A World Union of Democratic Nations

When Professor Ossip K. Flechtheim, one of the founders of modern futurology and a self-confessed World Federalist, formulated his three possible alternatives of a world of tomorrow more than 50 years ago, he saw a World Federation based on solidarity as the least likely variant. In fact, today the development rather amounts to "a relative stabilisation of bureaucratic-technocratic regimes of armament and space travel", provided humanity can cope with the present and future problems and does not annihilate itself.

If today, as Mondialists, we advocate a federal World Union, we must realise that we are a vanishing minority with this goal. There is currently no World Federalist Movement in that sense. Nevertheless, a democratic World Federation would be the best prerequisite for the survival of humanity in peace and freedom. But most people and their political representatives still lack the necessary awareness for this. People tend to believe that they can save themselves through national self-assertion.

This fatal error is reinforced by the fact that authoritarian regimes are more likely to be trusted to deal with the problems of the future. They lack the strength and self-confidence to become part of the solution. Unfortunately, democracy is not a law of nature. Instead, people like to be deceived by dishonest politicians and those in power, and even imagine that they are "lateral thinkers". We are witnessing such processes in many countries today. Democracies are being destroyed and dictatorships are ruthlessly consolidating their systems. They do not care about human rights and nip any opposition in the bud.

The greatest example of this is probably the People's Republic of China. Here one can observe how such an economic and social dictatorship functions beyond any democracy and how it expands. I recommend the current ARTE documentary "The New World of Xi Jinping" (German). The PRC is the absolute surveillance state. Its practices put the darkest fantasies of George Orwell in the shade. Of course, this also has advantages: There is less crime, for example. What is not criminal can easily be criminalised. Those who break the rules run the risk of being imprisoned or executed. "unconventional thinkers" do not have the slightest chance of disrupting the state in the long term. This also enables the state to enforce urgent measures quickly and effectively. This is a clear advantage over slow democracies.

While most Chinese seem to agree with this, in terms of foreign policy the system benefits from the weaknesses of existing democracies. The biggest shortcoming of democracy is that it has not yet been recognised as a Affair of Mankind, but is still guarded as part of national sovereignty and subordinated to economic interests. This makes it cumbersome and subject to unpredictable influences and fluctuations, even to the point of democratically voting itself out of office.

In my previous post, I wrote about the "Four Paths to World Federation". Path C envisages the formation of a global security community of democratic states. According to the Australian Association of World Citizens, this could lead to a democratic World Federation. Democracy Without Borders has published an article on this by Chris Hamer. There is also already a "Coalition for a World Security Community", in the framework of which a working group has elaborated a detailed Project Description (PDF, 18 pages). This description contains many "ifs" and "buts", but is nevertheless a very good basis for further discussion.

In a similar vein, the UK-based proposal put forward by the Global Challenges Foundation is to form a D10 alliance of democratic states out of the G7. According to Daniel Schatz, D10 would have two advantages over previous similar proposals: limited membership and a clear focus. Read the first paper in a new series of perspectives on the coming development of world politics: "D10 - A Global Coalition for Democracy in the Making?" (PDF). Again, there are a lot of question marks, not just the one in the title. Could this harden the already existing East-West antagonism and create a new Cold War? One has to ask such and similar questions, because D10 would not be the stage of basically powerless NG0s, but world power politics with global implications. But how else could the advance of dictatorship be stopped?

Here we come to a point where we as World Federalists can hardly exert any influence. We are simply too weak for that. We can only hope that the responsible politicians will not do stupid things and will be sensible. Democracy would not be worth a third world war either. We have to hope that the systems will adapt without major violence. There will also be a time after Putin, Lukashenko, Erdogan and other aberrations of history. And Xi Jinping's empire is a giant on feet of clay that can only stand upright because it is supported by bayonets. That can all change abruptly.

Nevertheless, what could we as Mondialists / World Federalists do now? I would like to return here to my proposal of December 2019: Start the World Union small. The approach for a Model World Federation developed from that could be modified and turned into a campaign for a World Union of democratic nations on a small scale. It would not depend on the size of the states in question, but on the fact that they are stable democracies and constitutional states. In addition, features of elevated civilisation, such as the abolition of the death penalty and accession to the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, would be desirable.

In this regard, reference should be made to an article by Austin G. Mackell of the Australian Association of World Citizens, in which he argues for a democratic alliance to promote human rights. In my opinion, this would be the right direction. Will the World Federalists be ready for such a campaign? This could again become an actual World Federalist Movement.