Introduction

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Acknowledgements: I would like to say some words about the practical circumstances of the birth of this special issue. The issue has its roots in a two-day workshop held on 13–14 June 2017 in two different locations: the first day in Zurich (Switzerland), at the Collegium Helveticum (ETH/University of Zurich); the second day in Konstanz (Germany), in the Zukunftskolleg (University of Konstanz). Three of the papers presented there were published in a special section of the Journal of Global Ethics (by Henning Hahn, by András Miklós and Attila Tanyi, and by Alice Pinheiro-Walla) along with a paper by Vuko Andrić; the present issue comprises most of the other papers presented (Erman, Tännsjö, Wündisch) along with some additional contributions (Abumere, Clark, Director, Táíwò). The workshop was organized as a tenure-ending event in my role as a EURIAS Junior Research Fellow (COFUND Programme—Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions—FP7) in the Collegium Helveticum.

I would like to thank several institutions and funding bodies for their generous support: The Collegium Helveticum for having me as a research fellow and providing funding for the workshop; the Zukunftskolleg and the EURIAS programme for funding of the workshop as well as my fellowship (in the latter case); the University of Liverpool (my employer at the time) for allowing me to go on leave in the academic year 2016/17 to take up my fellowship in Zurich; and the University of Tromsø (my present employer) for having made most recent work on this special issue possible. I would also like to thank all those colleagues who have agreed to review the papers intended for this issue as well as the editors of Philosophical Papers for their generous help with bringing this project to fruition.

Notes

1 See Lu (2016), Section I, for a good account of the historical background of world government. See also Yunker 2018, Ch. 3.

2 For literature on the developments I refer to here one can turn to the enormous scholarship on the EU, the UN, or the Bretton Woods institutions (World Bank, IMF). As regard to our more specific subject matter, Yunker (2018), Ch. 3 provides a concise but detailed overview of the history of world government (including movements, ideas, initiatives).

3 For two good examples that provide also a theoretical context, see Wendt (2003) and Goodin 2012.