At least, since Marco Polo’s and Columbus’ expedition, global phenomena have existed. Human enterprises that include a big portion of the planetary surface, and which impact affects all the planet were part of our history from long time ago, but now we are living in a global age, which means that global phenomena are determinant over national realities. Financial crisis, international migrations, artificial intelligence, climate change, and many other phenomena and processes are part of a global reality that trespass and overcome territorial boundaries. So, democracy.
Thinking on democratic national states within an international scenario in which tensions, conflict and war predominate has become an illusion. Democracy has to be global if we don’t want national democracies disappear. This is the lessonthat the 20th Century has told us. Therefore, international institutions and the entire world political landscape must incorporate the values of democracy and federalism that most of human beings consider necessary elements of any modern and rational political regime. Otherwise, the tragedies of the past century will come back and configurate new existential risks to the future of humanity, as the Russian invasion to Ukraine, the flourish of national populisms and the many incumbentglobal crisis -economic, ecological, demographic, technological and of security- that national states are incapable of managing are demonstrating every day.
A global economy and technology tend to generate a global society that creates global opportunities but has to face global challenges and crises. Global crises require global solutions. Global solutions must be democratic. Democratic global solutions demand the building of democratic global institutions. Democracy has to become global if we don’t want democracy to disappear.
