The Diplomatic Regency: A Framework for Post-Westphalian
International Cooperation
Executive Summary
International institutions are not designed to last forever. The League of Nations, created with optimism after
World War One, failed to prevent the catastrophe of World War Two and was replaced within a decade by the
United Nations. Today, we face a similar moment of institutional inadequacy. The United Nations, weakened by
structural paralysis and unable to address the challenges of the twenty-first century, shows clear signs of the
same incapacity that befell its predecessor. This paper proposes the Diplomatic Regency, a new framework for
international cooperation that learns from both the failures of existing institutions and the successes of
constitutional governance.
The Problem: Three Centuries of Structural Paralysis
Since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, international relations have been trapped in a fundamental paradox. The
Westphalian system established sovereign equality and non-interference as foundational principles, ending
decades of religious warfare by granting each state supreme authority within its borders. This was revolutionary
for its time, but it created a structural problem that persists to this day.
The Westphalian trap operates as follows: global challenges require international cooperation, but cooperation
requires states to cede elements of sovereignty, which they refuse to do because sovereignty defines their very
existence. The result is institutional paralysis precisely when collective action is most needed. We see this in
climate negotiations, pandemic response, nuclear proliferation, and countless regional conflicts where the
international community watches helplessly as catastrophes unfold.
The United Nations attempted to escape this trap through the Security Council system, but succeeded only in
concentrating the paralysis into five permanent vetoes. A single member can block action on genocide,
aggression, or existential threats to humanity. The system treats states as indivisible units of authority, making
international effectiveness and national sovereignty a zero-sum game. More power for international institutions
means less for nations, and vice versa. No state willingly surrenders sovereignty to a supranational body, so we
remain locked in place.
The Constitutional Insight: Separating Power to Preserve It
The solution lies not in international relations theory but in constitutional design. Constitutional monarchies like
Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands demonstrate remarkable political stability compared to many
republics. The reason is structural: these systems separate symbolic authority from executive power. The
monarch embodies national continuity and unity without wielding day-to-day governmental control. The prime
minister and parliament exercise executive functions without claiming to personify the nation itself.

This separation creates a buffer against authoritarianism and personality cults. When one individual
concentrates both symbolic and executive authority, as in presidential republics, the system becomes vulnerable
to narcissistic leadership and democratic backsliding. The president becomes both the face of the nation and the
wielder of state power, creating dangerous concentrations of authority and loyalty. Constitutional monarchies
divide what republics concentrate, and in doing so, achieve greater stability and resistance to authoritarian drift.
The genius of constitutional monarchy is that it works around human nature rather than demanding we
transcend it. It acknowledges that people will seek power and recognition, and it channels these impulses into
separate roles. The monarch receives honor without operational control. The prime minister wields power
without claiming to embody the national spirit. Neither can become a dictator because each lacks what the other
possesses.
The Regency Concept: Governance During Incapacity
A regency occurs when a monarch is unable to rule due to youth, illness, or absence. A regent temporarily
assumes the monarch's responsibilities, not as a usurper but as a guardian who preserves the throne for its
rightful occupant. The regent's authority derives from the very institution it serves, creating a paradox of power:
the regent rules precisely because they acknowledge they should not permanently rule.
This concept applies remarkably well to the current international situation. Nation-states increasingly display
signs of incapacity across multiple dimensions. Internal dysfunction manifests in state collapse, civil war, and
the inability to provide basic governance. Aggressive behavior appears in territorial violations, proxy warfare,
and systematic threats to neighbors. Treaty failures multiply as states refuse to honor international
commitments, withdraw from cooperative frameworks, or abuse procedural mechanisms to obstruct collective
action.
These forms of incapacity rarely appear in isolation. They reinforce each other in downward spirals. Internal
dysfunction leads to aggressive external behavior as leaders seek to distract populations or consolidate power.
Aggression leads to international isolation, which exacerbates internal problems. Treaty violations follow from
both internal weakness and external aggression, further deepening the cycle. The international system itself
shows signs of incapacity, unable to address these cascading failures through existing mechanisms.
A Diplomatic Regency would serve as a transitional framework, acknowledging current institutional incapacity
while working toward restored function. Like a regent preserving a throne, it would maintain the possibility of
effective international cooperation during a period when existing institutions cannot fulfill their mandates. It
offers an alternative to the binary choice between ineffective institutions and violent conflict.
Institutional Architecture: Distributed Sovereignty Through Mass Participation
The Diplomatic Regency's architecture rests on three foundational principles: dual membership during
transition, transnational democratic participation, and progressive growth toward critical mass.

Dual membership allows founding nations to maintain their United Nations membership while joining the
Diplomatic Regency. This pragmatic approach acknowledges several realities. Abandoning existing institutions
prematurely creates dangerous vacuums. Building legitimacy and critical mass requires time. Nations need
flexibility during transitions. Most importantly, dual membership creates competitive pressure on existing
institutions to reform or become irrelevant, avoiding the mistake of the League of Nations, where the successor
institution emerged only after catastrophic failure.
The heart of the system is transnational electronic voting. Every elected official and doctorate holder from
member nations receives individual voting rights in Regency elections. This electorate, potentially numbering in
the tens of millions once major democracies join, elects a Regency Council, which in turn selects a Regent for a
five-year term.
This structure may initially appear to create an elite franchise divorced from popular legitimacy, but the
mathematics tell a different story. Consider Germany as an example. The country has approximately one
hundred and fifty thousand elected officials, from the Bundestag to local town councils, and roughly one and a
half million doctorate holders. Germany alone would contribute over one and a half million voters. When India
joins, with its massive civil service, millions of elected officials at every level of governance, and substantial
population of advanced degree holders, the electorate could grow by five to ten million more.
The distribution of voting power within this electorate strongly favors those with demonstrated public
accountability. Local elected officials, mayors and town councilors and school board members who are very
much of their communities, vastly outnumber academics. A reasonable estimate suggests that sixty to seventy
percent of votes would come from local elected officials, ten to fifteen percent from regional and national
officials, and twenty to thirty percent from doctorate holders. A rural mayor in France holds equal voting power
to a professor at Oxford.
This creates what might be called distributed sovereignty. Traditional international bodies operate on
concentrated sovereignty, where a handful of states or even individual leaders can paralyze the entire system.
The Diplomatic Regency distributes legitimate authority across millions of stakeholders such that no single
actor, no single nation, and no coordinated faction can capture it. Power becomes an emergent property of mass
participation across borders rather than a concentrated asset subject to seizure or veto.
The scale effect provides multiple forms of protection. Authoritarian regimes cannot join as founding members
because membership requires existing democratic credentials. If a member nation begins sliding toward
authoritarianism after joining, the very groups enfranchised by the Regency system are precisely those most
threatened by authoritarian drift. Elected officials and doctorate holders have professional stakes in independent
institutions, cognitive training to recognize authoritarian patterns, and transnational protection through voting in
an international body not subject to immediate domestic reprisal.

More importantly, the mathematical distribution makes capture impossible. If France, with its one and a half
million Regency voters, begins authoritarian backsliding, but the Regency has twenty million total voters from a
dozen democracies, France's bloc represents only seven and a half percent of the vote. Even if the government
could intimidate some of its elected officials and academics, which is itself difficult, they would be
overwhelmingly outvoted by the broader international electorate.
This stands in stark contrast to the United Nations Security Council, where a single authoritarian member can
paralyze the entire organization. The Diplomatic Regency requires capturing a majority of millions of
independently-minded elites across multiple nations, which is effectively impossible. The system becomes self-
protecting through its scale and composition.
The Regent and Council: Symbolic Authority Meets Deliberative Governance
The Regent serves as the symbolic embodiment of the institution for a five-year term, providing continuity and
moral authority without concentrating executive power. This mirrors the constitutional monarchy model,
separating the ceremonial and unifying functions from operational decision-making. The Regent convenes
discussions, articulates shared values, and exercises reserve powers during constitutional crises, but does not
micromanage the Regency's daily operations.
The Regency Council, elected by the transnational electorate, handles substantive governance functions. The
structure could incorporate multiple chambers to balance different forms of legitimacy and expertise. A People's
Chamber might represent national delegations proportional to each member's electorate size. An Expert
Chamber could provide specialized knowledge across domains from climate science to conflict resolution. A
State Chamber could maintain diplomatic representation from member governments. Major decisions would
require concurrence across chambers, preventing both technocratic detachment and narrow state interests from
dominating.
This separation of symbolic and executive functions protects the institution from the personality cult problem
that plagues concentrated presidential systems. The Regent cannot become a dictator because they lack
executive machinery. The Council cannot claim to embody the institution's spirit because that role belongs to
the Regent. Neither can accumulate the combination of powers necessary for authoritarian capture.
Progressive Growth and Critical Mass
The Diplomatic Regency must reach critical mass to function effectively. Below approximately fifteen to twenty
million voters distributed across enough nations that no single member represents more than ten to fifteen
percent of the electorate, the system remains vulnerable to capture or manipulation. Above that threshold, it
becomes remarkably robust through pure mathematical distribution.

This suggests a careful strategy for initial membership. The founding group should include several large
democracies to quickly reach the critical mass threshold. Nations like Germany, France, Japan, South Korea,
Canada, and Australia could together provide the initial twenty to thirty million voters necessary for system
stability. From that foundation, the Regency can expand progressively, incorporating smaller democracies and
building toward truly global reach.
The dual membership framework means this growth can occur organically without forcing premature
abandonment of existing institutions. As the Diplomatic Regency demonstrates effectiveness in areas where the
United Nations has failed, more nations will see value in membership. The system creates its own gravitational
pull through demonstrated competence.
Mechanisms of Intervention: The Regency Function
When a member nation displays incapacity across multiple dimensions of internal dysfunction, aggressive
behavior, and treaty violations, the Diplomatic Regency can exercise its core function. This intervention is not
framed as violating sovereignty but as temporary assistance during incapacity, analogous to how a regent
preserves rather than usurps a throne.
The Regency might suspend certain sovereign functions temporarily, not as punishment but as stabilization. It
could administer transitional governance in failed states, mediate conflicts before they escalate to violence, or
enforce treaty obligations when states prove unable or unwilling to do so themselves. Critically, these
interventions would be authorized by millions of voters including many from the affected nation itself,
providing democratic legitimacy that current humanitarian intervention doctrines lack.
The system could also be applied to non-member states displaying severe incapacity, offering an alternative to
both passive observation and unilateral military intervention. If a state experiences complete collapse or
commits mass atrocities, the Diplomatic Regency could propose assuming temporary authority with the explicit
goal of restoring stable, legitimate governance. The affected population might even welcome such intervention
if it means ending violence and chaos.
This reframes the responsibility to protect debate that has paralyzed international law since Rwanda. Rather
than asking whether sovereignty can be violated, the Regency concept asks whether temporary guardianship can
be exercised when the sovereign proves incapable. The answer, grounded in both constitutional tradition and
humanitarian necessity, is yes.
Escaping the Westphalian Trap
The Diplomatic Regency succeeds where previous reforms have failed because it does not attempt to resolve the
tension between sovereignty and collective action. Instead, it transcends the dichotomy entirely.

Traditional approaches ask states to surrender sovereignty upward to a supranational body, which they refuse to
do. The Diplomatic Regency builds legitimate authority sideways through distributed networks. It does not
demand that nations choose between sovereignty and international cooperation because it operates through a
different source of legitimacy entirely: the mass participation of millions of credentialed individuals who
possess both democratic accountability and demonstrated competence.
This is not world government imposed from above. It is distributed sovereignty emerging from below, from the
voluntary participation of those who have earned democratic trust or academic achievement. States retain full
sovereignty in their domestic affairs while acknowledging that certain international functions require
mechanisms that nation-states, as atomic units, simply cannot provide.
The genius of this approach lies in working with rather than against human nature and political reality. States
will not voluntarily weaken themselves. Leaders will not surrender the tools of power. But millions of
individuals, protected by transnational structures and motivated by both principle and self-interest, can create
collective authority that no single nation can override. The system channels ambition, expertise, and democratic
legitimacy into new forms of governance without requiring anyone to act against their nature.
Conclusion: From Crisis to Transition
We stand at a moment of institutional exhaustion. The United Nations cannot fulfill its foundational mandate to
maintain international peace and security. Regional organizations show similar strain. The choice appears to be
between accepting permanent gridlock or witnessing institutional collapse followed by the chaos that attended
the League of Nations' demise.
The Diplomatic Regency offers a third path. It acknowledges current incapacity while building toward restored
function. It learns from constitutional monarchy that separating powers preserves them. It applies the regency
concept to recognize that temporary guardianship during transitions is not usurpation but preservation. Most
importantly, it escapes the Westphalian trap through distributed sovereignty that makes international
cooperation mathematically possible for the first time in three and a half centuries.
The framework is practical, rooted in historical precedent and constitutional wisdom. It scales naturally through
progressive growth. It protects itself through mathematics and distributed authority. And it offers genuine hope
that humanity can build institutions adequate to the challenges we face.
The question is not whether new international institutions will emerge. History teaches us that inadequate
institutions eventually fail and are replaced. The question is whether we will build their successors thoughtfully,
during a period of relative peace, or discover them desperately amid the ruins of what came before. The
Diplomatic Regency provides a blueprint for the former. The choice, as always, belongs to those willing to act.