The Importance Of Political Globalization

Besides geographical and economic shifts, globalization is also associated with political shifts. These relate to the potential rise of worldwide or macro-regional arrangements for political control and policy-making, and changes in the nature of politics and decision-making. Within political globalization, there are two main shifts that can be noticed. The first shift is in the geographical scale of political decision making, as well known as re-scaling. Whereas in the last few centuries the nation state has enjoyed close to a monopoly on politics, some of this power may shift away, part of it being ‘up-scaled’ to the international level, and part being ‘down-scaled’ to more local levels of scale. The second shift is in the nature of politics.

These shifts can lead to a world government: a common political authority, yielding a global government and a single state. After the Soviet Empire fell, there was a rising interest for a global government to protect the international human rights. Hence the question arises whether the emergence of a world government at some point in time is likely or not. The arguments in favour of a world government are mainly about cooperation and unity, leading to a safer, more equal and more efficient world, capable of solving complex and global problems. On the contrary, there is a fundamental incompatibility between hyper-globalization on the one hand and democracy and national sovereignty on the other, which is referred to as the globalization paradox. The arguments against a world government state that such a government would be a threat to individuality and impossible because of diversity. Also, it is argued that a world government would be too distant from most of the world population, making it rather elitist and therefore less democratic. To conclude with my own opinion, I am convinced that the arguments against outweighs the arguments in favour of a world government. Moreover, with the supranational institutions and international organisations today, I have faith that these will be enough to solve the complex global problems. A world order would be uncontrollable and thus undesirable. Therefore, I believe that it is highly unlikely that a world government will emerge at any time in the near