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Rescue Plan for Planet Earth: Democratic World Government through a Global Referendum outlines a new and potent strategy by which the normal people of the world can create a directly-elected, democratic, responsible and corruption-proofed world government to establish collective security and end war forever. It is a companion piece for the actual project, which can be found on the Internet at www.voteworldgovernment.org. TOP Cold War Blues: The Operation Dismantle Story The Cold War was a real war, with real guns, real bombs and arguably more dead people than both World Wars. I set up an outfit called Operation Dismantle to achieve nuclear disarmament through a world referendum, and got good support at the UN. The organization I founded grew to 10,000 people, with a budget of $500,000 per year, but my efforts were undone - I allege by secret service types. (NOTE: This book was published in 1991 by Voyageur Publishing and is on offer here with the permission of the publisher.) TOP One World Democracy: A Progressive Vision for Enforceable Global Law presents the only viable long-term solution to today's most urgent global problems: democratic world government and the rule of enforceable global law—a federation of all nations. After centuries of warfare, Europe has accomplished just such a transformation by outlawing war between the member states of the European Union. This book shows how to do the same thing at the global level through implementing the only time-tested solution to violence and injustice—law and democratic government. Humanity has a sovereign right to govern itself; read this book to find out how we can create a new social contract for the entire planet. TOP The Politics of World Federation Vol. 1: The United Nations, U.N. Reform, Atomic Control One World was the title of a book by Wendell Willkie in the midst of World War II that expressed the goal of the war for many people and gave a name to the aspirations of a generation of internationalists. The most radical of them were advocates of not restoring the League of Nations, but of creating a world federal government of states and peoples to establish the rule of world law reaching to individuals at least for the preservation of the peace. Clarence Streit, Grenville Clark, Arnold Toynbee, Henry Usborne, Albert Einstein, Robert M. Hutchins, and Justice Owen Roberts were typical figures. This volume traces the influence on policy of their thinking, particularly on Winston Churchill’s proposal of Anglo-French union of 16 June 1940, deliberations in the U.S. State Department on the shape of a postwar international security organization until October 1943, the Baruch plan for the international control of atomic energy in 1946, and early efforts at U.N. reform. TOP The Politics of World Federation, Vol. 2: From World Federalism to Global Governance The coming of the Cold War by 1947 is the principal explanation for the immediate failure of the world federalists. The historic opportunity for so fundamental an innovation in international relations as the establishment of even a limited world federation had passed, but for the next few years there was vigorous and deep political thinking about the problem of the continuing prospect of war. The Committee to Frame a World Constitution under Robert M. Hutchins and G.A. Borgese at the University of Chicago completed their Preliminary Draft of a World Constitution, and Grenville Clark and Louis B. Sohn began their deliberations that resulted in World Peace through World Law. United World Federalists, under Cord Meyer, Jr. and Alan Cranston, built up enough of a popular movement to pass resolutions favoring U.S. participation in a world federation in twenty-two states. Their articulation of the issues and political pressure produced hearings on world federation in the House of Representatives in 1948 and 1949 and in the Senate in 1950. At the time, there was also a sizable world movement in twenty-two nations. But the millions of potential world citizens never appeared, and national leaders, though they often admitted the logic of world federalists, would not get so far out in front of their peoples. The Korean War put the final touches on the deterioration of international relations, and it ended prospects for systemic U.N. reform at least until the end of the Cold War. TOP Political Globalization: A New Vision of Federal World Government According to conventional opinion, world government would be undesirable because it might develop into global tyranny, as well as almost certainly entailing bureaucratic overload. James A. Yunker vigorously contests this conventional opinion on the basis of an innovative plan for a limited world government tentatively designated the Federal Union of Democratic Nations. Although the proposed Federal Union would represent a quantum advance beyond the United Nations of today, it would at the same time operate under some key restraints, such as the reserved right of member nations to withdraw from the Union at their own unilateral discretion. Yunker argues that despite these restraints, the Federal Union of Democratic Nations would indeed make a valuable contribution to the future security and prosperity of human civilization. He makes a compelling case that political globalization (establishing a global government) would be a beneficial complement to the ongoing economic and cultural globalization of the contemporary era. Visionary yet pragmatic, this book represents one of the most up-to-date, comprehensive and sophisticated advocacies of world government to be found in the world federalist literature. It will be highly illuminating and thought-provoking to all those with a serious interest in humanity’s long-term future. TOP Rethinking World Government: A New Approach In these ground-breaking essays, James A. Yunker issues a powerful challenge to conventional thinking on world government, according to which world government would almost certainly lead to global tyranny and bureaucratic overload. Yunker vigorously contests this conventional thinking on the basis of an innovative plan for a world government tentatively designated the Federal Union of Democratic Nations. Although the Federal Union proposal envisions a legitimate world government, it would operate under some key restraints, such as dual voting in the world legislature (a system that would effectively equalize the voting power of the rich nations and the poor nations), and the reserved rights of member nations to withdraw from the Union at their own unilateral discretion, and to maintain whatever military forces they feel are necessary under their own autonomous authority. These restraints would minimize the possibility that the world government would generate either global tyranny or global bureaucratic overload. Yunker argues that despite these restraints, the Federal Union of Democratic Nations would make an important contribution to the future security and prosperity of human civilization. He makes a compelling case that political globalization is a necessary complement to economic and cultural globalization. Visionary yet pragmatic, this book will be of special interest to those who wonder whether effective global governance might require effective global government. TOP A Possible World: Democratic Transformation of Global Institution The scope and powers of international institutions--the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions, the World Trade Organization--continue to grow with globalization. If democratic values are still sought after, then their deficit at international level must be addressed. This book surveys the range of proposals on the table, with an emphasis on feasibility. It describes and evaluates a wide spectrum of democratic reform proposals for the UN, World Bank and IMF, the WTO and international judicial institutions. It explores innovative ideas for empowering global civil society; a Global Truth Commission; referenda and a World Parliament; a debt arbitration mechanism and global taxation. TOP After Capitalism: Prout’s Vision for a New World sheds light on the Progressive Utilization Theory, or Prout, a socio-economic model based on decentralized economic democracy, cooperative enterprise and the ethics of inclusion. With preface by Noam Chomsky and contributions by Johan Galtung, Leonardo Boff, Frei Betto, Sohail Inayatullah, the book asserts that capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction, based as it is on greed, intense competition and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. In contrast, Prout provides a model of economic development grounded in universal values. It seeks to balance regional self-reliant economic development with ecological protection, and encourages creativity and innovation. Its vision of a world government offers refreshing new hope for a world without poverty, war and injustice. It is a practical, sustainable model to improve the quality of life for future generations. The book shows: • Why, unlike capitalism and communism, the concepts of Prout are in harmony with human psychology; • How Prout’s vision can restore ecological balance and nurture the soul; • Where model projects and political movements based on Prout are located; The book has been published in 10 languages. TOP Ascent to Freedom: Practical and Philosophical Foundations of Democratic World Law lays out both the practical and conceptual foundations for a transformed world order – responding directly with our multiple global crises through the holistic approach of bringing genuinely democratic world law to the Earth. It develops a philosophical framework for democratic world law by drawing on the scientific revolutions of the twentieth century, the history of democratic thought, and contemporary discussions of human rights. Martin traces the history of the philosophy of law from ancient times to the present, showing the progressive development of democratic thought that culminates in the imperative for global democracy. In Part Four, he examines the dominant institutions of our contemporary world, especially monopoly capitalism and the system of sovereign nation-states, by showing that these centuries-old institutions are “fragmenting” and inadequate for addressing our planetary governmental and environmental needs. This book’s holistic approach addresses our global problems through focusing on central ways that we can overcome the divisions and fragmentations currently tearing our world apart. It concludes by developing the parameters of a conversion to democratic world law for protecting the environment and human rights as well as creating a transformed world system of peace and prosperity for everyone on Earth. TOP Evolution’s Arrow: The Direction of Evolution and the Future of Humanity argues that evolution is directional and progressive, and that this has major consequences for humanity. Without resort to teleology, the book demonstrates that evolution moves in the direction of producing cooperative organisations of greater scale and evolvability - evolution has organised molecular processes into cells, cells into organisms, and organisms into societies. The book shows that self-interest at the level of the genes does not prevent cooperation from increasing as evolution unfolds. Evolution progresses by discovering ways to build cooperative organisations out of self-interested individuals. Evolution's Arrow uses this understanding of the direction of evolution to identify the next great steps in the evolution of life on earth - the steps that humanity must take if we are to continue to be successful in evolutionary terms. A key step for humanity is to increase the scale and evolvability of our societies, eventually forming a unified and cooperative society on the scale of the planet. We must also transform ourselves psychologically to become self-evolving organisms - organisms that are able to escape their biological and cultural past by adapting in whatever directions are necessary to achieve future evolutionary success. TOP Global Covenant: The Social Democratic Alternative to the Washington Consensus In this pathbreaking book, one of the world’s leading analysts of globalization and global governance confronts the failures of international politics in the aftermath of 9/11 and the war against Iraq. He argues that there were and are alternatives to the way the Western coalitions responded to the profound challenges of mass terrorism and political violence - alternatives which can better address the roots of these challenges and deliver political and social justice. In order to grasp these alternatives, the changing structure of the global order has to be understood. To this end, the book is divided into three sections: economics, politics and law. In each section contemporary trends are analysed, problems confronted and a series of detailed policies set out. The aim of the book is to focus on feasible and effective policy choices which could lead to a progressive transformation of global affairs. This amounts to a manifesto for a new type and form of cosmopolitan politics. TOP Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Account In Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Account Gillian Brock develops a viable cosmopolitan model of global justice that takes seriously the equal moral worth of persons, yet leaves scope for defensible forms of nationalism, other legitimate identifications and affiliations people have. Brock addresses two prominent kinds of skeptic about global justice: those who doubt its feasibility and those who believe that cosmopolitanism interferes illegitimately with the defensible scope of nationalism by undermining goods of importance, such as authentic democracy or self-determination. The model addresses concerns about implementation in the world, showing how we can move from theory to public policy that makes progress toward global justice. Global Justice is divided into three central parts. In the first, Brock defends a cosmopolitan model of global justice. In the second, she argues that there is much we can and should do toward achieving global justice. She addresses several pressing problems which include: tackling global poverty, taxation reform, protection of basic liberties, humanitarian intervention, immigration, and problems associated with global economic arrangements. In the third part, she shows how the discussion of public policy issues can usefully inform our theorizing, assisting our thinking about the place of nationalism and equality in an account of global justice. TOP What’s Wrong with the United Nations and How to Fix It Six decades after its establishment, the United Nations and its system of related organizations are perpetually in crisis. While World War I and World War II gave rise to ground-breaking efforts at international organization in 1919 and 1945, the UN today seems ill-equipped to deal with contemporary challenges to world order. Neither the end of the Cold War nor the aftermath of 9/11 has led to the “next generation” of multilateral institutions. But what exactly is wrong with the UN, and how we can fix it? Is it possible to retrofit the world body? In this succinct and illuminating analysis, Thomas G. Weiss takes a diagnosis-and-cure approach to the world organization’s inherent difficulties. In the first half of the book, he considers: the problems of international leadership and decision making in a world of self-interested states; the diplomatic difficulties caused by the artificial divisions between the industrialized North and the global South; the structural problems of managing the UN’s many overlapping jurisdictions, agencies, and bodies; and the challenges of bureaucracy and leadership. The second half shows how to mitigate these maladies and points the way to a world in which the UN’s institutional ills might be “cured.” His remedies are not based on pious hopes of a miracle cure for the UN, but rather on specific and encouraging examples that could be replicated. With considered optimism and in contrast to received wisdom, Weiss contends that substantial change in intergovernmental institutions is plausible and possible. TOP Confronting War: An Examination of Humanity’s Most Pressing Problem Confronting War applies John Dewey's steps of problem-solving to the problem of war. The first step is to clearly define the problem: War is large-scale violent conflict between organized groups seeking political power over some territory. Other steps include gathering information from history and then formulating and checking hypotheses about the causes of war, mainly nationalism and unlimited national sovereignty, and what needs to be done to address them, mainly developing humatriotism [loyalty to all humanity] and democratic world federation. Both within nations and at the global level the alternative to war is the nonviolent struggle between political parties through voting to gain control of the society as occurs in democratic governments. This conclusion is evident when the word "violent" is replaced by "nonviolent" in the definition of war. Peace (and justice too) come by means of developing institutions that implement large-scale nonviolent conflict between organized groups seeking political power over some territory. Thus the viewpoint of this book supports your effort to get a worldwide vote for democratic world government. TOP Global Democracy: The Struggle for Political and Civil Rights in the 21st Century - this summary is forthcoming. TOP Conceiving Cosmopolitanism: Theory, Context, and Practice This collection is a detailed exploration of cosmopolitanism written by eminent scholars and public intellectuals from many disciplines and cultural backgrounds. By challenging old assumptions and advancing new analytical frameworks, it provides a full and representative set of views on the nature, definition and prospects of cosmopolitanism as well as clarification and explication of different cosmopolitan traditions. TOP Global Democracy: For and Against. Ethical Theory, Institutional Design, and Social Struggles This book defends the case for the expansion of the democratic model to the global political sphere. Concentrating on the democratic deficit of international affairs, it examines the nexus between the phenomenon of international exclusion and the political response of global democracy. This distinctive position is developed through a critical survey of the principal theories for and against global democracy. The main rival narratives (realism, nationalism, civilizationism, and liberal internationalism) are rebutted on grounds of failing democratic principles of inclusion. Based on a notion of interaction-dependent justice, these theories arguably provide a crucial ideological support to the exclusionary attitude of the current international system. Going beyond these exclusionary paradigms, the book defends a model of cosmo-federalism that is all-inclusive, multilayered and rooted. The text adopts an interdisciplinary perspective that combines three areas of scholarship: international political theory, international relations and political sociology. Within them, a number of contemporary controversies are analyzed, including the ethical dispute on global justice, the institutional debate on supranationalism, and the political discussion on social emancipatory struggles. From such an interdisciplinary perspective derives an engaged text that will be of interest to students and researchers concerned with the key political aspects of the discussion on globalization and democratic global order. TOP The Power Curse: Influence and Illusion in World Politics Can increasing power in international politics be a bad thing for nations? In this provocative book, Giulio Gallarotti argues that the answer is clearly yes—as demonstrated by a series of examples that span geography, history, and issues. Gallarotti systematically develops the idea of the power curse and its concomitant, the power illusion. Establishing that the process by which nations augment power can produce adverse consequences, he goes further to show how, to the extent that they fail to correct for the negative effects of power, governments choose foreign policy strategies that are ultimately self-defeating. He cogently supports his theory in discussions of ancient Greece, nineteenth-century Britain, and the United States during both the Vietnam War and the George W. Bush administration. TOP The Simultaneous Policy: An Insider's Guide to Saving Humanity and the Planet The greatest barrier to solving our global environmental, economic and social problems is destructive competition between nations to attract capital and jobs, harming society and the environment around the world. The Simultaneous Policy: An Insider's Guide to Saving Humanity and the Planet offers a simultaneous solution and outlines a bottom-up political campaign that transcends party politics and which offers citizens a way to use their votes to save the planet. “I thought your proposal was an elegant idea of how change could occur. It reflects the core ideas of how to create consensus around change. This is the biggest challenge that we have,” says Ed Mayo, Executive Director of the New Economics Foundation. “It’s ambitious and provocative. Can it work? Certainly worth a serious try," says Noam Chomsky. “The Simultaneous Policy is a creative proposal to accelerate progress toward a sustainable global economy. Many movements and grassroots globalists working for these goals can coalesce around such innovative initiatives,” says Hazel Henderson, author of Beyond Globalization: Shaping a Sustainable Global Economy. “… compelling and provocative. The structure and progression of the [book] fit your argument perfectly,” says Moises Naim, Editor-in-Chief of Foreign Policy, USA. TOP The American Empire and the Commonwealth of God: A Political, Economic, Religious Statement Four distinguished scholars here level a powerful critique of the rapid expansion of the emerging American empire and its oppressive and destructive political, military, and economic policies. Arguing that a global Pax Americana is internationally disastrous, the authors demonstrate how America’s imperialism inevitably leads to rampant irreversible ecological devastation, expanding military force for imperialistic purposes, and a grossly inequitable distribution of goods—all leading to the diminished well-being of human communities. These four prophetic voices—three Christians, one Jew—persuasively indict the American empire as being diametrically opposed to divine values and powerful enough to threaten the purposes of God. TOP Democracy across Borders Today democracy is both exalted as the "best means to realize human rights" and seen as weakened because of globalization and delegation of authority beyond the nation-state. Democracies now face a period of renewal and transformation. Indeed, democracy itself needs redefinition according to a new transnational ideal. Democracy should be rethought in the plural; it should no longer be understood as rule by the people (dêmos), singular, with a specific territorial identification and connotation, but as rule by peoples (dêmoi), across national boundaries. This new conception of transnational democracy requires reexamination of such fundamental ideas as the people, the public, citizenship, human rights, and federalism, and it offers a feasible approach to realizing democracy in a globalized world. This books aims to establish the conceptual foundations of transnational democracy by examining in detail current theories of democracy beyond the nation-state (including those proposed by Rawls, Habermas, Held, and Dryzek) and offers a deliberative alternative with the European Union as a test case. Such a form of democracy also allows us to rethink the idea of the democratic peace, where peace requires democratization on interacting state and suprastate levels. TOP Kyoto2: How to Manage the Global Greenhouse In Kyoto2, Oliver Tickell sets out the blueprint of an international climate agreement that would work. The existing Kyoto Protocol is weak, over-complex and utterly ineffective. Just as you can best control what comes out of the back end of a donkey by limiting what goes into its mouth, so we should limit emissions of greenhouse gases by regulating the fossil fuels at source. This would mean selling permits to produce fossil fuels in a worldwide auction, then investing the proceeds - which could reach a trillion dollars a year - into renewable energy, energy efficiency, conserving and developing natural sinks of carbon like forests, soils and peatlands, and funding serious adaptation measures - with the lion's share going to developing countries. The spending also needs to be backed by direct regulation, for example to raise energy efficiency in goods of all kinds, and to eliminate powerful industrial greenhouse gases like the HFCs used in refrigeration. The whole process should be kicked off by a large commitment of funds from industrialised countries - so poor countries who sign up get the immediate benefit of the spending, and the world gets the immediate benefit of a green new deal to boost the global economy in a sustainable way. This clear and intuitive framework for a new climate agreement could be just what's needed to break the deadlock in Copenhagen, moving away from a fractious discourse on burden-sharing, to a positive engagement on how best to apportion the benefits. TOP Global Ethic or Global Hegemony? addresses one of the most critical questions facing humanity today: Is global peace possible without overcoming the challenge of global hegemony? Global hegemony or global dominance and control by an elite is one of the major direct and indirect causes of contemporary wars and conflicts. Hegemony explains the war in Iraq and the continuing conflict between Israel and Palestine. It is also largely responsible for the widening gap between the global rich and the global poor which in turn has given rise to global tensions. Even the fears of global cultural and intellectual imperialism are related to global hegemony. As long as there is global hegemony, a just world in which humanity is held together by shared universal values, principles and standards will remain a mere dream. In other words, global hegemony negates a global ethic. Without a global ethic it is doubtful if humanity itself will survive the twenty-first century. TOP Healing the World is an analysis from a geographer's point of view of three great issues that face humanity and how we might find solutions. The three critical issues are: 1. The futile, wasteful and bankrupting problem of war and militarization; 2. The need for a sustainable relationship between the human family and the Earth, with the added crises of climate change and our dependence on rapidly depleting fossil fuels; and 3. Greedy corporate dominated globalization that is splitting the world between the privileged and those left behind. As the only practical way to deal with these critical global issues "Healing the World" proposes and analyzes "Limited Global Government". TOP Humanity or Sovereignty Despite the talk of globalization, current political discourse remains firmly anchored in the "age of nationalism" with concepts such as the national interest, national security, and gross national product (GNP) still defining the political agenda. This thought-provoking book challenges the hegemony of political nationalism, arguing that it is a false ideology that blinds us to the need for global political reform. This book proposes a new paradigm of "human political justice" to replace the current "justice in one country" approach. It forcefully reminds us that our human identity is more important than our national or religious identity and opens the campaign for a new "Human Union" to progressively replace the nation-state as the primary focus of political activity. TOP World Government, ready or not! World Government, Ready or Not! is the first how-to-do-it and how-it-is-being done book on the making of world peace through government of, by, and for the citizens of the world recounted in masterful detail by a veteran of over 50 years experience in the "field." In 1948, WWII bomber pilot Garry Davis took Emery Reves (Anatomy of Peace) at his word first that "...the ideal of the nation-state is bankrupt.." and second that "There is no first step to world government. World Government is the first step." The Stateless World Citizen Davis "lives" the future today treating philosophy, law, economics, travel, space, history and more with equal ease and insight. "The birth pangs of the new world order are already upon us," World Government, Ready or Not! is a book for the 21st century and beyond. TOP Global Democracy: The Case for a World Government Short, simple to read, and focusing on the key arguments, Global Democracy is intended for anyone who wants to start to think about political solutions to global problems, putting them into a perspective that deserves to be taken seriously. TOP The Global Commonwealth of Citizens critically examines the prospects for cosmopolitan democracy as a viable and humane response to the challenges of globalization. Arising after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the decisive affirmation of Western-style democracy, cosmopolitan democracy envisions a world politics in which democratic participation by citizens is not constrained by national borders, and where democracy spreads through dialogue and incentives, not coercion and war. This is an incisive and thought-provoking book by one of the world's leading proponents of cosmopolitan democracy. TOP Globalization and Culture: Global Mélange This book disputes the view that we experience a ‘clash of civilizations’ as well as the idea that globalization leads to global cultural homogenization (as in the notion of McDonaldization). Instead, the book argues that what is taking place are processes of global mixing or hybridization and the formation of a global mélange culture. The book offers a comprehensive treatment of hybridization arguments, takes a historically deep and geographically wide approach to globalization, and in discussing globalization and culture, problematizes culture. TOP Jim Stark and his wife, Earleen Devine, have a small business writing the life stories of other people, usually seniors, for their children and grandchildren. If you wish to learn more on this, see Life Profiles |
