Upcoming Brown Bag

Political Theory Brown Bag Lunch

Department of Political Science, Indiana University

Friday, September 16, 2011

Woodburn Hall 200,

12-1.30 p.m.

William Scheuerman

Professor, Indiana University, Bloomington

WHO'S AFRAID OF WORLD GOVERNMENT?

ABSTRACT: The conventional wisdom is that world government would be both infeasible and undesirable. However, commonplace criticisms of world statehood are less persuasive than widely believed. Despite widespread claims to the contrary, world government need not inevitably prove “despotic” or “tyrannical,” threaten pluralism, generate horrific political violence, or destroy the rule of law and democracy. Without succumbing to irresponsible utopianism, we can plausibly imagine the possibility of a desirable world state resting on a shared political culture. In fact, anyone serious about constructing a normatively acceptable (i.e. sufficiently liberal and democratic) system of global governance needs to take the possibility of global government –and not just governance --seriously: democratic modes of effective supranational political decision making require core attributes of statehood because democracy and statehood are interlinked in crucial ways. If emerging forms of global governance are going to prove acceptable, they will need to garner aspects of democratic statehood.

William Scheuerman is Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. An expert on German thought, he has written extensively about the Frankfurt school, Carl Schmitt, and Jürgen Habermas. Most recently, he published two books at the intersection between political theory and international relations: HANS J. MORGENTHAU: REALISM AND BEYOND (Polity, 2009), THE REALIST CASE FOR GLOBAL REFORM (Polity, 2011).