GLOBAL GOVERNANCE:A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
- Lisa
- Jun 15
- 12 min read
Updated: Jun 20
by Arlene F. Marks
Things About Governance (2026) - 12
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"Things About Governance" is a thematic series of articles, sponsored by Reality Skimming Press. Pieces in the series run from Jan-June 2026. Query us about contributing for $25 CAD a post at https://facebook.com/relskim or by email at info@realityskimming.com
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Humanity has so far been unable to agree on a global system of governance. By that I mean that national governments cannot reach consensus on the kind of organization they would be willing to answer to in any tangible or meaningful way. Instead, we have alliances such as NATO and OPEC based on common concerns or interests. Countries send delegates to G7 or G20 summit meetings to discuss those concerns one at a time. The assembled representatives draft plans and draw up accords, then leave it to each signatory nation to follow through; however, with no recognized higher authority to enforce the terms of an accord and execute penalties for failure to meet them, progress on even urgent, time-sensitive matters has been spotty at best.
This should come as no surprise, given how difficult it has historically been for individual nations to emerge from collections of smaller political units. The unification of Italy in 1861 was preceded by intense public unrest and precipitated by a series of revolutions. ¹ T¹he unification of Germany, completed in 1871, came about in the aftermath of three successful wars fought by Prussia against Denmark, the Habsburg monarchy, and France. ² Japan became a single nation in the late 16th century after the wear and tear of a century and a half of civil war.³
But here's a thought: if you could remove all the disparate governments on Earth and install in their place a single organization overseeing and managing everything on the planet, what would that idealized, one-size-fits-all system of governance look like? More to the point, would it even be practicable?
Growing up neurodivergent at a time before special education was part of the public school system, I've had plenty of practice at imagining ideal worlds. Again, no surprise—I'd been born into one where I clearly didn't belong. Fortunately, I was an early reader, so this wasn't the only world that was available to me. Each book I read was like a ticket to an alternate reality that had sprung from an author's mind. I spent a lot of time exploring those realities, and as soon as I could write, I became an author and began creating my own.
Over time, painted in broad strokes and fine details, the worlds of my narratives have grown into universes. My Sic Transit Terra space opera series contains a variety of intelligent alien races. For each race I've designed a home world with a globally-ordered planetary government; and in each case, based on the path their evolution has taken, I've found a model here on Earth that I could tailor to their individual nature. However, this works both ways. Just as writing stories about fictional characters has enabled me to better understand humanity, building alien worlds has prompted me to imagine the viability of different options for the beings on our own planet.
Here are some of the governance systems I've considered, and the insights I've gleaned:
1. Theocracy
Many ancient civilizations were ruled by leaders who were believed to be or to represent one or more supreme deities. The government underpinning such a leader served the deity/deities rather than the citizens, and religious doctrine informed every aspect of its administration. Some modern nations still operate this way, notably Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the Vatican.⁴ So do hiving insects, making theocracy the perfect choice for one of my alien races.
The Corvou are intelligent insectoids. Evolving on a seismically active world in isolation from the rest of the inhabited galaxy, they grasped for order and meaning and latched onto the one thing they could depend on: their life cycle. When their queen died, so did all the workers. The final clutch of eggs produced a new queen and the hive was "reborn". Eventually, their queen became the prophetess of a deity called The Mother of All, who constantly destroyed and rebuilt the universe; and the workers dared not forget that their primary duty was to ensure She would be pleased with them and would include the Corvou in the next universe She built.
The takeaway for Earth: Given the current state of global affairs, it's not hard to understand the appeal of religion to a populace that is, or perceives itself to be, at the mercy of events beyond their control. Organized religion offers order, comfort, and fellowship in uncertain times. It also requires faith, obedience, and sacrifice—in other words, conformity of thought in exchange for stability. Many humans have already made that trade, and therein lies a problem.
This system of governance works best if everyone thinks the same and believes together. Otherwise, dissent may be seen as a betrayal of the faith, and disbelieving as a betrayal of the government, and either one could incur harsh penalties. However, we don't all espouse the same beliefs, nor are we likely to. Humans have many different belief systems, some so strongly ingrained that its adherents are willing to leap to conflict with those who don't share their convictions. (In The Cockroach Crusade, at the first contact between humans and the Corvou, the Corvou leap first, declaring a holy war of annihilation on a race they view as jeopardizing their rebirth.)
My opinion: Picking just one existing faith and trying to persuade everyone on Earth to convert to it would not only be a futile endeavour, it could easily spark a war. Replacing all our existing beliefs with a brand new one, perhaps an alien faith…? That's the stuff of science fiction.
2. Participatory Democracy
Athens became the first Greek city state to implement democracy in the 6th century BCE.5 It was a new kind of government, predicated on taking political power out of the hands of the upper classes or wealthy elite and giving the public (demos) a voice in, and opportunities to contribute to, the running of the city:
"Athens' constitution is called a democracy because it respects the interests not of a minority but of the whole people. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses. No one, so long as he has it in him to be of service to the state, is kept in political obscurity because of poverty." (Pericles' funeral oration for the Athenian dead in the first year of the Peloponnesian War, 431 BCE) ⁵
Being a pragmatic alien race with telempathic abilities, the Kularians were naturals to develop a system analogous to this.
Kularian communities are similar to ancient Greek city states in that they are self-contained, each making its own laws while still sharing common features with the others. One of these is the leadership of four Guardians, elected by the citizens for a fixed but lengthy term to manage and protect the gifts bestowed by their deity Avo'or: the gift of Time (the community's history), the gift of Light (education), the gift of Truth (laws), and the gift of Life (health).
The Guardians call periodic meetings of the entire local population to report, discuss, debate, and vote on matters that have arisen. Every vote taken at a meeting is thus a referendum, the result of which is binding on all residents of the community.
In practice, Kularians do whatever jobs suit their abilities and temperaments, but each member also has an inherited duty, passed down from their parent of the same gender, to provide a particular public service. Thus, one may be a grower of food for barter, but also a Defender.
The takeaway for Earth: Participatory democracy has the potential for stability, provided individual communities remain small enough and egalitarian enough and the checks and balances built into the system hold. But there's that problem of human nature rearing its head again, making it necessary to protect the system from those who would seek to dominate or subvert it. Power is seductive. And are we capable of fair and full cooperation with one another when evolution has pretty much baked competitiveness and distrust of those who are different right into our DNA?
My opinion: I'm guessing we're not. Regretfully, I must conclude that the Kularian version of participatory democracy only works in the presence of a level of empathy we can only dream of, and the Athenian version applied globally would rapidly become so complex as to be completely unmanageable.
3. Feudalism with a martial bent
The early samurai (1192 to 1603 CE) lived in a feudal society ruled by a military dictator (shogun). They were a special class of warriors, highly respected for their values and integrity.
Bushido, which literally translates to 'the way of the warrior,' guided samurai in both their martial pursuits and personal conduct… More than just a set of rules for combat, bushido was a comprehensive philosophy that influenced various aspects of culture and art… ⁶
Feudalism was actually a land management system. The shogun awarded parcels of it to loyal followers who had the wherewithal to raise a private army and would swear to do so in support of the ruler whenever he commanded it. (Think Game of Thrones and "bending the knee".) These wealthy landowners (called daimyo) in turn permitted peasants to live on and work pieces of the land in exchange for a portion of whatever they produced, along with their labour and military service when required. Sitting below the daimyo but above the peasant class in the social hierarchy were the samurai, who protected the daimyo's land and the people on it in exchange for their own piece of land and a stipend.⁷
Feudalism's greatest enemy, it turned out, was industrial progress. It created power detached from land ownership, eventually rendering the feudal system obsolete. In Japan, the desire to be competitive in a rapidly industrializing world spelled an end to both feudalism and the role of the samurai warrior in that system. On the alien planet Nandor, however, where the entire population must be space-battle-ready at all times, the feudalism-samurai model needs very little adjustment to be a perfect fit.
The Nandrians are a warrior society, from top to bottom. Every individual is trained from childhood to defend their House, their world, and its allies from an enemy they barely survived in the past, and who they know will be coming again.
Nandor is divided into forty Houses, each headed for life by the members of a single ruling family, and each containing twelve ranked castes, called Shields. The higher the Shield number, the lower the caste. As with the samurai, honour is of paramount importance. Every Nandrian, no matter where they stand in the social hierarchy, must uphold the honour of their House or suffer severe consequences, up to and including death.
First Shield contains the ruling family, occupying all the key legislative, judicial, diplomatic, religious, and military positions of the House. Second Shield is the "palace guard". Third through Seventh Shields are tasked with carrying out and enforcing the orders of the First Shield both on- and off-world. Eighth through Twelfth Shields are the on-world support system—the "peasant class" of farmers, artisans, and so on. There is a chain of command, with each caste taking orders from the ones above and able to give orders to the ones below.
The takeaway for Earth: While feudalism might work for isolated rural pockets of humanity, we're far too advanced technologically for this system to be relevant at scale. All of our devices would have to be destroyed and our memories wiped before it could even be tried. It would be a monumental challenge and achieve only limited stability, given our penchant for inventing shiny new things.
My opinion: Nandrian-style governance works because military discipline works. It just doesn't work for every human all the time, particularly when there is no enemy on the horizon. We would chafe at being forced to operate under the constant restrictions of a rigid and punitive code of behaviour, and sooner or later we would revolt.
Another approach: Clearly, having alien versions of our own past systems fed back to us isn't the answer. Instead, how about reaching forward in time, to a human colony on a distant world, one that was established long ago by family groups from various parts of the planet? They should have a global system of governance in place, right? Something that we can tailor for present-day Earth? Let's see…
In the 24th century CE, Stragon is a planet containing two separately governed nations of humans (Borea and The Mainland) under a central global authority—the Directorate and its army of bureaucrats.
4. Socialist democracy
The Boreans have made an extremely stable and equitable way of life for themselves under a blended version of socialism and democracy.
Their population—a small percentage of the planetary total—is spread out among 22 widely distributed towns. Each town is surrounded by a forested buffer zone. Small industry and internal trade are of the cottage variety. Larger industry and agriculture occupy suitable designated areas between the towns and fall under both local (policing) and regional (management) purviews. Currency is digital and centrally controlled. A reliable social safety net is in place, regionally managed and locally administered. Those who benefit their community or the region are publicly recognized and rewarded.
Each town elects a council, which then elects a Chair to call and lead local meetings and to represent the town's interests as a member of the 22-person Regional Council. The Regional Council also regulates external trade, screens applications for the available top management posts (what we would call "ministers with portfolio"), and conducts regular performance reviews of those who occupy these positions. The Chair of the Regional Council rotates each year among its various members. This individual heads a sub-committee that prepares and delivers an in-person semi-annual report to the Directorate, a measure made necessary by the Boreans' refusal to engage with the planet-wide Intellinet or to permit government security surveillance anywhere within its borders.
The takeaway for Earth: Borea's governance system works quite well at the regional level. Unfortunately, its stability on a global scale could depend on factors that rule out the Earth that we know. First, the Boreans are generations away from having an overcrowding problem. We already have one. Second, every Borean wholeheartedly supports and participates in the current system of governance. Since unanimity of mind does not exist even on Stragon, a world with only two nations of humans, how can it be assured on one containing 197 independent countries?⁸
In short, to be certain of success, Borean-style democracy would require at the very least a drastic reduction of population and an existential level of planet-wide disorder before Earth's inhabitants would consider accepting it as a global way of doing things.
My opinion: That is a shame, because mindful land management at the regional level together with common-sense limitations on the development and use of technology sounds just about perfect.
5. Technocratic capitalism
The Stragori on The Mainland have gone all in on Big Pharma, technology, and progress for the sake of progress. Wealth and power are currency to be pursued and amassed. Families in possession of both compete with one another to roll out the next eagerly anticipated Shiny New Thing. Urbanization and monetization are rampant.
Security is a major industry on The Mainland, since this is where the seat of Stragori government and virtually all the crime on the planet are found. The Directorate, once comprised of elected flesh-and-blood representatives who displayed great wisdom and foresight, has devolved into a collection of uploaded consciousnesses in a supercomputer. Citizens on The Mainland are under near-constant surveillance, and the tracking capability has expanded with the introduction of neural implants connecting them directly to the planetary Intellinet.
Predictably, the Mainlanders have come to regret giving a computer this much control over their lives and their world. Factions are clamouring for action. Fringe groups are becoming emboldened, even violent. Interfamily competition has taken a political turn, AI is entering the mix, and a civil war is brewing.
The takeaway for Earth: Capitalism is the antithesis of democracy, being inherently selfish, and unbridled progress can be a disaster in the making. Together, they play into humanity's worst instincts. They feed on each other, intensifying competition for and hoarding of wealth and resources, creating social inequalities, breeding civil unrest, and ultimately leading to societal collapse.
My opinion: This is definitely not a good or stable choice for global governance.
So, what would be a good choice? Can there ever be a single workable global system of governance for a multi-national, multi-racial, multi-cultural planet such as ours, or will our basic human nature foil every attempt at implementing one? Since the experiment is ongoing, I plan to continue thinking and writing and happily spending time in the universes I create.
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Born and raised in Toronto, Arlene Marks spent twenty years teaching high school while writing part-time. In 2012 she retired from the classroom to dive into a full-time professional writing and editing career. Since then, writing as Arlene F. Marks, she has authored two literacy programs, a critically acclaimed collection of short speculative fiction, and more than a dozen novels in multiple genres, ranging from space opera (the Sic Transit Terra series) to urban fantasy horror (The Nash'terel series) to paranormal mystery (The Groverton Hauntings series) and beyond. Her next mindbending novel, The Many-Storied Man, and a rural sf novella, Manua's Children, will both be coming out in November 2026. Arlene has also given numerous writing workshops, facilitated a local writers' group, and midwifed two literary festivals in the Georgian Bay area of Ontario: CollingWord and The Word on the Bay. She lives with her husband on the shore of beautiful Nottawasaga Bay, but can also be found on her website: http://www.thewritersnest.ca
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References
Marks, Arlene F. (2019). The Cockroach Crusade. Edge Science Fiction & Fantasy Publishing.
Marks, Arlene F. (2025). The Stragori Deception. Brain Lag Books.
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