Invented Communities
David Runciman: Post-nationalism, 19 July 2001
The Postnational Constellation: Political Essays
by Jürgen Habermas, translated by Max Pensky.
Polity, 216 pp., £45, December 2000,0 7456 2351 4 Show More
by Jürgen Habermas, translated by Max Pensky.
Polity, 216 pp., £45, December 2000,
“... What is wrong with the idea of a world state? John Rawls, the world’s most celebrated living political philosopher, believes that the answer is relatively straightforward. ‘I follow Kant’s lead in Perpetual Peace,’ he writes, ‘in thinking that a world government – by which I mean a unified political regime with the legal powers normally exercised by central government – would either be a global despotism or else would rule over a fragile empire torn by frequent civil strife as various regions and peoples tried to gain their political freedom and autonomy ... ”