Democratic world state - CReality

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Democratic world state

Political Order

For a democratic, federalist and subsidiary world state


[deutscher Text hier...]


Theses on the current problems

1. The number of global problem areas and the transnational solutions they require has increased rather than decreased in recent decades: Poverty and underdevelopment, global warming, ecological disasters such as the destruction of rainforests, increasing pollution of the oceans, the waste problem, global terrorism, transnational proxy and cross-border civil wars, large-scale human rights violations, genocides, epidemics and pandemics, irregular and regular migration, etc.
2. The increasing digitalization and virtualization of the planet have also increased the associated threats:  Hacker attacks on state and private institutions, cybercrime that can hardly be traced across national borders and, conversely, increasing control and surveillance of people by state institutions, as well as great influence and extensive power of digital corporations.
3. National armaments are growing unchecked and many markets for violence are proving to be increasingly uncontrollable.
4. Climate change has shown that nation-state efforts are often inefficient and do not go far enough.

Ideas for possible solutions
- A global, democratic world state is needed, based on municipalities, districts/cantons or partial states and nation states.
- A democratic world state must be structured in a subsidiary manner, i.e. with the greatest possible freedom of decision and power for the municipalities, sub-states and nation-states.
- A world state must be democratically structured, based on a parliament elected by the population and the nation states (bicameral system) with a government elected by the world parliament - which can also be dismissed.

Discussion
Cybercrime: In March 2021, Microsoft's Exchange e-mail software was attacked, according to the Microsoft Group by Chinese authorities and wire-pullers (see Lindner 2021). The EU banking supervisory authority Eba also had to take its mail system offline for two days (see Frühauf 2021). In the USA, the most important supply artery with crude oil, the Colonial Pipeline, which transports almost half of the gasoline, diesel, kerosene and heating oil consumed on the East Coast to consumers, was the victim of a cyber attack in May 2021 (cf. Hosp 2021:23).
Armaments: in 2020, 15 major countries spent the following amounts on armaments (in billions of U.S. dollars): the U.S. $778 billion, China $252 billion, India $73 billion, Russia $62 billion, the U.K. $59 billion, Saudi Arabia $58 billion, Germany $53 billion, France $53 billion, Japan $49 billion, South Korea $46 billion, Italy $29 billion, Australia $28 billion, Canada $23 billion, Israel $22 billion, and Brazil $20 billion (see Statista 2021).
Environment: glaciers on planet Earth are shrinking, and not just in the Alps, but worldwide. Between 2000 and 2019, 267 billion tons of ice were lost per year (cf. Titz 2021:20). The melting of glaciers is accelerating: between 2000 and 2004, 227 billion tons of ice were still turning into water each year; between 2015 and 2019, 298 billion tons per year, i.e. 31% more. In 2020, deforestation of the Earth's rainforests - which produce about 20% of the Earth's oxygen - increased by 12% compared to 2019 (see Lienhart 2021:18 and Global Forest Review 2021).
The biggest obstacle to the establishment of a democratic world state is that many people (and nation states) distrust a concentration of power with a world government.
One of the main reasons for the peculiar helplessness of global governance in crisis and war situations is the lack of a legitimate world police force and the fact that - in the best case scenario - troops of individual nations are deployed in war zones by proxy. This overlooks the fact that armies, as deterrent organs against external enemies, can only to a limited extent assume police functions against internal enemies - they are neither trained nor equipped for this.
The three central parts of state power are - transferred to a world government: world legislation, world executive and world jurisdiction (cf. Schubert 2003:12).
According to Held (1995:272), in an expanded democratic world order, its participants would have a guardian function. Whole clusters of actors and networks would guarantee international law. Gradually - according to Held's vision (1995:272) - around these actors and networks a transnational legislature and executives would emerge on regional and global levels, connected and limited by basic democratic law. Regional parliaments, for example in Latin America or Africa, would be added, and already existing approaches or forms of continental legislatures, such as the European Parliament, would be successively expanded and further developed. Either the UN General Assembly or a complementary institution could function as a kind of world parliament.


Forum

Cited Literature
-
Global Forest Review
2021:  Primary Rainforest Destruction Increased 12% from 2019 to 2020. By Mikaela Weisse and Elizabeth Goldman. Link  or Link.
- Frühauf, Markus
2021:  Hackerangriff trifft EU-Aufsicht für Banken. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung vom 8.3.2021. Link.
- Held, David
1995:  Democracy and the Global Order. From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Government. Standford/CA: Stanford University Press.
- Hosp, Gerald
2021:  Cyberattacke legt Erdölpipeline in den USA lahm. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung vom 10.5.2021. 23.
- Lienhart, Janin
2021:  Die Fläche der Schweiz in einem Jahr abgeholzt. Die Zerstörung des Regenwaldes geht ungebremst weiter – auch die Folgen der Pandemie tragen dazu bei. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung vom 1.4.2021. 18.
- Lindner, Roland
2021:  Hacking-Angriff auf Microsoft-Software. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung vom 7.3.2021. Link.
- Schubert, Rainer
2003:  Der minimale Weltstaat. Zur politischen Interpretation der Schwerkraft. Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang.
- Statista
2021:  Ranking der 15 Länder mit den weltweit höchsten Militärausgaben 2020 (in Milliarden US-Dollar). Link.
- Titz, Sven
2021:  Gletscher schwinden immer schneller. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung vom 30.4.2021. 20.


Book notes
[German books see  here...]

 
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