How Democracy Survives: The Crises of the Nation State

We have just received notice of this online symposium, which I think should be of great interest to all of us world federalists. See the website at https://www.bu.edu/pardee/how-democracy-survives-the-crises-of-the-nation-state/ In Conjunction with the Stanley Stone Distinguished Lecture Series, the BU College of General Studies, the Workable World Trust, and the Center for Interdisciplinary Teaching & Learning The Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies will host an online symposium, “How Democracy Survives: The Crises of the Nation State.” In this three-day online symposium, leading scholars and activists from around the world will explore how democratic values and institutions can evolve and adapt to the growing challenges that are now destabilizing democratic nation states, such as climate change, resurgent nationalism, ethnic and religious conflict, human rights abuses, and deepening levels of economic inequality. The symposium will take place from October 28th-30th, 2020, and is free and open to the public. The full agenda is at http://www.bu.edu/pardee/ Tiziana Stella, Executive Director of the Streit Council for a Union of Democracies, will be speaking at 10:30 am – 12:00 pm EST Thursday 29^th in a session on “The Evolution of Democratic Federalism”. A session of particular interest to us will be on the final day, with the morning session under the title “Cosmopolitan Democracy and the Nation State”, which includes contributions from our friends: Joseph Baratta, on the history of the world federalist movement; Andreas Bummel, on the campaign for a UN Parliamentary Assembly; Shahryar Sharei, on UN Charter Review; moderated by Augusto Lopez-Claros of the Global Governance Forum; And an afternoon session entitled “The Future of Democratic Federalism” including: Susanna Cafaro, on Europe as a Lab for supranational democracy; and John Davenport, a member of our own Coalition for a WSC, on Themes from a League of Democracies, Consolidation Arguments, and Global Public Goods! This encompasses most of the current ideas for the next steps towards a world federation! You can register at the website above.