World Statehood: The Future of World Politics (World-Systems Evolution and Global Futures)

Developing a processual understanding of world statehood, this book combines history, political philosophy, explanatory social science, and critical-reflexive futures studies. While doing so, it poses essential questions about world political integration, especially (i) whether and to what degree elements of world statehood exist today, (ii) whether the development of further elements of world statehood in some stronger sense can be seen as a tendential direction of history, and (iii) whether, and under what conditions, a world state could be viable? The book is organised into three parts. The first part, “Cosmopolitical processes”, explores whether world history as a whole is directed towards planetary integration, focusing on the emergence of cosmopolitanism, the world economy, and the peace problematic. The second part of the book, “Reflexive futures and agency”, focuses on the contemporary 21st-century processes of world history in terms of how non-fixed pasts, changing contexts, and anticipations of the future interact. The author explains how certain rational directionality is compatible with the possibility of deglobalisation, disintegrative tendencies, and “gridlock” in global governance in the key areas of the economy, security, and environment. In the final part of the book, “World statehood and beyond”, the author develops further the processual and open-ended account of the formation of interconnected elements of world statehood by discussing the cases of a global greenhouse gas tax and world parliament. He also analyses the feasibility of different paths towards global-scale integration and the potential for conflicts, divisions, and disintegration. This book is a must-read for students and scholars of political science, international relations, history, sociology, political philosophy, and futures studies interested in a better understanding of world statehood, world political integration, as well as the future of world politics. Preface 6 Contents 10 1: Introduction: The Future of World Politics 14 The Basic Idea 15 Summary of the Contents of the Book 16 References 23 Part I: Cosmo-political Processes 24 2: Cosmological Sources of Critical Cosmopolitanism 25 Introduction 25 Aristotle vs. Cosmopolitans: Two Different Cognitive Perspectives 28 A Cosmic Perspective: The Identity of Human Beings Living on Planet Earth 32 Transformative Cosmopolitanism: The Rise of the Notion of a World State 35 The Reaction Against the Copernican Perspective: Nietzsche, etc. 41 Conclusion: Towards a New Cosmological Imaginary? 43 References 45 3: A Creation Myth and Origin Story Suitable to our Globalised World? A Friendly Critique of the Big History Storyline about our Place in Cosmos 49 Introduction 49 On the Narrative Dimension of Scientific Explanations and Future Scenarios 55 The Basic Mythologems of Contemporary Liberal-Capitalist Society 58 A Methodological Critique of the Cosmic Mythologeme of Meaninglessness and Death 61 An Alternative Mythologeme: The Power of Life and Culture 65 Analysing and Assessing the Big History Storyline 73 Conclusions 78 References 79 4: Overcoming Eurocentrism: Towards a Universal History of the Industrial Revolution and the Peace Problematic 83 Introduction: The European States-System and Modernity Are Not Unique 83 Learning from Counterfactual World Histories 86 A Universal History of Humanity in Terms of Stages 90 The Development of the Modern Peace Problematic 98 Overcoming the Problematic: The Concepts of Global Security Community and Democracy 101 Conclusions 104 References 105 5: Problems of Democratising Global Governance: Time, Space, and the Emancipatory Process 109 Introduction 109 The Model of Cosmopolitan Democracy 112 Space, Time, and Otherness in the Model of Cosmopolitan Democracy 115 A Critical Realist Interrogation Concerning the Split between Moral Reason and the World 119 Bringing Real Geo-history Back in: Time, Space, and the Process of Peaceful Democratic Emancipation 121 Space 121 Time 125 A Key Presupposition: A Pluralist Security Community 128 Conclusions 132 References 134 Part II: Reflexive Futures and Agency 138 6: How Will the Cold War End? Non-fixed Pasts, Reflexive Futures, and the Transformation of the Temporality of Human Existence 139 Introduction 139 On the Complexity of Time and Temporality 141 The Contingency of the Cold War and its End in 1989–1991 144 The Meaning of the Past Is Undetermined 148 The Temporality of Human Existence Is Changing 151 Conclusions 154 References 155 7: Resolving Problems and Overcoming Contradictions through Global Law and Institutions: A Post-Deutschian Perspective 158 Introduction 158 The Emergence of Common Problems 160 A Deeper Problem: Disintegrative Tendencies and Contradictions in Global Political Economy 164 The Problem of Fixed Identities and Hard Will: Deutsch and beyond 167 The Dialectic Among Three Logics of Identities in the Early Twenty-First Century 170 Reflexivity, Self-Other Relations, and the Ethical Circle of Non-violence 174 Overcoming Contradictions through Learning and Building Common Institutions 179 Conclusion: Reflexivity and the Ethos of Critical Responsiveness 180 Appendix: On the Role of Religion 182 References 184 8: On the Dialectics of Global Governance in the Twenty-First Century: A Polanyian Double Movement? 188 Introduction 188 Polanyi’s Historical Double Movement 191 The Return to the Market: A Puzzle to Polanyians 195 Towards a Better Explanation of the Market-revival 197 Constructing the Double Movement: The Problem of Agency 199 Overcoming Contradictions in Global Political Economy 202 Collective Learning Towards Holoreflexivity 204 Concluding Remarks 206 References 207 9: Transformative Agency: Towards a World Political Party 210 Introduction 210 Different Meanings of Modern Civil Society: Four Possibilities 213 The Emergence and Development of Global Civil Society 215 Ambiguities and Limits of Global Civil Society Activities 218 Predecessors of World Party and the Decline of Democracy Since 2000 221 Future-oriented Democratic Visions of Global Political Parties 224 DiEM25: A Seed Crystal? 229 Learning Lessons: A Sketch of a Possible Global Political Party 234 Concluding Remarks and Two Additional Issues 238 References 241 Part III: World Statehood and Beyond 245 10: Emergence of World Statehood: A Processual and Open-Ended Account 246 Introduction 246 Debates About the World State in the 1940s 248 Wendt’s Argument About the Inevitability of World State 250 A Critique of Wendt’s Account 253 Conclusion: A Processual and Open-ended Account of the Formation of World Statehood 257 References 260 11: The Transformative Potential of Responding to Climate Change: Towards a Dynamic Global Tax 262 Introduction 262 Characteristic Problems of Carbon Trading 266 The Clean Development Mechanism and Article 6 of the Paris Agreement: Global Carbon Markets? 269 An Alternative to Carbon Trading: A Greenhouse Gas Tax 271 The Case for a Global Keynesian Greenhouse Gas Tax 275 Conclusions 281 References 282 12: Rethinking World Parliament: Beyond the Indeterminacy of International Law 287 Introduction 287 The Campaign for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA) 290 World Parliament: In a Search for a Third Way 292 The Indeterminacy of International Law 294 World Parliament: Beyond the Categories of Modern Liberal-Democratic States 297 A Feasible Process of Establishing a World Parliament 298 Conclusions 300 References 301 13: After World Statehood? Legitimation and Potential Conflicts in a World Political Community 304 Introduction 304 Materialist, Structuralist, and Functionalist Arguments for a World State 306 On the Elusive Nature of Overlapping Consensus and Public Opinion 310 On the Idea of a “Civilising Process” 313 Functional Differentiation, Institutions, and Ethical-Political Learning 317 Why Higher-level Identifications and Purposes are Normatively Better 320 Conflicts and the Potential Collapse of a World Political Community 323 Conclusions 326 References 327