A core component of arguments in debates on the causes and consequences of globalization is whether it promotes or destroys democratic governance. This question is embedded in several others, which together create a theoretical knot. A number of the asserted, tangled relationships are unidirectional, both positive and negative, on several value dimensions: economic growth; distribution of wealth; life styles; group identities; and the environment. In a significant progressive sense, these debates take as a point of departure the demise of the main horror questions of the twentieth century: death by genocide, Ademocide@, and wars among nations. When the question of globalization and democracy is introduced today, the necessary corollary questions are whether democratic governments can stop, slow down, or shape processes of globalization. If they could and should, then would they choose to do so?

The historical Amodels@ of democracy in the Western tradition are faulted on grounds of exclusion of resident populations of slaves, women, the poor, and the ideologically deviant. The cases of Scandinavia and Switzerland are easily discounted because of their small size, social homogeneity, or an unassertive central government. Today, the enduring question about democracy and size should be superceded by the controlling question about democracy as governance of diversity. In the U.S., it was assumed, that a national government would be repressive but individual autonomy and freedom could be assured only by various kinds of local options in federalism and a market economy, providing choices of submission (loyalty), participation (voice), or moving out (exit). Those choices, however, depend on whether there are structures for participation, alternative places to go, and individual knowledge and resources to know where to go and get there, if allowed in.

Globalization processes shake-up exclusive claims of authority. What kinds of evidence are there that this is true and what are the indicators that the result will be more or better democracy? First, in Europe the evidence for more and more complex regions with self-conscious political discretion, including a "third" and even more Atiers@of regions, seems to be compelling not only in the recent past but also based on current projections. There is the European Union, the Baltic, the Northeast Baltic, and many more in Europe, including new forms of autonomy for older regions, noted examples being Wales and Scotland and prospective others in the U.K. Second, for some time now, local governments, including provinces and Astates@ in Europe and North America, have intensified their Ainternational relations@ with representational offices in capitals of other countries, in bodies of regional associations, or memberships in international associations of various kinds of public officials. Third, of course, there are the Apenetrations@ of corporations, civic organizations, and universities all over the world, causing and justifying political movements for protection or open resistance. Fourth, whatever else they do, new forms of electronic communications provide challenges to all hierarchies in their efforts to design and influence information to enhance their control. Of course, there is contrary evidence in technologies of electronic surveillance and the politics to exclude bad and unwanted information through government.

These local leaders were interviewed face-to-face in most of the countries and in a few suitable ones by mail questionnaires. About 15 leaders were targeted in each of the randomly selected localities, ranging in size from about 25,000 to 500,000, depending on the degree and nature of urbanization of each country. The sample size of localities ranges from 19 in Lithuania to more than 70 in Russia. The questionnaire was primarily directed to democratic values of local leaders, using more than 45 value scale items, and local democratic practices. In addition to the usual background and other questions, there were several on local autonomy; perceptions about the impact of globalization from trade, immigration, media, pollution, and tourism; and local decision-making; and Aproblems@. ⁴

A few of the basic variables in the research will be used in this discussion. First, and most central, is the Demscore, composed of nine value items taken from three value scales: political equality (everyone counting the same); minority (vs. majority) rights; and acceptance of conflict and differences (pluralism). Second is the support structure that the local leader seeks. Leaders were asked to identify the groups that they turn to when making political decisions from a list of 16 that covered economic, civic, political parties, and so forth, adjusted to those most relevant in each country. The total number of groups chosen is the variable, support groups. Third, leaders were asked to check from a list which ways people in their communities attempt to influence political decisions. The variety of ways chosen is the variable, ways of influencing. Finally, leaders were asked to identify with what political Alevel@ they identified: local community (the favorite), a region within the country, the country, a transnational region (Europe, Asia, the world). The leaders were allowed more than one response and anything beyond the country is scored as international identification.

Because of the global reach of the data, it is possible to compare the distribution of democratic politics across vast areas of the world. The general hypothesis is that the more global the locality and region, the more local democratic politics and the higher the democratic values of local political leaders. Although Aglobalization@ is now part of the ordinary political terminology, even if not firmly based conceptually, about change during the past decade, there are only limited data over time. Change over time data in the former communist countries seem to indicate an early spurt in globalization consciousness along with the espousal of democratic values among local leaders, and then stabilization of these orientations and commitments by the end of the twentieth century, with some exceptions.

It can be argued that the 21^st century, after a decade of what might prove to be the beginning of the Second Democratic Revolution, also changed the theoretical perspectives of the social sciences from international to global. The Democracy and Local Governance research and a few other programs at least are framed on a global scale. The decade of the 1920s was one in which social science came into its own in Europe and North America as Anational@ sciences; the 1960s shifted the social sciences to an international, comparative science, marked by a few large scale, macro comparative research projects; the 1990s was a decade in which the world opened up not only to the processes of globalization but also to a global social science.

Vast national differences remain hidden in this analytical overview of the Democracy and Local Governance data. It began at the beginning of an accelerating process of globalization. The ascendance of a world system of states and major wars among them in the twentieth century imprinted human societies as deeply as the spread and consolidation of the great world religions. The political cultures shaped by the histories of states must be used to interpret the relationships found in the last decade of political transformations. Some of the countries in this research have of established democratic institutions and habits across generations, and others, only years. Some are burdened with underdeveloped infrastructures of production and distribution. Specific national politics and policies of Atransitions to a market economy@ or of becoming a part of a New Europe or a global political economy account for some of the differences in local politics across these 26 countries. What does show up are strong, enduring transnational regional differences--Western, Central, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and East Asia. The long histories of these regions for many localities are as important as nineteenth and twentieth century encounters with Napoleon, fascism, socialism, or communism.

Local conditions are often easily incorporated into stories of local differences within countries. Those cities and regions most exposed to the Awes", or those siting on traditional ports and rivers of trade, are both more open to globalization and have more leaders with more deeply embedded democratic value and habits than those removed from the cross-roads of exchange. How that happened, of course, is recorded in histories of kings, invasions, and inventions.