Wayne Hudson in an essay in "Crown and Castle" looks toward an Australian Republic being the basis for world governance. It has become obvious that the UN and the EU are not capable of fulfilling that role. The UN is not authoritative enough and the EU is a new kind of unelected appointed governance. I used to maintain, in the late 90s, that the two nations most likely to innovate in government were Australia and Iran. With the naked grabs of power by the theocracy in Iran, and the parking of the US military in Iraq, I suspect Iran's bid for democracy unmolested by a theocracy is on hold for a time. Australia is currently in the grip of the anglophiles, but hope springs eternal in both nations.

Hudson seeks an Australian Republic as the seed, and principle, toward a wider government that ultimately covers the planet. He calls this "Planetary Republicanism".

Planetary Republicanism

Hudson describes planetary republicanism as;

Planetary republicans postulate a planetary global order in which all individuals have legal rights and duties, whether they be persons, corporations, or states. They seek to promote the republican ideals of mixed government, universal access and distribution of power as approaches to global governance. To this end, they agitate for technical changes to inter alia international and national law, media practices and popular culture.

Hudson also argues for the removal of "feel good" aspects from traditional republican doctrine. This includes notions of popular sovereignty, active citizenship, participation, egalitarianism and popular democracy. Hudson argues instead for the promotion of process and procedure;

First it [planetary republicanism] would with the utopia of a single value system as a basis for a "good society" or a "just polity" and seek instead to promote procedures and process, requiring shared rhetoric but allowing significant, albeit not unlimited value diversity.

Hudson also requires that the geographic myths that nation-states use to nationalise their basis be discarded;

Second, a pluralist republicanism would break with geographic and spatial metaphors supposed to legitimate myths or origin or identity.

He admits that nation-states are going to be around for a fair time in the future still, but believes these innovations can be implemented at the nation-state level. A form of bubble up effect. Hudson also requires that a republic not be based on romantic nationalism. Instead he sees an individual as being part of a "moral cosmopolity", with each individual having "the status as a .. unit of international moral concern." Hudson recognizes that this too is utopian but notes systems are slowly devolving to adopt these global like structures.

It is a "dreaming" which generates technical proposals and utopian postulates, not a naive fantasy that global governance will offer an escape from the imperfection of temporal affairs, or itself from unintended consequences.

This is what Hudson calls "pessimistic utopianism".

Why?

Hudson sees planetary republicanism as being possible because of the advances in electronic communications. He sees this as dissolving the stronger aspects of nationalism to economics and politics. And why a global government? Hudson writes that the goal of global governance is imaginary but can be used as the driving force behind the wider adoption of planetary republican principles.

Planetary republicanists seek to identify and support global civilisation through specific technical changes to institutions, organisation forums, practices, manners and ethical processes.

What does Hudson's ideas for Republicanism have to do with Australian Republicanism? Hudson would like an Australian Republic to move the implementation of republicanism forwards and give Australians an outward looking political system with an eye toward global concerns, planetary citizenship and without the limiting nature of nation-state based nationalism.

To summarize .... in positive terms. Australian republicanism should seek to give our national institutions new ethical dimensions. It should attempt to lead the world towards a more pacific and cooperative world order, and not simply replay the tired rhetoric of anti-royalism which has a place, albeit a distinguished one, in Australia's past.

The essay is only five pages long, and very word dense - but a worthy read - if a little difficult to comprehend in one pass.

Transcendent Australia

I have long maintained that it isn't enough for Australia "just" to become a Republic, it must innovate the form of government, sufficiently so that Australia's change to a republic becomes the next 1787. The American Republic added explicit rights, a very enlightenment notion - Australia must add its own innovation to the republican model and doctrine.

A minimalist republic where the Queen is written out and the Governor-General or Prime Minister become the head of state will not do. Federation was a wasted chance which left us with a wet noodle of a constitution that is almost impervious to change. A century later we are fighting for a Republic when this issue should have been solved in the 1890s.

When Australia becomes a republic, it cannot waste the chance it had in 1901, a minimal republic will not be enough.

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