Abstract
The main claim of this chapter is that planetary defense against asteroids cannot be implemented under a decentralized model of democratic global governance, as espoused elsewhere in this book. All relevant indices point to the necessity of establishing a centralized global political authority with legitimate coercive powers. It remains to be seen, however, whether such a political system can be in any recognizable sense democratic. It seems unconvincing that planetary-wide physical-threat, all-comprehensive macrosecuritization, coupled with deep transformations of international law, global centralization of core decision-making powers, de-stigmatization of nuclear weapons and the like can proceed, succeed, and be implemented in a non-hierarchical international system where planetary defense constitutes only one regime among many, and where states basically remain the decisive actors. Although rationally and scientifically robust, the project suffers from oversimplification, as well as naivety with respect to how both international and domestic politics works. Among other topics, this chapter discusses problems associated with the rule of law and constituent powers, political representation and sources of legitimacy, conditions of multilevel collective action, or limits of theoretical idealization. The general message is that the planetary defense community needs to be more aware of the social and political context of its own enterprise.
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Notes
- 1.
For a recent discussion of the desirability of a world-statist solution to global problems see (Nili 2015).
- 2.
- 3.
For an internal critique of how loosely the concept of global governance has been used in the study of international relations see (Weiss and Wilkinson 2014).
- 4.
I am paraphrasing here the title of an important article on democracy promotion. See (Grimm and Leininger 2012).
- 5.
Federal countries might be thought to undermine this claim; however, there is always a layer of federal law applicable to all actors within the jurisdiction. The European Union is a unique case that will be commented upon later in the chapter.
- 6.
- 7.
Examples include the principles of direct effect as well as supremacy of EU law over domestic law, as settled by the CJEU itself. This means that provided certain procedural conditions are met, European laws (so-called regulations and directives) take precedence over member states’ legislation (Craig and Búrca 2012).
- 8.
For a related discussion of pluralism and monism in international law see (Somek 2012).
- 9.
The principle originated within Christian (mostly Catholic) social teaching/ethics; see (Anzenbacher 1998, p. 210).
- 10.
See also (Floyd 2011).
- 11.
- 12.
- 13.
For some further reflections on the rule of law in global context see (Scheuerman 2002).
- 14.
This is a common distinction in constitutional law literature. In a constitutional democracy at least, constituent power is embodied in the sovereign people who is the foundational source of all power in a state. The people as the sovereign “gives” itself the constitution which in turn gives birth and form to the political system, including the highest constitutional institutions (branches of power, constitutional court, central banks etc.) and the division of power among them. All these are created in the act of constitutional self-giving, and as such are constituted powers. This is a very interesting if highly abstract and philosophically challenging issue concerning the deepest sources of legitimacy in a democratic society (recall occasional tensions between parliaments and constitutional courts), and here things are somewhat simplified. Cf. (Arato 2016, pp. 1–74; Loghlin 2010).
- 15.
See Chap. 11 for the nuts and bolts of securitization theory.
- 16.
For a more discussion of such claims see (Roe 2012).
- 17.
I use these examples in a slightly different context in (Dufek 2018, p. 62).
- 18.
For an interesting discussion see (List and Koenig-Archibugi 2010).
- 19.
See also (Barnett and Finnemore 1999).
- 20.
I leave aside the debate on the “politics of securitization” e.g. (Wæver 2011) as it addresses different types of issues.
- 21.
See also Chap. 15 on weapons of mass protection and the risk of rational science argumentation.
- 22.
Seen from this angle, the present chapter might perhaps also be read as an appeal to the importance of social sciences and humanities in this interdisciplinary undertaking.
- 23.
By implication, there are also impure public goods that are either non-rivalrous but excludable (such as copyrighted works), or non-excludable but subject to congestion (such as fish stocks).
- 24.
Moral cosmopolitanism stands for the belief that all human beings are members of a moral community of mankind, which means that they share certain morally relevant characteristics which should bear upon further moral and political considerations (as regards, say, duties to immigrants, human rights policies, poverty reduction and so on). See (Caney 2005; List and Koenig-Archibugi 2010; Pogge 2008).
- 25.
For a defense of constitutionalization of world politics, see (Habermas 2008).
- 26.
Liberal political ideas inform the bulk of cosmopolitan political thought, so that cosmopolitanism is usually a shorthand for cosmopolitan liberalism. The part of liberalism most relevant here is its emphasis on basic rights and liberties of the individual, as well as insistence of fundamental moral equality of all human beings. These ideas normatively co-ground constitutional democracies.
- 27.
Global taxation belongs among David Held’s proposals for democratic transformation of the global order. See Held (2010).
- 28.
Although Ypi’s subject matter is global justice, I see no reason why the argument cannot be generalised. See Ypi (2012).
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Acknowledgments
The text is an output of a research project supported by the Czech Science Foundation (code GA16-13980S). I thank Nikola Schmidt for many suggestions regarding the shape of my argument, as well as for heated debates, both past and future, about real and imaginary limits to idealistic visions of global governance.
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Dufek, P. (2019). Why a World State Is Unavoidable in Planetary Defense: On Loopholes in the Vision of a Cosmopolitan Governance. In: Schmidt, N. (eds) Planetary Defense. Space and Society. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01000-3_24
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