by Omar Alansari-Kreger
World federalism means many things to many different people. Yet the overarching conceptual reality of world federalism is seldom seen as an area of primary topical concern in some of the most prestigious foreign policy circles like the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations beyond the token editorial article.
This realization raises a much-needed discussion dedicated to breaking the ambivalent silence on world federalism by the professional diplomat class beginning with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
Should lobbied dialogue on world federalism originate from the Permanent Members of the United Nations Security Council (henceforth P5) for purposes of advocating for those condemned to a life of autocratic repression? Such a question seems overwhelmingly rhetorical in nature considering there are P5 member states like Russia and China that are characteristically totalitarian and authoritarian in nature.
One of the most evidentiary failures and institutional pitfalls of the United Nations can be observed with the P5’s vetoing power since the inception of the supranational organization in 1945. If there is one universal characteristic shared by each P5 member, it is their penchant for jealously guarding their national sovereignty. This leaves world federalist hopefuls beleaguered when coming to terms with the underlying realities of the United Nations.
This can be best articulated as a series of existential questions turned critical postulations:
Is the United Nations the most logical alternative to advance world federalism in a world driven by the multipolarity of realpolitik? Any attempt made in the name of citizen lobbying for world federalism must first revisit the overall majority perception of world federal government from global public opinion. Yet, does global public opinion truly exist? If an opinion poll were created by a United Nations body to ascertain global public opinion on a pressing supranational issue, how accessible and reliable would such polling be to people with limited internet access in repressive authoritarian societies?
On the other hand, how much thought — let alone attention – is given to the idea of a world federal government basked with freedom like the United States by the average voting-age citizen? Outside scholarly circles or special interest groups dedicated to public advocacy on world federalism, conversations on world federation cannot escape fear of the worst-case scenario defined as world totalitarian dictatorship. These concerns offer legitimate criticisms of world federalism otherwise overlooked or dismissed as some kind of exaggerated paranoia.
A well-intentioned argument can be made insisting the average layperson outside academic and public policy circles keen on exercising their democratic rights is intelligent enough to understand the pitfalls of world federalism despite any tangible benefits offered in the name of world peace. Time again, the staunchest advocates of world federalism within the ivory tower and beyond struggle to make the concept relatable and digestible to an imagined world public opinion. The ice can be broken by emphasizing limited world federal governance to better distance from the dystopian alarmism that often drowns out some of the most logical arguments for world government such as the elimination of weapons of mass destruction.
Much of the conversation on world federalism is written by academics for academics where reflective articles authored by such bodies effectively preach to their own colleagues. Are similar efforts made to communicate the findings extrapolated from said material to better shape world public opinion in ways that truly resonate with the challenges of everyday life? Can a genuine consensus be formed on wide ranging issues such as nuclear disarmament, the global refugee/migrant crisis, and functional adult literacy when tasked with transforming world public opinion into binding resolutions of global governance? It can be argued world federal government is most feasible when practiced as a global representative democracy with a world parliamentary assembly as its primary chambers of governance.
Presently, world federalism is synonymous with democracy. Is this to forbid alternatives to democracy? Is a World Federal Meritocratic Republic conceivable via limited world federal governance where member states maintain their national sovereignty save for multinational issues such as the global environment, the migrant crisis, and nuclear disarmament? World federalism is predisposed to raise more questions than answers when tasked with identifying solutions for purposes of achieving substantive real-world replication. As far as the skeptics are concerned, the idea of world federalism as a conceptual reality is inseparable from an acute elitism favoring the billionaire class.
How can citizen activists, influencers, and policymakers make world federalism the most logical alternative turned big picture solution to liberate the world from the law of the jungle? It must be realized no nation on earth exists in an isolated void turned vacuum from the rest of the world. Americans favoring isolationism naively argue America’s complete retreat from the global stage will secure peace at home despite the costly lessons of World Wars One & Two from the last century. The reality is a world steeped in chaos will not spare a national beacon of peace and stability no matter how seemingly impenetrable.
This will prove increasingly true when artificial intelligence merges with quantum computing as advanced language learning models identify methods of manipulating human affinities to nationalism as petty tribalism. As any crash course with world history suggests that eventually, the chaos of the outside world transcends national sovereignty much like how trends are made and shaped on social media. It must be realized the nationalism of the mighty nation-state was inspired by the shaky Peace of Westphalia which only delayed the blood and iron unification of Germany as an Imperial Reich.
One of the greatest challenges facing world federalists will be had in finding ways of accepting confederation as the first most logical step to achieving some semblance of supranational federation. It will also be necessary to realize that much like the concept of the American Experiment that birthed the United States, a project of world federation must be seen as inherently experimental, not as a finality in of itself, where amendments are routinely made to allow for the maximization of logic, reason, justice, and checks & balances to prevail.
Omar Alansari-Kreger (Omar Kreger) is an independent scholar specializing in social physics & critical epistemology. Omar is an activist for bringing nuclear weapons under supranational control to achieve a world liberated from the scourge of nuclear weapons. He has been published by the Minnesota Star Tribune, Pioneer Press, Minnpost, and Institute for Global Policy. Send him mail.
Isonomia Quarterly 