Why a Limited World Government is Insufficient

I am not the first person to believe that the nation-based world system is responsible for many of the world’s troubles, and to advocate a reshaping of the world order. Many other thinkers, the works of whom I have widely read, agree that reforms to the national system are insufficient and that it must be superseded by global-level political organization. Yet each of these other ideas restrict themselves to limited world government—generally meaning that nations retain much of their sovereignty in internal matters, and the world government is to only have powers over a few global matters such as security or international disputes. Some of the stronger proposals envision nations as administrative units under a fully federal architecture with more interconnectedness. Yet all of these are limited in the sense that they do not complete the project of unification; they retain the social divisions of identity amongst humans in politics, much like putting tape over broken glass.

First, let me get out of the way the suggestion that some form of ‘world government’ already exists, an idea that comes up frequently in discussions of ‘global governance’. Indeed, I once enthusiastically picked up a huge book titled ‘World Government’ only to find it detail the governments of each of the world’s nations. To characterize the present state of affairs, dominated by nationalist anarchy, as some sort of ‘world government’ is a delusion, and a perversion of the concept of government itself. It is an elementary premise of the field of international relations that the world is presently anarchic. We have at present nothing close to the definition of world government outlined in Fed. 1, and we must build it rather than considering that it is already here and the job is done.

Hardly anywhere in the world federalist/limited world government literature is there any attempt to justify why it should necessarily be a federation—in other words, why should the existing nation-states be retained in the global structure. Yet every single one of these proposals assumes that nations will continue to be a part of the global order (Fed. 1). The entire discourse around world government – as with other themes in politics – seems to be deeply entrenched in methodological nationalism (Fed. 1). Why indeed should we be so bent upon retaining nations, despite them being the problem we are trying to solve in the first place (Fed 3)? Imagine some revolutionary early nationalists who have just overthrown a feudal monarchy to establish a national republic. Should they be fixated upon trying to preserve the power and privileges of the monarch and aristocracy within the new republic? Or should they choose the best they could do, even if it involves breaking with the past? Retaining nations in a world government goes against its very purpose, almost like telling a recovering alcoholic to drink twice a day.

Unlike all the other world government ideas that I have come across so far, which retain or assume nations as constituent units (Fed. 1), I advocate abolishing them altogether. For nation-states are not particularly desirable or indispensable to humanity that they should especially be preserved in global political organization. As opposed to a federation which seeks to recognize and retain sub-divisions, true unity entails superseding and transcending them, embracing the whole rather than the sum of the parts (Fed. 1). By the standards of today’s nationalist conservatism, even advocates of world federal government may seem radical, but none have been so audacious as to reject them entirely.

Proponents of a limited world government may be seeking it as a sort of middle ground between the national system and a fully-fledged world government, attempting to balance the advantages of both. Perhaps this is a symptom of a form of the false balance fallacy: when a concept comes under heavy criticism, such as nationalism, people in the zeal for moderation start looking for positives in that concept in an attempt to present a balanced and nuanced understanding. They then come up with middle-ground proposals purporting to balance the ‘pros and cons’ of both. This is surely a useful approach for many practical situations; world government is not one of them. As I have consistently maintained, this is a highly one-sided issue where there is no equivalence between world government and nationalism, and in trying to balance these we will only fall short of the true potential of this idea.

As such, there is no ‘middle ground’ between anarchy and hierarchy in the world order, a balance proponents of limited world government have been trying to find in futility. As long as there is national sovereignty as the prime authority with global institutions dependent on it, the system remains anarchic. And as soon as any substantial institution becomes independent of and superior to sovereignty, the character becomes hierarchic. There is no way to create a global regime that retains the sovereignty of nations while having global institutions that supersede them. If sovereignty is considered to supersede the international norms and institutions, then these would be undermined (as today), or if sovereignty is subjugated, then the implementation of the norms and institutions requires moving towards global government.

That said, there is no need to try and avoid hierarchy in global organization. Many advocates of limited world government devote much attention to coming up with structures that minimize hierarchy, and to defend these against accusations of hierarchy. I presume this is to make these more palatable to nationalists or again to retain as much of their sovereignty as possible. But there is a reason why all nation-states use a hierarchical form of institutions and government, for why centuries of political experimentation have led us to shun anarchy. Hierarchy in states is a good thing, one that we should not be trying to avoid at the cost of anarchy. One wonders just how many of the detractors of hierarchy in the international sphere would be willing to forsake a national government for anarchy.

The hierarchy/anarchy question only comes into the picture under the assumption that a limited world government is to be an association of states in the same way as states are considered associations of individuals in political theory. Known as the ‘domestic analogy’, this idea has not gone uncontested, but it remains central to the mainstream world government literature. International arrangements such as a Hobbesian sovereign or a social contract are then envisioned for a world government. But what justifies the presence of nation-states as intermediaries between the people and the world government? Where does their legitimacy as political units come from? There is no point pretending that nation-states are voluntary, bottom-up associations of people who formed a natural community, as nationalist theories claim. As I have previously argued (Fed. 22), this would be to discount much of political history—modern states and even national identities are themselves products of prior political events. So without the methodological nationalism of assuming this middle layer of states, we can simply have a direct worldwide association of humans as the basis for a world government.

The federalist conception of world government, which retains the countries of today, also retains the social divisions that underlie the national system. While the old nations persist people will continue to feel allegiance towards and identify with them, hindering the establishment of a global community and sense of unity. With social unity being of immense importance to world government (Fed. 22), we should not let the old divisions live on and threaten the development of a cosmopolitan community. Political and social unity go hand in hand—and as critics of world government have long pointed out, it is exceedingly difficult to obtain one fully without the other.

In general, the dilemmas and objections that limited world government struggles with can be traced back to one key point: the desire to retain nations as a feature of the world government. Hence the concept of a limited world government, at every attempt, comes out as logically weak and ambiguous, and is subject to harsh criticism from its sceptics. The problem is that even as there is a need to supersede nations and abrogate their sovereignty in the interests of humanity, thinkers nevertheless try to retain as much national sovereignty and autonomy as possible with the least possible unification. By contrast, I say that we should strive for maximal unification, even if this comes at the expense of nations.

As with proposals for national reform, limited world government is what actually lies in the realm of impractical idealism, and not true world government. It is not impractical or utopian to create a new system of institutions and incentives in the pursuit of certain outcomes. But it is too idealistic to expect existing actors such as nations, with their incentives and patterns of behaviour intrinsic to their nature, to spontaneously start behaving differently and benevolently. As analogized in Fed. 5, it is possible to stop smoking to avoid cancer, but impractical to hope that smoking will stop causing cancer. The weakness of limited world government proposals means that they must rely on a lot of faith in changes in the motivations of nations.

As touched on previously, much of the motivation for limiting the concept of world government is directed towards making the concept more acceptable to people and political leaders with nationalist sympathies. But we should not make the mistake of embracing (to an extent) the very problem we are trying to solve, the divisiveness of nationalism, by placating or appeasing it. Theories of limited world government represent not the sensible realism they are portrayed as, but a lowering of aspirations for political change. Unlike in the past, political theorists have come to see entrenched systems as natural and no longer see them as something that can be thrown out if they do not serve humanity’s best interests. There is no point in giving up on so much potential before even starting its consideration; let there be no limits on envisioning the best for humanity.

We should also look to the value of world government beyond merely to ensure security, prevent nuclear war, and coordinate between nations. Theorists have long stuck to a minimalist definition of a state or government as a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence or as only to maintain order. However, I consider the fundamental role and purpose of government to be promoting the welfare of the people. When we are creating a powerful tool we might as well use it. World government can be so much more than just an instrument to keep us out of catastrophe; it can also spur transformative progress and improvement in the human condition.

Hence the appeal to practicality as a justification for limiting world government does not suffice, for what can be done practicably is too little. Operating within the existing national framework, a limited world government might be much easier to achieve, but it would also accomplish far less than what a fully-fledged world government could. The example of specialized international agencies like the IATA or IMO comes to mind: while they represent rare success stories of global regulation through international cooperation, their scope is highly specialized and limited. For the most important and pressing domains, a more ambitious solution is needed rather than the most immediate one.

Thus while establishing a full world government rather than a partial one may prove more cumbersome in the short run, it is an imperative that becomes even more pressing in the long run. If we are to believe all the hype around global ‘risks’ these days, the multifaceted threats to humanity are only getting bigger—yet a superficial ‘risk management’ approach fails to dig all the way to their origin in nationalism. Sooner or later, we must remove the tumour of nationalism from humanity, despite having to go deep to fix it.

That is why what humanity needs is not a minimal or limited world government, but a maximal and true one. This means a government that serves and interacts directly with the citizens of the world (Fed. 1), without pesky intermediary groups like nations getting in the way. Insofar as a world government remains a union between states, it will only continue to uphold the states’ (and their nationalist establishments’) interests and rights, not those of the people. However, a fully-fledged world government would truly govern for humanity by involving the people themselves. That is also why we can set aside one central worry of the limited world government advocates—that of the risk of the government overreaching its limited powers and encroaching upon national sovereignty. Such a transition towards full world government is only to be embraced, and not feared.

None of this is to say that a limited world government would be undesirable—it nonetheless represents a massive improvement over our present condition. I do support the limited proposals, but do not advocate them as the best solution available. It may well be that a limited world government comes first, as a temporary compromise, or is used as a transitional phase to further unification. Yet even as we achieve what is possible, we should keep our aims high. We should not lower our ideals to a limited world government as the final objective, out of conservatism or limitations of foresight. Rather, a limited world government can be a stepping stone to complete world unity.

The gulf between the potential of a world government and that of the national system is just too huge. Yet that potential requires a paradigm shift in thinking, and we should embrace that shift rather than limit the potential. Limited world government is like replacing a horse-carriage with a jet plane, but keeping it moving on the ground. Just as the jet must leave the ground to achieve its true potential, we need to break away from the divisions of humanity entirely.