Challenges and New Hopes for the Government of Globalization

Mariasophia Falcone
Editor of Eurobull

With the beginning of 2022 we enter another year marked by the Covid-19 pandemic, but fortunately it will also see the continuation of the vaccination campaign around the world. In richer countries, craving for vaccines, this is proceeding relatively well despite the paradoxical resistance of the No-Vax movement. At the same time, attempts are being made to prevent the development of new variants of the virus in those parts of the world where the vaccination campaign still lags behind, which unfortunately coincide with the less developed areas of the planet. In this sense, we can already see how, also for 2022, we will see a dog biting its tail.

The WHO hopes to reach 70% of people vaccinated by mid-2022, and, in fact, in some European countries (Portugal), 90% of people have already received at least one dose of the vaccine. It is also true, however, that the percentages, more or less encouraging, mean little if they are not contextualized and, the deeper you go, the more you cross the data, the more you see the image of a world hit by the pandemic divided into two, the rich countries and the less developed countries.

What is full of contrasts is not only the simple geographical spread of the vaccination campaign, but also the distribution of the various vaccines and the price trend of these in different areas of the world. Beyond the rhetoric on “big pharma”, we can observe that in some areas of the world only Asian vaccines (Sinovac, Sinopharm, etc.) or the Russian one (Sputnik) are distributed, and that for the “Western” vaccines themselves (Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca) the US citizens are paying the highest price.

The data of the vaccination campaign in the world make evident all the paradoxes of the world, globalized but lacking a government of globalization: increasingly connected, but nevertheless not more equitable, in which the nation states, even in the face of an enemy that makes no distinction, tend to entrench themselves in their own borders, in competitive nationalism, and in the purchasing power for buying vaccines.

If, as Kant said in his Perpetual Peace, we will arrive at a moment in which “the violation of law in one point of the Earth will be felt in all points”, the current situation is still more complex. In a moment of crisis like the one we are experiencing, in which being worried for one's health is legitimate, the rule of “everyone for himself” is predominant, and although all violations of the law and injustices are deplored, this does not mean that one feels obliged to act to stop them, like in the case of accumulating vaccines two or three times over the need, or rejecting them like the No-Vax’ do.

Perhaps it is true that we are anesthetized in front of crises, but it could not be otherwise when we have lived through a decade of crises to the full: the economic one with the poverty and inequalities it has produced, the humanitarian one of the migrants that has transformed the Mediterranean into a cemetery, the environmental one of which we still do not know the most catastrophic effects, and the pandemic one that now occupies our thoughts and our actions, both as individuals and as  communities.

In the face of global crises, global solutions are needed. However, at the global level, in the current state of things, nation states, international institutions, superpowers or continental states have no suitable tools to face the challenges of the globalized world, despite the macho-nationalist narrative and the war metaphors that have made us company during the lockdowns. Such global solutions can only be provided by federal-type institutions which, at the same time, should implement them in a coordinated manner at the lower levels, according to the principle of subsidiarity. The objectives of a world integration that shall govern globalization must be clear: orienting in a cohesive way development and international dynamics in a more peaceful direction, making the political processes more democratic and less intergovernmental, creating a more ecologically – and socially – sustainable society.

It is emblematic and discouraging how much in the European Union, the most integrated area in the planet where, thanks to a transfer of sovereignty, it is possible to have the highest standards of life quality, the procedures to make timely and effective decisions to respond to the systemic crises of the last decade are still obstructed by the stumbling block of unanimous vote. Outside the European Union, on the other hand, more and more regions of the world are following the example of the acquis communautaire, such as Mercosur and the African Union, aware that only with a transfer of sovereignty will it be possible to meet the current challenges and move forward towards more cohesive development models.

In such a scenario, amidst stalemates and transfers of sovereignty, the UN remains the only international organization that can act as a guarantor of peace (in a more or less Kantian sense), but it continues to go through a profound crisis of legitimacy, and a reform of its Security Council (abolition of the right of veto and enlargement to include international organizations, such as the EU) and of its Assembly are urgently needed.

If every crisis represents an opportunity, we must also admit the possibility that not so much the great crisis theorized so far will come, but several systemic crises, not necessarily growing at a regular pace (as the climate one, for example), which will offer us different opportunities and more viable roads ahead.

Consequently, the process of European unification cannot be “disconnected” from that of the governance of globalization. However distant the idea of world federation may seem – perhaps due to the very nature of this expression –, the project of a world-level integration aiming to govern the challenges of globalization may appear instead much clearer through a reflection on the very concept of crisis if we take into consideration the current ones, and the concepts of security, peace and war. To confirm this, it would be enough to look at small cells, call them of pre-integration, such as the global digital tax or the creation of a global community about climate.

In fact, among all the others, the battle for climate is the most urgent and, precisely due to the nature of this crisis, we cannot wait until it will become a great crisis, because this could imply the end of mankind on the planet, or so dramatic consequences for the planet that we cannot yet imagine. The battle for the climate, however, also showed an encouraging sign on one of those cells mentioned earlier. In the young people who mobilized all over the world for climate protection and in the movements that have derived from it, we can see a cell of the world people, that should rethink the world order for the future of human communities. These are citizens who see themselves as a global people responsible for the protection of the planet and, perhaps even more important, by virtue of having spent most of 2020 in their own little bedrooms, people who feel these crises as part of their own life experience.

All this can represent opportunities, and perhaps hopes, for a future governance of globalization: a clear path for the key battles of the next few years, of which the European citizens in the first place can become promoters. In fact, the battle for integration at the European level cannot be a parallel line that never meets the global one, but they must be pursued together in order to never lose sight of the goal of achieving peace through the political integration of mankind.