 A similar divide characterizes the ongoing debate about the prospects of democratic institutions at the global level. In a cosmopolitan mode, David Held (1995) argues that globalization requires the extension of liberal democratic institutions (including the rule of law and elected representative institutions) to the transnational level. Nation state-based liberal democracy is poorly equipped to deal with deleterious side effects of present-day globalization such as ozone depletion or burgeoning material inequality. In addition, a growing array of genuinely transnational forms of activity calls out for no less intrinsically transnational modes of liberal democratic decision-making. According to this model, “local” or “national” matters should remain under the auspices of existing liberal democratic institutions. But in those areas where deterritorialization and social interconnectedness across national borders are especially striking, new transnational institutions (for example, cross-border referenda), along with a dramatic strengthening and further democratization of existing forms of supranational authority (in particular, the United Nations), are necessary if we are to assure that popular sovereignty remains an effective principle. In the same spirit, cosmopolitans debate whether a loose system of global “governance” suffices, or instead cosmopolitan ideals require something along the lines of a global “government” or state (Cabrera 2011; Scheuerman 2014). Jürgen Habermas, a prominent cosmopolitan-minded theorist, has tried to formulate a defense of the European Union that conceives of it as a key steppingstone towards supranational democracy. If the EU is to help succeed in salvaging the principle of popular sovereignty in a world where the decay of nation state-based democracy makes democracy vulnerable, the EU will need to strengthen its elected representative organs and better guarantee the civil, political, and social and economic rights of all Europeans (Habermas 2001, 58–113; 2009). Representing a novel form of postnational constitutionalism, it potentially offers some broader lessons for those hoping to save democratic constitutionalism under novel global conditions. Despite dire threats to the EU posed by nationalist and populist movements, Habermas and other cosmopolitan-minded intellectuals believe that it can be effectively reformed and preserved (Habermas 2012).