Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T10:52:57.719Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

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
Get access

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.

Type
Chapter
Information
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

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×