Beyond Global Governance: Prospects for Global Government

In these ground-breaking essays, James A. Yunker issues a powerful challenge to conventional thinking on world government. Based on an innovative plan for a limited world government tentatively designated the “Federal Union of Democratic Nations,” this book envisions a legitimate world government a quantum leap beyond the United Nations of today. The Federal Union proposed would operate under some key restraints, such as a dual voting system in the world legislature, and two key reserved rights of the member nations: to withdraw from the Federal Union at their own unilateral discretion, and to maintain independent control over whatever military forces they feel are necessary to their national security. Yunker demonstrates how these restraints would minimize the possibility that the world government would result in such adverse outcomes as global tyranny, bureaucratic overload, or cultural homogenization.

Table of Contents:
, Preface , , Abstracts and Acknowledgements , , , 1 , Beyond Global Governance: Prospects for Global Government , , Governance without Government , , A New Opportunity? , , “Traditional” World Government Proposals , , A New Approach to World Government , , The Chicken or the Egg? , , A Stable and Benign “New World Order”? , , , 2 , Recent Consideration of World Government in the IR Literature: A Critical Appraisal , , Introduction , , IR Theory and World Government , , The Inevitability Proposition , , Between the U.N. and the Omnipotent World State , , Conclusion , , , 3 , Evolutionary World Government , , Introduction , , A Brief History of World Government , , A Brief History of Socialism , , Recent Developments in World Federalist Thought , , Limited versus Unlimited World Government , , Prospects for Global Economic Equality , , The Case for (Limited) Federal World Government , , , 4 , From National Sovereignty to Global Government: Is There a Plausible Transition Path? , , A Pragmatic Plan toward World Government , , What Can World Federalists Do? , , Conclusion , , , 5 , Should the United States Champion World Government? , , The Omnipotent World State , , Limited World Government , , A Global Marshall Plan , , Hegemony versus Guidance , , , , Index , , About the Author ,

About the Author :
James A. Yunker is a professor of Economics at Western Illinois University, where his teaching responsibilities include microeconomic theory, mathematical economics, and econometrics. Yunker has published numerous articles in professional journals and several books, including Political Globalization: A New Vision of Federal World Government (University Press of America, 2007).

Review :
James Yunker offers in this work a provocative and nuanced argument for limited world government. His account is particularly notable for the sustained attention it gives to tyranny concerns, and for its accessible application of economic principles to issues related to global poverty and economic inequality. The book should be of interest to students of global governance and international relations more generally, but also those concerned with some possible means of addressing sustainable and globally comprehensive economic development. At its core Beyond Global Governance is a clarion call to take seriously the question of how the global system can be structured to overcome the primary problems faced by humankind. This book makes a serious and original contribution to the literature on global governance. Whether they agree with him or not, both the lay and the professional reader will find Yunker's style highly engaging and his argument challenging.