Thread · 4 tweets · 17 Jan 2023

At the risk of looking like a shameless plug, I happen to have published berjon.com/internet-trans… on this topic just last Friday. That world government is a bad idea seems pretty clear to me, but I am less convinced that operating only between nation-states is the one alternative.

There is space for nonstate transnational topic-specific governance. Such institutions exist, and not necessarily thanks to voluntarily delegated power by nation-states. All are imperfect, but several are reforming themselves.

One interesting aspect is that these can then cooperate with governmental systems at various scales. Eg. on digital accessibility, maybe the nation-state isn't interested, but a regional education system could be. Subsidiarity adds up in potentially powerful ways.

I work in internet governance, sit on the W3C board, etc. so evidently I'm horrendously biased and informed by that experience. Still, I think a richer framing is possible!