World Government, Social Contract and Legitimacy

Abstract

The notion of world government is anathema to most political theorists. This is the case due to the arguments that a world government is infeasible, undesirable and unnecessary. This threefold argument is partly predicated on the assumption that in world politics the larger a geographical and political entity is, the greater the chance of it becoming unstable, ungovernable and, ultimately, illegitimate. On the one hand, if this assumption is correct, then a world government is likely to be illegitimate. On the other hand, if the assumption is wrong, then it is not far-fetched to consider a world government to be legitimate. Considering a world government that emerges from a global social contract, this paper contends that the legitimacy or illegitimacy of a world government and the extent to which it is legitimate or illegitimate depends on the kind of social contract that produces it and the extent to which it fulfils or fails to fulfil the conditions of the social contract.

Notes

1 Throughout this paper, the terms ‘realist’, ‘neorealist’ and ‘political realism’ are used in the context of international relations theory.

2 In this section of the paper, I mainly follow Catherine Lu’s Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on world government. See Bibliography.

3 By non-compliant states, I mean states that do not comply with international human rights law.

4 This is inclusive of Western Sahara and Somaliland.