Can a World Citizen Revolution Begin Without a World Government?

Political freedom can cross borders before political authority becomes global. But who will make that freedom real?

Imagine that two neighboring countries agree to let their citizens live and work on either side of their border. A woman moves to a town where she has found a job. She rents an apartment, pays taxes, and begins building a life. The governments have made her movement easier. Yet she may still have little say in the political decisions that shape that life.

Now imagine that the two countries go further. They agree on secure residence, fair admission procedures, and a way for those who settle to become equal political members. They also establish a procedure for disputes when one government fails to honor the agreement.

No world government has been created. No global parliament has ordered these changes. But something important has happened: political communities have begun to change the rules by which outsiders can become members.

Could a World Citizen Revolution begin this way?

This is not entirely hypothetical. Australia and New Zealand have already developed arrangements that allow their citizens to live and work across their shared maritime border, although the rights attached to residence remain different in the two countries.

The question matters because the phrase world citizen can suggest a single political authority governing everyone on Earth. That is not the institutional premise of the World Citizen framework. The central question is whether the political community into which a person is born must remain the only community in which that person can claim equal membership as a matter of right.

A World Citizen Revolution does not have to begin with a new sovereign standing above every state. It does, however, require more than the hope that governments will be generous to foreigners.

Beginning Is Not the Same as Completion

A completed World Citizen Society would have to answer difficult questions about migration, political membership, equality among residents, and the protection of rights across many political communities. Those questions cannot be settled by announcing a universal ideal.

The beginning could be more modest. A group of governments might recognize that people should have a meaningful opportunity to leave one political community and join another. They could negotiate enforceable arrangements that make this choice possible for an initial set of participants.

Such an arrangement would not make the world free. People outside it might remain excluded, and some rights within it might be protected more fully than others. Calling it a beginning would not excuse those limits. It would identify a change that could be defended, tested, and extended.

There is a difference between permission to enter temporarily and a durable possibility of becoming an equal member. A visitor, a worker whose status depends entirely on an employer, and a settled resident with secure political rights do not occupy the same position. Easier travel may be valuable without resolving the problem of political membership.

For that reason, I would not measure the beginning of a World Citizen Revolution simply by counting open borders or signed treaties. The relevant question is what new freedom a person can actually exercise—and what institutions will protect it when political circumstances change.

We Already Know That Rights Can Cross Borders

The European Union offers one example. EU citizens generally have rights to move and reside in other member states under EU law, and those residing in another member state can vote and stand in municipal elections there under the applicable rules. This does not confer national parliamentary voting rights or extend the same rights to every non-EU resident. The EU also has substantial shared institutions and a court. Under the treaties, it exercises powers conferred by member states; it is not a world government or an arrangement without supranational authority.

Consider the trans-Tasman case more closely. Under the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement dating from 1973, citizens of Australia and New Zealand have broad opportunities to live and work in the other country, subject to domestic entry rules. Yet the rights attached to residence have changed over time. Australian changes introduced in 2001 restricted access to social security and made citizenship harder to obtain for many New Zealanders arriving thereafter.

Since July 2023, eligible New Zealand citizens who have lived lawfully in Australia for four years can apply directly for Australian citizenship without first obtaining a separate permanent-resident visa. The new route addressed part of the earlier exclusion, but did not remove every difference in rights. It remains a path to nationality, not equal political membership without a change of nationality.

New Zealand provides a distinct example. Non-citizens who have the right to remain there indefinitely can vote in national elections if they meet the other eligibility requirements, including having lived in the country continuously for at least twelve months at some point in their lives. This is more than a municipal voting right. Yet voting in a national election is not by itself a guarantee of every right associated with equal membership.

South America provides a third example. The MERCOSUR residence agreement, signed in 2002 and in force from 2009, permits eligible nationals of participating countries to obtain temporary residence for up to two years and, subject to conditions, convert it to permanent residence. Argentina implements nationality-based residence procedures within this regional framework, which also protects certain civil, social, and economic rights. Argentina’s Migration Law No. 25,871 recognizes migration as an essential and inalienable right. That declaration does not establish unconditional entry for everyone, nor does the residence agreement itself guarantee equal political membership.

These arrangements differ considerably. None is a miniature world citizen society. Together, they show that political communities can alter rules of residence and participation across borders without first establishing a single global sovereign.

Who Could Take the First Step?

If a world government is not the starting point, who acts?

Several political communities might negotiate reciprocal rights. A government could first strengthen the rights of long-term residents at home and then seek agreements with others. Cities and regional authorities have a part to play, too, especially where people already live across borders or residents have been excluded from local political decisions.

A city cannot ordinarily promise an immigrant admission to a country when national law controls entry. A state can improve its own residence and membership rules, but it cannot guarantee that another state will accept its citizens. A treaty can establish obligations, yet its words will have little value if there is no reliable means of implementation.

The first steps may therefore be uneven. Some communities may accept obligations that others reject. Some may recognize secure residence before extending local voting rights. Agreements may expand, stagnate, or even be reversed.

This unevenness creates a danger. If the first participants are only wealthy or politically powerful states, their citizens may gain new choices while people in poorer countries remain outside the arrangement. A regional privilege is not the same as a universal right merely because it crosses national borders.

Limited agreements can produce real freedom while creating new lines of exclusion. We should judge them by their effects on those who can join and those still left out.

Three Tasks That Agreements Cannot Avoid

Any agreement that claims to expand political-community choice must answer three institutional questions.

First, what exactly is guaranteed?

An agreement must distinguish entry, residence, work, family life, and political membership. If a person can enter but can be expelled at any moment for changing employers, her choice remains insecure. If she can live in a community for decades but remains permanently excluded from political membership, the deeper problem has not disappeared.

The parties must say who qualifies, what procedures apply, when a right can be restricted, and what protection exists against arbitrary decisions. Public safety and the capacity to provide services are serious matters. They should be addressed through transparent rules and reviewable decisions rather than used as unexplained reasons for indefinite exclusion.

Second, who decides when the rules are disputed?

Two governments may interpret an agreement differently. An applicant may believe that an official has denied a right unlawfully. One party may change its policy after an election.

Domestic courts can enforce domestic legal duties. Joint bodies can monitor compliance. Independent arbitration may help resolve certain disputes between participating governments or other parties where the relevant jurisdiction and consent exist. The appropriate forum will depend on the agreement and the rights concerned.

Arbitration is not a magic substitute for government. An arbitrator must have authority to hear the dispute, a clear standard to apply, and a credible means for a decision to be implemented. Some questions, especially those concerning individual fundamental rights, may require accessible judicial remedies rather than confidential proceedings arranged only between governments.

Third, who can hold the arrangement politically accountable?

Cross-border rules affect housing, schools, taxation, labor markets, and public services. The people bearing those consequences need a voice in how the rules are made and revised. So do the people whose opportunities depend on admission and residence, including those who cannot yet vote in the receiving community.

This is where Hand Democracy—the capacity of a community to govern itself—and Foot Democracy—the freedom to choose and join a political community—meet. Neither can simply be declared irrelevant. Their boundary has to be worked out through political institutions, with safeguards against using the existing electorate’s power to make exclusion permanent.

An agreement designed only by diplomats, insulated from those affected by it, would reproduce part of the problem it seeks to solve. So would a system in which every existing majority could cancel another person’s membership security whenever the political mood changed.

Shared commitments must be dependable, but the institutions that administer them must remain answerable to people.

Decentralization Is Not the Absence of Public Power

The debate is sometimes framed as a choice between a single global state and fully independent national governments. That choice is too narrow.

Political authority already operates at several levels. Local governments decide matters that national governments do not, while national institutions enter treaties and regional bodies develop rules for particular purposes. Courts and other independent institutions can review decisions and oversee compliance.

The question is where particular powers should be located, how they should be limited, and to whom their holders must answer.

A system of political-community choice might preserve substantial self-government within participating communities while imposing common obligations concerning admission, residence security, and fair treatment. It might assign some disputes to independent institutions without giving those institutions general authority to legislate for the entire world.

Such a design would still involve real constraints on governments. A government cannot promise secure membership and retain an unlimited right to withdraw it whenever convenient. Shared rights mean accepting duties that sometimes frustrate immediate political preferences.

Nor can a treaty solve the problem if governments are unwilling to respect its obligations. Rules need constituencies that support them, officials who implement them, institutions that review violations, and people prepared to defend them when their protection becomes politically costly.

That is why the revolution remains a political process. Courts and agreements may preserve victories, but they do not create the social and political power needed to win and sustain those victories on their own.

Measuring Progress Without Declaring Victory Too Soon

Suppose several states established a secure residence agreement. More people could build lives beyond the communities of their birth. Their families might be less vulnerable to sudden separation. Workers might have greater freedom to refuse abusive conditions.

These gains would matter even if national parliamentary voting rights remained unchanged. But they would be incomplete.

In “Who Defines Victory in a Political Revolution?” I proposed two ways to judge a reform. First, what has actually changed in people’s rights and opportunities? Second, has the reform created institutions able to protect and extend those changes, or placed the people concerned in a new form of dependence?

Take a regional residence agreement. By the first measure, an enforceable right to settle and work may be a considerable gain, even without national parliamentary voting rights. The second measure asks harder questions. Will officials honor the right? Can residents challenge a violation? Will those excluded from political decisions have the means to press for further change?

An arrangement may pass part of the first measure while failing the second. Administrative barriers may empty an apparent entitlement of meaning. A regional club may strengthen its own citizens’ opportunities while leaving outsiders behind. Entry without a political voice may move the location of exclusion rather than end it.

A Revolution Without a Single Capital

A World Citizen Revolution could begin in more than one place. A community might recognize a stronger right to residence while neighboring governments negotiate reciprocal entry. Residents excluded from elections might organize to demand a voice. Through legislation, judgments, and shared institutions, some of these demands could become enforceable rights.

These acts would matter because they change what people can claim from political communities beyond the one assigned to them at birth.

There would be conflicts, reversals, and difficult compromises. Participating communities would have to govern together in some respects while retaining the capacity to govern themselves in others. Those conflicts cannot be resolved once and for all by a universal formula.

The absence of a world government does not remove the need for common institutions. It removes the assumption that all political authority must first be concentrated in a single global sovereign.

The revolution can begin when people and political communities start winning, institutionalizing, and defending a different principle: birth need not decide the only place where a person may become an equal political member.

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Notes

1. Beginning and completion. The argument concerns how a transformation could begin, not whether current regional systems already satisfy the institutional design developed in The World Citizen Society.
2. The European Union. Freedom of movement and municipal electoral rights apply under particular EU legal conditions and do not amount to universal admission or equal national political rights for all residents. The EU has substantial supranational institutions; it is not an example of rights operating without enforcement authority.
3. Arbitration. Independent arbitration is one possible mechanism for designated disputes. Its jurisdiction, openness, enforceability, and relationship to individual remedies would need to be specified; it is not a replacement for democratic accountability.

Further Reading

Books

• Toshiyuki Nishimura, The World Citizen Revolution and The World Citizen Society. Books

Related Essays

• “Hand Democracy and Foot Democracy: Two Dimensions of Political Freedom.”
• “Why Exit Is Not Enough: The Missing Problem of Entry.”
• “Who Defines Victory in a Political Revolution?”

References

1. European Union, Your Europe. “Residence rights when living abroad in the EU.” https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/residence/residence-rights/index_en.htm
2. Directive 2004/38/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32004L0038
3. European Commission. “Right to vote and to stand as a candidate in municipal elections.” https://commission.europa.eu/topics/human-rights/your-fundamental-rights-eu/know-your-rights/right-vote-and-stand-candidate-municipal-elections_en
4. Council Directive 94/80/EC, municipal voting rights of EU citizens resident in another Member State. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:31994L0080
5. Council Directive (EU) 2026/1194 (recast of municipal electoral arrangements; repeal of Directive 94/80/EC effective 26 June 2028). https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2026/1194/oj/eng
6. Treaty on European Union, Article 5 (principle of conferral). https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/treaty/teu_2012/art_5/oj/eng
7. Australian Government, Department of Home Affairs. “New Zealand citizens” and “Become an Australian citizen (by conferral).” https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/entering-and-leaving-australia/new-zealand-citizens
8. Parliament of Australia. “New Zealanders living in Australia,” Chapter 3 (2001 changes to citizenship eligibility and social security). https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Foreign_Affairs_Defence_and_Trade/Delegation%20Report/c03
9. Immigration New Zealand. “Australian citizens and permanent residents travelling to New Zealand.” https://www.immigration.govt.nz/visit/what-you-need-to-visit-new-zealand/australian-citizens-and-permanent-residents-travelling-to-new-zealand/
10. Electoral Commission of New Zealand. “Are you eligible to enrol and vote?” https://vote.nz/enrolling/get-ready-to-enrol/are-you-eligible-to-enrol-and-vote
11. MERCOSUR. “Circulación de personas.” https://www.mercosur.int/estatuto-de-la-ciudadania/circulacion-de-personas
12. MERCOSUR. “Acuerdo sobre Residencia para Nacionales de los Estados Partes del MERCOSUR.” https://www.mercosur.int/documento/acuerdo-residencia-nacionales-estados-partes-mercosur
13. Government of Argentina. “Obtener una residencia temporaria por nacionalidad – Mercosur.” https://www.argentina.gob.ar/node/160224
14. Government of Argentina. Migration Law No. 25,871, Article 4. https://www.argentina.gob.ar/normativa/nacional/92016/actualizacion