"This book provides a new legal-sociological account of contemporary democracy. It is based on a revision of standard positions in democratic theory, reflecting the impact of global legal norms on the institutions of national states. [The author] argues that the establishment of fully democratic, fully inclusive governance systems in national societies was generally impeded by inner-societal structural factors, and that inclusive patterns of democratic citizenship only evolved on the foundation of global legal norms that were consolidated after 1945. [The author] claims that this process can be best understood through a transposition of key insights of classical legal sociology onto the form of global society. [Analysis] of select case studies in different regions illustrate these claims. [The author] offers a sociological theory of global law to explain contemporary processes of democratic integration and institutional formation, and contemporary constructions of citizenship and political rights."-- Back cover.