Comments on: All politics is local, but power is global

By: Adrien

Adrien — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 04:28:14 +0000

Wbb/Sandman -
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Wasn’t talking about Zimbabwe on the UNSC.
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The problem of a global parliament is that, if you allocate seats representatively, you risk either creating a massive assembly that’s too unwieldy and/or you may be est6ablishing seats for populations hostile to one another thus creating dissent. Many states themselves haven’t developed democracy, they may not. If you exclude non-democratic nations you’ll be excluding China and Russia for starters. What will that lead to.
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States follow the development of economic zones. City-states originally emerged to protect trade between nearby productive communities. The economic systems grow the states follow. For obvious reason global governance seems closer now tahn its ever been. But those questions I’ve asked are serious and need to be answered to make it work.
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In my opinion it’s not the time yet. However we should remember that liberal-democracy was once a drawing board pipe dream.

By: wbb

wbb — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:15:11 +0000

Wayne – The idea of a world parliament is beset with problems.

That’s right, Adrien!

As opposed to say, democracy in the US or in Australia, which is a doddle.

Zimbabwe has no vote at the UN Security Council.

The Global Parliament of the UN will be different from the General Assembly in that a place like Zimbabwe would be suspended from voting until it had completed a minumum number of strictly audited compliance measures.)

To understand the Global Parliament – think FIFA not the General Assembly. (FIFA with a human face, that is.)

By: sandman

sandman — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:53:14 +0000

Adrien, you’ve got to think outside of (or rather alongside) the state framework. Why do these representatives have to represent states?
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What about Monbiot’s suggestion of 600-odd parliament, with each constituency representing 10M voters? Drawing up the constituency boundaries could be difficult, but there’s no reason why it has to be along national boundaries.
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What do the boundaries between constituencies within the UK represent?
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Not sure I agree with you about “democratic culture” either, though unfortunately I tend to think you’re right about major conflict before institutional change.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 06:40:28 +0000

Wayne – The idea of a world parliament is beset with problems. Consider just one.
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We institute a House of Reps there (somehow). Say it has X number of seats. How are these filled? By direct election? Well there’s the rub. Australia for example has 21 million souls. Indonesia more than ten times that. Are the election to be proportionate? Will seats be managed according to nation? Or will seats be aggragates of populated sectors regardless of the the sovereignty of local states? Would Australians vote for a seat alongside a slice of the Indonesian, East Timorese, Papuan people. Will the same person represent Serbia and Croatia. England and Ireland?
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Or do nation-states each have a seat. They do so already in the general assembley. Our rep nominally represents 21 million people altho’ we don;t for for ‘em directly. How many people does the Zimbabwean rep represent? Answer: One.
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See the difficulties?

By: Wayne Smith

Wayne Smith — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 02:36:33 +0000

The trouble with the UN is that it is a gang of sovereign countries, each one of whom puts its own national interest ahead of the interests of humanity and the planet.

As has been pointed out above, the UN needs a lower house, a Legislative Assembly of the World, directly elected by all the people of the world. The LAW should have representatives from each country in proportion to population, rounded up to help out the little guys, with each country’s delegation elected by proportional representation to represent the range of interests within each nation.

As with any sovereign power, its authority would depend on its legitimacy.

We now have global problems, a global economy, global diseases, and global corporations. We need a global government to maintain global order and rule of law.

How do we get there? I have no idea, but it must come.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 09:42:31 +0000

World government … not in our lifetimes – and I am still pretty young!
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The trouble with the UN is that it’s both a Utopian proto-global parliament and a Westphalian style Great Power alliance. The usual vested interests have corrupted it. And the face off between the veto-bearing powers on one hand and various ridiculous spectacles (like Libya chairing a human rights committee) on the other make it seem preposterous.
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However it is an improvement on the League of Nations.
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The global economic crisis will probably move the world closer to global governance. But I doubt that nation-states are willing to give up their sovereignty as yet. Most places till have yet to develop a democratic culture assuming they will, and the world is fragmented into regions of influence with mutual hostilities.
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My guess: Another war will tear the Earth a new orifice and we’ll start all over. Again.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 09:38:00 +0000

There’s a certain confusion about the phenomena of eroding democracy or the decay of States or whatever. George Monbiot outlined this quite well in Captive State where the Blair government has colluded with carious multinational corporation to grant them monopolies at public expense. Eric Hobsawm’s latest book likewise bemoans the erosion of State power in the face of multinational forces.
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Contrawise John Pilger rejects this view and notes that the omniscience of multinational corporations comes on the spike of the US state which is much more powerful than before.
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So what happens? I think there’s a general lack of faith institutions and a resignation to apathy generally. Politicians, whose ethos has become increasingly morally vacuous, rely on this. Blair’s third-way, like Clinton’s triangulation were simply the mantras of people who were at once both morally self-righteous and bankrupt at the same time.
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After the Left’s social victories and economic defeats there’s nowhere left to go. And many people who’re vaguely left-wing, who’re opposed to, for example, the collusions between corporate power and high government, or to the use of military and commercial force against the really powerless in the third world, or who have misgivings about the talk of growth and prosperity in the context of streets ever more clogged with homeless people… many of these people simply switch off because the problems seem overwhelming.
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Or they become activists and demand rights that don’t exist via modes (like marching) that are purely symbolic. Or they join political parties and play that game.
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My view is that the ideological spectrum is being wrent asunder and that many of our hereto cherished ideas will not serve us well in the century to come. I think also that new alliances are likely to form and that religious thinking secular or God-bothering is likely to make an unpleasant return to centre stage at some point.
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Meantime a cursory look at military alliances from Poland down through to Indonesia show clearly the front lines of the 3rd World War should we be careless enough to let it happen.
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Confronted by the spectacle of of many on the Left simply ignoring geopolitical realities in furtherance of petty point scorig and the extraordinary spectacle of the Right simple refusing to face the fact that neo-liberalism brought the economy crashing down around our heads, well, all I can say is Stupid Fucking Monkeys. Cause that’s what we are. As Supertramp sang:
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Who are these men
Of lust, greed and glor
Rip off the mask
And let’s see
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But that’s not right!
Of Lord. What’s the story?
Well there’s you
And there’s me

By: sjk

sjk — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 08:51:53 +0000

Representation is an issue for the UN at the moment which I see it more as a venue for countries to discuss issues rather than a representative body that actually decides anything much (especially anything by voting rather than consensus).

Right now the UN is more a venue for national governments to coordinate (or not as the case may be) action. This is not quite the same as “countries discussing issues”. This is precisely why the UN cannot presently address the “genuine powers” mentioned in the original post.

I’d suggest a real world governing body could have a lower house which is elected by proportional representation and an upper house which protects the interests of countries. But then I get images of Star Wars and having an emperor take over the world

World government … not in our lifetimes – and I am still pretty young!

What powers would a democratically elected GA have that the current one doesn’t? If you instead toss existing members out that don’t meet the qualifications then you lose the venue that all countries can participate in. I think the EU is a different case where there are strong trade reasons for members to want to join.

No new powers – that would require a change to the UN Charter. Also, no member states would be kicked out of the GA. It’s just if they try to elect reps, but don’t meet minimum democratic standards (universal suffrage, secret ballots – basic stuff) then your state can’t join the democratic caucus within the GA. My point with the EU was that it became a status thing for many states to join the EU and so they made internal structural changes to qualify. I am guessing the same would happen with regard to the democratic caucus.

By: harley

harley — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 06:37:14 +0000

I think the basic formulation is back to front.
Power is not defined in the quote. So here’s a few cats among the pigeons… Certainly the experience of oppression, army shootings, police bashings or electoral fraud are local, still bound to the state. Education systems, transport systems, courts health are local. Trades unions are local. Collectives are often local* but exceptions below. I argue therefore that power is still generally local.
So what ‘power’ are we talking about that is global. Oh that’s right the market… silly me, well market forces still have divided markets. Try downloading from itunes in Brazil and see what I mean. HIV/Aids drugs are differentially priced in different markets and a left hand drive car will never be popular in Australia until the local powers decide that we all now drive on the right. So markets are partially global and partially local. Economics and the Market are very influential but the market does not shoot anyone or imprison them. The Market has INFLUENCE, admittedly a lot of it, but do not mistake influence for power.
Increasingly markets are being regulated by aggregates of states ie NAFTA or the EU so it would appear that they are not beyond the reach of the law.
* exceptions to politics being local – Finally politics is becoming globalised, net2, and the more traditional forms of international co-operation between no-government bodies ie trades unions, or health care users are bringing much of politics into global strategies that use local power.
Ok that’s my 2 cents worth. happy organising everybody

By: Chris (a different one)

Chris (a different one) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 05:37:04 +0000

High population countries already have the same number of representatives as small ones – that is what state sovereignty is all about. If you’re concern is proportional representation, then anything you propose will change the nature of the United Nations and undermine the notion of state sovereignty (”all states are equal”). Moreover, it would require a change to the UN Charter, which is next to impossible.

Representation is an issue for the UN at the moment which I see it more as a venue for countries to discuss issues rather than a representative body that actually decides anything much (especially anything by voting rather than consensus).

I’d suggest a real world governing body could have a lower house which is elected by proportional representation and an upper house which protects the interests of countries. But then I get images of Star Wars and having an emperor take over the world

Secondly, no state would be forced to elect their representative(s). One of the features of the idea is that the promise of joining a democratically elected GA would provide ammunition to democratic forces in authoritarian states.

What powers would a democratically elected GA have that the current one doesn’t? If you instead toss existing members out that don’t meet the qualifications then you lose the venue that all countries can participate in. I think the EU is a different case where there are strong trade reasons for members to want to join.