  Global democracy is a field of academic study and political activism concerned with making the global political system more democratic. This topic has become a central area of inquiry for established literatures including political philosophy, international relations (IR), international law, and sociology. Along with global justice, global democracy has also been critical to the emergence of international political theory as a discrete literature in recent decades. Whereas global justice scholars tend to focus on how burdens and benefits should be distributed by international institutions, global democrats probe how political power can be legitimated beyond the nation-state. Global democracy is therefore concerned with how transnational decision-making can be justified and who should be entitled to participate in the formation of global rules, laws, and regulations.