Daniele Archibugi has recently advocated a new cosmopolitan political framework. In this interview he lays out some of the key features of his project. Europa: The idea of a global government is an old idea with a long history. What aspects of the contemporary situation do you think make it more realisable or important? Daniele Archibugi: You are perfectly right that the idea is very old. Before the 16th century the idea of cosmopolitan citizenship was more associated with the individual and less associated with the sociological conditions of a global citizenship, but starting from that point the idea starts to be related to political developments, and to a new condition which we might call a kind of globalisation. This poses the question of the connection between the new social conditions and new institutional devices. It is very difficult to think today of an action that does not have some important overlaps with other communities, and everything apart from political institutions has been globalised: the economy, the financial markets. One of the challenges of our age is to bridge the social, economic and cultural dimensions of globalisation with a political dimension. Europa: Your book makes frequent mention of democracy. Do you share the concerns of those who discern a democratic regression, from reduction in social rights (labour protection, etc.), to the emergence of a new kind of right wing populism? DA: Democracy is always in a bad state, and this is somehow its strength. You are quite right that some social and political rights seem to be in decline. But this is not the only story; we have seen an increase in civil rights, racism for example is taken much more seriously. What worries me most is the growing inequalities of income. Regarding populism and racism, I think that this a typical case where we see that a democratic society, even where it is very internally coherent, might have some irrational components, precisely because it does not manage to integrate the others. This phenomenon typically happens in periods of crisis, in periods of uncertainty, in which values are questioned. This shows that democracy is not itself necessarily a desirable system unless it is tamed with something else, which is cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitanism is a school of thought, or we might even say a school of practice, which helps democratic societies to learn to deal with the other. The other can be the immigrant, the refugee, the gypsy; even when they are living within our own societies. This is the challenge of our age. Europa: Would you agree with Balibar’s formulation of the state of affairs as a kind of European Apartheid? DA: Yes, I agree with Balibar on that. Balibar stresses the political component, I would like to also stress the normative side. One problem is to provide a decent standard of living for the so-called “28th European nation”, ie. the immigrants in Europe. But then we also need to manage the problem of migrations. Migrations are one of the most unfair problems occurring at the moment, not just for the European societies, but also for the societies of developing countries. It is generally the more entrepreneurial sectors from developing countries that come to Europe. There are two ways you can address the issue. The first is to say ex post ‘I provide to these people equal rights once they get to Europe’. I think this should be done. But the second solution is to find some management of the problem, contributing on the one hand to the development of the societies from which migrants come, and on the other regulating the migration flows to make them fairer. Europa: You argue that to move to a commonwealth of global citizens we have to go through a paradigm shift comparable to the shift to representative democracy. One of the most commented aspects of that shift was the birth of ideologies. The moment you have political parties with their different programs, you have different interpretations of the past, of the present and different programs for the future. How do you analyse the loss of ideology in contemporary politics, and the modifications of ideology when moved to a global level? DA: There are two different aspects to be taken into account. The first is the substance of politics. This requires the willingness of citizens in taking part in political activity. Citizens are willing to do so when they see there is a point. If they don’t see it, because the traditional channels of representation have dried up, then they don’t participate. Alternative channels of representation have not been provided. It was wrong to expect that these channels would be provided through a top-down process – that has never happened in history – rather these channels are created from the bottom up, when the people ask for something more. Now, the cosmopolitan democracy I advocate allows a variety of different ideological components; you can imagine that there would be two major ideological visions. One would be the socialist vision, which says we should combine cosmopolitanism with redistribution, with providing more public goods in areas such as the environment, security and so on. And another, equally cosmopolitan vision, would be closer to the traditional liberal position. What worries me is that the liberals do not advocate the creation of global institutions in the same way as the left does. That is contradictory, because they are very much in favour of, for example, free market, but they do not advocate global institutions to match them. They try to create a global society without global democratic players. Europa: Do you think the contemporary economic crisis suggests any possibilities for the appearance of global governance? DA: It has already happened in a very limited way. The way the financial crisis was managed was true global governance. All countries knew very well that they couldn’t sort out the financial crisis alone, and they coordinated between themselves very, very quickly. It is telling that when key economic interests are concerned, the G2, G4, G7, G20 manages to be effective. When we have to deal with other equally important issues such as the environment, genocide in Congo, or a tsunami, the resources available are lower, the response is slower and much less effective. Maybe these countries have the wrong priorities. I assume that global institutions in which citizens would have their voices heard might go towards changing that. Daniele Archibugi’s latest book is The Commonwealth of Citizens, Towards Cosmopolitan Democracy.