Julian: "I believe we have a fundamental problem with information. There's so much of it out there but it's very difficult for most people to understand what information to believe. So instead of sifting through countless pages of information, we instinctively look for people who we want to trust and whose information we believe. Factuality doesn't matter as much here because we form an emotional bond with people who we hope will help us make sense of the world. This in turn influences democracy because many people don't actually vote for policies that would favor them anymore but they vote for people (who often act in their own interest rather than that of the voter).

Another issue I see is career politicians prioritizing election strategy over policy for the common good. A result of this is that the timing of policy is more focused on how it will sway short-term public opinion rather than how it will benefit the people in the long-term."

Julian: "I think the German Wahl-o-mat is a very successful example for a tool that helps voters in decision-making. Also Ground News is an interesting example for an attempt to organize the huge amount of available information and news."

To fully engage the most world citizens it is important to address basic human needs. Water, food, clean air and shelter are resources undeniable for human life, yet access is not guaranteed to all. Recognizing the need to manage these basic resources on a global scale, and with a sense of cooperation instead of competition is key. Acknowledging these resources as more important than political points, business profits or personal wealth brings power to the powerless.

Here is Planet Republyk's proposal for the establishment of a world parliament that is as intelligible, democratic, just, equitable, egalitarian, legitimate and sovereign as possible in order to oversee the management of issues that affect all of humanity and the biosphere: a representation of the planet's citizens according to latitude.

Supranational electoral districts would be born on the whole surface of the globe. By degree of latitude.

Approximately equivalent to strips of land south-north of 111 kilometers: one degree. In principle one degree, because obviously, in order to preserve the value of each vote, each parallel zone would have an equal number of voters.

For example, if a planetary population of eight billion people in 2023 were to have one representative in equal increments of 50 million, its world parliament would initially have 160 members. This number of deputies would, of course, vary according to the rhythm of the planet's demography.

At the most populated latitudes, around 1/4 of a degree, a strip of land south-north of about 28 kilometers would be enough to count 50 million people.

At the most depopulated latitudes, in the extreme North and South, a few tens of degrees would be necessary to count 50 million people.

As an illustration, on a complete degree taking for center the 30th parallel North (111 kms) you find the cities of Houston in Texas, Cairo in Egypt and Lhasa in Tibet for a total of approximately 200 M inhabitants. It would therefore take about a quarter of a degree (28 km from north to south) in this area to reach the target of 50 M people. Satellite geopositioning technology would allow for a surgical caesura of the electoral zones.

And all this is possible today, because we have more and more precise information on the distribution of populations on the surface of the globe. From databases such as the Socioeconomic Data and Application Center, an appendage of NASA, tools such as those developed by Engaging Data or Andersen Global eloquently demonstrate the progress of this knowledge.

The main reason for preferring the latitude representation rather than the meridian/longitude representation (which also guarantees impartiality) is motivated by a search for diversity. If you try the same exercise, but using longitude, you will soon realize that many nations are isolated on their meridian. The representation would then lose its universalist objective. The old nationalistic reflexes would dominate in these areas, with little possibility of changing. Another justification: even if the main objective of the proposal is to deconstruct nationalism, for the system to work, humans being human, the populations will have to appropriate it: develop a feeling of belonging to their new electoral zone.

This would be facilitated by the fact that people living in the same latitudes often have much in common despite their ethnic and linguistic differences. Much more so than those living at the same longitudes. Scandinavian, Icelandic, Alaskan, Russian or Canadian peoples, from the Baltic countries, from northern Kazakhstan, Mongolia or Japan share the same culture of winter, of the changing seasons and light.

This influences their environments, economies, languages, cultures and characters. On what defines them, in fact. Much more than we might think, at first glance. A Canadian from Manitoba would probably have more in common with a Russian from Khakasia than with an American from Arizona.

Similarly, desert or forest areas (temperate, Mediterranean, flooded, tropical, etc.) are found in the same parallels. The three largest forests in the world (Amazon (South America), Congo Basin (Africa) and New Guinea (Asia)) grow at the same latitudes. The people who live "IN", "NEAR" and "FROM" these forests (as well as the farmers who, living on the outskirts of deserts, share the same reality of accelerating desertification of arable land on all continents) would benefit from working together to find sustainable solutions to common threats and challenges; to be represented by unique and strong voices in a global parliament.

Representation by latitude therefore allows for a better mix of cultures, enhanced by a more fertile ground for the growth of a sense of belonging to the zone. Catchy zone names could also contribute to the development of this sense of belonging: the Parallel Zone of the Tropic of Capricorn, the Snow People, the residents of the center of the world (the most densely populated zone), the navel of the world (equator), the lungs of the earth, the people of rice, wine, coffee or chocolate, the fringe of the deserts, the heirs of the monsoon, etc...

___________________________________________________________________

As I specified in the title, this would only be a basic outline to start from. Amendments, improvements and enhancements like ''A fourth branch of government'' from Taejae Academy could and should be added to this basic outline.

A work in progress...

Eric Boucher for Planet Republyk

______________________________________________________________________ Planet Republyk is an international non-profit advocacy NGO/CSO based in Quebec City, Canada, whose mission is to promote the establishment of the most democratic, just, equitable, egalitarian, legitimate and sovereign world parliament possible to oversee the management of issues that affect all of humanity and the biosphere.

If you want to learn more about the Planet Republyk project, you can buy the book in E-Book version (PDF) or read (English and French) or listen (French only) to the 24 chapters/episodes of the podcast on PlanetRepublyk.org.

Multi-level governance must adapt to different forms of democratic decision-making depending on whether it operates at the local, provincial, national, regional or global level. While in the smallest polity at the local level proximity enables almost every citizen to be directly informed on issues of her/his neighbourhood, the higher the level the more they depend on the media – and thus mainly the market – to inform with often ‘fungible’ facts. New democratic initiatives therefore generally start bottom-up locally, and some even reach global dimensions (cf. “Fridays for Future”). The provinces play a particular role in federal systems, but their cultural identities have grown stronger (devolution), sometimes reaching nationhood (cf. Czecho-Slovakia; Scotland).

The nation -- with its fixed borders and monopoly of violence often a cause for conflict -- , however, has lost power upstream to globalisation and downstream to more direct democratic engagement (subsidiarity). Its nationalist aberration of (often militarily) fixed borders and the illusion of absolute sovereignty can hardly halt migration, money or data flows, in particular, if the market makes them profitable. Controversial information and data dependence on (a)social media now even impact higher-level elections.

To meet these challenges, there are incipient regional solutions, like in the EU with its institution of an increasingly influential parliament, consultative bodies for civil society as well as provinces and a historically first supranational executive. The regionalisation effect is being strengthened worldwide by the current ‘slowbalisation’ of global integration; and many regional groupings from ASEAN to AU and Mercosur to NAFTA (USMCA) have key roles to play towards wider governance.

At the global level, especially against the pandemic and for the climate, we must reach beyond only western-inspired and narrowly nation-based multi-lateralism of the outdated Westphalian System that is typified in the United Nations Organisation. Rather, omnibus (for and by all) is the new vehicle: to widen the input of non-Western experiences, and to include non-state stakeholders in democratic governance that counts not only the quantity of unequal national votes but also includes the quality of deliberating voices. NGOs  --  now more trusted than national officials  --  increasingly enhance global commitments not only against climate change but also against warmongers. However, parochial politicians still claim national ‘sovereignty’ against direly needed global solutions and even provoke destructive conflicts over borders. The process of COP already signals the trend towards omnilateralism with Eastern understanding of cycles for the environment and ‘holism’ beyond the rather Western linear thinking and divisive individualism.

In conclusion, direct democracy may suit the directly informed local level. The higher the stage of democratic governance ranging from the village via the province and the nation to the region and in particular to the global level, the more expertise of civil society and legitimate stakeholders is needed in the decision-making for the common good of all in East and West as well as North and South, i. e. omnilaterally.

Some academics at the Taejae Academy are proposing novel solutions to better democracy, that I believe could be applied at the global level. One of them is creating a Fourth Branch of Government composed of ordinary citizens selected by sortition. The precise policy is still in the making, but the idea is better representation & moving beyond issues with traditional legislative chambers. 

I personally believe it’s a great idea if by sortition, with defined capacities and binding decision-making power. I'll add all the details of this as soon as they send me their policy paper

How do we ensure that any Democratic System of Global Governance is relevant to people's lives?

I think that despite its obvious limitation the European Parliament - a supranational body elected directly by citizens - is one of the most impressive best practices I am aware of in this field. By electing directly representatives, it manages to create the seed of a public discourse that goes beyond borders - national lines are sometimes/often rejected to follow political group affiliations, which is the way the way to go!

I am opening this debate tab to recap the outcome of the first consultations event we hosted in Taipei, and bring the conversation forward!

The event was themed around the topic of “Disinformation”, as our local volunteers and partners immediately recognised malicious disinformation campaigns as one of the key threat a global democratic governance would be facing. In fact, Taiwan’s democracy is constantly under threat from disinformation campaigns waged by China, attempting to influence and distort the public debate within the island. Assuming that a global democratic governance would either A) have external opponents, like authoritarian states that did/could not join the club, and/or B) internal threat from groups interested in tearing the institution apart, the risk deriving from disinformation is grand.

Below, you can find the event recap we published on our website - please let us know what you think!

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On January 10th, 2023, we held the first local consultations in Taipei 🇹🇼 on what global democracy could look like. And it was amazing, with great panelists and about 45 participants.

We discussed what the world can learn from Taiwan's innovative democratic model & its use of modern technologies to enhance participation! Given Chinese territorial claims, particularly at the height of election cycles, Taiwan faces waves of disinformation from China. We brainstormed on the strategies that Taiwan has taken to adapt to this challenge, as well as what other countries can learn from it.

This event opens a series of consultations across the globe to crowdsource what a democratic system of global governance should look like.

The event started with a panel discussion, followed by group discussions!

Panel: 

• Ai-Men Lau (Doublethink Lab)
• Billion Lee (Cofacts)
• Brian Hioe (New Bloom)
• Colombe Cahen-Salvador (Atlas co-founder)
• Jonas Parello-Plesner (Alliance of Democracies)
• Moderator: Aurora Chang

Here are some of the points that came out during the discussion. Feel free to send us more ⤵️

• Sources of disinformation in Taiwan come mainly from China, especially targeted at human rights, military & China topics. You see a lot of it in statements such as “democracy is useful, you don’t need it”. 

• Language skills are important in fighting disinformation: if it’s in a foreign language you won’t notice mistakes. Localization: disinformation is getting better at this. They recruit local people to use the right words and input local culture. 

• Strategies to fight disinformation: 

  • Skill learning 

  • Civil society to debunk it 

  • Key for debunking strategies to be accessible and easy to the public 

  • Stigmatizing people who have fallen for disinformation doesn’t help. Need to humanize it. There is a need to understand where people come from and control our reactions to it. 

  • Important to recognize the uphill battle that fighting disinformation is. Debunking spreads less than fake news. 

  • More democracy means less disinformation: the more engaged citizens are the more they can trust institutions, the less likely they are to fall for disinformation

• There’s a fine line between fighting dis/misinformation and curtailing freedom of expression. Intent to harm/advance an agenda could be criteria to draw that line

• Societies with growing inequalities and declining prosperity are more prone to d/misinformation - when people are doing well there’s less of it. 

You can find some pictures of the event here: https://www.atlasmovement.org/taipeiconsultations1

I am starting this thread here as I am not sure about the concrete policy solutions that I could advance - I believe that to move toward a global democratic system of any kind people should feel a stronger sense of commonality/shared humanity compared to what we have right now. People tend to feel close to fellow nationals (think about when there's a tragedy, media always report "x people died, y from [country in question]" which I always found horrible) and normally also to people that look/sound similar to them. It would be fundamental to move this to another level - we should feel as connected to people living on the other side of the planet as to people living in our continent so to trigger positive interventions such as a global social net or similar. This does not have necessarily to happen before a global democratic institution is built - In the case of the European Union, the sense of Europeanness is still in the making 75 years from its founding - but if present, it would greatly help its effectiveness. What do you all think?

What I wish the most for is a very simple/easy way for citizens to directly participate in such a global governance - this can be done by electing representatives in a transnational parliament, having direct democracy tools, and/or several other ways

Colombe: "- global taxation  - climate related  - basic standards for key rights  - space exploration standard setting  - harmonisation of legislation and standards for tech & other  - redistribution of ressources across the world 

and more!"

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00573-5

Hostility between people who support different political parties — or partisan animosity — has increased markedly in the past few decades. How can we tackle this issue?

The president of France, Emmanuel Macron, took a last-minute decision to avoid a parliamentary vote and instead push through his unpopular plan to raise the pension age from 62 to 64. The government was accused of being brutal and undemocratic. What do you think about that? Are these means legitimate?

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/16/emmanuel-macron-uses-special-powers-to-force-pension-reform-france

Adarsh K Warman: "I Innovate... Democracy.... By Reaching Out Globally... To Everyone Deserving!!!"

Colombe: "Soooo many! Here are some:  1) lack of democracy  2) not representative  3) not transparent  4) very old school  5) designed for and by countries that committed countless crimes  6) no way for citizens to get involved  7)no real competencies"

Topics that need global governance affect people all over the world. Therefore, everyone should be allowed to participate in the debate and have a vote on the global governance on these topics. This is practicable and will become feasible in a few years.

It is practicable because the debates on the global level should address only global topics. (The subsidiarity principle, which works well within nations, can be extended beyond nations.) Thus, there will be a limited number of high-relevance topics to be discussed on the global level. Furthermore, the debates will focus on the principles, because the details for the actual implementation have be derived from these principles on the national, regional or local levels, as appropriate. In summary, direct democracy is practicable because the debates will be relevant for everyone, general enough for everyone to understand, and low enough in numbers for everyone to participate.

Direct democracy on the global level will become feasible because of the continuing digitalization of all regions. The digital divide, i.e. the inequality in internet access, between regions of the world will have diminished by 2030. Public, industry and private interests align to give everyone access to information and tools in the world wide web. Using digital tools to communicate and discuss with persons around the world are commonplace already today. eVoting is emerging in some countries. Cybersecurity and secure digital identity management are active research and development topics and improve continuously.