This article discusses the evolution of the international system and global governance within the Europe-centred modern world-system since the 15th century in the context of a comparative framework that includes interpolity systems since the Stone Age. The evolution of the modern system includes the emergence of the European system of sovereign national states and colonial empires, the extension of the Westphalian system to the non-core by succeeding waves of decolonization, the rise and fall of successively larger hegemons, the deepening of global capitalism in waves of globalization, the emergence of weak international regulatory institutions and the prospects for and the rapid emergence of global democracy. It is not claimed that a global state has already emerged, but the authors see the long-term processes as the early stages of the emergence of a world state, and consider how these processes might be accelerated within the next few decades. The need for democratization of the institutions of global governance is also discussed. However, in this article, the focus is more on real geo-historical processes than normative questions, outlining the evolution of interpolity institutional orders, describing the challenges in thinking about global state formation, and discussing some of the technological and political forces that might accelerate the long-term trend toward global state formation.
Real, not nominal, global democracy: A reply to Robert Keohane
