World Federalism

The United Nations is not a legislative body and is thus limited to a mostly advisory role. Its stated purpose is to foster cooperation between existing national governments rather than exert authority over them.[2][3]

A unitary world government would consist of a single, central government body with supreme sovereignty. While administrative subdivisions might exist, their powers are delegated by the central government. In a world federation based on subsidiarity, the delegation is the other way round, from local to central. Global federal government is subsidiary to local in that it only does what local government cannot.[4]

Plans that sought to unify the known world by conquest have historically aimed at a centralized, unitary government, rather than a federal government. World federalists generally do not support violent paths towards a world federation (see World Federalism § Current proposals for establishing a world federation)

A confederation is a union of sovereign nations, which are pursuing a common cause. Member states in a confederation are sometimes free to secede from the confederation.

In a federation based on subsidiarity, nations choose to give up their sovereignty over global issues they cannot manage to an central authority empowered to manage these issues at the global level. Sovereignty over national issues remains with the nation.

Different forms of federalism can be applied at the global level. Traditional federalism is the model adopted by the United States, in which the States relinquish their sovereignty to the federal government, which in turn represents them in front of other nations. It constitutes a centralized model of world federalism. The most decentralized model of world federalism is the confederation of States, or world confederalism, which gives the States a higher degree of power and freedom in which countries preserve their sovereignty, relinquishing to the federal authority only the powers to manage and regulate intergovernmental relationships. The European Union can be considered an example of such system of government, because its Member States preserve their sovereignty even though they relinquish part of it to the community’s authorities in specific matters. [5]

World federalism has evolved from more general proposals for a world government. Proposals for a world government can be found as far back as Ancient Greece, India and China, mostly tied to a mystical cosmology. Alexander the Great pursued the goal of conquering the entire known world and subjugating it under his rule. World governments in various forms later appeared in the works of Dante Alighieri,[6] Immanuel Kant,[7] Anacharsis Cloots[8] and Johann Gottlieb Fichte,[9] where it was explicitly proposed as a means to securing world peace. A world parliament as integral part of a world republic was mentioned first by Pecqueur in 1842.[10] The idea has been popularized by a number of prominent authors, such as Alfred Tennyson and H. G. Wells.

The late 19th century has also seen the establishment of a number of international institutions, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Telegraphic Union, the Universal Postal Union and the Inter-Parliamentary Union with the goal of serving as "an international congress which should meet periodically to discuss international questions".

The rise of nationalism and the growing threat of fascism in Europe caused a resurgence of the idea of a unified world under democratic principles. With the release of the book Union Now, Clarence Streit proposed a political union of democratic nations. The United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland were to form the seed for a democratic world republic. A world congress, made up of a House of Representative and a Senate should decide on matters related to defence, trade and currency.[11]

The establishment of a world federation would require extraordinary amounts of coordination and trust from all nations of the world, which are in economic and political competition with each other. Critics argue that world federalism is thus an unreachable utopia.

Proponents of world federalism point to existential crises, such as climate change, war and pandemics, which make global coordination necessary and inevitable.

Critics argue that a concentration of power on a global level would raise the risks and probability of tyranny, deterioration of human rights and cultural homogenization.

Proponents of world federalism point out that democratic and republican principles are at the core of world federalism, which are commonly seen as safeguards against tyranny and oppression in nation states.

Critics argue that the problems world federalism proposes to solve (e.g. climate change, war, pandemics, hunger) are too big to be solved by political means only, i.e. even if a world federation existed, it would not be capable of alleviating these issues.

World federalists argue that these issues originate from the insistence on national sovereignty and the lack of democratic structures at the global level. Effective global governance could therefore deal directly with the root cause of these problems.

Critics argue that it is unnecessary to establish a world federation to solve global problems. They point to existing structures of global governance, such as international organizations and the United Nations.[17]

World federalists maintain that current structures of global governance are not capable of enforcing decisions, or that they are not democratically representing the world's population.

• Alliance for a responsible, plural and united world
• ICE Coalition
• UN 2020
• World Alliance to Transform the United Nations
• World Government Institute
• World Government Research Network

• Archibugi, Daniele, Amazon.com, "The Global Commonwealth of Citizens. Toward Cosmopolitan Democracy", (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2008).
• Baratta, Joseph. Barnesandnoble.com, The Politics of World Federation, (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003). Introduction available Globalsolutions.org
• Bummel, Andreas and Leinen, Jo. "A World Parliament: Governance and Democracy in the 21st Century", (Democracy Without Borders, 2018).
• Cabrera, Luis. Political Theory of Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Case for the World State (London: Routledge, 2004;2006).
• Glossop, Ronald J. "World Federation? A critical analysis of world government", (McFarland & Company, Inc., 1993).
• Hamer, Chistopher. UNW.edu.au, Global Parliament - Principles of World Federation (Oyster Bay, NSW: Oyster Bay Books, 1998).
• Kant, Immanuel. "To Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch", (Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2003).
• Lothian, Philip Henry Kerr. "Pacifism is Not Enough, Nor Patriotism Either", (Clarendon Press, 1935).
• Lykov Andrey Yurievich. World state as the future of the international community (Moscow: Prospekt, 2013).
• Mazower, Mark. "Governing the World: The History of an Idea, 1815 to the Present", (Penguin Books, 2013).
• McClintock, John. The Uniting of Nations: An Essay on Global Governance (3rd ed. revised and updated, P.I.E. Peter Lang, 2010)
• Marchetti, Raffaele. Global Democracy: For and Against. Ethical Theory, Institutional Design and Social Struggles (London: Routledge, 2008) Amazon.com, . ISBN 978-0-415-55495-4
• Privat, Edmond. "Federala Sperto", (Universala Ligo, 1958).
• Reves, Emery The Anatomy of Peace Harper and Brothers, 1945
• Strauss, Andrew. Oneworldtrust.org, Taking Democracy Global: Assessing the Benefits and Challenges of a Global Parliamentary Assembly. (London: One World Trust, 2005).
• Stark, Jim. Rescue Plan for Planet Earth: Democratic World Government through a Global Referendum (Toronto: Key Publishing House Inc., 2008)
• Wells, Henry George. "The Outline of History", (George Newnes, 1920).
• Wendt, Alexander. "Why a World State is Inevitable," European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 9, No. 4 (2003), pp. 491–542
• Yunker, James A. Political Globalization: A New Vision of Federal World Government (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2007)