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19 - Keeping the System Accountable and Fair

from Part V - The Long-Term Goal: Envisioning a Mature System of Global Governance for the Twenty-Second Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 October 2022

Michael D. Bess
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University, Tennessee
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Summary

A global federal government would be a mighty instrument – and lots of power-hungry leaders and groups from around the planet will no doubt vie with each other to manipulate it to their parochial ends. The global institutions will therefore need to incorporate robust mechanisms to ensure that they remain rigorously accountable, fully transparent, and genuinely independent and impartial in their basic functioning. Four features would therefore be important to include in such a government: strong subsidiarity, the separation of powers, an executive branch with plural leadership, and a high bar of supermajority voting before major action can occur in the world legislature. A second key goal for this government will be to reduce the gross disparities in wealth and opportunity that divide the world’s peoples. One plausible mechanism for achieving this would be a UN-run system of Guaranteed Minimum Income, implemented globally. Such a government could also adopt pragmatic policies to nudge the world’s autocratic nations toward higher degrees of democratization and respect for human rights.

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Chapter
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Planet in Peril
Humanity's Four Greatest Challenges and How We Can Overcome Them
, pp. 289 - 300
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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