Regarding public advocacy: given that we interact mostly with international civil servants, there aren’t any voting constituencies to mobilize.
Wouldn’t Members of European Parliament also be in a position to support/block longtermism-relevant policy changes? And wouldn’t that mean the voting constituencies for MEPs are relevant?
Caveats:
Obviously this is just for the EU, not other bodies like the UN.
I know very little about how the EU actually works, so maybe the answer to either/both of those questions is “No.”
And my impression is that a large portion of British people at least didn’t know that MEPs existed or that they could vote for them, so maybe most of the public in other EU countries will also in practice pay very little attention?
Also, even for e.g. delegates at the UN, it seems like they’re influenced by the governments of their countries, who are in turn influenced by voters. Obviously this indirectness (and the—probably related—fact that most voters pay very little attention to the UN) reduces how important voters’ views are to UN decisions, but it still seems like voters can matter?
(As one example, I think I’ve heard of cases where voters’ views seemed to make a difference to countries’ stances on international nuclear weapons treaties, which seems like a related thing. But currently my understanding of these areas is limited, so I may be mixing things together in a naive way.)
Thanks, that all sounds reasonable to me.
Wouldn’t Members of European Parliament also be in a position to support/block longtermism-relevant policy changes? And wouldn’t that mean the voting constituencies for MEPs are relevant?
Caveats:
Obviously this is just for the EU, not other bodies like the UN.
I know very little about how the EU actually works, so maybe the answer to either/both of those questions is “No.”
And my impression is that a large portion of British people at least didn’t know that MEPs existed or that they could vote for them, so maybe most of the public in other EU countries will also in practice pay very little attention?
Also, even for e.g. delegates at the UN, it seems like they’re influenced by the governments of their countries, who are in turn influenced by voters. Obviously this indirectness (and the—probably related—fact that most voters pay very little attention to the UN) reduces how important voters’ views are to UN decisions, but it still seems like voters can matter?
(As one example, I think I’ve heard of cases where voters’ views seemed to make a difference to countries’ stances on international nuclear weapons treaties, which seems like a related thing. But currently my understanding of these areas is limited, so I may be mixing things together in a naive way.)