Aeon Magazine | April 21, 2014
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“The only stable system, Wendt argues, is a fully unified world state that has the monopoly on legitimate coercive power. In fact, anticipating Farage, he suggests it could look like a more strongly empowered EU.”
Nigel Farage, the leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), recently tried a new tack in his campaign to free Britain from the ‘shackles’ of European Union membership. The EU, he said, should not be viewed as a mutually beneficial economic and political union of 28 countries, but ‘as a prototype for those who would have us be part of one world government’.
One can imagine nods of affirmation from Farage’s mostly far-right, avowedly Euroskeptic supporters, and weary head-shaking from those more in the political mainstream. But actually, he’s not so far off.
As a longtime student of the world government ideal, I have given the EU close scrutiny. I don’t necessarily see it as a prototype or ‘baby world government’, but as an immensely valuable living laboratory for studying the challenges and potential of deep integration between nation-states.