future of democracy around the world. Is Democracy Dead or Alive?
What Democracy exactly are we supposed to nurture? These comments aren’t critiquing
democracy itself. They are critiquing a specific expression of it, usually the representative
kind. Many nation-states continue to call themselves democratic. The current conception
of democracy often conflates citizenship with democracy (Westheimer, 2018, p-58).
The assumption citizenship-as-achievement emphasis on active citizens represents an
impoverished view of what it means to be a citizen that necessarily marginalizes and
exclude them from mainstream life. Some other approaches as liberal democratic
ideology excludes the needs of American students rose in culture with strong communal
traditions, Deficit approach eradication of linguistic practices found to be constricted.
Even in educational systems in nations, they are self-identifying as democratic. Today the
challenge exists to revisit, reflect and re-conceptualize the notion of democracy so that it
can globalize the purpose of education for social transformation. The notion of a robust
global democracy emerges from a broader understanding of what it means to be a
democratic person and have implications on how democratic learning and the goals of
education within a democratic society are understood. Dewey’s belief in a consensus for
difference, Paideia notion of reciprocal relationship, the ethics of ubuntu, and Arendt’s
notion of democratic subjectivity led to the importance of Participatory Democracy. I
have great hope that this current generation will confront the poisonous authoritarianism
that is emerging in many countries today. One strategy for doing this is to reaffirm what
binds us together. Young people need to learn how to bear witness to the injustices that
surround them. They need to accept the call to become visionaries willing to create a
society in which people become fully free to claim their moral and political agency. Here
I remember one episode Helen keler was asked by a student if there was anything worse
than losing her sight. She replied losing her vision would have been worse. Today’s
young people must maintain, nurture and enhance their vision of a better global society.
In the end, it is fair to say global democracy is the only possible future for world order
that can avoid human disaster.