All too often democratic theory has taken the nation-state for granted, it has assumed that democracies can be understood largely by reference to the forces and actors within delimited territorial boudaries. This assumption is systematically questioned in an exploration of the interconnections between democracy and the global system. An enquiry is undertaken into the empirical adequacy of an account of democratic politics cast in terms of national politics, and a normative enquiry is subsequently made into the consequences for democracy of taking seriously regional and global interconnectediness. Guidelines are offered for rethinking democratic theory in an era in which the fates of particular nations and peoples are deeply intertwined.