Why the World Citizen Society Cannot Be Created Overnight

From Political Victory to the Institutions of a New Society

Imagine that a political movement wins an important victory.

After years of campaigning, a country accepts a new principle: people who establish durable residence should have a meaningful opportunity to become equal political members, regardless of where they were born.

Parliament changes the law.

Has Foot Democracy been achieved?

Not yet.

People still need realistic opportunities to enter the country lawfully. Those who arrive need secure residence. They need fair rules for becoming full members, and public institutions capable of putting those rules into practice.

The political victory matters. Without it, these reforms might never have begun.

But recognizing a right and making it effective are different achievements.

How can the Nation-Based Feudal Order be dismantled while the institutions of the World Citizen Society are built in its place?

Political Victory Is Not the End

In From the Struggle for the Vote to the Struggle for Political Choice, I argued that the rights of Foot Democracy, like those of Hand Democracy, must be won through political action.

That remains the starting point.

Foot Democracy cannot depend on governments voluntarily granting rights simply because a theory has shown why those rights are justified.

People must organize, build support, and change the institutions that sustain inherited restrictions on political membership.

But a political struggle does not end when a law recognizes a right.

The history of voting rights shows why. Extending the vote also required voter registration, election administration, and ways to challenge unlawful exclusion.

Foot Democracy presents a wider task.

It concerns not only participation within a political community but also opportunities to enter another, remain there, and become an equal member.

A movement may win recognition for this freedom before the institutions needed to exercise it are ready.

The challenge is to turn a political victory into a working political order.

Why One Reform Is Not Enough

Consider a country that makes naturalization—the process of acquiring citizenship—easier.

After five years of lawful residence, applicants who meet fair conditions can become citizens.

That is an important reform.

But suppose the country offers almost no realistic opportunities for new long-term residents to enter.

People already inside may benefit. Those outside still have little opportunity to join.

Now imagine the opposite.

A country opens new routes for foreign workers, but their residence permits remain tied to particular employers. Losing a job may also mean losing the right to stay.

Even after years of work, these residents have no credible path to full political membership.

Movement has become easier. Political equality has not.

Neither reform, by itself, establishes Foot Democracy.

Meaningful Entry, secure residence, access to full membership, and the security of that membership are connected.

This does not mean every reform must happen at once.

It means that each change must be judged by what it makes possible—and what barriers it leaves in place.

What European Integration Teaches

European integration offers an example of institutions developing over time.

The Treaty of Rome, signed in 1957, made the free movement of workers an important part of the European Economic Community.

The Maastricht Treaty, signed in 1992 and effective from 1993, established EU citizenship.

Citizens of member states gained additional political rights, including the right to vote and stand in municipal and European Parliament elections in another member state where they lived, under the applicable conditions.

Economic mobility and political participation had become connected.

But these rights did not all develop at the same pace.

When the EU expanded in 2004 and 2007, existing member states could temporarily restrict access to their labor markets for workers from certain new member states.

These arrangements generally followed a system of two years, followed by a possible three-year extension and then a further two years under specified conditions.

They could therefore last up to seven years.

The restrictions concerned access to employment. They did not suspend every right associated with EU citizenship.

This experience shows that political communities can negotiate the gradual implementation of rights across borders.

But the EU is not a completed model of Foot Democracy.

EU citizenship still depends on nationality of a member state. Long-term residence alone does not make someone an EU citizen.

Nor does European integration prove that economic cooperation automatically creates political equality.

It shows that rights can develop through successive political and institutional decisions.

Decompose Before Abolishing

If the Nation-Based Feudal Order must be dismantled, what should disappear first?

That may be the wrong question.

Existing nationality and residence systems perform necessary functions. They establish legal status, assign public responsibilities, regulate entry and residence, and provide procedures for protecting rights.

A society with greater freedom of political-community choice would still need many of those functions.

What must change is the overwhelming importance of inherited nationality in determining where people can become political equals.

Earlier in this series, I introduced a principle for approaching such change:

Decompose before abolishing, and replace before removing.

First, identify what an existing institution does. Then determine which functions remain necessary, which restrictions must change, and what should replace them.

Removing residence categories without workable alternatives could leave residents uncertain about their legal position.

Announcing a new right to membership without procedures for applying or challenging a refusal could leave that right ineffective.

The purpose is not to destroy institutions associated with nationality.

It is to change their inherited restrictions while preserving the protections on which people depend.

When Legal Rights Become Insecure

The United Kingdom offers a warning about what happens when legal rights are not reliably protected in practice.

Many members of the Windrush generation had lived lawfully in Britain for decades.

Under the Immigration Act 1971, many Commonwealth citizens already settled in Britain at the beginning of 1973 had the right to remain indefinitely.

But not everyone had received documents proving that status.

Years later, stricter immigration checks made documentary proof increasingly important.

People who had a legal right to live in Britain found themselves unable to satisfy the requirements imposed by employers, landlords, public authorities, and service providers.

Some lost employment or access to housing and healthcare. Others were detained or removed from the country.

These failures became widely known as the Windrush scandal in 2018.

In her independent Windrush Lessons Learned Review (2020), Wendy Williams examined how government policy, administrative practices, and institutional failures had contributed to the harm.

The problem was not simply that some residents lacked paperwork.

Government institutions had failed to recognize and protect legal positions that people already held.

Earlier in this series, in the discussion of the portability of rights, I argued that records matter as much as rights.

Windrush shows why.

Someone may possess a legal right to remain but be unable to exercise it when the institutions responsible for recognizing that right lack reliable records or procedures.

Nor can the responsibility simply be placed on individuals to prove what public institutions failed to document adequately.

A legal right must be capable of being recognized and exercised in everyday life.

Brexit presented Britain with a different challenge.

As the United Kingdom left the EU’s free-movement arrangements, it established the EU Settlement Scheme to protect the continued residence of eligible EU citizens and certain family members already living in the country.

The scheme provided routes to two forms of immigration status: settled status, generally for people meeting the required period of residence, and pre-settled status for those who qualified but had not yet completed that period.

Millions obtained one of these statuses.

For most people covered by the main application deadline, applications were due by June 30, 2021. Later applications remained possible in certain circumstances.

The scheme was intended to preserve residence rights during a major legal change.

But establishing it did not eliminate every difficulty.

People needed to understand the rules, establish their eligibility, and demonstrate their status. Problems arose concerning missed deadlines and the transition from pre-settled to settled status.

Windrush and the EU Settlement Scheme are not the same story.

Windrush exposed serious failures to recognize rights already held.

The EU Settlement Scheme sought to protect residence rights during a change in the legal framework, while facing implementation problems of its own.

Neither is an example of Foot Democracy itself.

Together, they show why a new law is not enough.

People must be able to prove, retain, and exercise their rights while the rules governing those rights are changing.

Rights Before Choice

This brings us to another principle of the World Citizen framework: Rights Before Choice.

Earlier in this series, I used that principle to argue that neither collective democratic decisions nor individual political-community choice may override basic rights.

It also applies to institutional transition.

Suppose a government creates new opportunities for people to choose political membership.

That reform must not require existing residents to surrender essential protections simply to gain access to those opportunities.

Nor should new membership arrangements make settled residents less secure than they were before.

Meaningful choice requires a foundation of rights.

Windrush illustrates the harm that can follow when institutions cannot reliably recognize rights people already possess.

The EU Settlement Scheme shows why a major legal transition needs arrangements designed to preserve residence rights—and why those arrangements must themselves remain open to scrutiny.

This does not mean every old rule must remain unchanged.

It means people must remain protected while institutions are being replaced.

A transition toward greater political freedom must not make those subject to it less secure.

No Universal First Step

Which reform should come first?

Should a country expand lawful entry, strengthen residence security, or make naturalization more attainable?

There is no universal answer.

One community may need to protect insecure long-term residents. Another may already provide stable residence but maintain unnecessary barriers to full membership.

The World Citizen framework does not prescribe one fixed sequence.

It does establish a direction: meaningful Entry, secure residence, a credible path to full membership, and equal political standing once membership is acquired.

Membership Security is part of that goal.

A full political member should not be removable under ordinary immigration law merely because that person also holds another nationality.

The order of reform may vary. Its purpose should remain clear.

Gradual Reform Must Not Become Permanent Delay

There is an obvious danger in saying that the World Citizen Society cannot be created overnight.

Governments may agree that reform is desirable while repeatedly postponing the changes needed to make it effective.

They may promise that meaningful membership will become possible someday without establishing any credible route toward it.

That is not enough.

Transitional arrangements should have legitimate purposes, understandable conditions, and opportunities for review.

Where temporary restrictions are used, their duration and justification should be open to examination.

The EU’s time-limited labor-market restrictions provide one example of a negotiated transition, not a universal timetable for Foot Democracy.

The principle is broader:

Gradual reform must not become a justification for indefinite exclusion.

The direction of reform must be visible in the institutions being built.

Who Carries the Transition?

Changing membership rules also involves practical responsibilities.

Governments must administer applications, protect legal status, allocate resources, and coordinate public services.

Expanded opportunities for settlement may raise questions about housing, infrastructure, security, and public finance.

These concerns cannot automatically defeat legitimate claims to political freedom. But a movement seeking reform must explain how public responsibilities will be met.

Its supporters may disagree about implementation.

Some may favor easier movement without supporting equal political membership. Others may support citizenship for long-term residents while disagreeing about entry rules.

Those differences do not disappear after a political victory.

They become part of building the new institutions.

The Transition Must Remain Democratic

The World Citizen Society is not intended to replace political communities with a single world government.

It seeks to combine collective democratic self-government with meaningful political-community choice.

Existing members have legitimate interests in governing their institutions. Prospective members have legitimate claims not to remain excluded indefinitely because of inherited nationality.

Neither claim can simply erase the other.

The relationship between Hand Democracy and Foot Democracy cannot be settled permanently by one abstract formula.

It must develop through institutions, democratic negotiation, and continued review.

Movements may need to defend newly won rights, challenge unfair procedures, and demand changes when early reforms prove inadequate.

Political victory does not end democratic politics.

It changes the questions politics must answer.

From Revolution to Society

The World Citizen Society cannot be created overnight.

That is not a reason to postpone it indefinitely.

It means dismantling an inherited political order and constructing its replacement are inseparable tasks.

Making naturalization easier is insufficient if meaningful Entry remains unavailable.

Making movement easier is insufficient if newcomers can never become equal political members.

And recognizing legal rights is insufficient if residents cannot reliably demonstrate and exercise those rights.

Partial reforms matter. But they must be judged by the freedoms they establish and the further changes they make possible.

The World Citizen Revolution must win the rights of Foot Democracy through political action.

It must also create institutions that protect those rights, preserve necessary public functions, and make political-community choice a practical possibility.

This is why The World Citizen Revolution and The World Citizen Society address different but inseparable problems.

One examines the inherited political order to be transformed and the political struggle necessary to change it.

The other examines the institutions needed to make a different form of political membership possible.

The rights of Foot Democracy must be won through political action. The World Citizen Society must be built through institutional change.

Neither task can replace the other.

And neither can be completed in a single moment.

---

Further Reading

Books

• The World Citizen Revolution — On the Nation-Based Feudal Order and the transformation of inherited political membership.
• The World Citizen Society — On Foot Democracy, Resident Sovereignty, Resident Equality, and Membership Security.

Related Essays

• From the Struggle for the Vote to the Struggle for Political Choice
• What Becomes of Nationality?
• When Does Residence Become Full Membership?
• Why Exit Is Not Enough: The Missing Problem of Entry
• How Can Rights Survive Movement?

References

1. European Economic Community, Treaty Establishing the European Economic Community (Treaty of Rome), signed March 25, 1957. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:11957E/TXT.
2. European Union, Treaty on European Union (Treaty of Maastricht), signed February 7, 1992, entered into force November 1, 1993. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=LEGISSUM:xy0026.
3. European Commission, The Impact of Free Movement of Workers in the Context of EU Enlargement, COM(2008) 765 final. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52008DC0765.
4. European Parliament, “Free Movement of Workers,” Fact Sheets on the European Union. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/41/free-movement-of-workers.
5. Wendy Williams, Windrush Lessons Learned Review, HC 93 (London: Home Office, March 2020). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/windrush-lessons-learned-review.
6. House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts, Windrush Generation and the Home Office (2018). https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmpubacc/1518/151806.htm.
7. UK Home Office, “EU Settlement Scheme Statistics User Guide.” https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/home-office-eu-settlement-scheme-statistics-user-guide/home-office-eu-settlement-scheme-statistics-user-guide.