Considering global government: Legitimacy, human rights, and global democrac

Globalization has given rise to an interest in the development and normative assessment of international, or global, political institutions. Often, this literature focuses on three particular debates: 1) the site and scope of global justice as it relates to international institutional design, 2) whether and how we should democratize already existing global governance institutions, and 3) the confluence of criticism and support for the development of a global state. Discussions of the development of a global state are often situated in the first two kinds of debates, concerning either global justice or global democracy. However, the debate concerning a global state is situated firmly in the assumption that the world currently is, and perhaps always will be, organized by principles of Westphalian sovereignty. This project develops and defends a theory of global government that subverts the paradigm of preserving state sovereignty in order to focus on assessing and developing centralized global institutions liable to claims concerning legitimacy. In fact, showing that a global government is capable of protecting human rights, providing a source of legitimacy for international law, and facilitating popular sovereignty via global democratic mechanisms.;I first argue that government is an independent political entity from statehood---developing the possibility of a global government without a global state. Then I argue that a global government would not necessarily devolve into a tyrannical monster. Further, I claim that with the development of a global constitution and centralized structures for building democratic solidarity, a global government can meet the challenges to global democratic posed by both capitalist economic power and distance. The overall argument of the dissertation defends the availability, and desirability, of global government as an option for the organization of global political institutions, the protection of human rights, the legitimacy of international law, and the implementation of global democracy. As such, it intervenes in a number of normative discourses concerning the structure and desirability of global political institutions. Further, it provides the theoretical background for the development of a theory of centralized global political institutions that are up to the task of fulfilling political normative demand.