1st Edition
The World's Constitution Spheres of Liberty in the Future Global Order
Global governance is tightening and foreshadows that world state formation will become a live political issue in this century. Some observers treat it as inevitable amid the urgency of global issues. They foresee a technocratic scaling up of the model of state authority that has prevailed at the national level for over two hundred years. Many critics and members of the public around the world look askance at that prospect. They rightly fear a moral vacuum of authority disconnected from the world’s traditions, and a concentration of power that would be damaging to liberty or even dystopian in its upshot. Still, they often merely aim to stand athwart the scaling up of political institutions, rather than actively trying to shape an alternative that can seize the global horizon.
The World’s Constitution: Spheres of Liberty in the Future Global Order offers a radically different vision of future world order that could work in a global space while shifting the balance of power from state back to society. It draws on older resources in political thought, both Western and non-Western, to upend mainstream notions of statehood and sovereignty that have been taken for granted for too long in the modern era. It offers an original ‘sphere pluralist’ framework that can reconcile liberty, tradition, and cosmopolitanism. As a book rooted in the past but mindful of future constitutional and policy challenges, it bridges ideas and real-world implications, with insights that cut across a wide range of topics from migration and social welfare to personal law systems and channels of representation. It opens an exciting debate about global constitutional futures that is likely to become more salient over the next couple of generations.
The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
Preface and Acknowledgements
Introduction
Managing an Expanding World
Three Unsettling Trends
The Last Stand of Liberal Globalisation
Tradition Against Technocracy
1. Old Resources for a New Question
Heterarchy and the Traditions of Liberty
Absolutism, Liberalism, and the Monism of Modernity
Pluralism and Sphere Sovereignty
Towards a Virtue-Centred Sphere Pluralism
A Distinct Approach to the Global Question
2. The Political Honeycomb
The Long Arm of the State
Borders, the Container Society, and Double Standards
Free Movement and the Prepolitical
3. Toward a Global Space
The Lost Open World
Mobility, Meaning, and the Voices of World Society
A Roadmap to Open Roads
Places and Belonging Without Walls
4. The Economic Constitution
Markets, Pluralism, and Conscience
Safety Nets and Health Security
Diversifying Education
Civil Society and the Gift Economy
Fettering the Public Fisc
Regulation and the Currencies of Liberty
5. Legal Pluralism
Law Beyond Territory
Sources of Legal Pluralism
Personal Law and Human Flourishing
Legal Reform from Within
6. The Public Legal Order
Bridging Legal Pluralism
Tolerance and Legitimacy
Rule of Law
Organs of Justice
7. The State Constitution
The State’s Competence
Socialising the Stewards
Social Pluralism and the Mixed Constitution
Representing the Demos
8. A Metaconstitutional Settlement
Foundings and Revolutions
Guarding the Settlement
Encircling the Dignified Constitution
Iron Fists in Velvet Gloves
Traitors and Reformers
Conclusion
Notes
Index
Biography
Adam K Webb is Resident Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the Hopkins-Nanjing Centre, an overseas campus of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. Previously he taught at Harvard and Princeton and was a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His other books include Beyond the Global Culture War (Routledge, 2006), A Path of Our Own: An Andean Village and Tomorrow’s Economy of Values (ISI Books, 2009), and Deep Cosmopolis: Rethinking World Politics and Globalisation (Routledge, 2015).
