Global Governance vs. the Liberal Democratic Nation-State: What Is the Best Regime?
Monday, June 9, 2008
John Fonte, senior fellow and director of the Center for American Common Culture at the Hudson Institute, has published an essay entitled, “Global Governance vs. the Liberal Democratic Nation-State: What Is the Best Regime?.” The essay explores the growing push to move from an “international system of sovereign nation states” to a “transnational system of global governance.” According to Fonte, “for many of the world’s elites the big project of the twenty-first century is how to achieve global governance.”
Fonte calls this new trend “transnational progressivism,” saying that it is both “post-democratic” and “post-liberal.” Some of the defining characteristics of transnational progressivism include the belief that the nation-state is incapable of achieving social justice and that we must look to global governance achieved through “pooled” or “shared national sovereignty” to resolve such problems. These ideas have become popular in European political discourse and have begun to influence American political thought as well. This threat needs to be confronted, as “the governing center-left has internalized global governance and is prepared to promote it” and “the governing center-right has for the most part failed to engage on the issue” due to an “underdeveloped conceptualization.” Rather than ignoring the seriousness of the global governance movement, Fonte says that it is important that the center-right recognize that “global governance is a regime challenge.”
Mr. Fonte presented his essay at the 2008 Bradley Symposium in Washington, D.C. on June 4.
Jim Kelly is the President of Solidarity Center for Law and Justice, P.C., a public interest civil and human rights law firm based in Atlanta, Georgia. The opinions expressed herein are his own.
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