What ‘We the People’ want: Don't give up on consensus

Global governance has broken down.

- ARUN MAIRA

The United Nations, an institution established to prevent wars after World War II, has become impotent. The rules-based trade order under the World Trade Organization (WTO) has collapsed. Multiparty electoral governance is coming apart in many countries. It is ironic that the US, which led the formation of the UN and WTO, is now responsible for the breakdown of global governance and is no longer a role model for democracy.

A confluence of global forces has disrupted governance systems. Three of them are structural forces: technology, ecology and lopsided economic growth. Digital information and digitized money flow across national borders unimpeded, even as ecological disasters loom while the rich get richer and economies fail to create enough jobs and incomes for the rest. Leaders, unwilling or unable to address these issues, are trying to cover them up with untrustworthy data on unemployment, poverty and inequality. Some are in denial of climate change, as in the US. Gen-Z and people at the “bottom of the pyramid’ have lost confidence in favourable outcomes, resulting in ‘populist’ movements in the US, UK, Nepal, France and elsewhere.

Solving structural problems requires an ideological refresh. Oversimplifying ideological conflicts as ‘Left versus Right’ is of no help. Deeper analysis reveals two basic conflicts in governance principles that have grown in the last century.