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What is needed is to rethink democracy from the perspective of the individual citizen. The European Union needs to be reconceptualized as a new type of polity designed not to replace the nation-state but to constrain its dangerous tendencies like war, and to protect its positive tendencies like democracy. The goal should be to enhance democracy at local and national levels by providing a framework that promotes subsidiarity—the idea that as many decisions as possible are taken at a local levels. It could be thought of as a filter for globalization controlling global bads that undermine capacity at local levels like short term capital speculation and, at the same time, contributing to global goods such as upholding individual rights.