World State: the future of global policy
By Heikki Patomäki
Springer Cham, 2023
It is a learned assessment of trends towards the development of a world state which is based on the in -depth knowledge of the author of planetary evolution, academics and leaders in leading, and theories and theories and theories philosophers of different stages of evolution and different regions of the world. It combines history, political philosophy, explanatory social sciences and critical-reflexive term studies. It also highlights the ethical-political dimensions of the tense development of the world state, global governance and the global community. Patomäki offers a conducive approach to the world state, which is based on critical realism and pragmatism. It emphasizes the open nature of planetary development, the importance of the transformative agency, the role of self-reflexive collective learning on common planetary conditions and the trend development of a world state. The exploration of these questions implies a reflection on the direction of world history as a whole, how actors can defuse social conflicts, overcome lack, resolve contradictions, etc. This shows in the chapters that explore the institution and the strengthening of the community oriented towards peaceful relations, international law, a tax on world carbon and a global parliament and how these are used to extend the sphere of freedom human at the planetary level.
The book is organized in three parts. The first part examines if the history of the world as a whole is directed towards planetary integration, focusing on the emergence of cosmopolitanism, the world economy and the problem of the resolution of the interstate war. Chapter 3 explores how great history develops a myth of creation and a history of origin adapted to our globalized world marked by global risks such as (1) economic growth and ecological deterioration and (2) weapons of destruction massive. Chapter 4 focuses on the industrial revolution as part of the world history of humanity, exploit new sources of energy and by widening humanity and the world economy. Chapter 5 presents an account conducive to cosmopolitan democracy. He examines attempts to limit the destructiveness of wars and the rise of “the golden age of capitalism” (1950-1973) thanks to collective learning in different fields of global political economy. A necessary condition for a global movement towards something better is the open democratic development of a global and pluralist security community.
The second part focuses on the 21st century processes in the history of the world in terms of unattained past, changing contexts and anticipation of the future interact. Chapter 6 considers how the Cold War thanks to increased knowledge of the functioning of systems, so that the actors can transform the future. Chapter 7 examines the impasse in and the decline of global governance through a dialectic between three identity logics in force in the years 2010 and 2020: (1) The world of the market (neoliberalism), (2) populism nationalist-authoritarian, and (3) the emerging identities that rest on higher levels of reflexivity. Chapter 8 re -examines Polanyi’s “double movement” and maintains that the next societal response must be a global orchestrated response to market domination and to protect society on a planetary scale. This requires the rise of global movements promoting more functional and legitimate common institutions that can ensure and facilitate planetary cooperation, overcome contradictions and resolve social conflicts. Chapter 9 deals with a possible form of future transformative agency, namely a global political party as an open ethical and political association oriented towards a collective societal reorganization program. This should promote a positive learning that makes the public in global and planetary and receptive affairs for higher order and an unfingue, critical and pluralist cosmopolitanism. It would also promote various new institutional forms in which the planetary public domain can be organized.
The third part develops the procedural and open narrative of the formation of interconnected elements of the world state by discussing the cases of a tax on greenhouse gases and the global parliament. Chapter 10 recommends a much more complete program which includes the consequences of unequal economic growth, the contradictions of the global economy, ecological crises shaping the earthly system, the new problems which arose due to the expansion of the ‘space and other results of technological civilization. Ethically and politically, this program should cultivate the rules of wise diplomacy and support functional cooperation and thus create the conditions of progressive changes towards a political community and a world state. Certain new institutions similar to the State are therefore necessary on a global and planetary scale. But so far, this has happened around a close program focusing on peace and war and weapons of mass destruction.
Chapter 11 explores the case of a tax on world carbon as a rational world Keynesian solution away in current climate governance based on a new democratically organized but flexibly inclusive global organization that implements a carbon tax . It should mediate between the inner use of tax revenue (to give new incentives to the States to join) and the sharing of income (to approach the causes of climate change and to mitigate its consequences on a global scale). A more disturbing market approach can also galvanize the action and open space for the subsequent development of global public policy.
Chapter 12 rethinks the idea of a global parliament based on the need to decide on the nature of international law or the world in the face of uncertainty and indeterminacy. Patomäki envisages a non-centralized, non-territorial and non-exclusive system of global governance on several levels and complex multi-spatials involving collector’s rules and principles. Although it is not a sovereign legislative body, a global parliament may have real powers based on majority decision -making subject to review by a second chamber of experts who check if the decision is in The framework of legal reason, given the existing legal material. An autonomous global parliament needs independent funding sources to facilitate its activities and the implementation of its decisions. This type of global parliament has the potential to become a focal point in the global political activities of citizens, movements and parties – in fact by providing a context in which global parties could form.
Chapter 13 requests whether the important reasons for the security and political economy of establishing a global political community can provide it with a legitimate and lasting basis. This is unlikely without a process of appropriate civilization and narration for a community of citizens of the world which has large transforming effects. This must involve a generalized belief in normative legitimacy, anchored in universalizing principles such as popular democracy and human rights. For example, a planetary problem such as global warming suggests a global “nut”. A better method of reasoning would develop more adequate principles for human cooperation and conflict resolution.
The parties and the disparate chapters share ten theoretical themes which can be discerned by a critical and empathetic reading of the whole book. The first is the growing planetary integration of global society and the planetary nature of climate change. This requires the development of the world state and a global political community. Second, this is linked to the use of the historical decline in the world and the new conceptual tools which adopt long -standing scales, adopt collective learning and creative reinterpretation of past and present events. Third, this in turn connects to a coherent accent on the transformer potential of the human agency in parallel with material factors. The fourth theme is a new understanding of the development of the world state and a global political community, which emphasizes the multiple processes involved and the role of contradictions and conflicts in the complex and open nature of economic development and policy. The fifth is the critical realistic observation of the trends and counter-tends that produce contingent effects in a series of stages that overlap.
Sixthly, the emerging world state is understood in terms of convergence of existing and emerging structures of global governance, a global public sphere and global constitutionalism. The seventh is the importance of the individual and collective agency to achieve the development of the world state. Eighth, the tendential direction of world history is based on collective human learning, which solves problems, the absence of ills and overcome contradictions through collective actions and to build better institutions municipalities. Ninth, this is linked to the role of ethical and normative commitments towards a global emerging state to complete the rational calculation on the development of material conditions which indicate its relevance. This guarantees the normative legitimacy of a complex and pluralist global community based on popular democracy and human rights and reflects the need for a multipatial metagoument in which the State of the State is only one component . Finally, tenthly, we must not prejudge political ethical telos for world history, because this objective can only emerge through agents acting in history.
The book is long, is based on thirty-seven other works by Patomäki published between 1992 and 2022 and is not well integrated. This leads to unnecessary repetition and a lack of closure. The arguments develop through discussions of other approaches which are relevant for specific chapters but do not add coherence to the global accent on the open nature of planetary evolution and the role of self-reflexive learning collective. The book is nevertheless precious for its strong criticisms of Eurocentrism and erroneous belief in inevitable laws and trends and, in this context, its strong emphasis on the development of rational reflection and collective learning as a key to development contingent of a world state. In this sense, it is a precious contribution to international relations.
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