Review
We’re told that democracy creates stability and raises living standards. So why not try to introduce it on a worldwide scale? But can every person in the world have an equal vote? And if so, how can such a seemingly massive feat be accomplished logistically?
In the documentary World Vote Now, director Joel Marsden tries to answers these questions. With an international team of democracy activists he travelled eight years in 26 countries covering all continents. Their aim was to find out whether the concept of direct democracy – defined as the chance to publicly express one’s opinion on a political topic – is an attractive idea in every corner of the world, and whether a true ‘world vote’ is practically possible.
The film is divided into three parts, each one progressively widening the discourse and exploring democracy practices at different organisational levels.
In the first part, Marsden analyses the process of voting in different countries. He discovers that democracy, despite being imperfect or even non-existent in many regions, is perceived worldwide as a source of stability, peace and welfare. Even among indigenous tribes in Borneo, the idea that everyone should have a voice and the possibility of expressing his/her opinion through a vote, is broadly accepted.
Once established that the principle of democracy is, at least theoretically, fundamentally accepted throughout the world, Marsden transfers the discourse to a wider international level. Would a global democracy, a world vote, be desirable? Since “world governance” today faces a number of global questions (environment, disarmament, poverty and so on) that require global responses, wouldn’t it be fair if the entire world population could express their opinion on such global issues, and not only the elites?
At present, only in few countries people can elect their representatives democratically and thus are represented at global scale in which their governments act. Though every country is given a voice on global issues, as in the case of the UN General Assembly, we must keep in mind that the governments of most of those countries haven’t been elected democratically and thus don’t necessarily represent their people’s voice. Moreover, in the UN General Assembly each country has one vote, independent of its population. This means that the voices of 1.2 billion Chinese have the same weight as the 28,000 inhabitants of San Marino.
Mardsen shows that people throughout the world are generally aware of this democratic deficit. All those interviewed – from individuals to representatives of civil society, from electoral officers to some government representatives – agree that a new global balance should be pursued, and declare themselves in favour of the idea of a world vote.
In the third and final part, Marsden and his team try to find out whether giving each person an equal vote would be possible in practice. Their experiment consists of a satellite-linked ‘voting machine’ connected to the internet through which people are asked to answer ‘yes or no’ questions on topics of global interest (access to water, sanitation, health, education and so on). In other words, a worldwide referendum.
By installing the voting machine in 26 countries worldwide, the team succeeds in demonstrating that such a global referendum is now not only theoretically, but also logistically possible. This proven, Mardsen asks what are the obstacles then to introduce world wide voting?
As he has shown in the second part, the world’s current power structure doesn’t want to be democratized. In the UN system itself, five non-democratically elected permanent members have a veto power on every decision. Why would these countries be willing to give up their privilege?
It is often difficult for documentary films to compete with their narrative – that is, drama or comedy – counterparts. But Marsden succeeds in giving World Vote Now a highly entertaining pace, by mixing fun with seriousness, and by constantly showing different situations that display the richness of the world’s diversity. Marsden succeeds in keeping alive the movie’s theme from the first to the last scene, by starting from a very clear and simple question and handling the concept throughout the film.
For a documentary that was sometimes shot under very difficult conditions, the quality of the images and the audio are stunning.
Concerning the content, though Marsden reaches his goal of answering the initial question of whether a world vote would be desirable in theory and possible in practice, he fails to suggest a concrete follow-up action: For instance, he could have suggested a concrete point in time when to put such an action into practice, or could have indicated a web platform for the international community to organise a worldwide referendum.
Moreover, some fundamental aspects are neither raised nor properly explored. For instance, the fact that there exists no global executive power that would be able to put the results of a global referendum into force. Therefore, it would necessarily be a non-binding referendum, a rather symbolic action.
Additionally, the movie only briefly mentions the possible negative consequences and impact of direct global democracy: If global referenda will become democratic tools one day, who would ensure their fairness and transparency? Masses are easy to be manipulated. Who would give them the necessary information and education to elaborate an opinion on complex global topics such as nuclear power or military security? Who would determine referenda topics and ensure that the questions are worded in a way to reduce the risk of misinterpretation?
Some topics simply seem too complex to be deeply understood by the general public without proper information, which opens them up to demagogy. Questions of global scale are crucial, and should be the starting point of a reflection on direct democracy, not a marginal compound of it as they are in the movie.
Last but not least, Mardsen does not include opinion of the elite, the privileged club that profits from the current global governance structure, is not expressed. It would have been interesting to hear some voices from the counterpart, the people and lobbies whose status quo would be threatened by a world vote.
This notwithstanding, the film shows that the only obstacle to broader democracy worldwide is political will, and not some organisational, technical or technological issues. Therefore, the movie accomplishes its mission of leading the viewer to start a reflection on the substantial ‘undemocracy’ of the current system and to conclude that something has to be done.
All persons interviewed in the movie, from the Ambassador of Uruguay at the UN to the “avarage Joe” in China to the UNESCO officer, agree that a solution to the global democratic deficit has to be pursued, and that in 10 to 15 years the world will be prepared for a global referendum.
Mardsen’s final message is powerful: As stated by a woman interviewed in the movie, in the end all big changes are generated by utopias at the beginning, so utopias are definitely worth to be pursued.
Tags: Review