Ella: Nagel's Theory of an Illegitimate Global Power Regime

Nagel provides an account of the current state of global justice, and how we may tackle its issues. He begins by leveraging Hobbesian ideology to demonstrate how justice can be conceived of as contingent upon a sovereign state. He then contrasts cosmopolitan and 'political' justice, explaining that cosmopolitan justice refers to the idea that "the institutions to which the standards of justice can be applied are instruments for the fulfillment of that duty" (119) of equal concern for human beings. Political justice regards justice as a political value, a virtue of political institutions, and claims that the existence of the sovereign is what allows justice to be applied. He uses both of these views, as well as Hobbes' view to demonstrate that "global justice would require global sovereignty" (122). The cosmopolitan and political view call for global sovereignty in different ways, but both do so nonetheless. There is more in his account, but these aspects are most relevant to what I will be discussing.

At the end of Nagel's account, he brings up the history of implementing just institutions on a domestic scale. The constant in this history is that "illegitimacy preceded legitimacy" (146). Invoking this history, Nagel says that "unjust and illegitimate regimes are necessary precursors of the progress toward legitimacy and democracy, because they create the centralized power that can then be contested" (Ibid). Thus, Nagel claims that in order for a global sovereign that may apply global justice to be realized, we first must experience the rule of an unjust and illegitimate global sovereign. This illegitimate sovereign should be "tolerable to the interests of the most powerful current nation-states" (Ibid), says Nagel, insinuating that the illegitimate power would, at least in some ways, be an association of rich nations. Here is where I find some issues with Nagel's proposal. While I do agree with his historical account of how just political institutions are formed, I think that the case of individual nations is different from a global scale. In the past, rebels have overthrown unjust sovereigns not only in an effort to implement just political institutions, but also in an effort to exclude their former leaders from their new political functions. The Patriots overthrew Britain, not in an effort to change the way that Britain rules per se, but to exclude Britain from its political institutions. When thinking of how a similar type of overthrow could apply globally, I don't see a clear parallel. If the illegitimate global power were to be overthrown, all of the nations in that illegitimate power would likely be excluded from the new global sovereign. This would create global divisions, and this cycle of political partitioning would likely continue; if some nations are dissatisfied enough with the global sovereign, they would likely just secede and create their own new sovereign separate from the former ruler, which is literally what the U.S. did in gaining independence from Britain. There is a chance that this process of secession would continue until many nation-states are once again disjointed and no longer ruled by a robust international power. 

Furthermore, the Patriots had a strong disadvantage in the war against Great Britain; they were only able to win due to the support of the wealthy countries of France, Spain, and the Netherlands, all of which ultimately supported the Revolutionaries for the economic advantage if they were to win the war. Conceiving how this could go down on a global stage, I am not convinced. If the illegitimate global power were to be to the advantage of the most well-of nations as Nagel claims, how would oppressed nations be able to get the support they need to overthrow the sovereign? All of the rich nations that could help the oppressed nations would lack the incentive to, due to the benefits they receive from the illegitimate power. 

The history of rebellion to prop up legitimate, just political sovereigns is what Nagel has applied on a global scale, in order to propose a solution to the problem of global justice. Issues arise with his use of this historical account, however, because these histories only happened in a network of many separate nation-states, not simply within one large nation-state.