Democratic globalization is a social movement towards an institutional system of global democracy. One of its proponents is the British political thinker David Held. In the last decade, Held published a dozen books regarding the spread of democracy from territorially defined nation states to a system of global governance that encompasses the entire world. For some, democratic mundialisation (from the French term mondialisation) is a variant of democratic globalisation that emphasizes the need for citizens worldwide to directly elect world leaders and members of global institutions; for others, it is just democratic globalization by another name.

These proponents state that democratic globalisation's purpose is to:

Democratic globalization supporters state that the choice of political orientations should be left to the world citizens via their participation in world democratic institutions. Some proponents in the anti-globalization movement do not necessarily disagree with this position. For example, George Monbiot, normally associated with the anti-globalization movement (who prefers the term global justice movement), has proposed in his work Age of Consent similar democratic reforms of most major global institutions, suggesting direct democratic elections of such bodies and a form of world government.

Democratic globalization supports the extension of political democratization to economic and financial globalization. It is based upon an idea that free international transactions benefit the global society as a whole. They believe in financially open economies, where the government and central bank must be transparent in order to retain the confidence of the markets, since transparency spells doom for autocratic regimes. They promote democracy that makes leaders more accountable to the citizenry through the removal of restrictions on such transactions.

The democratic globalization movement started to get public attention when New York Times reported its demonstration to contest a World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle, Washington, November 1999. This gathering was to criticize unfair trade and undemocratic globalization of the WTO, World Bank, World Economic Forum (WEF), the International Monetary Fund. Its primary tactics were public rallies, street theater and civil disobedience.

Democratic globalization, proponents claim, would be reached by creating democratic global institutions and changing international organizations (which are currently intergovernmental institutions controlled by the nation-states), into global ones controlled by world citizens. The movement suggests to do it gradually by building a limited number of democratic global institutions in charge of a few crucial fields of common interest. Its long-term goal is that these institutions federate later into a full-fledged democratic world government.

Thus, it supports the International Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, that would allow for participation of member nations' legislators and, eventually, direct election of United Nations (UN) parliament members by citizens worldwide.

Democratic globalization supporters state that the choice of political orientations should be left to the world citizens, via their participation in world democratic institutions and direct vote for world presidents (see presidentialism).