Introduction
It is quite difficult to imagine the Earth governed by a collective of ‘public managers’ or ‘professional politicians’ (using Max Weber’s formulation) employed by the peoples of all nations and elected by them. Deciding about so many complex issues that are interconnected with our extremely globalized and heterogeneous world is almost impossible for such a narrow group of people. Nevertheless, for more than approximately 20 years the questions of global governance (henceforth, GG) have attracted the attention of scholars all over the world.
In this paper, I aim at GG in the context of the Catholic social teaching (henceforth, CST). The CST could be viewed as one of the most interesting and influential social concepts.Footnote 1 The corpus of its doctrinal texts combines various elements: religious, philosophical, economic, and political. One could wonder, however, that the roots of the idea of GG within the CST go far back to the 1960s, toward the doctrine of St. John XXIII. Despite this, very little attention has been paid to the research of the concept as such. There have been some minor references about the issue, but a current theoretical research deals mostly with its theological aspects (Míčka, Reference Míčka2013a, Reference Míčkab, Reference Míčka2014). Therefore, the concept of GG may be deemed more or less new within the bunch of CST texts. It still lacks a deeper political-scientific and philosophical investigation.
In the first section of my paper, I offer a brief overview of the CST core principles. Consequently, in the part two, I do the same in case of the concept of global public/political authority in various documents of the CST. I have no room here to explain in detail various layers of this ample theory. Therefore, I shall concentrate on a description of its basic principles. I point out the main references of this theory in the official documents of the Catholic Church, which have come from the Vatican over the years. I primarily focus on papal encyclicals, conciliar constitution Gaudium et Spes, and the Note that was published several years ago by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. I shall put them into the historical context of the time of their occurrence.
In the third section, I present the idea of the global demos as a counterweight to a rigid institutional approach to GG offered by the CST. The main representatives of globalization include not only states and various non-state actors, but above all the global demos, which is made up of the population of all countries of the world. It is evident that the phenomenon of global citizenship has not been given adequate attention; scholars predominantly focus on ‘more visible’ actors who are either formally or informally institutionalized (governments, NGOs, TNCs, religious leaders, global philanthropists, terrorist groups, etc.). However, we are witnessing the creation of a global public or global civil society. This kind of society should not be deemed a mere cluster of particular national societies, but rather a human network sui generis, that is a transnational network consisting of world’s citizens who share together certain common values, such as humanity, solidarity, peace, health protection, environment, sustainable development, and pursuit of happiness.
The final part of the paper will address an innovation of GG theory that is a deliberation of the global demos, together with the most severe potential drawbacks. I assume that deliberative principles could help to boost some of the elements of global public/political authority offered by CST, which seems to suffer from lacking both accountability as well as legitimacy. I attempt to disconfirm a claim that GG ‘lacks prescriptive power to point toward where we should be headed and what we should be doing’ (Weiss, Reference Weiss2009: 264) and sketch a strong connection between the CST, GG, and public deliberation. The kernel of this ‘participatory’ or ‘bottom-up’ approach to the global political authority lies in the creation of a worldwide network via technology-driven deliberation of global citizens, which may seem to be quite ‘neo-anarchical’, especially if it tries to dissolve the state (see Castells, 2005: 11). However, such an authority constituted on the principles of the CST does not seek such a goal. Addition of such democratic element to the concept of global political decision-making aspires to be an innovation of both theories of GG and CST. It then constitutes not only a further step in the development of the theory of global political authority, but also in the practical application of public deliberation at a higher level.
Catholic social teaching: a brief overview
The term Catholic social teaching/thought refers to a doctrine of the Catholic Church (involving teaching of popes, councils, conferences of bishops throughout the world, synods of bishops, and Vatican ‘dicasteries’, i.e. various departments of the Roman Curia) on social, economic, and political issues, as well as to an academic research performed by scholars and other experts who deepen and develop this teaching (cf. Jakab and Piteková, Reference Jakab and Piteková2006: 38).
The CST has been developing over many years: from Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum novarum (1891) to Francis’ recent encyclical Laudato si’ (2015). All documents of the CST are extensively engaged in serious social issues that relate to mankind and formulate some fundamental principles, which include the principle of dignity of the person, the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity, the principle of common good, the right to private property, the right of individuals to create and join professional associations (e.g. trade unions), the right to a just wage, the right to participation and a clean environment, the right to strike within reasonable limits, the need for a social justice, and the request for world peace and global disarmament.
Although the CST primarily focusses on the individual, a dignity of the human person significantly affects her thinking on economic and political challenges of society. Each of the documents reacts to the social and political changes in a special and different way, while strictly recognizing boundaries between politics and religion. The main task of the CST is not to organize a resistance or various forms of civil disobedience against either legitimate or illegitimate power. As aptly pointed out by St. John Paul II, the CST ‘is not a “third way” between liberal capitalism and Marxist collectivism, nor even a possible alternative to other solutions less radically opposed to one another: rather, it constitutes a category of its own’ (1988: 571, § 41).
The CST does ‘not depend on the different cultures, ideologies or opinions; it is a constant teaching’ (Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, 2005, § 85, italics in original). On the other hand, as it has been demonstrated many times, it is apparently open to intrinsic alterations and academic investigation. The same can be said about the Catholic Church as a whole because it ‘is open to dialogue with philosophical thought; this has enabled her to produce various syntheses between faith and reason’ (Francis, 2015b, § 63). For that reason, I shall deem it a ‘concept’, not only a mere ‘doctrine’, in spite of being rooted in religious, Judeo-Christian tradition.
GG and the Catholic social teaching
Although in Rerum novarum (and in many other documents that followed it) we cannot find any references to the concept of the GG, it seems obvious that the concept as such has deeper tradition in the CST. In fact, ‘[t]he concept has had a long history in the public debate among experts and policy-makers’ (Hazenberg and Mulieri, Reference Hazenberg and Mulieri2013: 303).
One may be surprised that the Church’s perception of this concept is older than it might seem at first glance. The vague contours go back to the 1960s as part of St. John XXIII’s doctrine. In order to verify and illustrate my claims, I present the most significant examples of the CST where some references to the concept of GG can be easily identified.
It is not my business here to offer an exhaustive analysis of the current theory of GG. Therefore, let me mention some paradigmatic examples of this ‘highly diverse, complex and contested concept’ (Hazenberg and Mulieri, Reference Hazenberg and Mulieri2013: 302). Besides a vast number of comprehensive texts, which help us to better understand the basics of GG and cosmopolitan theory (Held and McGrew, Reference Held and McGrew2002; Held and Koenig-Archibugi, Reference Held and Koenig-Archibugi2003; Makariusová, Reference Makariusová2008, Reference Makariusová2010; Held, Reference Held2010; Lehmannová et al., Reference Lehmannová, Cihelková, Hnát, Rolenc, Kochan, Rohrbacher, Steinmetzová and Trávníčková2010; Piknerová et al., Reference Piknerová and Naxera2011; Hazenberg and Mulieri, Reference Hazenberg and Mulieri2013; Cihelková et al., Reference Cihelková, Hnát, Štěrbová, Zadražilová, Bič, Černá, De Castro, Druláková, Dubský, Dvořáková, Filipová, Jiránková, Lehmannová, Moravec, Müller, Neumann, Němcová, Průša, Stuchlíková, Taušer, Vošta, Vymětal, Zeman, Zemanová and Žamberský2014; Hofferbeth, Reference Hofferbeth2015), there is also a mountain of books and articles analysing particular topics and dealing with the theory and practice of global governance. Let me mention, for example, a few of those interested in new types of global civic participation (Steffek et al., Reference Steffek, Kissling and Nanz2007), global citizenship (Verhezen and Morse, Reference Verhezen and Morse2009), creation of global civil society (Císař, Reference Císař2003b; Goodhard, Reference Goodhard2005; Scholte, Reference Scholte2007; Castells, Reference Castells2008; Omelicheva, Reference Omelicheva2009), relationship between academic research of GG and applied policies (Overbeek et al., Reference Overbeek, Dingwerth, Pattberg and Compagnon2010), global regulatory, financial, and monetary governance (Neumann, Reference Neumann2011; Stewart, Reference Stewart2014), optimal structure of GG institutions and their legitimacy (Buchanan and Keohane, Reference Buchanan and Keohane2006), moral and ethical questions of both GG and cosmopolitanism (Hill, Reference Hill2004; Dufek, Reference Dufek2010), global security issues (Thomas, Reference Thomas2001), global human rights (Pegram, Reference Pegram2015), environmental context of GG (Pattberg and Widerberg, Reference Pattberg and Widerberg2015), technical aspects of GG (Carr, Reference Carr2015; Mayer and Acuto, Reference Mayer and Acuto2015), global health governance (Ruckert, Reference Ruckert2013), the US foreign policy in the broader context of international security (Haas, Reference Haas2015), or the sources of scepticism on the establishment of a stable global government (Cabrera, Reference Cabrera2015).
Although CST does not fully reflect the evolution of the GG theory, it tries to incorporate some of its elements. This reminds us to assume that it aspires to respond to the new challenges posed by the changing global political and security environment, as well as to be perceived not only as a doctrine, but as a relevant political-theoretical concept as well.
Pacem in Terris
It was St. John XXIII who introduced the idea of GG into the CST, although he did not write literally about it. In his renowned encyclical Pacem in Terris (John XXIII, 1963, §§ 137–140), the Pope calls for the establishment of an international public authority which should be instituted by common consent of the people of all nations and not imposed by (national or international) force. The establishment of such an authority should be the most proper answer to many of the global problems of his times, which have persisted until our times.
It is interesting that the Pope in his concept of the ‘general authority’ counts on equipping such an authority ‘with worldwide power’. Unfortunately, he remains unclear what such a ‘worldwide power’ means and what mechanisms of its exercise should be adopted. We can only guess that such a worldwide authority was his specific response to the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. The Pontiff, using the weight of his moral authority, formulated an urgent message of peace addressed to both then relevant statesmen – J.F. Kennedy and N. Khrushchev – in which, on behalf of all mankind, he urged those responsible for the fate of the nations for negotiations that would avert the danger of nuclear war with unimaginable implications (see John XXIII, 1962).
The Pope can be scarcely accused of imagining the hegemony of a particular nation. Despite his successful diplomacy, which tried to get along with both superpowers at the time, he inclined neither to US dominance nor to the hegemony of the USSR. On the contrary, he was convinced that if a general authority is to work effectively and properly, ‘it must operate with fairness, absolute impartiality, and with dedication to the common good of all peoples’ (John XXIII, 1963: 293).
The Pontiff put a difficult task ahead of the public authority: ‘to evaluate and find a solution to economic, social, political and cultural problems which affect the universal common good’ (John XXIII, 1963: 294). According to him, a subsidiarity should be followed as the main guiding principle in the problem-solving process. States of the world should respect the universal scope of the competencies of such a public authority, while the authority should not interfere with the prerogatives of individual states.
Gaudium et Spes and beyond
Two years after the publication of Pacem in Terris, the participants at the Second Vatican Council tried to express their own views on the same issue. In the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World ‘Gaudium et Spes’ there is only a very brief remark on the concept of a universal public authority. Unlike the Pontiff, the authors of the Constitution identify the real purpose of such an authority in safeguarding the security, justice, and universal respect for peoples’ rights. The central aim of the universal authority is not only to eliminate a risk of armed conflict, but even to achieve such international political conditions under which all war could ‘be completely outlawed by international consent’ (Second Vatican Council, 1966: 1105, § 82). It is beyond any questions that this remark reflects the then conditions of international relations, especially the ongoing Cold War.
It seems to be quite strange that Blessed Paul VI, who succeeded St. John XXIII, paid no attention to the problem of a global public authority. To be fair, however, his encyclical Populorum Progressio of 1967 was aimed at many issues of an increasingly globalized world of that time, for instance a ‘social unrest’ (Paul VI, 1967, § 9), ‘the flagrant inequalities (…) in the exercise of power’ (Paul VI, 1967), conflicts of traditional cultures with modern industrialization (§ 10), unequal conditions in international trade (§ 61), ‘the weakening of brotherly ties between individuals and nations’ (§ 66), and so on.
Nevertheless, it was St. John Paul II who partially reintroduced an idea of global public authority into the CST. In his 2003 message on the occasion of the celebration of the ‘World Day of Peace’, the Pontiff rhetorically asked whether the time was ripe for establishing ‘a new constitutional organization of the human family, truly capable of ensuring peace and harmony between peoples’ (John Paul II, 2003b). For him this did not mean to write ‘the constitution of a global super-State’ (John Paul II, 2003b). Unfortunately, his description of the global public authority was too vague and less clear than in the case of John XXIII.
It is worthy to remind that his message came in the year when War against Iraq broke out. In this case, the Holy See opted for a strict interpretation of the UN Charter and opposed a military intervention in Iraq. In his address to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See in January 2003, John Paul II appealed to the UN Charter and international law, according to which war is legal only as ‘the very last option and in accordance with very strict conditions’ (John Paul II, 2003a).
This positive attitude to the rules and principles of the United Nations suggests that the Pope thought about a gradual transformation of the UN into a global authority. This could be suggested even by a long-term position of the Apostolic See in favour of a reform of this international governmental organization. This is obvious in Benedict XVI’s encyclical Caritas in Veritate (2009), written under the impression of then ongoing economic crisis, when he called ‘for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth‘ (Benedict XVI, 2009b, § 67, italics in original).Footnote 2
Moreover, Pope Ratzinger devotes at least two paragraphs to the issue of a global political authority.Footnote 3 While talking about globalization and its governance, which ‘must be marked by subsidiarity’ (Benedict XVI, 2009b, § 57), he emphasizes that such a process requires a certain type of authority. Concurrently, the Pope stresses that such an authority should be prevented from infringing upon freedom of the particular states.
The Pontiff reiterates John XXIII’s thought on the character of a global authority. According to him, it seems inevitable that this kind of authority would need to be ‘regulated by law, to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, to seek to establish the common good, and to make a commitment to securing authentic integral human development inspired by the values of charity in truth’ (Benedict XVI, 2009b, § 67).
The Pope emeritus expects that the world community of states will automatically recognize this type of authority and vest it ‘with the effective power to ensure security for all’ (Benedict XVI, 2009b), which will subsequently be respected by them. On the other hand, one could hardly imagine how those states which undertake unilateral military operations will incline ‘to ensure compliance with its decisions’, as expected by Benedict XVI (2009b). Remember just the examples of the United States invasion of Panama (1989), military intervention during the Second War in Gulf (2003), or the Russian ones in Georgia (2008) and Ukraine (2014).
As is widely known, these countries do not feel bound by the international law and often act in international environment as hegemonic actors who are very well conscious of their hard power. In other words, ‘extremely powerful states seem virtually immune from accountability if they refuse to accept if’ (Keohane, Reference Keohane2003: 148). Superpowers’ foreign policies have been neither inclined nor compliant to the self-restraining principles of a global or cosmopolitan justice (cf. Dufek, Reference Dufek2010: 130). What is more, as noticed by Rawls (Reference Rawls1999: 53), despite not being expansionist, ‘they do defend their security interest, and a democratic government can easily invoke this interest to support covert interventions, even when actually moved by economic interests behind the scenes’. None of three possible regimes of democratic accountability discerned by Goodin (Reference Goodin2008: 161–176), the state sector’s accountability, the market sector’s accountability, and the non-profit sector’s accountability, can be applied to them. It should be noted that not only superpowers are those who are considered as ‘immune to accountability’.
Of course, some other international agents and entities could be mentioned as well, for instance, transnational power elites (Kauppi and Madsen, Reference Kauppi and Madsen2014) transnational corporations, global terrorist networks, mass religious movements and, last but not least, the Catholic Church, which ‘is not very accountable to any human institutions or groups’ (Keohane, Reference Keohane2003: 147).
The Note of 2011
The biggest public attention has been paid to GG in a document overcoming a certain naïveté and vagueness, on which it has been pointed out in the abovementioned papal texts. The Note was entitled ‘Toward Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Public Authority’ (henceforth, the Note) and published by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (Iustitia et Pax). It was released on 24 October 2011. The Note has presented the brightest contours of a global political authority. Its significance and role in the global political system are explained better than in the previous papal or conciliar documents.
It is not known exactly who the real authors of the Note are. On the other hand, we have good reasons to believe that it was a team of experts from various economic areas, especially with Neo-Keynesian orientation. The global public authority, they hold, should ‘have a realistic structure and be set up gradually’ (Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, 2011). The authors unanimously agree with the previous papal teachings that such an authority should not be established without broad consensus of the states. Each country is expected to express its own readiness to be subjected to the authority’s decisions. It is deemed that its establishment will be preceded ‘by a preliminary phase of consultation from which a legitimated institution will emerge that is in a position to be an effective guide and, at the same time, can allow each country to express and pursue its own particular good’ (Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, 2011). Otherwise, the authority will lack the effectiveness and legitimacy.
The Note says that the global authority should develop gradually on the basis of the already functioning principles of multilateralism ‘not only on a diplomatic level, but also and above all in relation to programs for sustainable development and peace’ (Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, 2011). Apparently, democracy is not a principle that the CST considers worthy to pay attention to, despite the positive role ascribed to it in the Catholic doctrine since the Second Vatican Council. Therefore, in the final part of the paper I will incorporate the principles of democratic deliberation in the institutional design of GG. Before that, I focus on some of the issues relating to GG and global civil society which I call the global demos.
Global demos as a non-institutional democratic alternative
The abovementioned words may indicate that the concept of GG perceived through the prism of the CST has some idealistic or utopian features. Nevertheless, some secular conceptions of GG bear similar traces of idealism. It is believed today, for instance, that the global architecture ‘depends on the creation of the GG system (…), which will lead to the establishment of a global regulatory system in order to shape various interactions behind the national-states’ boundaries’ (Cihelková et al., Reference Cihelková, Hnát, Štěrbová, Zadražilová, Bič, Černá, De Castro, Druláková, Dubský, Dvořáková, Filipová, Jiránková, Lehmannová, Moravec, Müller, Neumann, Němcová, Průša, Stuchlíková, Taušer, Vošta, Vymětal, Zeman, Zemanová and Žamberský2014: 117, italics added) This is quite a state-centric and institutional approach according to which the same decision-making mechanisms must be applied at the global level as in the case of the state level. The same can be said about the thoughts on a global civil society that is viewed as ‘another level of political action which complements national arenas of political interaction’ (Císař, Reference Císař2003b: 20). As a consequence, it is not surprising that some current definitions of GG directly exclude a global civil society and encompass only states, international organizations, NGOs, and TNCs (see Lake, Reference Lake2010: 590). The same goes for Church’s perception of global political authority.
In this sense a global civil society, a global political authority, as well as GG are only mere prolongations of the state authority: on the one hand as an ‘(in)visible hand of a global regulator’, or, on the other, as a new field of action for national governments, especially those which are the most economically and/or militarily powerful (e.g. the US or Chinese government). In this way, GG changes step by step to the global government sui generis, which acquires the character of hegemonic unilateralism (see Tambakaki, Reference Tambakaki2009). It is obvious that such unilateralism is a ‘government of one over the many’, not a ‘governance of many over themselves’. Such an approach to GG, typical for contemporary CST, reckons with rigid institutionalization as well as control of global interstate and inter-non-state relations. Even Castells contemplates about ‘the global network state’ in his vision of future GG (2005: 14–15, italics added).
Institutional approach to global governance
The aforementioned approach has also been reflected in the CST. Benedict XVI’s encyclical Caritas in Veritate offers one of the best examples of such an approach. He claims that ‘[g]lobalization (…) requires authority, insofar as it poses the problem of a global common good that needs to be pursued’ (2009b, § 57). It does not take into account the possibility that such an authority could be extended amongst various agents and not concentrated into the one centre of power. Furthermore, it reckons apparently with power centralization and introduction of regulatory mechanisms, which are prone to self-preservation and decision-making rigidity, as it has been seen many times in history. This ‘institutional’ approach has been recently reiterated by Francis in his encyclical on environmental issues Laudato Si’ (see Francis, 2015b, § 175).
It seems evident that globalization as an economic, cultural, social, and political phenomenon (Della Porta, Reference De Sousa Santos2005: 669–679) should be subjected to regulation by a particular global institution, although the appearance of such an agent has not yet been visible. From the point of view of the CST, the phenomenon of globalization is neither good nor bad; ‘[w]e should not be its victims, but rather its protagonists’ (Benedict XVI, 2009b, § 42; see also John Paul II, 2001: 599; Francis, 2015a). Being a protagonist of globalization could mean our own co-participation in the formation of its future structure, in some cases in an adequate measure with ‘traditional’ agents of globalization. And this future structure might not always be only rigidly institutional, as inherently supposed by the current CST.
A critic could oppose that today’s world has already been covered by the worldwide network of manifold regulatory institutions, such as International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (WB), World Trade Organisation (WTO), the UN Security Council, or, although indirectly, globally operating credit rating agencies. It is without any doubts that these regulatory arrangements emerged in order to manage planetary affairs hand in hand ‘with accelerated globalization in contemporary history’ (Scholte, Reference Scholte2007: 307), and are prone to create (together with some other global agents) something like ‘vertical and horizontal global governmental networks’, as Slaughter (Reference Slaughter2004) described in her well-known book. In any case, these agencies are still unable neither ‘to adequately control economic activity that transcends national borders’ (Klein and Laczniak, Reference Klein and Laczniak2013: 643), nor to respond to the pluralistic challenges of our progressive era. Although they arose before the full development of globalization, their role and tasks have gradually acquired a new dimension just thanks to the process of globalization. Other global players who have evolved over the years, such as ‘G-groups’, or BRICs should not be neglected either.
But in which way do such institutions differ from a potential global public authority as it is invoked by the CST? The differences are threefold: (1) the lack of legitimacy, in other words: the lack of accountability, (2) more or less narrowly defined decision-making power, and (3) the democratic deficit. Nobody voted for them. Hence, their actions and interventions at the international level are not always viewed as positive or (at least) desired, especially by those who are directly affected by their decisions. A critic might object that their future legitimacy can be drawn from the broad consent of citizens of each country.
Such a consent could be expressed, for example, in global elections. However interesting and tempting is this idea, it is impossible to institute such elections in a foreseeable future, as rightly pointed out by Dryzek and Niemeyer (Reference Dryzek and Niemeyer2008: 484). As Hazenberg and Mulieri (Reference Hazenberg and Mulieri2013: 314) aptly remarked, ‘[t]he need for democratic authorization through the election of a legislative chamber is thus dropped by some global democracy advocates, and replaced with the deliberative democratic legitimacy of a fair discursive representation of all the affected interests’. This is exactly what global demos could try to carry out via democratic deliberation and how global political authority could gain broad legitimacy and work on the basis of subsidiarity, as demanded by the CST.
The abovementioned vague characteristics and presuppositions of the GG are based upon a narrow understanding of that phenomenon. Let me mention, for example, a widespread belief that GG is, above all, the process of political coordination where international issues are managed by the network of national governments and transgovernmental, as well as transnational (public and private) institutions (cf. Scholte, Reference Scholte2007: 308; Makariusová, Reference Makariusová2008: 41–42; Lehmannová et al., Reference Lehmannová, Cihelková, Hnát, Rolenc, Kochan, Rohrbacher, Steinmetzová and Trávníčková2010: 80). This is especially obvious among cosmopolitans who ‘do not recommend a single sovereign authority (a world government) or the abolition of the state’ (Thompson, Reference Thompson1999: 115).
Participatory approach to global governance
Nowadays, it seems clear that the aforementioned institutional approach is already outdated. The citizens of liberal-democratic states become more and more involved in the political process. Although a voter turnout has been continually diminishing and becoming less effective, other forms of political participation have become increasingly more popular. What I have in mind are various ad hoc participatory activities and movements, such as Occupy movements that started in 2011, 2014 Hong Kong protests, ‘Je suis Charlie’ phenomenon in January 2015, a French Conservative ‘La Manif pour tous’ movement, participatory budgeting, gay prides, Christian pro-life and pro-family marches, petitions, civic open letters to political representatives, politically engaged blogs, and so on. It is true, on the one hand, that the effectiveness and power of such forms of civic participation can be questioned. But, on the other hand, their influence and popularity have been spreading very quickly across the world.
As a possible alternative seems to be the creation of a new institutional design that will not consist of ‘classical’ global institutions as are known today. This approach could be called participatory, deliberative, or bottom-up. Likewise, the public authority anticipated by the CST may not take the form of political/economic institutions, such as IMF, WB, WTO, or the UN. Such an institutional design could be based on deliberation at the global level. This kind of global peoples’ engagement might help to create the authentic type of GG for the 21st century. Through this kind of a real global public authority a deliberative democracy could reach its proper and desired end as ‘a route that optimizes the (global) development’ (Bianchi, Reference Bianchi2008: 105). The fact is, though, that a current research in the field of public deliberation seems to prefer mini-publics to macro deliberation. It is believed that they can achieve a high degree of legitimacy, reduce the risk of lacking responsibility, and make effective decisions (see Chappell, Reference Chappell2012: Ch. 7). But preferring various forms of mini-publics such as citizens’ juries or citizens’ assemblies risks that deliberative democracy will step out ‘on a path toward participatory elitism’ (Chambers, Reference Chambers2009: 344).
For that reason, the global demos should raise its voice and improve or significantly enrich an obsolete structure of the global institutional system. Only that kind of GG (and global political authority) can be deemed legitimate, which uses ‘persuasion rather than coercion or reliance on sanctions as a means of influence’, as Keohane (Reference Keohane2002: 339) remarked several years ago. And persuasion (convincing) is best exercised in a deliberation. Public deliberation is in fact ‘about convincing, and when speaker is successful in convincing the hearer about her proposal, the implementation of this proposal will be a case not of imposing the judgment of the former or the latter but of the two having come to share judgment’ (Rostbøll, Reference Rostbøll2005: 389).
Deliberate globally, decide locally; or vice versa?
Indeed, democracy can be hardly deemed as a static system; there ‘have already been major changes to liberal democracies in the past’ (Chappell, Reference Chappell2012: 121). Over the last 15 years, we have seen a growing interest in the issues of democratization of the already existing democracies (Pateman, Reference Pateman1996; Cornwall and Goetz, Reference Cornwall and Goetz2005; De Sousa Santos, Reference Della Porta2007; Koelble and Lipuma, Reference Koelble and Lipuma2008; Dufek and Holzer, Reference Dufek and Holzer2013; Isakhan and Slaughter, Reference Isakhan and Slaughter2014). One can hardly question the need to improve the process of citizens’ inclusion into democratic decision-making. Eventually, this is not contested even by the CST. Therefore, some scholars call for bringing citizens closer (or back) to the politics that has been privatized by (domestic and/or global) economic elites. In fact, here lies the main point of deliberative democracy, whether at the micro or macro level.
A theory of democratic deliberation is undoubtedly very diverse; it can be deemed ‘[o]ne version of radical democracy’ (Warren, Reference Warren1996: 241), a kind of ‘critical theory’ (Rostbøll, Reference Rostbøll2005: 371), a ‘realistic utopia’ (Smith, Reference Smith2014: 270), or a ‘normative ideal’ (Somin, Reference Somin2010: 255). In the early years of its formation Benhabib (Reference Benhabib1994: 45) wrote that the model of public deliberation ‘can inspire the proliferation of many institutional designs’. At the same time Dahl (Reference Dahl1994: 32) presupposed that democracy is to be adapted to the new level of its existence, that is to be spread from national state to the transnational state. More than 15 years later Held deemed that the theory of GG faced a task of seeking the proper scope of democracy and of democracy’s jurisdiction. He proposed that it could be based on ‘the principle of all-inclusiveness’ (Held, Reference Held2010: 173), which would help to delimitate an appropriate framework for decision-making on a wider, possibly global level, as well as include as many decision-makers (or deliberators) as possible. His conviction was rooted in the definition of democracy as ‘a non-coercive political process in and through which people can pursue and negotiate the terms of their interconnectedness, interdependence and difference’ (Held, Reference Held2010: 147–148).
It is evident from these definitions that today’s democracy cannot be seen otherwise than globally. Democracy cannot be exercised by the agents who are accountable to nobody. Thus, a room for a kind of ‘transnational discursive representation’ (Dryzek and Niemeyer, Reference Dryzek and Niemeyer2008: 491–492) would be made; the basis for a new, that is fourth generation of deliberative democracy could be based. After the third generation aimed at ‘institutional designs of deliberative forums’ (Smith, Reference Smith2014: 281), this innovative view of deliberation seems to correspond with a ‘systemic approach’ of the fourth generation of deliberative democracy, which has been recently announced by Elstub (Reference Elstub2015: 107–110).
What seems to be missing in a currently prevailing model of GG, including a model of a global political authority as proposed by the CST, is an addition of an element of authentic public deliberation as a way of democratization of GG (see Omelicheva, Reference Omelicheva2009: 114 et seq.). This is what a new systemic approach to deliberative democracy could also call for. Although the abovementioned civic activities like social movements cannot be deemed the proper tools of deliberative democracy because ‘they do not produce binding collective decisions for the polity’ (Dryzek, Reference Dryzek2004: 76), they represent significant steps towards a more intense public involvement, even at the global level. Thanks to this, humanity can become one family, as is clear from the CST. It is the challenge of looking for new forms of genuine democratic governance at the global level. These new non-hierarchical decision-making agents could be based only on (and with the consent of) the widest possible public. It can be assumed that the global demos could be the basis for the development of the worldwide deliberative practice. Global political authority, encouraged so many times by the CST, could reach a non-institutional form, and at the same time become more convincing.
In view of the above, at least one important question arises: How could such demos look like? It is hard to imagine a macro deliberation of the entire population of our planet. Such a deliberative model could be immediately labelled as utopian and unrealistic. Nevertheless, deliberation qua a global public authority brings citizens more closely to the (political) processes that concern their own lives. They are able to deliberate on the issues that are common to all of them, such as health protection, access to drinking water, environmental protection, disarmament, the global equity and welfare, integral development, search for ways of peaceful conflict resolution, inter-religious dialogue, the sacredness of human life, transnational solidarity, etc. In order to achieve such aims, it is not needed to create a global Assembly of the Peoples of the United Nations, which could try to represent its members ‘in opposition to their governments’, as proposed by Hill (Reference Hill2004: 147). It is beyond any dispute that such an alternative would go against of CST documents.
Thus, it is not an enforcement or promotion of particular beliefs and convictions over the others or at the expense of their individual lifestyles. It would not be a ‘war of ideas’ where a group of nations or an ethnic group fight against one another. The essence of global deliberation would be to share common issues and concerns and find proper and adequate solutions, not to obtain ‘hearts and minds’ through coercion or competition on a global market of ideas. Likewise, the Catholic Church is convinced that the common ground of humanity is inherent to all nations throughout the world and as such can prevail over disagreements because ‘we are all children of God’ (Benedict XVI, 2012; Francis, 2015c).
The answer to the question of searching for an optimal model of global public authority, which is based on deliberating global demos, can consist of using modern information technologies which should be extended ‘to the formation of wireless communication networks’ (Castells, Reference Castells2005: 15). These technologies, together with a growing concern for the aforementioned common global issues, can provide the proper tools for an effective implementation of public deliberation at the global level, that is, not only for bringing the states back in as considered more than 10 years ago (Drezner, Reference Drezner2004). Information technologies provide an openness, publicity, and inclusiveness. Also Pope Francis highlighted in two of his messages that ‘[t]he Internet (…) offers immense possibilities for encounter and solidarity’ (2014) and that it ‘can help us to be better citizens’ (2016). Furthermore, it allows prompt reciprocity and gives strong legitimacy to the decisions, which have been made, although they are not definitively politically binding. In this way, global democratization qua discursive representation becomes a reality. Therefore, it is proper not to ask the question whether there is a global demos but whether the demos can freely and democratically express its will.
However, some serious questions rise in the context of information technologies and their role in formation of global public authority. The first one is how a participation in GG is viable for those nations which have low or no access to new technologies due to their poor economic conditions. The second is the question of potential censorship and manipulation with information, particularly in the states with non-democratic or hybrid political regimes. It seems that if we do not resolve these problems, global demos can be hardly established. The answer to the first question is provided in the CST with its principle of solidarity. Nowadays, many states of the Global North apply civic inclusion projects at the national, in some cases at transnational level, for example, as in the EU. I assume that such projects can be easily extended beyond the borders of rich countries and create conditions for broad inclusion of citizens of the Global South. The costs of such a measure may actually be smaller than it may seem at first glance, while its efficacy would be rather high. On the other hand, there shall still be a risk that an access to the proper technical network (Internet) does not necessarily produce an adequate ‘culture in which individuals are more likely to seek out diverse political opinions’ (Wisniewski, Reference Wisniewski2013: 253).
The answer to the second question is quite complex. In the current state of international relations and extension of liberal democracy, it seems that not all nations and cultures can be fully included into the global democratic demos. The term ‘full inclusion’ does not imply their complete exclusion, though. So in the non-institutional project of global public authority, we should reckon especially with such nations which Rawls (Reference Rawls1999) calls ‘reasonable liberal peoples’ and ‘decent peoples’. We have good reasons to believe that only these nations can ensure the overall removal of barriers in the form of information manipulation, censorship, and security of virtual environment. Crucial requirements of democratic deliberation, such as the existence of open public debate, free press, civil society, or participant political culture (Chappell, Reference Chappell2012: 121–122, 125) can be hardly fulfilled in those societies which are not liberal-democratic or at least ‘decent’.
We cannot imagine, however, that this means the limitation of GG to a certain group of nations. Every nation should be guaranteed a participation in the project of global public authority, if and only if it wishes and wants to do it. Simultaneously, it is clear that it would not be a kind of ‘world parliament’. The global demos consisting of ‘global citizens’ could exercise its power through the international ad hoc groups. Their membership will be temporary and voluntary. No rational and reasonable inhabitant of the world should be prevented to become a part of the global public authority. Access to membership must remain open to all reasonable adults who are not indifferent to their own living conditions and their fellow citizens from other parts of the world. From a global perspective, what relates to one individual affects, in fact, all other people. While in the past the popular slogan was that ‘The personal is political’, now the new motto should be coined: ‘The global is political’. Although at this stage of deliberation a full inclusion cannot be achieved, it does not mean that the global population is necessarily poorly represented or underrepresented. As highlighted by Goodin (Reference Goodin2008: 247), ‘some presence is better than none, even if “full presence” for all relevantly different groups is impossible’.
Of course, such presence or representation of local interests must always respect the principle of subsidiarity, ‘a core facet’ (Kearns, Reference Kearns2014: 152) of the CST. The principle can be understood in two ways: First, as a negative rule respecting initiatives, competencies, and responsibilities. It means that proper autonomy and freedom of action should be left to individuals in relation to society, as well as to smaller communities in relation to the greater ones. Second, positive perception of subsidiarity consists of providing help where it is necessary. It is not permanent but occasional assistance allowing realization of the aims to such individuals or groups, which are unable to realize them; it is a self-help principle. The principle ‘requires that each group within society be free to make its proper contribution to the good of the whole’ (Benedict XVI, 2009a: 173; see also Francis, 2015b, § 196; John Paul II, 1991: 854, § 48). Just as it is possible and necessary to respect the powers of local authorities and lower administrative units of the State, so the global public authority should respect the scope of national political leaders’ rights, as well as their jurisdictional control. But it should be remembered that this respect deals with proper, not necessarily lower, scope of rights and duties ‘with regard to the common good’ (Hittinger, Reference Hittinger2009: 825). In order to preserve nation’s autonomy and decision-making capacity, the global public authority will be bound to limit the exercise of its rights within this proper scope.
We should not forget that it is still national political leaders who are provided with powers that can lead to the solution of global problems. Sharing of common global issues, however, does not necessarily mean either interference in their powers, or losing their jurisdiction. It is, then, through respecting subsidiarity how the ‘clash of civilizations’ can be avoided.
Global political/public authority and its critics
It is without any doubts that the Catholic concept of a global public authority enriched by deliberative decision-making could deal with the objections of some critics, as well as possible inherent drawbacks. Although I have no room here to debate all of them, let me mention the most substantial ones. First, the opponents object that the problems of supranational politics are dissimilar from those at the domestic (intra-state) level. This is called the ‘domestic fallacy’ (Goodhard, Reference Goodhard2005: 15). An idea of global public authority takes into account dissimilarities of the nations involved but concurrently presupposes a common ground and accordance on shared principles of humanity. These principles have been repeatedly numbered in the abovementioned documents of the CST. Furthermore, supranational decision-making provided by global demos differs inherently from a domestic one not only in the technical aspects, but in the character of the issues discussed. It deals not with particular intra-state problems (e.g. tax burden, electoral systems, public administration, fiscal policy), but with issues of common interest, such as migration and refugee flux, clean environment, decent working conditions, gender equality, education, and so on.
Second, the critics oppose that it remains unclear who will decide about the scope of deliberators’ decisions and the extent of their involvement. There would be a risk of concentration of power in the hands of a few, who would decide on the composition of the deliberative bodies. It would be ‘a total denial of the declared aim of deliberative democracy, which is rationalizing of the power struggle and its transformation into the form of open debate’ (Císař, Reference Císař2003a: 44). This was also Rawl’s deep concern. He assumed that a future world government ‘would either be a global despotism or else would rule over a fragile empire torn by frequent civil strife as various regions and peoples tried to gain their political freedom and autonomy’ (Rawls, Reference Rawls1999: 36). In his conception, however, a global government was shaped into the form of ‘a unified political regime with the legal powers normally exercised by central governments’ (Rawls, Reference Rawls1999), so the conception resembles an institutional approach typical of the Catholic teaching on global public authority.
The third important question arising with the global public authority lies in a problem of guaranteeing the respect of the deliberative procedures. It was shown above that the institutional approach that has been proposed by the CST is no longer sustainable. We cannot rely on a ‘global policeman’ who will regulate and guarantee deliberative decision-making of the global demos. On the other hand, the global demos can be hardly able to guard the deliberative principles. In other words: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? This seems to be closely interconnected with the objection that the global deliberation of demos cannot be part of the decision-making policy, because (a) it is unable to propose relevant political solutions, (b) any direct decision-making of the global demos would jeopardize the autonomy of states, (c) even if smaller countries have agreed to the assignment of their authority to the (hardly definable) global deliberative body, great powers will never give up their competences and informal influence in international relations. These are the objections that are near to the thinking of realism in international relations (IR) theory as an academic discipline. In addition, it is obvious that the current state of the theory of global public authority does not adequately respond to these concerns and deliberative model, which has been designed here as an elaboration of the official version of the CST, is only a kind of ‘stub’.
Concluding remarks
A lot has been written about democratization of the currently existing democracies at the state level. A few years ago the theorists of cosmopolitanism opened a debate on how democracy can be manifested globally. Debating about a global overlap of the existing political institutions, some of which contain exiguous democratic elements (UN) and many others do not (TNCs, NGOs, terrorist groups, churches, etc.), has proved to be insufficient. For that reason, it is getting clearer that is necessary to seek another entity which would be the right-holder of the global decision-making power. This entity could be the global demos; it could properly complement or even replace already existing (global) political institutions through the instruments of worldwide public democratic deliberation, which enters, thanks to the systemic approach, into an era of the fourth generation.
The global demos shall be based on a concept of global citizenship that preserves the national identity and uniqueness of every nation and culture. Global citizen is not a ‘cosmopolite’ (κοσμοπολίτης) in a philosophical way. She is well aware of her affiliation to the nation or particular culture. On the other hand, she recognizes the common principles of humanity, shares the concern on global issues and integral human development, and is willing to deliberate democratically about them. A network of global citizens deliberating together could create the entity expected by the CST, although not in an institutional way. Such an entity could become a viable form of a global public authority adhering to the principles of subsidiarity, solidarity, and common good, as required by the CST. This will provide democratic legitimacy to the adopted decisions.
Admittedly, there are many technical questions arising with the concept of such an authority, such as proper regulation of deliberation, interconnection of people from different time zones and speaking different languages, or guaranteeing the respect of deliberative procedures. Some other standard objections against democratic deliberation should not be neglected either (Sanders, Reference Sanders1997; Somin, Reference Somin2010). A complete response to these questions, however, requires an analysis that lies beyond the scope of this paper. In any case, at the core of this ‘bottom-up’ or participatory approach to global public authority lies the citizens’ capacity to deliberate freely and without coercion and share mutual trust in the principles of humanity, as well as care for our ‘common home’ highlighted many times in documents of the CST.
Acknowledgements
Previous version of this paper was presented at the international conference ‘Assessing the Participatory Turn and “New Democracy”: Superdemocracy Conference’ (Helsinki, 11–12 December 2014). The author would like to thank Janusz Salamon, Roman Míčka, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and insightful suggestions.
Financial Support
The article has been funded by a Specific Academic Research Project of the Institute of Political Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague, no. 260 230/2015: Changes and Consequences of Political Institutions.
