Democratic Reform Party

This article was initially published here.

In comparison to the earlier League of Nations, and relative to its age of 66, the United Nations has experienced a great deal of success. Eradicating smallpox, maintaining peace, ending apartheid in South Africa and making safe drinking water available to 1.3bn people in the last decade are just a few of the things that the UN has helped achieve. And with the introduction of South Sudan there are now 193 member countries, meaning practically every country in the world.

However the extent of representation provided by the UN has been continually questioned, especially near to major world events such as the Korean War and recently the Iraq War. President Bush made it clear that the US (and UK) would be fighting a war in Iraq with or without the UN, leaving the world in doubt as to whether the UN can hold powerful nations to account. Indeed were Russia a weaker nation it is quite likely that there would have been a UN resolution on human rights in Chechnya. And although a possible slaughter in Benghazi brought a UN resolution and combined action to support the Libyan rebels, very real slaughters happen every day in Somalia and yet the United Nations doesn’t act. All this begs the question as to whether the UN is representing weaker countries and peoples at the same level as it is the stronger ones.

Analysing the extent to which the UN is a success is a subjective matter, since we can only speculate about what the world would be like without the UN. We cannot ascertain for certain the extent to which great powers are motivated to intervene by humanitarian concerns, issues that affect them, and/or realist concerns about what’s feasible and what’s not. However one thing is almost universally agreed upon: the UN ‘represents’ some countries and peoples more than others.

The major problem is that the United Nations is just that; a group of nations. In a group of nations the powerful will always hold sway, because built into the nation centric model is the requirement that every national representative try to get as much as they possibly can for their individual nation, irrelevant of what happens to everyone else. This isn’t an anarchic argument for the end of states but it is becoming increasingly absurd that those who have permanent seats on the Security Council hold disproportionate power relative to their population size, economic size, and track record for governance.

We are living in the midst of the “Great Convergence”, when ‘the Rest’ is starting to play catch up with ‘the West’. And yet Britain and France hold permanent seats on the Security Council while countries like India, Germany, Brazil and Japan (not all recent success stories) have to vie for temporary seats. Thus what it means is that although a global power transition may eventually make certain countries give up their permanent seats, under the current system there will always be a minority of countries who get to make decisions that other UN member countries are contractually obligated to accept and carry out.

But this is beyond economic or military power. In fact the preferred status of powerful nations contradicts article 1 of the United Nation’s Declaration of Human Rights: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”. What about people’s right to equal representation? Until we see a transition from a nation centred international system towards a people centred one, the UN will always represent the powerful more than the weak.

As for whether the United Nations and wider international system can achieve this dream of people-centred reform many are sceptical. But as Kofi Annan once said “if the United Nations does not attempt to chart a course for the world’s people in the first decades of the new millennium, who will?” There have been many ideas and propositions that talk about how to make such a step a reality. What’s needed now is for a concerted effort to act on these ideas.

I figured a story couldn't hurt; this was originally published here.

The air was crisp and the sun had set long before. I could feel the road beneath my feet as it jarred my knees. And with every step I ran further into the country. My breath pooled in the air in front of me as I reflected on the day’s events. As an eighteen year old living in university and suffering from a mild dose of melancholy, I was in no mood to return home the same way I’d just run.

In this article (originally published here) I’ll attempt to explain why democratic reforms are not only desirable; they are necessary.

Life Satisfaction Has Remained Constant - Despite Massive Gains In GDP

If we relax this assumption we can ask why people want money. And from that we get the answer that people want money in order to raise their level of happiness/wellbeing. But unfortunately on this measure almost all governments, particularly in the West, are failing. In the last 60 years happiness has stagnated despite the increase in GDP (see graph). Instead, stress has risen; mental illnesses have escalated; inequality of wealth has grown; communities have fallen apart; family relations have deteriorated; and those most vulnerable within our society, including slaves (there are more slaves in the world today than at any point in history), the homeless, the sick, and the disabled, have been neglected.
Some even go so far as to call this the age of inequality. But although we mustn’t overlook material aspects, we would do well to also look beyond them. Equality of wealth and income is only a very small part of why people are unhappy. In aristocratic societies relatively poor people with status often outranked rich merchants. In fact it may be closer to the truth if we said that it’s alienation which needs to be tackled first.
Much of this alienation stems from real or perceived inequality of status, which is of course about more than simply money.

Societies in the natural world also have these dominance hierarchies in place. A well-studied example is lobsters. I mention lobsters because let’s face it humans are far more intelligent animals than lobsters. Yet even lobsters are intelligent enough to know when they’re at the bottom of a hierarchy. At the bottom of a hierarchy people and animals alike feel alienated, dominated, and powerless. In technical terms our brains stop producing as much serotonin. Serotonin is basically the master neurochemical. If your serotonin levels drop then your sensitivity to negative emotions increases and your sensitivity to positive emotions decreases. And if this happens you start producing more cortisol, which is a stress hormone. Thus hierarchies, subjugation and alienation/exclusion are highly influential in creating a lower sense of wellbeing and increase depression (which is forecast to soon become the world’s second most disabling condition).

Robert Battison - Founder Of The Democratic Reform Party

This hierarchical nature of society has, according to many people, actually worsened in the past 60 years, when many people think it would have worked the opposite way. The irony here is that in its relentless pursuit of efficiency our current political and economic system has harmed economic growth. Depression is estimated to lose the UK economy alone billions every year. And increased cortisol levels, which as I mentioned above is only one side effect of this existing structure, suppresses the immune system and decreases bone formation. Therefore dominance hierarchies not only harm our mental wellbeing, but also our physical wellbeing too. It produces cancer, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, degenerative neural diseases, and, well basically a lot of the reasons why healthcare seems so expensive today.

One solution is anti-depressants. I’m not going to try and dissuade anyone from taking these as they can help to boost serotonin levels back up. But if we admit that we’ve already become a materialistic society do we really want to keep letting drug use go up? Or do we want to tackle the root cause?

I personally believe we need more democratic reform bring a change that will improve well-being. By demolishing the old hierarchies and decentralising power, stopping alienation by creating a contemporary system of inclusion, we can increase wellbeing through empowering people at every level of government. If we agree that politicians exist to increase wellbeing then we should also agree that they’re in place to empower us, and strengthen democratic reform.