Metastructures of federations: analysis of consequences and solutions

Abstract

            The European Union (EU) was recently plagued’ by economic disasters, violent protest of citizens, and an increasing inability to act independently from the interests of the international banking system. This has led to widespread pessimism about the benefits of large multinational federations. First I developed a dynamic model that allowed for the investigation of the interplay of agency and structure in a globalized system. The luxury of hindsight allowed me to indicate the major causes for the problems currently faced by the EU: overregulation and the consequent inability to adjust to global change. I showed how such overregulation had led to unanticipated consequences of growing structures, loss of resources, in the structure, and a loss of vision. Learning from the mistakes of established federations of nations provides potential solutions for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a federation that is still generating its regulatory body.