3. Glocal Challenges in the Present and the Future

Human rights are the normative backbone of glocal governance. They set our normative frameworks and shape our attitudes toward others and for our day-to-day behavior. The assumption is that the more we know about the rights of others, the lower the level of interpersonal violence in our local communities. For example, in a case study on the impact of information, education, and human rights awareness campaigns in Mozambique, researchers found that the level of violence and corruption decreased, correlating to a higher level of human rights awareness. They conclude that the information and education campaigns in a local community generated a large increase in awareness of 25% points when information was distributed to citizens. The community treatment increased citizens’ awareness and their depth of knowledge. The researchers also found that no effects of lowering political violence occur when only the leaders of that community are trained, suggesting that leaders did not introduce any apparent within-community effort to disseminate information about what they had been trained on, in order to avoid change and lose privileges (Armand et al., 2020). Instead, they found that a high level of transparency to pass on the information and direct engagement and empowerment of the population lowered the level of corruption and nepotism. It increased the level of wellbeing of the community and motivated citizens to take more beneficial actions for all. Therefore, empowering only the elites will not positively affect the local community, as Courbage and Todd concluded.

Over the past century, the increase of literacy has shaken the dominance of religious believers and value systems and thus led to a more self-determined society that controls economic growth and wealth through family planning (Courbage & Todd, 2007). The exciting correlation between literacy and thus the eligible access to information—also employing ICT—led to and empowered civil society across the planet, the most prominent example being the Arab Spring in 2011. One can conclude that building schools and allowing for media to act is one thing, but educating, informing, and empowering people, for example, through human rights and political education, is yet another. It goes much further beyond schooling and has a higher effect.

Human rights are a set of norms and standards of fundamental freedoms that can empower people. Today, ten core human rights documents called the International Bill of Human Rights encompass the critical standards on which glocal governance is grounded. These standards stretch from the rights of migrant workers to freedom of assembly, freedom of and from religion to the right to housing, and to be free from discrimination of any sort. At its core, the Bill is a normative framework that sets standards to distinguish between the violations and abuse of our natural entitlements, and the enhancement of these entitlements. Nevertheless, this normative framework has undergone a remarkable development in content and progress, starting with the UDHR in 1948, the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and the International Covenant on Social, Economic, and Cultural Rights (ICSECR), both from 1966 and thus far ending with the 2010 Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance (DPRED) as the most recent addition to the Bill.⁵

The treaties cover all key areas of human life and those causing suffering, injustice, and discrimination. The UN is currently considering one more global norm setter, a convention on the rights of elderly people. These treaties, nevertheless, are state-driven agreements between governments, which makes them the main duty-bearer to respect, protect, and fulfill, as well as violate them, vis-à-vis their right-holders, the citizens.

Regional human rights organizations and regimes, above all in Europe and Latin America are standard setters.⁶ There are no legally binding human rights treaties or courts for the Asia Pacific region or the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. But there are some political and morally binding human rights agreements in place in Asia and the MENA region. For example, the ASEAN Bangkok Declaration from 1993 and the Asian Human Rights Charter from 1998 and the Arab Human Rights Charter from 2004 (Mihr, 2008). They stress cultural practices and development and that fundamental freedom rights must be respected, such as freedom of religion or freedom of assembly. The Bangkok Declaration also advocates for ‘true democracy,’ demanding ‘good governance, freedom from corruption, and accountability of State and other authorities to the people.’⁷ The Arab Charter was reformed in 2008 but never emphasized democracy and instead is highlighting the superiority of Sharia and domestic law over human rights law. It was, for that reason, excluded by the UN from being an inclusive human rights document.

Most international and regional human rights treaties and agreements have turned into customary laws and hence globally applicable human rights standards, both politically and legally, no matter whether governments have ratified them or not. Customary human rights law is an essential guidance tool for CSOs and businesses when demanding the implementation and respect for global human rights norms locally. What customary international human rights law can do for glocal governance is to guide and incentivize individuals to take actions that lead to a more inclusive community. These rules and regulations also guide what people can do, beyond any national state legislation, because human rights law is—in theory—above, and at least in compliance with, national law. Hence, human rights norms and standards often undermine state power, notably authoritarian regimes. The challenges current glocal governance regimes thus face is not a lack of norms but rather how these human rights can be organized for the common good so people in local communities can benefit from it equally.

For overcoming global disparities in the 1990s, the UN initiated its Millennium Development Goals in 2000 to set human rights-based benchmarks for more equality. Its successor agenda, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) from 2015, take one step further and serve today as normative and practical benchmarks for glocality. To both, all 193 UN member states have pledged to fulfill them by 2030 through their National Action Plans (Agenda 2030). The MSA is explicit in the SDGs. In addition, some UN member states have agreed on Global Compacts on business and human rights or migrants and refugees to materialize the SDGs. These Compacts give guidance to local and private actors on implementing global norms. The fast development to link global norms to local actions since the 1990s is dramatic, and since the global financial crisis in 2009, multilateralism and glocalization have sped up once again, as it did, too, during the global pandemic after 2020. National governments realize that they can only solve domestic and local problems if they collaborate transnationally and globally. For example, the EU and WTO effort to protect artists, developers, designers, and scientists’ intellectual property rights shows how bilateral and plurilateral arrangements globally create stricter standards for protection and enforcement penalties.

Notwithstanding, intellectual property treaties are some of the oldest human rights treaties globally, starting in 1986 with the Bern Convention on Copyright Law and through the updated international agreements on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) within the World Trade Organization (WTO). The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) from 2018 has thus marked the peak of protecting individual rights in cyberspace and physical pace, not only in the EU, to protect our texts, photos, bank accounts, and other personal and intellectual matters. The International Monetary Funds (IMF) has likewise, over the past decade, fostered a decentralization process to secure the human rights of access to work and a decent income for individuals across the planet no matter the country (Acharya & Plesch, 2020). The principle of non-interference in domestic affairs has become redundant.

The key driving factor for glocalizing human rights is the intriguing possibility for individual accountability for anyone who violates these principles. Universal jurisdiction in the context of gross human rights violations at any domestic court is a milestone achievement. At its foundation in 2006, the UN Council on Human Rights Policy confirmed that many human rights and sound governance principles overlap. These principles and standards have transformed the relationship between governments and individual persons and citizens and at the same time turned every local court, into a potential ‘international court’ that can decide based on universal human rights principles and laws. It has made both sides, governments, and citizens, more responsible and accountable for their actions. The UN Council admitted that more research and assessment were needed to understand which forms of governance—other than governments—are affected by universal jurisdiction to leverage the achievement of these standards or vice versa (ICHRP, 2006, p. 14). North et al. (2009) underlined the need for this human rights-based governmental reforms and multi-stakeholder approach to it—otherwise, democracies will not survive in their present forms.

Bacl in 1997 and 2005 the UNDP reports on Good Governance in the World already alluded that the human rights-based approach (HRBA) through MSA is the best way to turn basic governance principles into good governance. The World Bank’s Governance Indicators in 2002, 2006, 2011, followed these recommendations and, in the following years, the Council of Europe’s first World Forum on Democracy in 2012, and the European Union’s ongoing Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) incorporated the HRBA and the MSA as key for realizing effective governance. Later, Landman and Larizza (2010) measured the correlation between good governance, human rights, and effective governance in their case studies on governmental performance of different regimes.

One can argue that over the past decades, this massive global diffusion and dissemination has led to what Scholte called ‘transscalarity,’ which in return led to a norm-driven less hierarchal and egalitarian mode of governance. Today, people’s expectations concerning effective governance depend more on achieving human rights and good governance than in the past. Additionally, the number of people who know, understand, and claim ownership of these principles has surpassed a critical mass of 33% within societies, having increased since digitalization and ICT fostered HRE (Childs & Mona, 2008; Thompson & Walker, 2008). The 2021 WVS report illustrates that human rights are globally supported. In over 160 countries, an average of 60% felt that human rights were somewhat respected and essential, and by this reached a stable majority appreciating human rights as a means for change.⁸

In that same line, Beth Simmons (2009) and Henkin et al. (2009) assessed that human rights had reached global acceptance some years ago and that the problem for human rights fulfillment is not the concept of human rights, nor the lack of knowledge, but corrupt and dysfunctional political systems. However, this has impacted citizens’ demands, needs, and overall expectations toward effective governance, even in anocratic-led societies.

Human rights standards have become part of our daily lives, reaching a consolidated threshold of societal consciousness and attitudes, and are entering people’s belief systems and political regimes. No other international document is disseminated in all the world’s languages, as is the UDHR. Most social movements or networks refer to international human rights standards, independent of their political agenda. Parallel to this, international human rights law, conventions, and declarations have skyrocketed since the 1990s. Governments, companies, CEOs, and CSOs competitively emphasize that they aim to comply with human rights standards and good governance principles (Stadelmann-Steffen, 2008). The debates surrounding public–private partnership (PPP), the SDGs, the ICC, and the plea for a World Court of Human Rights are just a few examples of these developments. One can assume that governance regimes respond to societal or international pressure to comply with human rights and good governance principles but that, in fact, they also acknowledge that they will increase their legitimacy and might leverage their governance outcomes if they adhere to them. Therefore, many of these actors are today more responsive to citizens’ demands for fundamental freedoms and equity, which they are more likely to be held accountable to than in previous decades.

In 2020, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the heads of State of France, Germany, Italy, Norway, and the EU launched a joint article in the newspapers with the title ‘Only global Answers will work’⁹ to combat the pandemic asking for all stakeholders of society to share efforts to deal with the crisis. Accordingly, Syrian Nobel Prize Nominee Raed Saleh highlighted in his interview that peace and wellbeing in Syria could be established through a combination of civic and state actors under global standardized norms: ‘No one should have too much influence in that matter and dominate another, (…) and by these resources should be distributed equally,’ he hopefully expressed.¹⁰

Democrats steer, dictators control. Therefore, democratic principles are fundamental for glocal governance. Democratic institutions and actors are dynamically interacting based on personal convictions and a level of institutional responsiveness by policymakers and compliance with norms manifested in national constitutions. Their actions are—ideally—in compliance with universal human rights norms. That is one reason why China does not oppose democracy as such; quite the opposite, it defines it anew based on Chinese norms in its White Paper on ‘How Democracy Works’ from December 2021. The CCP even claims to realize the so-called ‘American Dream’ and Western lifestyle, that gives everyone opportunities and prosperity, and by its own standards the Chinese government aims to surpass the Western model. Whether it will succeed in its endeavor to turn the core concept of democracy, namely inclusiveness, pluralism, and free choice, into one with ‘Chinese characteristics’ and what that exactly means, remains to be seen. So far the Chinese model of democracy has not been seen successful to deal with crisis and challenges of modern times, it rather lags behind when responding to migration, climate change, wars, and pandemics. Its model lags of a culture of reflection, constructive criticism, trial-and-error, and overall is not willing to accept different views on public matters  and instead remains in copying Western lifestyle without developing it further.

What we do know is that countries that democratized successfully followed the same patterns. Linz and Stepan’s highlight that democratization is successful and, that ‘a democratic transition is complete when sufficient agreement has been reached about political procedures to produce an elected government, when a government comes to power that is the direct result of a free and popular vote, when this government de facto has the authority to generate new policies, and when the executive, legislative and judicial power generated by the new democracy does not have to share power with other bodies de jure’ (Linz & Stepan, 1996, p. 3). Hence a constant bottom-up and reflective struggle between different stakeholders is needed in order to complete democratic institution building.

Most of today’s 190 listed constitutional democracies worldwide are multi-party systems in which elections are the norm. Many of them have already adapted to direct democracy methods and introduced MSA. Others turned into de facto anocracies or electoral democracies, and left the path of liberal democracies. Countries with one- or no-party regimes remain the exception, most prominently China, North Korea, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Libya (Regel & Döring, 2019). These regimes are far from consensus-building modes of governance among different parties and positions, let alone in the key areas of public matters, which are the sectors (1) security/health, (2) economy/work, and (3) education/social mobility, and which they often either privatize or outsource to CSOs or international organizations. Anocratic or authoritarian regimes are less capable of dealing with the rough consequences of global crisis such as climate change, pandemics, cyber security, and migration.

Dankwart Rustow, the pioneer of Transitology and transition from autocracies to democracy, highlighted that ‘(…) People who were not in conflict about some rather fundamental matters would have little need to devise democracy’s elaborate rules for conflict resolution. The acceptance for those rules is logically a pact of the transition process rather than its prerequisite’ (Rustow, 1970, p. 362). Rustow understood that any society that fights and opts for a democratic system has to comply with four fundamental stages of transition: First, a sense of national and collective unity of different stakeholders making a clear commitment to democratic change (background conditions); Secondly, the readiness and willingness for political struggle by different stakeholders to overcome cleavages, disputes, and obstacles that have caused the wish for change of fundamental matters in the first place (preparatory phase). Thirdly, the collective will to agree on democratic rules that must be applied de jure and de facto and eventually the acceptance of shifts in power after fair and free elections (decision phase). Lastly, the most difficult of all is to turn a pro democratic attitude into daily habits and move from the acceptance of (democratic) rules to believing in them (habituation phase) (Rustow, 1970). Latter phase is hardly achieved even among the strongest and consolidated countries, today.

The biggest threat to backsliding democracies today are phases three and four when political leaders and civil society breach their own rules and norms that brought them into power in the first place. Rustow’s concept of transition to democracy has inspired researchers worldwide to find out what is key to democratic consolidation. We find much of the same in Samuel Huntington’s ‘Waves of Democratization’ from 1991 and later Wolfgang Merkel’s concept of system transformation and democratic regime consolidation from 1999. Whereas Huntington overall describes the tricky avenue to complete the process of democratization, which can take between one and ten years, or two legislative periods, he also explains why so many countries never successfully democratize. They usually fail to comply with norms and rules during the first legislative period, when they start corrupting and undermining the normative orders, such as fair and free elections, freedom of media, inclusive voting rights, competitive party system, etc. Merkel sequences consolidation of a political system in four stages, and together they can take decades to complete. The first stage is to set widely agreed norms that are inclusive and acceptable by an absolute majority in the constitutions. The second stage is the representative and institutional role of all political, private, and business actors who abuse the norms. The functionality of an independent judiciary (the rule of law), free media, and civil society can be ways to measure this stage. The third stage, and much more challenging to reach, is the attitudinal and behavioral shift in society when all political, private, and civil actors not only believe but also adhere to constitutional norms and play a fair game—like Rustow’s ‘habituation.’ This is almost impossible to achieve without continuous political and human rights education. The last stage of consolidation is what Almond and Verba named ‘civic culture’ when a free civil society interacts with politics through active and free participation and hence shows a high level of trust and free interaction in public institutions (Wolfgang, 1994). To illustrate consolidated democracy, we must look at one of the oldest democracies in the world, namely Switzerland since 1848 (some even date it back to the first democratic claims, the Rütli Schwur in 1291). It is a land-locked country that had passed several stages of improvement and backsliding over the past centuries, and whose national President is rotating on an annual basis. Chancellor Thurnherr, who, after serving two terms since 2016, said about his role, ‘I do not see myself as the Chairman or Chancellor of the eighth Federal Council more as a top civil servant. My power is limited. But I have some influence. I can mediate or control, coordinate, and make suggestions; however, decision and consensus are driven by all stakeholders together.’¹⁴ Such a public statement by the lead governor of a country is unimaginable in authoritarian countries. Switzerland’s multi-level and bottom-up governance regime, with its unique rotating governance regime and principles of direct democracy, serves today as a blueprint for modes of glocal governance. Local communities decide issues of collective relevance through direct voting and consensus-building.

A failed democratization process can be seen in the once promission example of transition toward democracy in Tunisia since 2011. In 2021 the Tunisian parliament was dissolved and turned back into a centralistic Presidential system, because it failed to undertake major political and societal reforms in the first two legislative periods. Huntington, in (1991) ‘Waves of Democratization,’ describes this erosion and backsliding as the ‘spillover effects’ of non-democratic states to the once in the process of democratization. An isolated and new fragile state, like Tunisia after the Arab Spring that remained as the ‘only democracy in the region,’ cannot survive among autocratic regimes by which it is surrounded in the region. It cannot, for long, counterbalance and resist anti-democratic infiltration from outside. In 2021 when the President finally dissolved and disempowered the parliament, Tunisia’s first democratic experiment failed to consolidate. The Arab uprisings in 2011 and the following years were labeled ‘revolutions’ in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen and gave—at first—hope for entering stage one and two of Rustow’s and Merkel’s stages from transition to transformation. Rather than overthrowing authoritarian regimes, civil society and the angry youth protesters prompted some concessions. And in return, the Moroccan and Jordanian governments made massive concessions toward the youth and amended their constitutions to keep the regime alive and the protesters quiet. In fear of losing power, the highly dysfunctional Algerian government ended an almost two-decade-old state of emergency, and part of the government of Kuwait resigned in response to protests. These were signs of concessions, even though the patriarchal stronghold of older men remained at the end, and pro democratic regime change did not take place. There was not a fundamental will and enough threshold in society for a renovation of the regime that would have satisfied the needs of all its citizens. It is only a matter of a short time until the vicious cycle of unrest, protest, concessions, and suppression emerges again, and the Arab Spring will turn into the next Arab Autum.

The youth rebellion failed in the Arab Spring because it did not agree on fundamental matters, and it was too divided to speak with one voice. If they had called for fair and accessible opportunities, the governments would have been forced to make substantive changes in the education and economic sector and labor market. Since that was not the case, the revolutions failed. Protesters also failed to establish a joint coalition to negotiate the transition with the ruling elites. While mass mobilization in favor of political liberalization emerged across the region—and elsewhere in Central Europe, South America, and Asia—the hopes for more far-ranging political changes were often dashed, because protesters could not speak with one voice and organize themselves well enough to challenge the establishment. It would take another generation before it would rise again. Instead, civil wars emerged in Libya, Syria, and Yemen.¹⁵ Another factor for the failed democratic revolutions in and around the year 2011, was lack of a pre-existing culture to compromise and build consensus, even on the local levels. Instead the patriarchal mentality and brotherhood like local governance regime, foster ‘strong male leaderships’ in which the winner of elections claims all the power instead of sharing it. Looking again back into ancient Greek writings, Plato’s 5th book in Politeia, he, too, observed that it takes several attempts and learning experiences of reformers and protesters until a regime can successfully transform itself democratically (Grassi and Walter, 1990, p. 240). A successful outcome could be, according to Plato’s disciple Aristotle (322 BC) the constitutional state as one with fixed norms and rules applicable to all. It is a state in which the middle class ought to govern and be responsive to the youth and next generation, and hence his visions reminds us today of a modern state that embraces the concept of sustainability. Aristotle connects the success of a constitutional state to the fact that its norms are transparent and applicable to everyone and at the same time universally—every member of society, can easily agree to these norms and they need to be perceived as a doable endeavor by all members of society. As he goes on, Aristotle argues that a constitutional state is legitimate based on the pursuit of happiness, and hence a fundamental matter for which people are ready to establish unifying norms and rules (Aristoteles, 1994, pp. 198–199). His slogan ‘Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness’ made it into the American Declaration of Independence from 1776, two thousand years later. Many of Aristotle’s claims not only sound modern but even utopian. Another contemporary author, Wallerstein, in his World-System Approach from 2004, follows up on Greek philosopher’s division of basic needs of people that must be satisfied and regulated before thinking about different kind or better statehood, and he adds that these needs and happiness need to be set out by explicit legally binding norms and standards accessible to everyone; otherwise, any new or old regime is doomed to fail. The three services the state must provide, according to Wallerstein, are (1) public education, (2) access to health, and (3) guarantee of lifelong possibility for solid income that allows each member of society to live a self-determined life (Wallerstein, 2019, p. 94). In short, the two-core task for governments is to provide for fair, free, and equal social mobility and a healthy environment for all. How this can be best achieved is the essence of the core divide between autocratic and democratic regime defenders.

Little doubt there is, that dysfunctional states are susceptible to corruption even in public schooling, hospitals, and the informal labor sector, but they are nevertheless successful for a period of time, and often enjoy a high level of prosperity. In a similar line, Carl Schmitt, a controversial German Constitutionalist, saw the German Weimar Republic of the 1920s in the same stage as many dysfunctional states are today, and a root cause for the rise of the Nazi regime and a destructive WWII. The Weimar leadership would not let go of traditional, hierarchical ways of governing by a militant elite. Schmitt drew upon Aristotle’s writings in The Politeia (335 BC), elaborating that the main pitfalls of a constitutional state is that citizens and policymakers neither understand the laws, nor adhere to them. This mistrust will sooner or later corrupt the law by policymakers and lawyers if the law is not adhered to through conviction by society at large. Carl Schmitt’s ‘Political Theory’ on Constitutionalism predicted the end of the first wave of democratization (Huntington, 1991) in the 1920s and the rise of nationalistic autocratic regimes in Europe and elsewhere—later leading the world into a devastating global war. He argued that if a state does not have a functioning normative framework and constitution, to which all stakeholders adhere to by conviction, the state and the political system will fail (Schmitt, 2015).

In the essays on Legitimacy and Legality, Schmitt highlights that every new democracy is doomed to fail, if people do not have the necessary culture and experience through a certain level of education and a free space to explore their own talents. The democratic state is one in which people get together, negotiate, and agree on shared norms and a law (the constitution) and then act accordingly. Hence, the transition to democracy is slow and might soon end up in reverse, even an authoritarian form of governance, if citizen do not carry and defend the constitutions (Schmitt, 2012). According to Aristotle the three core elements of bad governance, namely the rise and level of (1) mistrust, (2) helplessness and disempowerment of people, which leads to a shared sense of inferiority, and (3) the corrupt, submissive, and opportunistic behavior of public officers to a clientelist leadership; are contrary to what a constitutional state stands for (Aristotle, Politeia, p. 261).

We can see today, that tyrannical leaders will always aim toward a low level of education for citizens, claim obedience by public officers, and use propaganda to install fear and hostility toward ‘others.’ In reverse, autocratic leaders have portrayed themselves even as ‘knights’ and heroes and saviors of an intimidated and fearful population. Not much seems to have changed since Antiquity, if we look it at it? From the legendary figure of Herakles in Greece, Prince Ashok in India, to the mysterious King Arthur in England, and the evil-dragon fighting St. George across the Middle East and Europe, the good against the evil is always associated with a strong fighting man defeating the evil snake. There seems to be little room for MSA and a human rights-driven agenda? The mythical half-men-Jaguar Protectors of the Mesoamerican Mayas, the figure of El Cid during the Reconquista in Spain, the knight Parsifal in Germanic myths, as well as the Knight Manas in Central Asia, resemble nothing less than successful autocratic leadership. All fight for a unified, peaceful nation, independence, and self-determination. Their fan community remains unchallenged and their role models are found in a plethora of contemporary fantasy and graphic novels, movies, and games in which these figures are portrayed, until the twentieth-century reincarnation as Superman and Iron Man. The hero is predominantly a lonely male fighter gathering followers to save a nation from evil.  Even mysterious and religious prophets of the past follow that pattern. Heroic female figures, such as Greek Nike and warrior women, are portrayed as guardian angels, mothers, widows, divine, virgins, and seldom emerge as a prototype of Superwomen. These visions from good versus evil leadership in times of paradigm shift are not to be underestimated.

The popularity of these characters over the past decades grew, whether mystical, fantasy, virtual-avatars, or for real, are severe competitors for the way we perceive democracy. They portray a patriarchal, hierarchical, and populist way of governance. Mystical heroes are unbeaten in their intriguing success and achievements in fighting evil and the enemies of Nationhood—be it in modern times, terrorists, or aliens. Even contemporary leaders portray themselves as ‘fathers of the nation’ and liberators. Statues of Simon Bolivar remain untouched in South America. He was a freedom fighter against colonialist powers in the nineteenth century and symbolized the struggle for self-determination and dignity—but by no means was he a human rights defender. Che Guevara fought against social inequality, endorsed the use of violence for a higher cause, and became a pop-art symbol; Napoleon stands for a genius strategist who slaughtered thousands of innocent people; Mao Tzetung is the father and liberator from old traditions while killing millions; and Stalin portrayed himself as a father figure who takes care of his nation’s children, while deporting and deliberately killing millions of citizens. These leaders all resemble top-down autocratic feudalistic leadership style modes of governance, liberators at the most, but not promoting human rights nor inclusiveness in governance. Mafia States and organized crime follow this concept until today and control large parts of statehood and the world economy. Russia’s/Soviet Union’s ‘Great Fatherland War Victory’ of 1945 is until present times commemorated every year on 9 May as in many of the former Soviet Republics with the sole purpose of keeping the fragile nations together and justifying centralized power in the hands of a benevolent father. Warlords and organized crime leaders successfully uphold similar images of liberators from a supreme and evil power or victims of the same, to legitimate their actions, as did Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the deceased founder of the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq, who is today considered a hero among its supporters. Above all, they often stand for the despair of many, seeking a solid leader who offers solutions to problems.

Plato was looking for an answer what a ‘just state’ would be, despite the vicious cycle of hero-driven leadership? In Politeia, he cites Socrates search for a ‘healthy state.’ A sick state is one, in which bad manners govern and rules with tempers due to a lack of good education, inability to sideline and channel greedy and ill-minded people through a lack of control over the law, and the lack of public services. To set up a ‘just state,’ Plato suggests first to make sure there is a diversity of people in the state that can deliver what is needed to survive in terms of mercantile, food, and other goods of the daily allowance. Second, the state must provide an entertainment culture and good education for all. Third, the state leaders must provide services, such as trading and stock markets, schools, and hospitals; and fourth, a permanent defense system and security sector that can defend the state along its border (Platon, 1990, p. 110). Even so, some of the measures to sideline ill-mannered people sound radical to our ears today; but fundamentally, not much has changed since Antiquity when identifying what it takes, even democratically, to govern a community, society, or state. We also learn from Plato that any ‘just state’ sooner or later erodes and falls apart by inner forces if interests and stakeholders are not balanced and do not have the same access to resources or political participation. This happens, for example, when everyone enjoys all freedoms at once, without regulating or sharing them with others.¹⁶

Anocracies, however, seem to be the most successful model of governance today, and for many that is already a success, because they are neither fully autocratic nor fully consolidated democracy. According to the former foreign minister Rajaratnam of Singapore, liberal democracy is an ideal that can not be achieved. Instead democracy is the governing of deeds, and prefers anocracy and electoral democracy over liberal democracy. He coined the term ‘democracy of deeds’ in 1971,¹⁷ and ever since, the term describes a democratically set up regime that strongly controls the public sectors, in the same way as it controls CSOs and media and puts citizen duties before human rights. Some 50 years later, in 2019, Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat called on the city’s citizens to collaborate in what he called a Cohesive Society to ‘build a democracy of deeds, where everyone chips in with our various strengths and passions to build a society we can all be proud of.’¹⁸ The government needs to keep its ears on the people and consult with them, instead of allowing them to raise their voice to hear them. Until now, the Singaporean model of ‘democracy of deeds’ has been a source of inspiration for many emerging and yet anocratic states in most of Asia, above all for China, and hence samples of Singapore’s model can be found in the White Paper on democracy in 2021. This ‘surveillance anocracy’ needs public-spirited action and heavy surveillance technology to spy on people’s problems and solve these problems top-down, claiming governmental solutions as a ‘devotion to the welfare of the people.’ Similar concepts and misuse of democracy are often found in authoritarian governmental rhetoric to calm people and give the image of people’s free will, empowerment, and participation.

Unlike Singapore’s model, deliberative and collaborative democracy has been claimed to be the highest and most solid level of democracy. They resemble pluralistic coexistence between government and civil society of the kind found in contemporary societies, mainly in Europe and North and South America (Morlino et al., 2020). Collaborative democracy equates Almond and Verba’s definition of ‘civic culture’ and Rustow’s approach to habituation and Merkel’s designed attitudinal and behavioral level of interaction of all stakeholders based on law. It is quite contrary to the ‘democracy by deeds’ that Singaporean leaders prefer. Instead, the normative claim of the deliberative model is that all decisions are subject to discourse and those who determine or dominate that discourse—as seen in the Swiss model (Schäfer & Merkel, 2020, pp. 3–27).

By this definition, deliberative democracy is complementary to majority voting and reaching consensus. Its decision-making process aims at including as many diverse people as possible to agree on one subject and build at least 66% consensus on the solution. As described by many, deliberative politics is not a mode of decision-making but a criterion and method of seeking consensus decisions (Habermas, 1990, p. 42). This deliberative mode of governance is often accused of not challenging existing political conditions or opinions, and only building consensus on a subject matter, by any means, even with unfair methods, blackmailing, and vote-buying. In order for a deliberative model to contribute to the creation of existing social power relations, especially in times of populist governments and Social Media echo chambers, deliberative discourse can preserve opinions and political attitudes, and hence preserve old power structures instead of changing or transforming attitudes and behavior.

In any mode of governance, powerful lobbyists and businesses can be key stakeholders and a curse or blessing for an inclusive democratic model (Crouch, 2004). Despite the many weaknesses that any democratic regime has, the only thing we know for sure is that states that are run by an autocratic elite or one-party regime will fail sooner or later to respond to citizen needs in times of crisis and global challenges. Democratic regimes, instead, need to adapt and reform themselves, if they want to succeed and those who already incorporate glocal governance methods, have managed both the financial crisis in 2009 and the Covid pandemic in 2020 and undertake most of all the global efforts to mitigate the consequence of climate change. One weakness (and strength) of democracies is their multi-party system that pushes governments to build coalitions and govern by consensus. In the height of new consolidated democracies in Europe in the late 1960s, Krippendorff spoke of the end of the party-state (1968). He saw multi-party regimes as the product of the early stages and phases of democratization processes that do not last more than a generation before they get corrupted because multi-party coalition leaves little room for opposition. Party-based governments cannot be voted out of the office quickly because they can renew themselves and have economic and ideological control instruments at their disposal. Candidates for office without a party or movement behind them have hardly any chances to win elections. According to Krippendorff, party regimes should only be an intermediate state, not a permanent one; once democracy is consolidated, direct voting should be the rule, not the exception. Another scenario describes a small government run by a freely elected elite of managers (party leaders) that take managerial functions to help local and international governance, but not overall power, like the concept of glocal governance proposes. Party leaders hence run most modern democracies, and the centralization and presidentialization of politics is turning weak democracies into autocracies. Samples can be witnessed anywhere, but most often in the post-soviet countries, such as in the Kyrgyz Republic. Within less than half a year, between October 2020 and February 2021, the semi-parliamentarian democratic system was turned into a full-fledged presidential one by a presidential candidate who was forcefully freed from prison with the help of organized crime groups. Similar but different is the case of France with President Emmanuel Macron, where his political movement En Marche allowed him to enter the Elysée Palace in 2017. Krippendorff was right; presidentialization of One-Party and minority governments are becoming the norm. Multi-party systems such as the Netherlands or Denmark have been governed by fragile minority governments for decades now. The consensus-building slows down, and decisions taken are weak rather than strong. It can be the beginning of the end of democracy, one way or the other.

The desire for strong and male leaders, even in democracies, is a legacy from century old narrative and illusion that only a single leader can be a good leader, and this is only slowly eroding. In Germany, for example, the notion of Wutbürger, ‘angry and disenchanted citizen,’ has entered political rhetoric over the past decades. They are the foundation of the radical-right, Q-Anon, and other movements, and Wutbürger is a citizen that is often satisfied with populist politics and easy answers to the overwhelming complex challenges of climate change and digitalization, for example. They have created their quasi-ideology, the ‘anti-pluralism’ and ‘anti-parliamentarianism,’ a kind of proxy religion against anything that is consensus-driven and respectful toward other identities. During the Covid pandemic, they were remarkably resistant to get vaccinated—despite all reasoning—, and during the global migration movement in 2015, they were the first turning against intruders that would violate their ‘European values,’ without ever defining these values. This crowd is growing and a severe threat to pluralistic and inclusive societies. Essentially, they fight against an order system based on pluralism and consensus-building while claiming that this is against their identity (Fukuyama, 2019). A multi-party system and parliamentarians is a way to show respect to different identities, and hence in times of using one’s own identity as a weapon against others, democratically elected parliaments are the natural target of these Wutbürger. The Wutbürger and the identitaires traditionalists are across all political spectrums, and they often represent followers of the ‘reverse-wave of democratization’ (Huntington, 1991) and tend to follow ‘Father figure’-led exclusive Nation-State.

Universal jurisdiction is the rule of law on the global level. It provides for state authority anywhere in the world, namely domestic or regional courts, parliaments, and tribunals to exercise jurisdiction over crimes against international human rights law, even when the crimes did not occur on that state’s territory and regardless of the defendant’s nationality. A suspect subject to universal jurisdiction is someone who committed severe or gross human rights violations, such as massacres, genocide, and other crimes against humanity, and who is sought by an international warrant and hence can be put to justice anywhere in the world. This practice has eroded state sovereignty dramatically over the past two decades—and some would go as far that it replaced state sovereignty over jurisdiction. Universal jurisdiction, if exercised, highlights the incapability or unwillingness of countries’ authorities to bring to justice to their worst criminals. The extent to which universal jurisdiction expands is decided by an assembly of member states to the system such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) who defines the legal framework of the universal jurisdiction.

Globalization and mobility have increased the need for universal jurisdiction to be applied extraterritorially—which, too, has significantly eroded our understanding of statehood. Extraterritorial regulations and trials build intersections between different forms of jurisdiction, local, national, and global, and erode governmental authority and domestic jurisdiction (Allen et al., 2019). However, universal or extraterritorial jurisdiction only applies when domestic governments and courts are unwilling or incapable to exercise jurisdiction according to international law. Extraterritorial jurisdiction, for example, means that a court of one country can exercise legal authority beyond its normal state boundaries. Domestic courts of one country must have an agreement either with the legal authority in the other country or with a legal authority that covers both territories. It mainly applied to cases of transnational terrorism and piracy and organized crime groups, environmental crimes, human trafficking, and cybercrime. For example, the storage of data Cloud Computing against the will and consent of the Internet user, can compose a cybercrime. The company, or programmer, responsible for it can be charged anywhere in the world if one finds lawyers, courts, and state attorneys that are willing to deal with the case. Trans-border criminality is nevertheless one of the most complex, glocal, and yet underdeveloped areas in terms of universal and extraterritorial jurisdiction thus far (Allen, 2019).

International criminal, human rights, environmental, and cyber laws are, for most parts, customary international law. But no matter their global acceptance, to implement these laws it does require collaboration and agreements by national governments, after the ruling takes place in one country and needs to be enforced in another. One of the first criminal trials worldwide on systematic and gross violations of human rights by a third state, namely Syria, in front of a domestic court in another country, was a trial against a torturer in Germany in 2020. The defendant, a former official at the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate, was found guilty by a district court in Germany, sentencing him to four and half years in prison in 2021 (Buerger, 2021). And later, in 2022, the German district court of Koblenz sentenced a Syrian colonel to life in prison for crimes against humanity. The former Colonel of the Syrian Army was linked to the torture of over 4,000 people in Syria’s civil war. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, called the conviction a ‘landmark leap forward’ in pursuing truth²³ and one could add it was a stepping stone for ‘glocal justice.’

Under the same notion of universal jurisdiction, in 2021, the District Court of The Hague ruled against the Dutch government for not fulfilling its duty to combat climate change elsewhere in the world and protecting citizens in other countries from the consequences of environmental destruction.

Climate-related issues and cybercrime cases are the most frequent cases that call for global and local jurisdiction changes. Espionage of intellectual property and abuse of private or company data has reached approximately a damage volume of 450 billion dollars yearly. The number of international and hybrid trials against hackers, whistleblowers, and alleged cyberespionage has skyrocketed over the past years. The call for an International Cybercrime Court—in the style of the ICC—and global jurisdiction on cybercrime is louder than ever by CSOs and companies alike, highlighting the fact that domestic courts can no longer deal with what does not only fall under the category of transnational crimes in global cyberspace. Violation of rights in cyberspace forces governments of all states, local and national courts alike, to collaborate under existing international law (Mihr, 2017). The UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF), the European Court for Human Rights (ECtHR) endorsed and practice the European Convention against Cybercrime from 2001, turning it into global customary law and by this setting new legal benchmarks for global jurisdiction on these matters. Cases on cybercrime and data protection have skyrocketed over the past decade, mainly in Europe and North America. Yet, the main challenge is not the law or the lack thereof, but the law’s applicability when the crime happened in ‘non-territorial’ cyberspace. IP addresses are often not traceable to a specific country, let alone a person. Based on European Union Law and the EU Fundamental Rights Charter from 2000, the EU’s Court for Justice in Luxemburg ruled in 2020 against one of its member states, Romania, for failing to protect the privacy on the Internet of an abused woman, whose Facebook and emails were accessed by her ex-husband and who blackmailed her with harmful consequences. The court ruled that the Romanian government must pay compensation to the women because it failed to protect its citizen from human rights abuse (Barberá, 2020). States, let alone governments for that matter, are no longer the only duty-bearer of law; they can also be a service provider. The relationship between duty-bearer and rights holders has dramatically shifted over the past decade. The traditional concept that governments are the only duty bearers to be held accountable is no longer valid. Nowadays, all legal entities, i.e., companies, NGOs, and individuals alike, are duty bearers and therefore responsible for fulfilling human rights,²⁴ namely in the manner in which rights holders hold duty bearers accountable (EU White Paper, 2007; UN, 2007). Domestic jurisdiction alone can no longer solve recent global–local and private cases. The development of universal and extraterritorial (country-to-country), and supranational jurisdiction (EU), has taken speed. However, what is remarkable in the light of glocal governance is that the court’s decisions can be implemented by anyone who can implement them, whether it be the local authorities in Romania, Civil Society in Syria, and City Mayors in the Netherlands.

Another way to see the interlinkage between universal norms and politics in a glocalized world is to look at Outer and International Space Law and joint space shuttles. The first treaties and agreements in the UN Outer Space Treaty from 1967, setting norms and standards, agreed to by the Soviet Union and the US at that time, set out that the exploration and use of outer space shall not be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of one country alone. Instead, it shall be in the interest ‘of all countries and shall be the province of all humanity’ (1967). At the height of the Cold War, and apart from the other UN human rights treaties, this treaty paved the grounds for setting standards, governing a space and environment in a sustainable way, and for the benefit of all humankind. It is under no clear jurisdiction of a state government and territory and inspires many lawmakers today when facing governance issued in the context of climate justice or cybercrime.

Equally, this rapid change underlines the dramatic rise of domestic violence and sexual abuse during war and conflict or within one’s family. For centuries rape and sexual assault have been seen as ‘unavoidable collateral damage in times of war or pressure,’ let alone a private matter within families and husband and wife. This harmful norm led to a dreadful spiral of more violence and impunity and hence again the struggle of many for vengeance and homicide. The Rome Statute on Crimes against humanity of 1998 and the UN Resolution 1325 on Women’s Rights and Sexual Violence during conflicts and at home aim to challenge our norms and attitudes of sexual violence and domestic violence and rape in war times so that it is no longer seen as collateral damage. Turkey’s withdrawal and Hungary’s and Croatia’s blockade against the 2011 Council of Europe’s Istanbul Convention against Violence against Women marked the tipping point of how serious of a threat women’s rights are seen by patriarchal systems. Gender equality fundamentally erodes a millennia-old patriarchal governance system across the planet.