Drawing on an broad range of source material, Marks examines current debates about the emergence of an international legal `norm of democratic governance,' and considers how proposals for such a norm might be rearticulated to meet some of the concerns they provoke. She also uses these debates to illustrate some more general points about approaches to the study of international law. In doing so, she seeks to defend an approach to international legal scholarship that takes its cue from the tradition of ideology critique.