Transnational progressivism

rdf:langString Transnational progressivism

rdf:langString Transnational progressivism is a concept coined by Hudson Institute fellow John Fonte about an umbrella movement that seeks to take ultimate political power away from parliaments and legislative bodies accountable to national electorates in sovereign states, and to vest it in courts, bureaucracies, NGOs, and various transnational bodies that are accountable only to themselves or to other transnational bodies. In the book "Sovereignty or Submission: Will Americans Rule Themselves or Be Ruled by Others?", Fonte describes key concepts of the movement, its conceptual framework, its ideology, the underlying philosophical tradition upon which the ideology is based, the main protagonists of the movement, and calls attention to the danger that transnational progressivism represents for traditional Western nation-centered liberal democracy. The term is used mainly by Fonte and other members of a group of American sovereigntists, who came together following the 2000 American Enterprise Institute conference. John Bolton had organized the conference, entitled "Trends in Global Governance: Do They Threaten American Sovereignty", to reveal how American sovereignty was at risk of being undermined by "globalists"—particularly amongst academia, and in international humanitarian and environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Fontes said that the forces of transnational progressivism were competing against the traditional nation-centered Western-style liberal democracy, and threatened "individual rights, democratic representation, majority rule, and national citizenship" that constitute democracy. Citing numerous NGOs that were calling for rights for minorities, Fonte warned that these international organizations—frustrated by their inability to enact civil rights policies through the normal processes of liberal democracy in nation states—had turned to global institutions to further their agendas. He said that these seemingly disparate groups—such as the European Union, and the United Nations and numerous nongovernmental organizations—shared a common ideology that he defined in this essay. He warned against a postnational global citizenship that pits the concerns of identity groups against the rights of individuals. To Fonte, global governance—with its increasing role through international organizations such as the International Court of Justice—threatens to usurp American exceptionalism and to weaken the role of the American Constitution and democracy. Fonte's use of the phrase is not to be confused with its use by academics in the 2008 edited book, Britain and Transnational Progressivism, where, for example, historian Ian Tyrrell refers to the United States' Progressive Era from 1896 to 1916 during which "transatlantic progressivism" thrived, in the form of the women's temperance and suffrage movements.