The heart of governance is our set of processes for making decisions as a world community.
To review, in our current system, only countries have formal agency at the global level. Countries cooperate to varying degrees through the UN and related treaties, as we’ve seen. Civil society groups attempt to fill some gaps but their voices have little real power. Individuals have zero power at the global level.
This status quo is not working. Here are a few examples of new approaches to global governance that are made possible by innovations in technology.
8.1.1 – The E-Parliament
The E-Parliament, proposed in 2002 by Nicholas Dunlop, Robert Johansen and others, envisioned an global advisory network of 25,000 individuals, already elected and serving in representative roles in democratic countries, collaborating via the internet to identify areas of international consensus. Upon reaching consensus they would then encourage their national governments to adopt corresponding new policies. Only elected officials were to be included, at least initially, although these officials “might” poll regular citizens and leading NGOs for their views to inform the elected officials’ deliberations. The E-Parliament as envisioned would have had only advisory power rather than direct lawmaking authority.
8.1.2 – P2P Foundation
Collaborative problem-solving is conceptually upstream from policymaking. Since its launch in 2005, the P2P Foundation has facilitated peer-to-peer collaboration to address issues of the commons through open, participatory processes and decentralized networks. Its principles likely influenced the central concepts in the design of Bitcoin. Satoshi Nakamoto participated actively in the P2P Foundation’s online forum while honing the concept of blockchains – decentralized, digital ledgers that exist across a network and record information in linked blocks, making it nearly impossible to alter. He posted to the site announcing Bitcoin in early 2009 (soon after the Bitcoin whitepaper was released in late 2008) and then discussed its subtleties with other forum participants.
8.1.3 – Somalia, One Earth Future and Oceans Beyond Piracy
In the face of lawlessness and economic collapse, piracy off the coast of Somalia surged in 2010. In response, the One Earth Future Foundation (OEFF) organization launched an Oceans Beyond Piracy program. Through the use of new technologies including GPS, satellite links, remote sensing technologies and online coordination, OEFF cultivated relationships with stakeholders including “international navies, maritime nations, industry, advocacy groups and academia”, which worked together and successfully reduced pirate attacks to zero in a six-month period in 2012. Their track record demonstrated the ability of private actors and modern day technologies to step in and resolve transnational issues in situations beyond the reach of the traditional multilateral system of international law. Their success extended through 2017, with “no recorded hijackings of ships off Somalia in 2014, 2015 or 2016.”
8.1.4 – Kleros
Kleros is a startup, launched in 2018, which offers blockchain-based arbitration and notary-like services, for various use cases including decentralized autonomous organizations (“DAO”s). Although not about policymaking, it is a leading civic application of distributed ledger technology that could be relevant for developing new international legal jurisdictions, beyond the current boundaries of nation-states.
8.1.5 – Voting on a Blockchain
Technology has come a long way since the horse-and-carriage days when the representative model of democracy was the best we could do to include the views of a populace in public decision-making.
Internet voting, though commonplace, is not suitable for this purpose, because it’s insecure and not reliable. For example, voting identities can be easily spoofed in a “sybil” attack, individual votes can be altered, the vote count can be hacked, and ballot secrecy, meaning voter anonymity, can’t be assured.
Paper ballots are considered the gold standard to address these vulnerabilities, but scaling their use presents logistical challenges, particularly as we contemplate global participation. Paper ballots are also vulnerable to theft or destruction, e.g. by fire.
The virtues of blockchain present a compelling alternative. A blockchain is an effectively immutable ledger, so a vote tally recorded on it can’t be easily manipulated without universal visibility. The ledger is distributed, making it virtually indestructible. By design, blockchain’s public-private key system provides a high level of anonymity for individual votes, similar to paper ballots. Unlike paper ballots, however, it also allows voters to verify that their vote was properly counted.
Unique voting accounts depend on a complementary set of records, analogous to voter registration rolls. Many organizations, notably including World (formerly Worldcoin) are developing this “proof of human” base layer for all kinds of civic applications, on a blockchain. Once adopted at scale, these verified unique accounts could support voting.
Critics argue that hardware devices on which votes could be cast, such as phones, are insecure and could be compromised. But author and tech investor Bradley Tusk argues that these concerns can be addressed through end-to-end encryption, multi-factor authentication, biometric screening, verifiable tracking numbers, and open-source software.
Critics also argue that a voter’s privacy can be compromised, e.g. by someone else nearby when they vote, risking coercion, but this is also true of mail-in ballots, which are in wide use today.
8.1.6 – Liquid Democracy: Making the Most of Blockchain Voting
Blockchain voting can scale reliably, without the limitations of conventional voting systems such as geography and administrative overhead.
This opens a world of new possibilities.
At the most basic level, people could vote as we do now: at regular intervals, for candidates who vie to represent us with actual decision-making power. This could happen worldwide, supporting proposed reforms such as a UN Parliamentary Assembly.
But if the world transitions to voting on a blockchain, we can reimagine much of the logical architecture we’ve become accustomed to. The representative model may no longer be necessary if people can vote directly on issues, reliably, at scale. Voting can be de-linked from geography: people could vote directly on global decisions, not just indirectly for a national (or state or local) intermediary. Voting could happen much more frequently than once every few years, potentially enabling governance that’s far more responsive to emerging issues.
How might we account for differences in civic interest between people? Many people choose not to vote today, while others are highly engaged in civic life. How might we provide a channel for expertise?
One promising, emerging model is called Liquid Democracy. In essence it’s a system of proxies that are both transferable and instantly revocable. Under Liquid Democracy, any voter may vote directly on any policy question, but they don’t have to. Alternatively, they may delegate their proxy, either across-the-board or on a single issue, to any other person they choose. That person may cast the vote, or may delegate it further. A voter might grant their proxy to a spouse, friend, neighbor, co-worker, or classmate, or to an expert whom they may not know personally but whose views they follow and trust. The spouse, friend, etc. might delegate the proxy further, perhaps to a widely recognized expert. Anybody can cast their own vote, plus those of any proxies delegated to them, on policy questions. Importantly, whenever a voter loses confidence in their delegated proxy holder, they can revoke it and instantly reclaim their voting power for themselves or delegate it to someone else. All of this can happen in a matter of seconds or minutes, in contrast to the multi-year cycles needed today for a polity to change its mind. Advocates of the system developed a short instructional video illustrating how it works as well as a more comprehensive discussion of how it works on blockchain.
With Liquid Democracy, one can realistically envision the population of the world voting on diverse issues such as climate policy or budget allocations. Populations could also use it to vote on national, regional, or even local matters as appropriate, always preserving the principle of subsidiarity.
A global constitution would be needed, articulating such specifics as how the subsidiarity principle applies, how voting questions are determined and posed, and what fundamental human rights are guaranteed by a global system of courts. The constitution itself could be ratified in a global vote.
| While there is no donor network focused on inclusive global governance or the use cases named above, there are some reports that may be of interest to grantmakers. The study Westminster Meets Digital examines digital-era parliaments and the report The Future of Self-Governing, Thriving Democracies advocates for inclusive democratic innovations. In addition, the new field of study on calibrated democratic systems proposes using hybrid democratic frameworks. Broadly, this scholarship explores evolving models of collective governance. |