A Provisional Peoples' Assembly, Fostering Global Polities

Andreas Olsson

Current international politics is predominantly a discourse between the executive branches of national governments. Although many political movements transcend national borders, their embodiments are usually predominantly domestic in nature. Folkpartiet Liberalerna (fp) in Sweden may have cursory dialogues about international affairs with Freie Demokratische Partei (FDP) in Germany on the European arena. But exchanges with elements of the Democratic Party in the US are few and far between. And though major national parties may vehemently disagree on global issues domestically, in the international arena there is usually a strong deference to the executive. In order to develop a global polity, a transnational discourse between parties of similar convictions must be promoted and, preferably, institutionalized. To achieve this, I have come up with a proposal which I have called a Provisional Peoples' Assembly (PPA).

The PPA would be a formalized and public discourse space for the major political parties around the world where they could strengthen the transnational bonds between their common movements. Such a dialogue would encourage the emergence of ideologies that view humanity as a common body with shared concerns rather than a balkanized adversarial system. It would be Pollyannaish to believe nationalist sentiments would subside. Tribal instincts will remain a part of the human condition until some profound long-term evolutionary upheaval occurs. And geographic vicinity will continue to be a strong influence in defining such tribalism. However, by providing a platform that allows political actors to officially embody on a global stage their ideological rather than cultural agency, that is to say their association by choice rather than their association by default, tribal instincts can be if not tempered somewhat disassociated from their geographic and ethnic moorings. In essence, it would promote the development of global polities not bound purely by arbitrary geopolitical conditions.

When I came up with the idea of the PPA, I devised a system by which to select which parties had a legitimate claim to take part in an official world-wide dialog on how to resolve our global problems. The system I created was a derivative of work done by Lionel Penrose in the late 1940ies to improve voting within the General Assembly of the United Nations. The purpose of the PPA is to render the discourse of its participants into legitimate representations of existing and emergent global polities. For this to happen, the rules of engagement of such a body cannot differ from those of any other parliament. Parliament is not just a drab legislative body of endless bickering. A parliament is a procedural engagement between those that can legitimately speak for their constituencies and engage fairly with others in decisive political dialogue. Therefore there is a need to formally decide who can speak and how loud they can shout. Though there is not one single valid procedure for making such decisions, some procedures are objectively better than others. The one I devised was created based on objective federalist, democratic and economic criteria of what is fair and serves the common good. However, it's not my purpose here to justify the methodology that was chosen. What matters here is the idea of a formalized global assembly of major political parties worldwide.

Those who are familiar with the topic may think that such a body already exists: the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). It is true that those elected to domestic parliaments are the most legitimated voices for their constituencies. The concept of the PPA is itself based on this argument since it allows only representatives from political parties that have a significant share of seats in domestic parliaments or congresses. However, the individuals elected to national assemblies are not predominantly elected for their views on foreign policy. It is important that the participants of the PPA be individuals that are foremost concerned with global issues. Therefore it is better to let the elected political parties themselves select such individuals at this stage and not simply place elected domestic parliamentarians in a common room. The IPU is also not really a parliament in and of itself that follows good rules of assembly. It merely fosters dialogue between members of various parliaments that are far too busy catering to the domestic issues of their local constituencies to have time for the IPU. The dialogue it encourages is just cursory dialogue, not the type that fosters transnational cohesion and consensus.

The PPA would, in essence, be a precursor to a global parliament. Although its participants would not be elected directly by their constituencies, the political parties that select them would be legitimate delegate bodies for expressing their will. Therefore, despite a lack of any international legislative authority what-so-ever, a body like the PPA could become a legitimate moral voice for a majority of people around the world. Their desires would no longer be so inaccurately and unfairly condensed as they are in the General Assembly of the United Nations. Political alliances would form that transcend our borders. Slowly, global polities would emerge and make their will clearly and undeniably known.

Andreas Olsson
Tel: +1.917.575.5182
Email: andreas@peoplesassembly.org

Provisional Peoples' Assembly
Email: info@peoplesassembly.org
Web: http://www.peoplesassembly.org