The TAMPERE CLUB is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation. The purpose of the club is to promote more profound understanding of our modern, multicultural information society, including of its risks and potentials.

Membership is exclusively by invitation, and in 2004 the club had about 30 members, all of the leading figures in philosophy, the social sciences, economics and in political sciences.

THE CLUB holds an annual round-table meeting in the city of Tampere, Finland, first time in 2002. The papers including in this volume are based on the discussions in the 2003 meeting of the club. The general theme of the meeting was “Globalisation and democracy”, and it is dealt with in more than ten papers. The general introduction which also was the basis of the discussions is written by the editor of the volume, Ruth Zimmerling. The list of authors is representative: Michael Baurmann, James M. Buchanan, Geoffrey Brennan, Abdou Filali-Ansary, Bruno S. Frey, Ernesto Garzón Valdés, Philip Pettit, Raimo Väyrynen and Reinhard Zintl. A Short presentation of the goals and purposes of the series of essays published by the Tampere University Press is given by Aulis Aarnio, the secretary general of the Tampere Club.