My idea for this was a more futuristic version of this:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=138470=#20 , but this isn't quite the same world as Bruce's.
.............................................................................................................................
The Sun rises on Cayenne, in the CG South American Territory. Cayenne has been the de facto capital of earth for the past three hundred years (ever since it became the Communaute Global Headquarters), and although still smaller than many cities across the planet, it nows totals 19 million people, and it is the center of a vast bureaucracy that runs the planet.
History diverged from ours in that the American revolution quickly became more radical (i.e. prone to revolution not only against the British monarchy, but revolution against most forms of organized religion, early capitalism, and just about any form of human government), leading to more people not joining, or becoming loyalists (George Washington described the revolutionairies as "that motley unwashed mob of Satanists and Deists"), and the revolution getting crushed.
Partly influenced by the failed American revolution, the French Revolution was also a bit radical. It was, however, more democratic than both the French Revolution of OTL and this ATL's First American Revolution. This world's equivalent of Napoleon never named himself Emperor, but was also slighly less successful than the Napoleon of OTL (at least this Jadart's conquests were more long lasting).
The Revolutionairy forces welcomed a revolutionary Haiti into their club (they were remarkably non-racist for their time and opposed to slavery, despite being mildly Anti-Semetic), and after a series of wars, helped the Republic of America form after the third American Revolution (among the most radical of states). The British Empire, sent one of its young princes off to be the monarch of the newly founded 'Cascadian' Empire (after all, these Western regions were conservative and highly religious, and remained loyal to the throne).
The Communaute Globale, was founded in 1841. Its Founders were France, Germany, Liguria, Italia, Venetia, Switzerland, Haiti, and America. After a couple decades of enlightened despotisms, the CG members had all transitioned to democracies by 1900. After Major Wars against Britain (a resounding CG victory in 1914), and less conclusive victory against the Russo-Japanese Alliance in 1939, the CG came to dominate much of the planet.
.............................................................................................................................
Today, the Communaute Globale is truley moving towards a world government (say, only slighly less united that Germany in 1900). Even more, systems of planets and stars are controlled by the CG. The CG has contacted two other alien races with human-like intelligence, and has discovered hundreds of planets already populated by flora and fauna. Extraterrestrial planets under the dominion of Earth are technically owned by the CG, but it grants almost all of them to be 'temperarily' under the dominion of one of its members.
The CG has begun to place increasingly apparent laws on its members; anything from preventing carbon emissions, to setting a maximun number of military forces, to Anti-discriminatory laws*. It has been a strong promoter of democracy, though in almost all of the governments of the world, political parties are illegal. Gays and Women have had equal treatment for over a century, even in deepest Africa, and for about three to four centuries in the more developed parts of the world.
Riots, and protests are about as common or more so, than say OTL France during the Bush years. The world is more Libertarian here, but paradoxically also obsessed with greater equality (there's already less inequality than OTL 2013 USA). There is greater equality between countries. Government Crime and Corruption is less common, thanks in part to huge amounts of transparency (though this has some drawbacks, like when Media reports alerted an Alien race of plans for a 'surprise' invansion). Larger Crimes of all kinds are down (simply not profitable). Assassinations of heads of state are bit a more common than OTL, though.
Although this world has gone through minor bouts of *Fascism (of the non-racist variety) and *Socialism, politically it can best be described as a mix of Libertarian and Social Democratic. *Facism and *Socialism are still bubbling below the surface, however.
French is the primary language of science, diplomacy, and any educated person.
After a while, the governments of the three big 'Empires' realized (after the successful CG invasion of the Chinese Empire, in 2109) that there was no way they were going to maintain complete independence. They all accepted 'protectorate' status of the CG. Although they don't send representatives to the Headquarters in Cayenne, they do retain much more independence than the rest of the CG, since they are not bound by most CG laws. They're not allowed to build extraterrestrial colonies or nuclear weapons. The Papal Lands, Tibet, Bhutan, and Arabia are all theocracies (though tolerant) that also accepted CG protection.
The world is vastly ahead of ours in genetics, and artificial humans are being grown by companies to fit specific tasks. Nuclear power had to wait until the 21st century, but now it's in and regulated. An alternate Metric system is used universally. The names of the months were renamed, and the calendar remade to have 13 of them. Agriculture is much more advanced. Few people own a car in this highly urbanized world. Drones are common, despite the protests, and useful for conquering Alien worlds. On earth, the human population has shrunk to 6 billion (down from its peak of 9 billion in 2050), but there is an additional billion robots. Plus, another 4 billion humans living off of Earth (mostly on Mars and the Moon)
The Catholic Church is much bigger here. More of Latin America, Africa, and Asia is Catholic. It was among the first large organizations to endorse homosexuality, and although that hurt its membership at the time, in the long run it has helped the Church. The Papacy (and the Islamic Mosques) are also a lot more tolerant of premarital intercourse, and other previous no-noes. The Cult of the Supreme Being (a Pantheistic Revolutionary French Thing), is still headquartered in the Grand Temple of the Supreme Being (formerly the Cathedral of Notre Dame), and now commands 400 million followers world wide (mostly in France and America). There are nearly a billion atheists, however. Buddhism and Protestantism (with the exception of in Japan and Cascadia, respectively) have almost completely died out. New Age weirdness is a bit more common, and the Pope no longer minds the weird ritual Catholic Africans have that predate Christianity.
Although at first the CG was dominated by the Americans and the French, the Mexicans, Hindustanis (Indians), Azanians (South Africans), Platanians (Argentines), Colombians, Brazilians, Australians, Egyptians, Turks, Britons, and now even the Chinese are the major members.
In Cascadia, and Siberia, there are large amounts of people who are retreating from the harsh light of all this modernity. Large underground communities of local weirdoes persist. The Amish, Purtians, Mormon-equivalents, and the last of the world's Jews, to name a few. The government of Cascadia itself (an Anglican Monarchy, with a rather weird, by this world's standards or normal by ours, parliament) , the most consertive government still around, seems to want to hide under a rock. The government of Arabia, too, is an embarassment to most of the world's (fairly Liberal and Libertarian) Muslims....
Although in theory, the Communaute Globale rules the whole planet, there are four 'rogue states' which refuse to recognize its authority. For its part, what with all of the pushy journalists and tabloids, the leaders in Cayenne simply wish to quarantine them. The Quarantines have been fairly successful, and these four states have been completely cut off from modernity. Stuck in the 19th century, but too entrenched to be worth the effort of conquest, these states are two very Islamic states, a wacky nuclear armed Incan revival, and a leftover of the messy race wars in Azania .
*Discrimination is only okay here, if its against Jews. For all its good traits, this world developed a bad case of Jewphobia.