What a thought-provoking package Hassan Damluji provides in his 2019 book The Responsible Globalist: What Citizens of the World Can Learn from Nationalism. The author brings his experience plus interviews with some current key global actors into his book. The aim is to help world government to develop into a global nation, by which he means something we feel we belong to, like a nation state. It would have power but in limited areas. He shows that this is a real long-term possibility. And he offers specific goals on the way to get there. While I found myself questioning the detail, the broad calling of this book is timely. Globalists do need to keep pressing key ideas to strengthen global management for when the time is ripe. He got me thinking – and so, of course, I got critical. Nonetheless these are unexpected positive thoughts for improving our shared world as it becomes seeped in coronavirus responses.
Damluji has a solid education – Oxford and Harvard. He has English, French and Arabic languages. He has activist experience in education and development. He works as Deputy Director and Middle and Near East regional policy lead for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He feels several layers of belonging. He was born in the UK to an Iraqi father and Irish mother. He feels Iraqi and is seen as an influential Arab. He lives in London and feels part of the UK. He also feels part of a full global community. He recognizes the current value of the nation state and the strengths and weaknesses of the United Nations.
The book is his first book, and it is readable and interesting. His life experiences support some of the arguments. But the book lacks the drive and tight logical flow of, for example, Naomi Klein’s advocacy writings. Here is some more detail.
Introduction: The introduction questions whether international government is really so unpopular or is it rather that its status amongst levels of belonging is less important than a nation state. What the book aims to show is set out: a global nation is possible; anti-global sentiment is driven by injustices in the present system; and the global system can be reformulated to make it more appealing. He then expands.
He compares globalism now with nationalism in the very early 20th century. Looking beyond his expected readers’ North Atlantic bias, he tells that a majority of people around the world feel themselves more a citizen of the world than of their nation state. Having a common identity as world citizens is a basis for a “nation.”
Recent globalization has lifted billions out of poverty and created a global middle class, but poor and low-skilled people in rich countries have gone backwards. Communities feel their identity under threat from a global political elite as immigrants arrive. The present UN system can seem unjust. Flaws led populist governments to increase national control and to try to return to some imagined national golden age.
To address flaws stopping development of a global nation Damluji offers 6 principles. Two deal with how globalists should talk about themselves and what the global project aims to do. Two aim to protect the nation state and democratic control of immigration threatened by globalization thus far. The last two principles are new global roles to address consequences of globalization that individual nation states cannot address: enabling fair taxation of multi-national corporations; beginning an international tax on individual wealth; developing sanctions to facilitate compliance with commitments; and making the global system more just around when to intervene in a conflict. Then there is a “conclusion” chapter. I summarize these chapters.
Globalists and Nationalists: It is a mistake to suppose that globalists and nationalists are in a competition. Globalism is another layer of identity that goes hand in hand with others. The “nation,” is hard to define and at times can fail to acknowledge some ethnic or social community. But it can also be quite inclusive – like Scottish nationalists who welcome “new Scots.” Nationalism is powerful because it relies only on the fact that people believe they belong rather than requiring anything else. People fight and die for a nation. Globalists feel they belong to the world and its citizens. But they tend to care about their nation state as well.
Today, the same forces that facilitated nation states are helping everyone to belong to the world. Universal education has now gone global. Teaching methods have gone global. There are languages used internationally like English, and technology is moving towards instant translation devices. Mass media played a role in nationalism. Today most people have access to international information. Contrary to conventional wisdom, social media has not merely reinforced closed thinking communities; it has taken the lid off information. Russia showed that a national election in the US can be internationalized. Then there is travel. There are international communities of academics, business people, students and non-governmental organizations, to say nothing of a global bureaucracy. Things that helped start nation states like Italy over a century ago are now going on internationally.
Is international sentiment possible in the world of Trump’s America? International social surveys showed yes! Over the whole world half the respondents felt stronger ties to the world than to their own country. One showed that in rich countries 42% said yes, but in the developing world it was closer to 60% and in China, India and Philippines the global ties fell into a 60-70% range. Moreover 2/3 of respondents supported greater enforcement powers for international bodies. Despite the limited perspective in Europe and North America, conditions are right for a global kind of nationalism. What is missing is articulating an inclusive identity, ensuring protection for existing institutions and identities that people would not wish to lose and offering some positive value from the global nation.
The current globalist identity is tied to some vague notion of “the West” and white, rich, democratic and capitalist. The image of who belongs has to include those who wish to assert independence from the Western model. People need to feel they can be part of the global nation and retain and strengthen their other identities. Indeed globalists need to protect existing nation state communities.
Being born into a rich country brought benefits. Globalism has been a threat to that. The billions lifted out of poverty were carried on the backs of unskilled workers in rich countries. They resent it. It didn’t have to be that way. There were not global efforts to build fairer taxation, including taxation of hidden wealth. Instead the world watched the rich get richer from globalization and hide their riches away from tax. And they just watched the end of the middle class dream.
Political injustice has angered others. “Major decisions ... such as those to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, but not to intervene in genocides in Myanmar and the Central African Republic have revealed . . . that the world system is a playground for bullies where the strongest get their way and the weak have little protection.” Worse, this system can be ignored by powers using their military might as and when they choose. The process and the people at the UN Security Council lack a sense of representation and democracy. These failings hold back a more compelling globalist identity. The six principles suggest ways out of the present situation. For me, they are more like good items for a wish list than calls to action.
Principle 1 Leave no one out: a global nation must not create any sense of us and them among members such as occurred in nation states. It would need to avoid the impression of the “West” as the real globalists and the rest as at some lower level. Over human history developments spread if they were advances worth adopting. The world is not now Iraqi because people use writing or Chinese because people enjoy fireworks. The world involves cultural exchanges with equal respect and understanding.
How does one include everyone? For nation states it was by including everyone on the territory under the same institutions. But basing the global nation on the current inadequate civic status of the UN political order would exclude. Romantic German nationalism pulled on the eternal undying existence of a nation with a common destiny. Language became the basis for belonging. This has a dangerous side - potential for ethnic cleansing of some groups who can be described as not belonging. Still, the common descent and an interdependent future in a depleting world can form a stronger uniting myth than supporting the status quo of the UN. The global nation has a history from hunter gatherers. It has heroes like Diogenes the cynic who called himself a citizen of the world and Kant who argued for a single world government. There are all those inventors and thinkers who contributed to the sum of human knowledge giving humans a wider view of who they are.
Principle 2 Define the Mission and the Enemy: Romantic nationalism for the world would need a mission and there is at least one. There was UN consensus on 17 Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. They include ending poverty, ending hunger, providing education, ensuring health and wellness, combatting climate change. Some other goals, like a borderless world, are attractive but are best avoided at this time. Parts of some nation state populations are threatened by this. Foreign Aid assists development goals. It and a nation state’s taxes indicate a level of social contract. The average foreign aid given is only 1% of nation-state taxes. Despite efforts by some donor states to argue that aid serves their interests, aid is considered a global social contract and citizens in nation states support it.
There needs to be a change in who we think pays. Poverty is already reduced. New financial donor countries like China increase the team working on the Sustainable Development Goals. More support for Development Goals can come if ways can be found to have those who pocketed the benefits from globalization, wealthy individuals and corporations, to contribute to Goals like ending global poverty by 2030. The Global Goals are already relatively well known, but more is needed to get people to push them - they need to go before the world’s classrooms.
Gender equality is problematic for some countries. Traditional rich countries promote this in a spirit of educating countries to be more like them. All countries did agree to all these Goals, but gender equality is relatively recent everywhere so countries deserve to be treated as partners, with patience and understanding, as they work with the others towards all Goals. I add that the importance of an enhanced role for woman for traditional donor countries is their evidence that a variety of other development projects work better when women are an active part of them. But the call for sensitivity and finding ways to build a sense of partnership is well taken.
Does a global nation need some enemy as well as goals? Some goals do point to the global concern to prevent war, especially nuclear war, to combat global warming and to protect the environment and its ecosystems. These can be cast as a common enemy. As US control over its former alliance weakens and other powers grow stronger, the need for global oversight to prevent war can only grow. Other global enemies could be found but the focus should be on the few big global enemies - climate change and mass extinction.
Principle 3 Defend the nation-state: Encouraging global nationalism requires supporting nation states because the global nation is just another layer of belonging. Transnational forces and bodies like the World Bank do now impact the role of the nation state but the need for the state is greater than ever. The international bullies are still bullies, but any constraints on them by the international system translates into greater security for the other nation states. National governments dwarf most other players in national economies which is why citizenship in a rich country is desirable. And national governments control the delegation they do – e.g. delegating some activities like railways to the private sector or delegating other activities to international bodies like the World Trade Organization. And despite strong nation states, there are regional attachments within them. People seem happier to have multiple layers of belonging.
Nation states emerged in the US and India out of umbrella governments coordinating other “states” and the European Union is a supra-national belonging-in-progress. If people feel they belong, there can be a nation in the end. The book will suggest reforms to move the present international system along that road. The book cautions against using means perceived as undemocratic to rush toward a global nation too quickly. Arguably, the Lisbon Treaty of the EU that avoided having popular votes in all countries to approve it left an impression of manipulation by a bureaucratic elite and weakened the sense of solidarity in the EU.
Principle 4 If you love Mobility let it go: Nation states allow freedom of movement within state territory for its members and so it is expected that a global nation would have open borders and free movements. Globalists enjoy travel and the changes that newcomers bring. But other members of a nation state see the country they know and love being destroyed. And controlling borders remains a cherished power for a nation state. Right-wing populists in rich countries exploit these feelings. That can develop even where majorities now feel attachment to a global nation like India or Pakistan. Globalists should limit their goals to things everyone in nation states can support.
Damluji makes an exception for allowing those whose life or freedom is at risk to enter a country – the international concern to protect refugees and provide asylum. He argues against unlimited immigration. Polls estimate that 13-14% of the globe wants to permanently move to a richer country - and this is only a starting number. Models predicting gains from immigration assume that other factors stay the same. There are social costs: lowering levels of social networks and the associated norms of reciprocity and trustfulness. This can go away with time, but it may not. And institutions rely on a functioning trust-based society. The UK experience in voting to leave the EU suggests that modest diversity resulting from immigration that is new can be seen as negative, while even more immigration where there are already high levels of diversity is seen less negatively. There is a threat of terrorists with immigration – but that is best dealt with by better international cooperation, smarter military interventions and economic growth. I would deal with this in part by fostering inclusive societies that reduce racism and increase equality. In sum, those who want controls on immigration have some reasonable concerns and it is important to allow the democratic voice speak on a matter like immigration that is subjective rather than a purely technical matter.
Damluji makes a case for allowing foreign students. He likes the economic benefit for the host, the experience for the students, the controls that can be used. Most return to their home country. His second exception to limiting migration is for refugees. Refugees are produced because their home nation state cannot protect them. The international system has to be for such people. The global nation needs a system for identifying and resettling refugees that goes beyond the current system led by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR. Refugees languish in camps in poorer countries for years with few economic and political rights. The system breaks down in failing to establish reasonable burden sharing between countries and in failing to require that countries hosting refugees naturalize them. There is no international body for enforcing the Refugee Convention.
I note that it is always possible to criticize burden sharing, but the countries involved accept a negotiated arrangement. Also recent global refugee conferences at the full UN have worked to encourage more economic and social rights and naturalization of refugees - indeed fitting them into development goals. Globalists should help shape these developments. I add that the Refugee Convention does not require naturalization and in fact many countries hosting refugees have not ratified that treaty. I further add that no treaties are “enforced” but there is oversight. Oversight for an early human rights treaty like the Refugee Convention would be expected to come from a human rights body that would work in a court-like manner. The creation of such a body is usually a supplementary agreement appended to a human rights treaty. Enforcement is a still a problem. Globalists could lobby for this route, but I think Dramluji really wants enforcing.
It is not clear how Damluji views the large numbers of people fleeing war zones such as the 10 years of war in Syria. Do these consist of a few “genuine” refugees plus a lot of migrants and is his solution to examine all of them “offshore” as Australia does or as Greece does on islands? If so, he misrepresents the situation of those escaping a war zone. The majority are not migrants, but they are not refugees in the sense of those people who were key individuals in an uprising in a Communist era country. Many people fleeing the Syrian war zones have family and friends killed, homes and livelihoods lost under bombed rubble. The UN has been unable or unwilling to stop the war. The forcibly displaced persons who fled for their lives, for their families and because their livelihood had gone are more than migrants even if they are not classical refugees. The issue is not choosing “genuine refugees” and rejecting migrants. And there have been schemes by governments to deter people who cannot be deterred. In the end, countries have let many stay at least provisionally. It is hard to talk of simple solutions.
To summarize, Damluji’s arguments about not pushing for open borders and immigration until the existing population is capable of handling it are well taken. Pointing to problems with the current international system for refugees is fair game, but it would be unreasonable to suggest that those forced to leave a war zone for life and a bit of security are not deserving of a safe place to stay until the war can be resolved. And it would be true to say that, in that, fair burden sharing does not go on. Globalists should work to improve it.
Principle 5 The Winners must pay to play: While opportunities for low-level workers in rich countries have stagnated, the rich and the corporations have collected the winnings from globalization. The political effect has led to policies to pull out of trade agreements, block international management of refugees and migration, and pull back from the UN or leave the EU. That’s not the answer. Globalization has worked – but not for everyone. Damluji says taxation of the fruits of globalization must be treated as a global issue and it should be an issue for globalists. He shows why.
Closing tax loopholes may not seem to be in the interest of the wealthy, but it is so when public consent is disappearing from a system that is benefitting them. The current international reform agenda aimed at disclosing financial and banking data could be pushed much further: a minimum 0.5% wealth tax on all assets over $1 million with national governments able to set higher amounts. Countries should not be able to serve as tax havens. Such a tax was suggested by Piketty. Globalization should mean chasing down the hidden taxes. Instead of hiding wealth in tax havens, the wealthy should be calling for being taxed to save the global economy that generated their wealth. A few are doing that!
A fair tax system was important for developing nation states – the British parliament, the US and post-revolutionary France. Strong nation states needed to finance standing armies and then the welfare state. Wealth records developed and an expectation that the wealthiest would contribute. The expectation in the mid 20th century was that redistribution of tax from rich to poor would occur and maximum tax rates in the US and the UK reached as high as 80% and 98% respectively. The recent globalization has undone that.
Conservatively 8% of the world’s wealth is now in one of about 20 countries that act as tax havens, with perhaps 20% of that disclosed to countries of citizenship. In Africa 30% of private wealth is in tax havens. Globally $600 billion in corporate tax is lost per year plus $200 billion in personal taxes. This is 4% of all taxes collected.
More than this, tax levels are not reached on the basis of the national budget. They are chosen on the basis of competition among governments to have low tax rates to make it more likely the tax will be paid. International companies have subsidiaries in various countries and the company arranges internal charges for services so that the subsidiary in a low tax country shows the largest profits. The corporation then pays this lowest tax. Corporate tax levels have fallen across the OECD from 41% in 1981 to 23% in 2014. And wealth taxes have all but disappeared or attach only to real estate within a nation, which cannot be hidden overseas.
Among governments, this is a race to the tax bottom. They are forced to remove wealth taxes and reduce corporate taxes. Add the 2008 financial crisis and bank bail out with years of near zero interest rates. That shored up and inflated asset values. It represented a huge transfer from poor and middle classes to the wealthy. The result has been reduced government spending in the US and in the UK (austerity) and real public anger that threatens the nation states and the international system. Trump has tricked many into believing that the solution is a more isolated self-sufficient US when a stronger international coordination of taxes is required.
The Panama papers scandal revealed that the use of tax havens was international, involving rich citizens from several continents and countries. Governments are working on the matter. So far the work has only gone as far as seeking transparency and information sharing. That is not enough. The notion that corporate subsidiaries in various countries can be participants in a tax minimizing operation rather than independent entities that must pay tax in their country of operation has to be dealt with. The way the US federal government deals with corporate tax collection across the 50 states could and should be applied internationally. Under Unitary Taxation for Formula Allocation corporations supply a consolidated account of revenues, assets and costs for the whole US. A formula uses the reported amounts to allocate the amount of profits going to each state involved. States then apply their tax laws to their allocated amount.
International information sharing should apply to individual wealth as well as corporate taxes. There needs to be an international wealth register for all forms of property including financial instruments. The OECD and G20 have made moves to share information among tax authorities – including wealth held by citizens of other countries. These beginnings pave the way for a global asset register.
The register of wealth may not be enough. As a register develops, the race to the bottom would see more wealthy become citizens of tax havens – as many now are. Yet the assets arise from the developed countries with their infrastructure and rule of law and those in tax havens are free-riding on those asset producing societies. Hence there should be a minimum tax on the wealthy wherever they are to be found. All people of net worth over $1 million should pay 0.5% minimum wealth tax. The tax could be collected by the nation state and split 50-50 for national and global priorities. Thus 50% of what nations collect would add to foreign aid for global development. Yes, there would be some technical difficulties, but political will is the biggest obstacle. Thus promoting these developments is important. True, this does not ensure redistributive justice for greater equality within nations or among nations, but globalists should hold back on calling for everything at once. Just moving the international system along do-able initiatives builds momentum towards a more viable global nation.
Principle 6: The ‘rules based system’ needs better rules. The post WWII desire for some world federal system to prevent war ended up as the 1945 formation of the UN as a secretariat. Power was left with nation states. The UN supervises their deliberations and carries out their agreed projects. The UN Security Council can authorize the use of force. The Security Council effectively made authorizations briefly after the Cold War 1991-93.
From the beginning, it was hoped that the UN would evolve. That must remain an agenda for globalists. A global government should have a “monopoly on legitimate violence.” Nation states continue to be sovereign with their other roles, but without collective authorization by the global government any violence is illegitimate. Polls show global popular support for the use of coercive powers to solve global challenges such as environmental degradation and climate change. The challenge is how to promote something powerful countries will accept. Currently nations with a veto on the Security Council proceed without international authorization: the US and the UK invaded Iraq; Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea; and China is making colonies of islands in the South China Sea.
For global government a wider international sense of belonging to a global nation could be an enabler of stronger and fairer institutions. There are ideas like “intergovernmental networks”; harmonizing work around such things as finance, judging, and chasing criminals produce a common culture among bureaucrats – but they don’t stop war or invasion. But nations harm each other – degrading the environment, creating tax-havens, refusing refugees and using unjustified military force. The Global system ultimately needs powers of enforcement. Implementing climate change commitments might follow a consensus on tax and refugees and it is best to use tariffs and sanctions to encourage compliance because these matters all involve economics. Compliance would become a condition for trade. Such a change would need the biggest economies to agree – EU, US, China. Damluji isn’t clear how to do that.
The Security Council needs to be reformed. Damluji isn’t clear how to do that, but he offers thoughts for governing changes to the Security Council and the General Assembly. First, there must be certainty - clear rules for selecting members. Secondly, there must be flexibility, which might be done by allowing weighted voting both for the Security Council and General Assembly. Weighting might modify “one country one vote” by weighting for population and for the wealth tax paid for foreign aid. Third, selected inclusiveness would allow a selection of states to stand in for the Security Council to authorize routine things like, for example, the 3-monthly renewal of the mandate for the UN force in Libya. However, all members would be needed for agreeing on the use of force. Fourth, the use of a super-majority or almost consensus could replace consensus. Vetos might then disappear. Finally, Damluji wants to maintain respect for difference – what nation-states do internally is their own business. Even a super-majority vote should not change that.
The reformed global system would engage only in 3 areas;
1. Agreement: things the global system is mandated to implement, e.g. Global Development Goals
2. Enforcement by sanction or military force:
a) Threats to peace, breaches of peace, acts of aggression;
b) International Court of Justice judgements of a breach of international obligations;
c) Responsibility to Protect, genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity (this followed the 2005 World Summit).
The Secretary General could impose sanctions on countries breaching formal agreements on important international areas such as climate change, accepting refugees or collecting the wealth tax.
I find these last paragraphs to be a reasonable, clear and succinct statement of the direction of improvement for the UN that those caring about reform can work for.
Conclusion: A choice of Paths.
Damluji expects the gradual emergence of a global nation and common nationhood. As all wealth is taxed and the UN becomes more effective and legitimate greater, human solidarity is possible. He suggests 3 scenarios for the growth of a greater sense of international nationalism.
The Scenario of Arab Nationalism. In the Arab nationalism movement millions believed they were Arabs and so belonged to a nation. It re-ordered the identity of the Middle East and North Africa and people could belong without anything more than an “Arab” background. Yet efforts to give political reality to the feeling of Arab belonging failed.
The Scenario of China. The Chinese successfully turned an ancient empire into a nation state with sovereignty of the people. Despite various spoken languages there is solidarity across the Han heartland. Yet it requires loyalty to one party and one political vision, so there is conformity and limited freedom. The world’s peoples are more diverse and there are fears of a world government that is controlling.
The Scenario of India. India after the British era has turned a former empire of many peoples and regions and languages into a nation that attracts belonging and whose central government can collect an 11% tax. There is an economy but there is no one language. Yet India is at a crossroads. Will it follow the pluralist democracy or populist leadership? Will it support all religions, or will it be a Hindu state? Will it follow a US democratic model or the more authoritarian Chinese model?
My own conclusion is not about senses of nationalism. This book has reminded me that there is useful work to be done reforming the UN system. At times the writing in the book is a bit convoluted. And there is a shortage of clear advice about how to proceed. For example, activist NGOs might be called upon, to monitor and lobby the Security Council, repeatedly calling for the needed changes on a regular basis. But the book has shown other areas for reform that are worth pursuing. Reminding readers of the need for a wealth tax that Thomas Piketty recommended in his 2014 book on capital, and where in the UN that issue can be advocated, is useful. And coercive powers to support agreements on environmental degradation and climate change are other issues for focus internationally. For all these things, I thank Damluji.