Josep M. Colomer

World Government Is Here

The specter of global government has been haunting the world for centuries. For some, its mere evocation raises fears of despotism and imperialistic domination, whereas some idealist thinkers have equated global government with general prosperity and perpetual peace. This book does not deal, however, with alarming fears or with well-intentioned wishes. Its focus of attention is the current, real world. In the following pages I show how world government actually exists, to what degree the current global institutions are efficient in making decisions for the provision of global public goods, and how their institutional rules and procedures can be compatible with some acceptable notion of democracy.

Global Representation Requires Rotation of Countries

The principle of equal representation, which might give equal vote to every citizen or equal vote to every state, tends to be troubling at the global level. in many global institutions, the principle of equal representation has been successfully replaced with indirect representation of citizens by means of rotation of countries in global councils and boards, the allocation of weighted votes to every country, and the formation of multi-country coalitions.

A Great-Powers’ Directorate has Averted the Third World War

The United Nations Organization (UNO), as it currently works, is a global directorate originally shaped as long ago as the mid-twentieth century by the victors of the Second World War. Still now, when the “Big Five”—the United States, Great Britain, Russia, China, and France (in order of appearance on stage)—agree on an issue, they can cooperate and impose a turn of events on the rest of the world. as long as they are in conflict, as they were during the Cold war, most efforts for peace in the world can be jeopardized. But the United Nations has endured largely because, in contrast to its predecessor, the league of Nations, its institutional design has been more effective for preventing a new world war. the United Nations has presided, in fact, over an unusually long period of relative global peace.

The World’s Self-Appointed Steering Committee

The Group of Eight (G-8), which includes the eight supposed greatest democracies of the world, has been derided as “the world’s self-appointed steering committee.” in fact, it is much more than an agenda-setting committee, as it involves a “G-8 system” that includes a couple of dozen countries and most international organizations for which the core group builds policy consensus and gives directives and instructions. the G-8 has no permanent organizational structure by itself, but it acts as a new, updated world’s directorate. in comparison to the Big five’s de facto directorate established at the end of the Second World war by the security council of the United nations, the composition of the Big eight reflects more accurately the relation of political and economic forces of the current world. its agenda is also much wider, as it does not focus only on security matters, but addresses all economic, social, environmental, and many other issues that can become relevant. Although its decisions are implemented indirectly, through international organizations and states, its effectiveness is also remarkable. the G-8 system is the closest thing to a world government that has ever existed.

Unanimity Rule Failed to Make the World More Secure

Some historians wonder whether had the united states president woodrow wilson not suffered a stroke at a critical moment, the second world war might have been avoided. actually, the failure of the league of nations—which was wilson’s cherished, unaccomplished creation—in preventing a new global war did not have much to do with the president’s health or with the haphazard absence of the united states from the organization. at the end of the first world war in 1918, wilson developed a strenuous effort “to promote international co-operation and to achieve international peace and security.” as is well known, he blatantly failed. as we will discuss below, tremendous responsibility for the failure must be charged to the league of nations’ ill-fated institutional design.

Policy Consensus Is Built with More Ideas Than Votes

In the beginning was the idea. politicians, high officials, and other poliCy-makers in both state and global institutions sometimes think that they are designing innovative policy alternatives and finding solutions from scratch. However, as it was pointed out by John Maynard Keynes, many policy ideas that are proudly waved by practitioners have been long and widely analyzed and discussed in academic and intellectual circles before they enter the kingdom of applied decision-making. in his rather well-known words: Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back… the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. indeed the world is ruled by little else.

Network Goods Are Served by Simple Bureaus

If all world problems were like the setting of a calendar, the adoption of measurement standards, or the coordination of the post, air travel, or the internet, global government would be simple and effective successful global providers of this type of services have included such disparate fellows as the roman papacy, the French revolutionaries, the powerful united states, the neutral and broadly respected switzerland, as well as a high number of anonymous scientists, technicians, and public servants who keep working in discreet offices at different locations across the planet.

Weights and Coalitions for Finance and Development

Had the International Monetary Fund (IMG) and the World Bank (WB) been organized as the United Nations agencies they officially are, international monetary instability would probably be higher than it is and there would be more poverty in the current world. monetary, financial, and economic issues require specific types of institutional decision-making rules, which do not fit typical UN formulas, whether those based on equal vote for every state or those establishing a great powers’ directorate. Financial stability, fair international trade, and general economic development, are global goods that can grant benefits to everybody. But they also involve some asymmetry and conflict of interests. worldwide financial regulations, for example, can reduce market instability and favor ordered and potentially beneficial capital investments across state borders. But investors and consumers, as well as debtors and creditors, may be willing to pay different costs for making that collective good feasible.

Expert Rulers Replace Politicians and Diplomats

Expert government already exists. Both national states and international organizations, in spite of, or in parallel to their democratic claims, strongly rely on independent bodies of nonelected experts to receive advice, make decisions, and implement, supervise, and evaluate policies on major issues.

Effective Decisions Are Made by Means of Weighted Votes

Besides territorial rotation reviewed in the previous chapter, the other basic alternative to the principle of equal vote for every country is weighted vote. As we have seen, in certain global institutions the rotation of countries is applied within territorial regions that are given weights or quotas of seats. alternatively, more determinant weights for collective representation can be given, not to regions, but to every country on the basis of population, interest in the issue or contribution to the organization. this type of functional representation can certainly be more effective for decision-making than equal vote per country.