Can Political Power Be Divided Without Creating a World Government?

How Political Communities Can Share Authority Without Surrendering Self-Government

Imagine a society in which people can choose the political community to which they belong.

They can move, establish secure residence, and eventually become equal political members of another community.

But what happens when these communities disagree?

One refuses to protect a person’s rights. Another ignores a shared security obligation. A third insists that a common institution has exceeded its authority.

Who decides what should be done?

One answer would be a World Government with general authority over political communities. Another would be to leave each community independent and hope that voluntary cooperation is enough.

I do not think either answer is sufficient.

In The World Citizen Society, I argue for an order in which territorial communities govern themselves while wider institutions exercise powers assigned to them for particular purposes.

Earlier essays examined why territorial communities remain necessary and how polycentric institutions can distribute authority among several governing bodies.

Here I want to ask what happens when that distribution is challenged.

Who can require a community to obey a binding decision? Who determines whether a common institution has exceeded its powers? And what prevents an institution created for one purpose from gradually acquiring authority over everything else?

The problem is not merely how to divide political power, but how to keep that division effective.

Why Cooperation Cannot Always Be Voluntary

Consider two neighboring communities sharing a river.

The upstream community permits industrial activity that pollutes the water. Its residents benefit economically, while people downstream bear much of the harm.

Both governments may have acted according to the preferences of their own voters. Yet one community’s decisions affect people who had no opportunity to participate in making them.

The communities might negotiate. But what happens if one refuses to honor an agreement?

Similar difficulties arise with shared infrastructure, infectious diseases, security, and rights that must remain protected when people move.

Some common institutions need binding authority, not merely the ability to recommend cooperation.

That does not mean all political decisions must become global. It means that completely separate political decisions cannot always protect people whose lives cross political boundaries.

The question is how to grant the authority needed for a particular function without giving a higher institution power over every other function.

The European Union — Powers That Must Be Justified

The European Union provides an instructive comparison.

Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union distinguishes three principles.

Conferral asks whether the Union has been given the power to act.

Subsidiarity asks whether action at Union level is justified in areas outside its exclusive powers.

Proportionality requires Union action not to go beyond what is necessary to achieve the treaties’ objectives.

These principles do not eliminate disagreements. Nor do they operate identically in every field.

But they establish that common powers have a legal basis and that their exercise requires justification.

The EU is not a completed World Citizen Society. Its institutional structure is not a universal model that every political community must adopt.

Still, its experience raises a question that any system of shared authority must confront.

What happens when a common institution and a participating community disagree about the limits of those powers?

When a Binding Judgment Is Not Enough — Hirst

The European human rights system illustrates the difficulty of enforcing common decisions.

Under Article 46 of the European Convention on Human Rights, states undertake to comply with final judgments of the European Court of Human Rights in cases to which they are parties.

The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe supervises how those judgments are carried out.

Yet a binding judgment does not necessarily produce immediate compliance.

In Hirst v. the United Kingdom (No. 2), the Court ruled in 2005 that Britain’s automatic and indiscriminate restriction on voting by convicted prisoners violated the Convention’s protection of free elections.

The Court did not require unrestricted voting rights for all prisoners. It rejected the sweeping character of the existing prohibition.

The judgment became the subject of prolonged disagreement in British politics. Successive governments faced demands for implementation, but substantial changes were resisted.

In 2017, the British government proposed limited administrative measures concerning voting by certain prisoners released temporarily from custody.

The Committee of Ministers accepted the approach and closed its supervision of the case in September 2018.

The general statutory prohibition was not abolished.

Was that a successful accommodation between common rights protection and domestic democratic institutions? Or did the limited response reveal a weakness in international enforcement?

There is no need to pretend that the answer is obvious.

The European Court had issued a binding judgment. But determining how that obligation would be fulfilled became a long political dispute.

For the World Citizen Society, creating a common rights court would therefore be only part of the institutional task.

The system would also need to address what happens after judgment.

When Noncompliance Becomes Another Case — Mammadov

The European Convention contains a further mechanism for persistent noncompliance.

Under Article 46(4), the Committee of Ministers may ask the Court to determine whether a state has failed to comply with a final judgment. This is a special legal procedure, subject to conditions established by the Convention.

It was used for the first time in the case of Ilgar Mammadov, an Azerbaijani political figure and government critic.

In 2014, the European Court of Human Rights found serious violations connected with his arrest and pretrial detention. It concluded, among other things, that the authorities had pursued an improper purpose connected to silencing or punishing him for criticizing the government.

The execution of the judgment remained disputed.

In December 2017, the Committee of Ministers initiated the special noncompliance procedure. On May 29, 2019, the Grand Chamber held that Azerbaijan had failed to fulfill its obligation to abide by the original judgment.

The consequences did not end there.

In 2020, Azerbaijan’s Supreme Court quashed Mammadov’s conviction and awarded compensation. The Committee of Ministers subsequently closed supervision of that case.

This was not the creation of a European government with general authority over Azerbaijan.

It was a procedure established by a particular treaty to address failure to fulfill a defined legal obligation.

Hirst and Mammadov illustrate different possibilities. Compliance may emerge through political accommodation, but persistent noncompliance can also be subjected to further judicial scrutiny.

Neither route guarantees an easy result.

The limits of the European system became still more visible when Russia ceased to be a member of the Council of Europe on March 16, 2022, and a party to the Convention on September 16, 2022.

Its legal responsibilities for relevant earlier violations did not simply disappear. But those obligations could not, by themselves, ensure cooperation.

Common legal authority matters. Its practical effectiveness cannot be taken for granted.

Who Decides the Limits? — The German PSPP Judgment

Enforcing a common decision is one problem. Determining whether a common institution had authority to make it is another.

In May 2020, the German Federal Constitutional Court delivered a judgment concerning the European Central Bank’s Public Sector Purchase Programme, or PSPP.

The program involved purchases of public-sector bonds and other securities as part of monetary policy.

It had significant economic effects, raising questions about the boundary between EU monetary policy and economic-policy responsibilities associated with member states.

The Court of Justice of the European Union had previously upheld the program in its 2018 Weiss judgment.

The German Federal Constitutional Court disagreed with the European court’s examination of proportionality—whether the measures were justified in relation to their objectives and effects.

It concluded that the European court’s review was inadequate. The German court also found that the ECB had not sufficiently assessed and explained the program’s wider economic and fiscal consequences.

It therefore treated the relevant decisions as ultra vires, meaning beyond the powers granted under the governing legal framework.

The judgment did not prohibit every purchase of government bonds by a central bank.

But it raised a profound constitutional problem.

The Court of Justice claims final authority to interpret EU law within the Union’s legal order. The German Federal Constitutional Court asserted a power, in exceptional circumstances, to determine whether an EU institution had exceeded the powers granted to it.

Which court should have the final word?

If only the common court can determine the scope of common authority, participating communities may fear that it can expand that authority through its own interpretations.

But if every national court can reject common decisions independently, the legal system may become unstable.

The dispute did not end with the German judgment.

In June 2021, the European Commission began formal proceedings against Germany over a possible breach of EU law.

In December, it closed those proceedings after the German government formally affirmed the primacy of EU law, recognized the final and binding authority of the Court of Justice, and made commitments intended to prevent similar conflicts.

These were formal governmental commitments, not another judgment settling the underlying constitutional disagreement.

The episode matters because it shows that legal disputes over political authority may require political and institutional accommodation.

But accommodation is not the same as a final solution.

For the World Citizen Society, the lesson is demanding.

A common institution must not be free to transform a limited mandate into general authority. Yet participating communities cannot disregard binding common decisions whenever they disagree.

The limits of common authority must themselves be subject to an institutional process that is both effective and open to challenge.

That is easier to state than to achieve.

When Formal Autonomy Conceals Dependence

Not every struggle over political power reaches a constitutional court.

Sometimes the important power is financial.

Imagine a territorial community that elects its own council and formally controls schools and public services.

But almost all its funding comes from a wider institution that can impose detailed conditions, delay payments, or withdraw support.

The community has legal powers. How much practical freedom does it retain?

The European Charter of Local Self-Government recognizes that genuine autonomy requires responsibilities, decision-making powers, and appropriate financial resources.

That does not mean every community must finance everything independently. Redistribution and shared financing may be necessary.

The problem arises when financial arrangements become means of controlling decisions that should belong to the community.

A common agency may have a narrow legal mandate while exercising much wider influence through funding, technical standards, and approvals.

We cannot understand political power by reading only a list of formal powers.

We must examine who actually controls decisions.

How Limited Powers Become General Authority

A common institution may begin with one justified responsibility.

Suppose several communities establish an agency to coordinate cross-border transportation.

At first, it manages schedules and technical standards. Later, it argues that effective planning requires authority over land use, housing development, and local taxation.

Each proposed expansion may appear connected to its original mission.

Over time, however, the agency could acquire substantial control over ordinary political life.

In The World Citizen Society, I describe this danger as competence creep: the gradual expansion of an institution’s authority beyond its original purpose.

The problem is not that common institutions must never acquire new powers. Circumstances change, and some responsibilities genuinely need to be reassigned.

But each expansion requires a fresh justification.

Why are existing arrangements insufficient? Could less centralized cooperation work? Who bears the costs? And who can challenge the decision?

An institution’s success does not, by itself, justify giving it unrelated powers.

A World Government might emerge not through one founding decision, but through the gradual accumulation of authority until territorial self-government becomes largely formal.

Limits must therefore govern how common powers develop, not merely how they are created.

Who Represents People and Communities?

If common institutions make binding decisions, who should control them?

Representation based only on population can allow larger communities to dominate smaller ones. Equal votes for every community can give smaller populations disproportionate influence.

The EU offers one attempt to address both concerns.

The European Parliament represents citizens through degressive proportionality: smaller member states receive relatively more seats per person than larger ones, although larger states have more seats overall.

The Council represents member-state governments. Under its ordinary qualified-majority rule, decisions generally require support from at least 55 percent of member states representing at least 65 percent of the EU population.

These are different arrangements, not one voting formula applied jointly to Parliament and Council.

They illustrate the need to consider representation of people and representation of political communities.

In my second book, I describe this as double legitimacy: common authority should be accountable both to residents and to the territorial communities whose self-government it affects.

I do not propose one fixed voting formula for every shared institution.

But those bound by common decisions must have meaningful opportunities to influence and challenge them.

An institution seeking new powers should not be the only judge of whether those powers are justified.

Divided Power Must Remain Accountable

There is another danger in a system with many institutions.

When something goes wrong, who is responsible?

A resident may be affected by a territorial government’s decision, a common rights rule, and an administrative body implementing that rule.

If each points toward another, divided authority may become an obstacle to accountability.

Earlier essays on Elinor Ostrom and territorial political communities considered why governing authority need not be concentrated in one center.

Here the problem is what happens when those centers disagree.

Residents should know who makes the rules, who implements them, who pays, and where a remedy can be sought.

The solution need not be an unlimited central supervisory institution. It may require clearer responsibilities, independent review, and agreed procedures for resolving disputes.

A system that divides authority but leaves people unable to challenge those who exercise it has not strengthened political freedom.

Dividing Political Power Without a World Government

The European experiences examined here do not constitute a World Citizen Society.

But they show why its institutional design cannot rely on voluntary cooperation alone.

Hirst demonstrates that a binding judgment may require prolonged political negotiation before its implementation is accepted.

Mammadov shows how a treaty system can respond to persistent noncompliance through a special legal procedure.

The PSPP dispute raises a different question: who determines whether a common institution has exceeded its powers? Its later handling shows how governmental commitments may help manage a conflict without resolving every underlying constitutional question.

None of these examples supplies a universal solution.

They reveal a tension that cannot simply be wished away.

Shared authority must be strong enough to fulfill its functions, but limited enough not to absorb the political communities it serves.

The distinction between a World Government and bounded common authority does not depend on the name given to an institution or simply on the territory it covers.

It depends on its powers, the protection of self-governing communities, and the procedures through which authority can be challenged and changed.

The World Citizen Revolution seeks to make political belonging more open to choice while preserving the institutions through which people govern their common lives.

Hand Democracy requires meaningful collective self-government. Foot Democracy requires a meaningful choice of political community.

Neither can flourish if territorial communities become powerless administrative units. Nor can either be secure if common rights and obligations remain unenforceable.

The World Citizen Society needs effective common institutions without granting any one of them general supremacy over political life.

Whether that division endures will depend less on declarations against World Government than on what happens when institutions disagree—and whether people can hold them accountable.

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Further Reading

Books

• The World Citizen Revolution — On the transformation of inherited political membership.
• The World Citizen Society — Especially Chapter 7, The Territorial Division of Political Power.

Related Essays

• Elinor Ostrom and the Case for Polycentric Government
• Why Territory Still Matters in a World Citizen Society
• Decompose Before Abolishing: How Nationality Could Be Unbundled
• Hand Democracy and Foot Democracy: Two Dimensions of Political Freedom
• Who Gets to Decide Who Belongs?

References

1. European Union. Consolidated Version of the Treaty on European Union, Article 5. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/treaty/teu_2012/art_5/oj/eng
2. European Court of Human Rights. Hirst v. the United Kingdom (No. 2), Application No. 74025/01, Grand Chamber Judgment, October 6, 2005. https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-70442
3. UK House of Commons Library. Prisoners’ Voting Rights, August 9, 2023. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7461/
4. European Court of Human Rights. Ilgar Mammadov v. Azerbaijan (infringement proceedings), Application No. 15172/13, Grand Chamber Judgment, May 29, 2019. https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-193543
5. Council of Europe, Committee of Ministers. Execution of the Ilgar Mammadov Judgment, final resolution, September 1, 2020. https://hudoc.exec.coe.int/eng?i=004-1866
6. German Federal Constitutional Court. Judgment of May 5, 2020, 2 BvR 859/15 and others (PSPP). https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Entscheidungen/EN/2020/05/rs20200505_2bvr085915en.html
7. Court of Justice of the European Union. Weiss and Others, Case C-493/17, December 11, 2018. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:62017CJ0493
8. European Commission. December Infringements Package: Key Decisions, December 2, 2021. https://cyprus.representation.ec.europa.eu/news/december-infringements-package-key-decisions-2021-12-02_en
9. Council of the European Union. Qualified Majority Voting. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/how-does-the-council-vote/qualified-majority/
10. European Parliament. How Are MEPs Elected? https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/faq/4/how-are-meps-elected
11. Council of Europe. European Charter of Local Self-Government, 1985. https://rm.coe.int/168007a088
12. Council of Europe. European Convention on Human Rights, Article 46. https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr/convention_ENG
13. Elinor Ostrom. “Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems.” Nobel Prize Lecture, 2009. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2009/ostrom/lecture/