New Thinking on an Old Dream: Federal World Government
Originally published on the World Government Research Network. Republished here with the author’s permission.
Abstract: While it is clear that a federal world government would considerably reduce the threat of nuclear war and facilitate international action against various global problems such as runaway population growth and environmental degradation, the overwhelming majority of the contemporary world population believes that these advantages are outweighed by countervailing disadvantages, the most important of which is that such a concentration of political and military power might set the stage for global tyranny. But this danger would be much reduced if the prospective world government—although a significant advance beyond the United Nations of today—were to be much less centralized and powerful than is normally envisioned. It is argued here that a properly designed, limited world government would be likely to make a valuable, albeit gradual and evolutionary, contribution to the furtherance of effective global governance.
About the Author: James A. Yunker received his Ph.D. in Economics from Northwestern University in 1971, and is currently Professor of Economics at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois. Author of ten books and approximately ninety journal articles, Yunker’s contributions cover a wide spectrum from economic theory to contemporary policy issues. In addition to a large body of work appearing in economics journals, he has published in professional journals in education, library administration, criminology, political science, and international relations. Yunker is no stranger to controversy, and although his conclusions are sometimes directly contrary to prevailing conventional wisdom, his work is characterized by judicious appraisal of the existing evidence relevant to the issue under investigation. In his writing on controversial policy issues, Yunker’s objective is to clarify and illuminate these issues in such a way that judgments on them may be based on informed reasoning rather than unconscious prejudices and preconceptions.
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