Yehezkel Dror, writing on the humanisation of the Earth-Moon system, invoked the Hobbesian vision of a global leviathan as a necessary precursor to the working out of this destiny. Dror, Professor of Political Science and Public Administration at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has outlined this concept as a potential requirement for treating the security dangers engendered by new technologies.
A global leviathan is a global government: It would act as a magistrate, holding a monopoly of force at the expense of the nation state and demanding obedience from all citizenry. Given the diversity of politics and culture across the globe, the structure of this global leviathan would not be democratic or accountable in a form familiar to us. Just as the European Union, a potential precursor, suffers from a democratic deficit in the scrutiny and implementation of policy.
This radical approach has been used as a guide to the current structure of international relations and the question of the American Empire. The United States has formed an open and rules based structure, which is mediated through a number of complex institutions, some of which have proved to act as constraints upon sovereignty as the concept of international law
has strengthened and deepened. G John Ikenberry comments:
No one disagrees that U.S. power is extraordinary. It is the character
and logic of U.S. domination that is at issue in the debate over
empire. The United States is not just a superpower pursuing its
interest; it is a producer of world order. Over the decades -- with
more support than resistance from other nations -- it has fashioned a
distinctively open and rule-based international order. Its dynamic
bundle of oversized capacities, interests, and ideals constitutes an
"American project" with unprecedented global reach. For better or
worse, other states must come to terms with or work around this protean
order.
Scholars often characterize international relations as the interaction
of sovereign states in an anarchic world. In the classic Westphalian
world order, states hold a monopoly on the use of force in their own
territory while order at the international level is maintained through
the diffusion of power among states. Today's unipolar world turns the
Westphalian image on its head. The United States possesses a
near-monopoly on the use of force internationally; on the domestic
level, meanwhile, the institutions and behaviors of states are
increasingly open to global -- that is, American -- scrutiny. Since
September 11, the Bush administration's assertion of "contingent
sovereignty" and the right of preemption have made this transformation
abundantly clear. The rise of unipolarity and the simultaneous
unbundling of state sovereignty is a new and volatile brew.
It is this 'unbundling' of state sovereignty that has alarmed all states yet the dynamic is embedded within the system itself and does not rely upon a drive towards US imperialism. The United States has become alarmed at the inroads into its sovereignty that a rules based global governance requires and has responded by asserting its power. This, in turn, has triggered a Westphalian response from the other great powers outside of Europe.
The United States may have presided over the "creation and extension of international institutions that have limited and legitimated U.S. power". But, in turn, these acquired a momentum of their own, and proved an opportunity for other powers to acquire influence through their manipulation of this game. Yet, nation states will tolerate certain limitations and, whether the response is to the system itself (USA) or to the unipolar power reasserting itself, (China, India and Russia), international relations are entering a Westphalian phase that leaves the self-styled 'postmodern' approach of the European Unions outdated and impotent.