The problem of a world state: A conflict of global identity in theory and practice

Representation of ‘progressive’ bias and alterity: Understanding a ‘problem’ between ideal types

An ‘ideal type’ is formed by the one–sided accentuation of one or more points of view and by the synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete, more or less present and occasionally absent concrete individual phenomena, which are arranged according to those one–sidedly emphasised viewpoints into a unified analytical construct.

Max Weber (1949: 90).

Illuminating an ‘agent–structure problem’ (Wendt, 1987) in theorising about the identity formation of a ‘world state’ is what this paper’s inquiry is fundamentally about. What holds this inquiry together is the vocabulary of ‘ideal type’ constructions that both revolve around the representation of a ‘strong ontology’ (White, 2001: 6–12) of global identity formation.

Strong ontology implies, to quote the political theorist, White (2001: 8), a ‘claim to show us “the way the world is”’ that is both fundamental and contestable in how it conceives of self, the other, and the world. My ‘strong ontological’ claim is that following the vocabulary of a Weberian ‘ideal type’ construction, as Wendt does, gives rise to a ‘one–sided’ (Weber, 1949: 90) perspective about progressive change that is not only biased, but also exposes what is incomplete in Wendt’s account of the ‘mutual constitution’ to the politics of forming a global identity (2003: 499–500; 510–512). By working through this critique, I look to lay bare its ‘agent-structure’ limitations and make the case for the construction of an alternative ideal type that draws attention to (without trying to resolve) a ‘problem’ of international participation in the political association of a ‘world state’.

The agent–centred limitation in Wendt’s theorising can be understood by looking back on his discussion with Shannon. Wendt’s ontological deductions in this exchange involve restating the considerations of an ‘ultimate argument for scientific progress’ (1999: 64–67) about the form the modern state is bound to take, eventually (2005: 591–592). But this response misunderstands what Shannon is asking for. Shannon wants an epistemic justification to support Wendt’s ontological speculation. He wants to know what belief grounds what Wendt presumes is ‘inevitable’ (2003: 529) about the coming reality of a ‘world state’. But rather than divulge any belief about what is driving international politics to this foregone conclusion, Wendt repeats his ontological claim about why a method of scientific inquiry supports a ‘teleological explanation’ (2003: 492–503) of change in the international system.

Wendt argues this method contains insights into ‘progressive approximations to reality’ (Wendt, 1999: 66) about an independently existing, vast, ‘external’ world that is going through a global transformation. He refers to this change as a ‘macro–level teleological process’. Its long-term direction as ‘developmental’ with an international life of its own which outstrips and ultimately overrides the intentions of individual human agents who have made a (familiar) ‘choice’ to set this whole trajectory in motion (Wendt, 2005: 593–596).

The change Wendt describes is, accordingly, voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary since it arises out of a contemporary ‘choice’ by agents that confirms a ‘logic of appropriateness. . .that is dynamic’ and drives the global transformation of a ‘pre–existing anarchy in virtue of the agency that carries it’. Involuntary since the causal consequence of this ‘choice’ denies the freedom of individual agents who participate in this political activity because they are all expected to ‘rationally accord with [an] unfolding structure’ in a journey into a collective and global future that is going to consign international ‘anarchy’ to a collective and global past (Wendt, 2005: 595–596).

Although this reply leaves unanswered Shannon’s question of why Wendt (or anyone else, for that matter) has reason to believe in such a global, unprecedented, and long-term change in the international system, it does allow this question to be reformulated in two more precise, agent–centred questions: (i) Why do those who voluntarily participate in a ‘progressive’ and globally ambitious political project to transform their chosen ‘Self’ maintain commitment to this ‘choice’ over an indefinite period? And, (ii) What is so attractive about the promise of a ‘world state’ that compels these agents to embark on this risky political enterprise and seek the collective support of others to achieve, or at least get closer to achieving, this outcome at some indefinite point in the (global) future of the international system?

As we shall see, Wendt gives partial answers to these questions. However, they are not altogether satisfactory. To better understand why requires the consideration of a second, structural point of critique. This refers to what I argue is Wendt’s confusion about what the ‘structure’ of an international theory on this topic is dependent on; not the nature of particles, nor the nature of the aggregates by which atoms form material bodies. This is the referent and object of scientific knowledge (Oakeshott, 1933: 130–189). Whereas the referent and object which concerns us here is knowable only by the elaboration of an ideal type.

In itself, an ideal type is not a representation of axiomatic knowledge about the ‘external world’, like a proof or a causal law. Nor can it support a hypothesis about a ‘structure of reality’ that may be described by science and verified, or invalidated, by inquiry. This kind of representation has more in common with the creation of ‘a work of art’, and more specifically, the creation of a work of poetry (Oakeshott, 1983/1999: 163). Since whatever poetical potential of ‘structure’ is acquired in the elaboration of its presuppositions occurs in an extended moment when words are organised on the page and engage the intellects and imaginations of the writer and the reader.

Simply put, the ‘structure’ of an ideal type depends on the creative deployment of language as well as logic (Leader Maynard, 2025). Language is required to represent an ideal as an object of thought in writing. This is fundamentally how an ‘ideal type’ is imbued with a formative bond, or constructed. Once constructed, it may serve to stimulate further language-based ‘understanding’ by guiding an inquiry. But at no point can this ‘understanding’ be reduced to knowledge of an ‘external world’ that exists independently of the finite cognition of any of the persons engaged in an inquiry. Rather, to reach an ‘understanding’ from these beginnings involves coming to a more sophisticated grasp about what is, to some extent, already known about an inter-personal world of human conduct. By modes of ‘disclosure’, an essential feature of experience in this world may be prised open by persons with inquiring minds who understand themselves as transient partners in a community of being (Oakeshott, 1975: 1–107).

The epistemic intention behind giving written form to contrasting ‘ideal types’ in this paper – Wendt’s (2003: 504) after Weber, and my own after Oakeshott – is to contemplate the structure of political reasoning about the emergence and experience of a global identity in a manner that includes Wendt’s one–sided view, but also summons a different way of being in a ‘world state’ and gives content and voice to this alternative view. To do this, I work with the intellectual forerunner of the deductive logic that informs Wendt’s ideal type construction, namely, dialectical logic. This is a mode of philosophical reasoning that grapples with opposites at the moment of their apparent coincidence (Rescher, 2009: 9–28).

By following a dialectical procedure in this paper, I aim to construct a more complex alternative to Wendt’s ideal type. The positive case for doing this is that this alternative is better suited to making sense of the ‘structure’ to what Wendt calls a ‘struggle for recognition’ (2003: 507–516) in the interactive middle of global identity formation. My critique of Wendt’s ‘progressive’ bias about ‘structure’ in his theorising is that it prevents him from comprehending this ‘struggle’ because the deductions he resorts to never widen beyond a single horizon of expectation about the politics of global identity formation.

To elaborate further on the logic of this alternative ‘ideal type’ requires coming to an understanding of the origins of contrary political desires and dispositions to the global identity of a ‘world state’. My method for disclosing these origins involves engaging empirical referents from the political world of international practice. Wendt still serves as the main interlocutor in this inquiry. However, in the discussion that follows, a different vocabulary of ‘progressive’ reasoning is identified from what we have encountered thus far. Wendt’s mundane and mechanistic language about the way the world of international politics is, according to his account of the reality of ‘scientific progress’, gives way to a discourse that is openly normative in its consideration of ideas that ought to make the world of international politics a better place in practice.

He indicates that this improvement in the world can only happen, if it is to happen at all, as a consequence of purposeful actions of global identity formation within one institutional setting of the contemporary international system. According to this ‘progressive’ reasoning, these ideas promise to mobilise change in international practice. And I agree. But what Wendt overlooks, I argue, is that the advocacy of these ideas is also bound to be a permanent source of resistance. A dialectic of political desires of global reform and resistance is key to my argument about coming to understand the two-way ‘struggle(s)’ that Wendt refers to, however, is unable to grasp the reality of in theory, let alone explain the international normativity of in practice with reference to ideas.

Representation of ‘struggle(s)’ of global reform: The logic of ideas of a ‘world state’ in practice

It ‘seems hard to argue’, acknowledges Wendt (2003: 529), that the construction of a ‘world state’ can be explained without the normative consideration of ideas. What he means by this is interrelated ideas that concern a change to an institutional arrangement in international politics that is presumed to be ‘desirable’ (ibid.) and thereby an improvement on what currently exists. What makes this change appear ‘desirable’ is that it is regarded as ‘normatively superior’ from the point of view of imagining ‘a world’ that is organised in such a way that ‘recognition is equal and violence is collectivised’ (ibid.) within an international system that is not-yet in place, but according to this conception of instrumental rationality, ought to exist in international practice.

This is the essence of Wendt’s reasoning about the trajectory to the emergence of a globally unifying ‘collective identity formation’ (1999: 336–369; 2005: 505–528) that links events in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) with change outside of this institution, but still inside of an evolving international system. In setting out this prediction of ‘desirable’ change, Wendt discloses ideas about the coming into existence of a ‘world state’ which appear to be normatively attractive from a progressive point of view. But to continue my line of argument from the previous section, these ideas are also expressions of a logic of political thought which is oblivious to its one–sided bias, and by extension is ignorant about a predictable dynamic of political opposition.

Addressing this ignorance about resistance to the change that Wendt refers to in international practice requires an attentiveness to ‘ideas all the way down’ (1999: 92–138). In particular, it requires reflecting on the normativity of a fundamental tension concerning a political project in the world of international practice that Wendt alludes to, but other US–based theorists of ‘world state’ writing before him have made explicit.

Since the 1950s, a ‘world state’ has been regarded by intellectuals in America as an object of ‘progressive’ and desiderative political thought about a project of global reform (see Scheuerman, 2011). This understanding of the relationship between the theory and practice of a ‘world state’ and what this project is aiming to change is essential for adding substance to this paper’s comparatively new ideal type. It brings into focus what a ‘world state’ is ideally directed towards. My suggestion is that it is possible to evaluate what these ideas of change are ultimately about, and why they are fundamentally contested in a political project associated with the aspirations of a ‘world state’ in international theory by way of empirical reference to the terms of international authority that guarantees the political existence of the UNSC as a formal international institution.

These can be found in Chapter V of the United Nations (UN) Charter. Herein, it is stated that the UNSC shall ‘be able to function continuously’ (UN Doc, 1945: art. 28) with the international authority bestowed by the Charter. Further, all other ‘members of the United Nations’ according to this same section of the Charter ‘agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council’ (UN Doc, 1945: art. 25). This sweeping provision implies that a UN member state may be legally obliged to abide by a decision reached by the Council members to which it is not a party, and which runs counter to its sovereign and national interests. It also implies that there is no authority in the contemporary international system higher than the UNSC.

As Wendt suggests, but does not make explicit, any challenge to these terms of authority is necessarily going to be normative. The reason is down to semantics. These terms of authority are themselves set out in a fundamentally normative language. To cite the Charter again, this is the language of the ‘primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security’ (UN Doc, 1945: art. 24, emphasis added) that all permanent members are presumed to be committed to when performing their duties as Council members. The normativity of these words provides the authorisation for continuing the existence of the UNSC in the expectation that the collective agency of the UNSC will approximate to what is referred to in this section as the Charter: the political arrangement of a permanent association around five states, the ‘P5’, which exists to serve a ‘primary’ and common purpose on behalf of all the states in the post–1945 international system.

Without being aware of it, Wendt challenges the normativity of this common purpose by making the argument for a ‘world state’ to replace the UNSC at the apex of the current international system. However, what he is conscious of is the ‘progressive’ expectation that this change ought to be for the better for all states, currently inside and outside the UNSC. The practical inference (Price, 2008: 1–26) of this ‘progressive’ expectation is that a political project of global reform will, in time, establish a ‘world state’ as a consequence of the articulation of ideas that are directed towards what Wendt describes as the ultimate desire and goal of ‘a just world order’ (2003: 529).

Political discourse that aims at this ‘progressive’ end is, accordingly, fundamental to the mobilisation of an institutional change to realise a goal that has yet to be realised in international practice. Wendt describes this as the transition to a ‘stable end state. . .beyond collective security’ (2003: 505) and by extension beyond any obligations to the ‘primary responsibility’ of the UNSC and the wider ‘consensus–based system’ (Wendt, 2003: 523) within which this institution is, according to a substantive reading of the Charter at least, an unimpeachable source of international authority.

Therein lies the rub. It is not at all obvious how the desirable ‘progressive’ and global reform that Wendt describes can be mobilised in the UNSC (the only site in international politics where he pinpoints this change can be expected to happen, if it is going to happen at all). The reason why is, as I have suggested, the mobilisation of this change is bound to face ‘anti–progressive’ resistance.

Representatives of states in the UNSC can be expected to defend the supreme international authority of this institution for an equally desirable and equally unrealised idea of ‘world order’ to the one that Wendt refers to. This is the idea of a prefigured duty of being a permanent member of this institution. The logic of this idea is directed towards achieving the long–anticipated outcome of ‘collective security’ itself (Forsyth, 1981: 201). To reflect on these contrary dispositions of political thought and action for the sake of ideas of ‘world order’ is to draw attention to what is not recognised by Wendt about a permanent dynamic of ‘struggle(s)’ in global identity formation. In order to grasp the character of these ‘struggle(s)’ in a manner that evades Wendt, I wish to switch attention to Oakeshott’s theorising about the permanent commonalities that arise in modern political experience.

Representation of Oakeshott’s critique of the ‘teleocratic’ character of political association

Michael Oakeshott (1901-1990) was one of the leading British political philosophers of the 20th century. For Oakeshott, to philosophise (or theorise) about politics is to study the history of political thought philosophically. His philosophical critique of ultimate commitments that put the idea of ‘the rule of law’ in the service of common purposes of political association helps to address a gap at the contemporary middle of the ‘global level’ to Wendt’s theorising. It also provides a platform for framing the historical case study that follows.

Oakeshott argues that the historic ‘conditions’ of the modern state are dependent on expressions of the prevailing idea of ‘the rule of law’ in political thought and in the world of practice (1983 / 1999: 129–179). For Oakeshott, this idea is inherently normative and politically constitutive. As it appears to be, also, for Wendt from his isolated remark about ‘the decision rational Great Powers should make’ in the UNSC in favour of an ‘enforceable rule of law’ (Wendt, 2003: 524–5, emphasis added) which promises to improve their collective circumstance, and that of every other actor in international politics, by moving an international practice closer to attaining a certain goal of world order.

My Oakeshottean suggestion is that this coupling of ‘the rule of law’ with the collective achievement of world order is insufficiently theorised by Wendt. Moreover, this synthesis is fundamental to my ‘critical engagement of understanding’ (Oakeshott, 1975: 2) the problem of a ‘world state’ in the twenty-first century.

According to Oakeshott, there is a permanent difference, and ‘unresolved tension’ (1975: 201) between two expressions of the idea of ‘the rule of law’ in modern history and the practice of politics: lex (law as a procedural enactment), and jus (law as a substantive pursuit). Both are in play in an association of a contemporary state in Oakeshott’s philosophical account. But in a predominantly teleocratic (or enterprise) state, in contrast to a predominantly nomocratic (or civil) state, the politics of ‘the rule of law’ is ultimately concerned with the sort of normative discourse about the practice of global identity formation which Wendt articulates; discourse about what ought to exist iff – to use the bi-conditional symbol of logic – any ‘goal–seeking. . .desire for. . .collective identity or solidarity’ (2003: 510) is to ever attain political existence in a ‘just world order’ (2003: 529) at some point in the next ‘100–200 years (?)’ (2003: 492).

The problem with teleocratic politics along these lines is not so much with long–term aspirations of ‘we–ness’ (Wendt, 1999: 124), ‘we–feeling’ (Wendt, 1999: 338) or to use Wendt’s clearest formulation of the ontological solidarity of global identity, when ‘two Selves in effect become one, a “We”’ (2005: 512). The issue is with what is lost in a choice to embrace political expectations of attaining a solidarity between ‘two Selves’ that coincide in practice, but approach one another across an ontologically unbridgeable divide in terms of political desires for the collective jus of world order.

In Oakeshott’s sceptical morality ‘story’ about the modern state (1975: 107), when agents feel rationally compelled to venture on this type of teleocratic journey into a collective future, they abandon the civil charm of ‘non–instrumental rules’ (1975: 124–127) to the social conventions and moral practice of lex. The common good in their association becomes defined ‘in terms of power’ (Oakeshott, 1983 / 1999: 131–132) as the means to achieve a future-oriented purpose of political order that is inextricably linked to first-person desires of actual and distinct selves. In this moment, the associates lose touch with the practical possibility of ‘adjudication’ (Oakeshott, 1975: 130–138) between contending expressions of what is considered to be morally right, correct and justified from ‘our’ point of view on the ‘rules’ that ought to be adhered too to sustain a common political existence.

What follows in the second part of this paper is a retelling of Oakeshott’s narrative of the logic of a teleocratic political association. The form this narrative logic (or narratology) takes is an argument about the ‘ideal character’ (Oakeshott, 1975: 91–107) of the political relationship of a contemporary ‘world state’. The plotlines of this not–altogether–new narratology concern the temporal unfolding of a political experience of identity formation between opposing articulations of a ‘We’ that both aim at achieving an elusive international unanimity on ideas of ‘the rule of law’ as a basis, or foundation, for then achieving the common good of ‘world order’. Seen from teleocratic points of view within an international practice that are comparable to and opposed to Wendt’s in theory, the character of the ‘struggles’ to achieve these goals are bound to come as one ontological surprise after another over the international lifetime of a political project which collectively intertwines and separates.

‘Foundation(s)’ of the agreement of a ‘world state’, 2013–2016: the character of political constitutionalism against global terrorism

Temporal self-differentiation makes mutual constitution possible, thereby enabling ‘an Other’ to stabilise the global Self.

The word ‘foundation(s)’ has been put in inverted commas in recognition of the international fact that this word appears and reappears (in the singular and in the plural) in the rhetoric of Russia’s current president. In reference to the Wendt quote, what in semantic terms internationally ‘stabilises’ and brings a temporal coherence to Putin’s rhetoric during the period covered in this section is the principled opposition to a global ‘Other’. This global ‘Other’ is an image that is aesthetic and teleocratic, a figure of ‘terrorism’ that comes to take the place of – without fully replacing – the mortal and once–vanquished enemy of ‘Nazism’ (Putin, 2015) in international expressions of this agent’s political imagination.

The argument in this section is that Putin’s principled interactions with his peers in the UNSC across a period between late September 2013 and late June 2016 is guided by a composite image of a common enemy of ‘terror(ism)’ (UN Press, 2013; Putin and Xi, 2016) as the Global not–self of a collective ‘We’. This global identity formation explains the outer international limit, or externality, to the contra of political reasoning that defines one pole of the dialectic in my inquiry into the ideas of this particular phase of global reform. The second is defined by a pro– attitude to the advocacy of the ‘logic of peace’ of a ‘(post–war) world order’’ (Putin, 2013, 2015) that is comparable to Wendt’s idea of ‘a just world order’ (2003: 529) in that, like the latter, it can also be considered the international ‘foundation’ that progressively organises and brings coherence to the political founding of the global identity of a ‘world state’.

Holding this pro and contra tension of identify formation in place throughout my narrative logic of this phrase of global reform is the ontological understanding that what Putin’s rhetoric aims at is the progressive achievement of a ‘collective international consensus’ (Cronin, 2008, 2023) in the UNSC between Russia and two other permanent Council members, China and the US. The character of this political activity becomes apparent from the recognition that not one of the legally–binding agreements on peace in Syria (UN Doc, 2013, 2016a), peace in Libya (UN Doc, 2015) or on the peacebuilding agenda of UN reform (see Otobo, 2010) for ‘sustaining peace’ (UN Doc, 2016b) – all of which are made possible by Russia’s consent in the UNSC during this period – is constitutive of an agreement for ‘the international community.’

To go back to Wendt, his ontological claim is that a ‘world state’ will be based on ‘binding multilateral commitments’ that are ‘legally enforceable’ and constitutive of a unified global identity (2003: 523–8, emphasis added). By contrast, the teleocratic origins of a ‘world state’ described here rest on the ontological claim that this outcome is the product of a political association that is internationally non–binding and legally non-enforceable.

My teleocratic argument is that a ‘world state’ comes into existence in an international practice concurrently with UNSC resolutions. But unlike them, the international agreement of this ‘world state’ does not appeal to the precedent of past rules or treaty obligations authorised by direct reference to the UN Charter. Rather, this authorisation is wholly agent–centred. Its constitutive rhetoric appeals to a progressive self-understanding in speech acts that may refer to the UN Charter, but only by indirect intimations. This form of authorisation is characteristic of a political kind of constitutionalism that represents an example of what Andrei Marmor calls ‘soft law’ (2019) in action.

As Marmor puts it, ‘soft law’ is ‘one of the most fascinating developments in the domain of international law in the last few decades’ (2019: 507). The term captures the political character of a proliferation of ‘non–binding legal instruments’ that invoke particular ‘norms or directives’ that ‘explicitly avoid the imposition of legal obligations on the relevant parties’ (ibid.). While parties to a ‘soft law’ agreement avoid imposing any legal obligations on each other, these agreements do imply political obligations to cooperate for a particular rule–bound purpose. Negotiations of these agreements involve the political endorsement of fundamental principles of international law in joint deliberations. Hence, the parties to them necessarily recognise themselves to be in a relationship governed by terms of international law, even though these agreements exist in the shadow of more familiar and formal arrangements of the international legal order that are treaty–like or resolutions–based.

In the particular ‘soft law’ context discussed here, the relationship which is constituted is governed by ideas that are directive in the composition of a political alliance of permanent Council members. As Martin Wight (1978: 122) notes, ‘political alliances [in international relations] are always contracted with. . .[the] purpose to advance the security of the allies, or to advance their interests, against the outer world’.. In this example, it is possible to read off what the interests of this alliance are from the content of a ‘soft law’ agreement that results from Putin’s conduct of inter–personal and inter–state negotiations.

This agreement was negotiated shortly after the conclusion of another UN Commission report, on this occasion endorsed first in the UNSC (UN Doc, 2016b) and later in the General Assembly (UN Doc, 2016c). The text of this report announces a common interest in ‘sustaining peace’ as part of a broader jus post bellum (justice after war) agenda. It intends to bring a future–oriented cohesion to past peacebuilding initiatives approved in the UNSC by grounding the legitimacy of peacebuilding efforts in the jus of international law (Wählisch, 2020: 65–66; also, Otobo, 2010).

Shortly after the drafting of a legally-binding and multilateral agreement that furthers this peacebuilding agenda in UNSC, and during a visit by Putin to meet his peer in Beijing, a document appears on the website of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This document announces a Russia–China joint commitment to the ‘promotion of international law’ (Putin and Xi, 2016). Its preamble contains the assertion of a common interest in upholding ‘the principle of sovereign equality’ (ibid.) as a ‘crucial’ principle for ensuring ‘stability in international relations’ (ibid.).

This teleocratic language of this ‘soft law’ agreement implies that these two permanent Council members are equally sovereign, but also conjoined as a governing authority in a quasi–independent alliance within the UNSC. The international ‘foundations’ to this alliance are legitimated by reference to a common opposition to ‘unilateral military interventions’ and to any actions that may be considered a ‘violation of the principle of non–intervention in the internal affairs of states’ (Putin and Xi, 2016); first and foremost, of course, the states that are co–signatories of this agreement.

In contrast with the resolution negotiated in the UNSC a few months earlier, the teleocratic reasoning of this text suggests that this ‘soft law’ international agreement asserts a political primacy over contemporary jus post bellum thinking in international practice. Like the latter, it is ‘guided by normative expectations’ (Wählisch, 2020: 74). And its progressive intentionality is also similar. The text of this agreement also expresses a commitment to upholding principles of the jus of international law in the common interest. The fundamental teleocratic difference concerns how ‘a logic of peace’ (Putin, 2013) is imagined.

A Russia–China alliance aims to ensure a ‘stable peace’ through a partnership that is morally prior and thereby independent from any legally–binding constraints. As Putin puts it, the basis for this moral priority is that the associates in this alliance are among the founders of the ‘post–war world order’ (2015) of the United Nations. In a speech at the General Assembly, he implies the archetype of the international agreement he wants in today’s world is the deal worked out in Yalta on the Crimean Peninsula in 1945, following 8 days of negotiations involving Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt.

Putin’s vision for a ‘new Yalta’ agreement has a progressive meaning that is not wholly unique to this agent’s point of view. As Murray Forsyth notes, the expectation that ‘the Great Powers together [can] ensure the peace is kept by all the other powers’ (1981: 203) is a claim made by a succession of would–be world leaders since the dawn of the UN. Putin’s articulation of a version of this progressive vision of a ‘common future’ (2013) implies that consensus–based improvements for the peace of a global ‘We’ requires the recognition of how things de jure ‘ought’ to be among today’s world leaders.The collective background of this vision is Putin’s intellectual apprehension of the rule–based ‘is’ of de facto principles of ‘the international community’ (2013) of the post-war past and present.

Putin’s collective peace plan for world order receives a sympathetic hearing in Beijing. But Xi’s China was not the only intended partner in this partnership of global reform. Before he visited Beijing in June 2016, Putin also reached out to his counterpart in Washington as an extension of peace talks on ending the ‘terror’ in Syria (Lukyanov, 2016). However, nothing came from these diplomatic efforts. Thus, the only tangible outcome from the Putin–led negotiations of a peace agreement on world order is the text of a Russia–China alliance.

This document is only a couple of pages long. Not much of a ‘foundation’ for an international agreement on anything, it seems fair to say. The terms of its ‘soft law’ version of ‘the rule of law’ invoke principles of international legality. But the document itself lacks any legal force. Its ideas for a post–war future of world order also fail to provide any clear political guidance as to what activities the parties to this agreement are expected to perform, or refrain from, in support of its long–term ends of securing ‘stability in international relations’ (Putin and Xi, 2016) by establishing a political order against the threats to peace posed by enemies of ‘the international community’ (Putin, 2013). ‘Global terrorism’ (Putin and Xi, 2016) is the most obvious of these declared enemies. But the logic of this association also implies, more controversially, that states within the UNSC that deny the rule–based legitimacy of this alliance of the ‘Great Powers’ are enemies, too.

As the narrative logic in this section has sought to clarify, the beginnings of the political association of a ‘world state’ are contingent on the rhetoric and international actions of one concrete individual. It takes an agent with the progressive desire to constitute the global identity of a ‘We’ through interpersonal negotiations to ‘stabilise’ (Wendt, 2003: 528), and thereby found, an alliance of ‘the Great Powers’ in June 2016. According to this teleocratic understanding, the rhetoric of association between Russia and China discloses the progressive character of an international agreement in the common interest of a ‘post–war world order’ (Putin, 2015) that is open to other members of the UNSC.

However, as the discussion of this brief episode of global reform has also indicated, barely concealed in this agent’s rhetoric is a passion for political constitutionalism with contrary impulses of global identity formation. Allying with other ‘Great Powers’ against ‘our’ global enemies is self–disclosed as a political activity that is presumed to be consistent with securing the ‘foundation(s)’ of world order. But the international tension of these dispositions, between making global allies and making global enemies, is indicative of why progressive demands of membership in this political association are, to quote Oakeshott, ‘a recipe for anarchy’ (1975: 88).

‘Foundation(s)’ of the veto of a ‘world state’, 2022: the character of international anarchy to a dispute

The world should not be based on the dictates of a country that imagines itself to be the representative of God on earth. . .The foundation must be the principles of international law and not some rules that someone comes up with. This is how we get justice. This is how we get a stable world order.

The dispute that unfolded from the use of veto approved by Putin on 26 February 2022 is about more than this procedural decision. It is about whether this decision accords with the understanding of ‘collective legitimacy’ (Caron, 1993) to substantive discourse of ideas (plural) of ‘a global rule of law’ (Orford, 2021) in the UNSC. Discord on these ideas discloses a teleocratic controversy about placing limits on the validity of what is referred to in the international legal literature as ‘veto power’. This term refers to the use of veto as authorised with reference to the UN Charter (UN Doc, 1945: art. 27. 3) and conducted ‘by any one of the five permanent members. . .to block a substantive resolution being voted on within the Council by casting a negative vote’ (Trahan, 2020: 1, emphasis added).

The use of veto in the UNSC on 26 February is an example of ‘veto power’ in action. The intentionality of this action is to block a draft Security Council resolution (co-sponsored by 82 states) that calls for an ‘immediate’ stop of Russia’s ‘attack on Ukraine’ and an ‘immediate’ withdrawal of all Russian troops from the ‘territory of Ukraine’ (UN News, 2022).

What happens after this use of veto discloses the character to the anarchy of a dispute of the UNSC. To unpack the narrative logic of this dispute and explain its implications for international theory, I return to an Oakeshottian engagement that guided the inquiry into an agent–centred episode of global reform in the previous section.

There are two interrelated blocks of events within this more recent and related history of a project of global reform. The first is from 25 to 27 February 2022. The second is from 6 September to 12 October 2022. The first of these blocks of events concludes with a vote in the Council that reiterates the opposition to Russia’s use of force in Ukraine. But it also adds a not–altogether–new assertion of the need to take ‘collective measures’ against a threat to peace that is posed by a Security Council member using its veto power for what are presumed to be the wrong reasons (UN Doc, 1950). The logic of this presumption in international practice entails the refutation of the legitimacy of Russia’s use of veto on 26 February 2022. And it rests on the assertion of a set of claims about the common good of world order that give shape to a fundamentally opposing point of view to Putin’s. This position is articulated by representatives of the US, including the then-president, Joe Biden. In a manner I will elaborate on, the progressive view these agents express is that there are no legitimate grounds to support Russia’s use of veto in 2022, nor, for that matter, any further uses of ‘veto power’ that stand in the way of achieving the ‘foundations’ of international justice of a newly emerging world order.

Utterances of this view are matched by a flatly contradictory position voiced by Putin. His rhetoric reiterates the jus post bellum perspective on the ‘foundations of world order’ (Putin, 2013) that he articulated almost a decade earlier. His defence of this position is shrill, partisan and divisive. But as we shall see, no shriller and no more partisan and divisive than the position set out on the US–centred side of this dispute.

A vote in the Council in search of international consensus on taking ‘collective measures’ to override Russia’s veto discloses the factionalism of these opposing positions. The vote splits the Council into three camps. A significant minority of Council members abstain. Of this group, the most significant is the permanent member, China, and the only other founding member of a contemporary ‘world state’ besides Russia. The majority of Council members support this US-proposed vote. These include the UK and France, constituting a ‘P3’ alliance of Western states. This leaves a ‘P1’ of Russia, in defiant resistance to the US–centred position in this vote (UN Doc, 2022b).

In the rhetoric on this vote, representatives of the US and Russia argue for rival ‘foundation(s)’ of a desired ‘international consensus’ (Cronin, 2008, 2023) in support of and in opposition to this collective action of the UNSC. The US side in this interaction is grounded in progressive reasoning in favour of ‘restraint’ on the use of veto (Priebe et al., 2024). This position determines the outcome of this joint deliberation by cancelling out the negative vote from Russia. Resolution 2623 (UN Doc, 2022a) is adopted on 27 February in a manner that imposes an international consensus in the UNSC.

This brings us to the second and related block of events. On 6 September 2022, looking back on this collective action and its outcome, a US diplomat declared the need to review all possible uses of ‘veto power’ by Council members in the future, including any the US might intend (Peters, 2023: 162). This same diplomat goes on to reiterate the substantive objection to Russia’s use of veto on 26 February and why it prevents the UNSC from functioning as it should. Emboldened by the recent progressive win of the US’s position over Russia’s in international practice, this rhetoric reveals a mutually hostile dynamic of political reasoning on the ‘foundations’ of global identity formation.

Russia’s use of veto in February 2022 is alleged to be a political act of contravening a first-principle of international law . In this event of ‘veto power’, Putin’s Russia is said to have obstructed a legitimate attempt to establish an interstate and legally-binding consensus on the prohibition on the use of force by acting in breach of Article 27(3) in the UN Charter. This line of reasoning is deeply controversial. To understand why, it is worth quoting this article from the Charter in full:

“Decisions of the Security Council on all other matters shall be made by an affirmative vote of nine members, including the concurring votes of the permanent members; provided that, in decisions under Chapter VI, and under paragraph 3 of Article 52, a party to the dispute shall abstain from voting” (UN Doc, 1945: art. 27).

The diplomat’s charge levelled at a fellow permanent Council member is that Russia is unequivocally acting in breach of an obligation to ‘abstain from voting’ in a situation of ‘dispute’ concerning the use of force to which this particular state is directly involved. And that Putin has gone on to compound this transgression of international law by using a blocking vote as a means to ‘defend acts of aggression’ against a UN member state, Ukraine, in a political move that ‘lacks any moral authority’ (cited in Peters, 2023: 162).

Putin’s response comes the next day. He rejects the presumptions of this political reasoning outright and matches this diplomat’s rhetoric of moral disapproval with some of his own. The US, he counters, is the state acting in breach of the spirit and letter of the UN Charter. By behaving ‘as a representative of God on earth’, it is the US, not Russia, that is abandoning its commitment to this self–same article in Chapter VI and a ‘foundation of international law’ (Putin, 2022a). By demanding a collective action to block Russia’s use of veto power, out of misplaced solidarity for Ukraine, the US is the one guilty of the dereliction of its responsibility as a permanent Council member to follow international law for the common good. According to Putin, it is the US that is acting without any regard for what is written in the UN Charter and, instead, is actively undermining the foundations of a ‘stable world order’ (2022a) by pushing a Westernising agenda in the UNSC.

In follow-up remarks a fortnight later, Putin argues that the jus of ‘world order’ cannot be secured as long as the US persists in this (latest) act of collective moral irresponsibility. The US, he claims, is intent on a ‘unilateral’ imposition of the political will of the ‘Collective West’ (2022b) in violation of the consent of a fellow permanent member that only wishes to defend ‘the rule of law’ that is common for all, ‘and not some rules that someone comes up with’ (Putin, 2022a).

The teleocratic tension of this exchange reaches its apogee in October 2022, following the publication that gives shape to what, back in April 2022, was described as the ‘catalytic vision’ of an update to US national security strategy (US State Department, 2022). This vision aims to ‘promote stability’ and ‘the rule of law’ for the ‘restraint’ of the use of force in ‘the international community’ (ibid., emphasis added) as a whole. Joe Biden’s argument for this ‘assertion of American leadership’ (2022a) is that ‘the rules–based order. . .remains the foundation for global peace and prosperity’ (2022b: 2, emphasis added) in international politics. While this vision looks long into the future, its progressive intentionality is articulated by opposition to a contemporary and allegedly ‘vicious and unprovoked attack by Vladimir Putin’ himself on a UN member state. Biden says this unconscionable act of ‘aggression’ serves as ‘a stark reminder of. . .the need to avert violence before it erupts’ (2022a).

This rhetoric reveals a major dispute of opposing ‘visions’ for collective action within the same international practice. Each of these ‘visions’ is concerned with the regulation of the use of military force in the conflict in Ukraine. The irony is that the assertion of these ‘visions’ co-determines a conflict in the UNSC through a different use of force, the force of political argument between self-styled world leaders. Biden and Putin both utter practical justifications in political defence of ‘the rule of law’ (US State Department, 2022; Putin, 2022) as the foundation(s) of the ‘international community’ (Biden, 2022b; Putin, 2013) for the correct, morally responsible, collective decision that ought to be made in response to the Other’s stance on veto power. In the interlocking narrative logic of this international dispute, there is no practicable way forward. All the UNSC members are bound together and held together by the interpersonal advocacy of substantive commitments in an international practice that is pulled to exhortatory ‘extreme(s)’ (Putin, 2019).

One extreme is progressive and advocates the solidarity of a ‘We’ for a rule–governed future of peace and international justice beyond the limitations on collective action posed by Russia’s use of ‘veto power’. It sets out a position on the global identity formation of an interstate alliance as the continuation of the incomplete consensus established by the UNSC resolution adopted on 27 February (UN Doc, 2022a). A Western group of states led by Biden chooses to support this position on global reform.

The second extreme is, by practical inference, anti–progressive. The position advocated is the solidarity of a ‘We’ of resistance, imbued with nostalgia for a time when ‘veto power’ went unchallenged by the collective imposition of Western hegemony. Putin, encouraged by another non–binding international agreement reached with his Chinese counterpart shortly before this dispute began (Putin and Xi, 2022), chooses to support this position with a view to reconstituting this alliance in a global and anti–Western defence of the legitimate ‘foundation’ of consensus on world order.

These opposing choices and dispositions in global identity formation leave the political association of Security Council members more substantively divided than it has been at any point in contemporary history, at least since the Syria peace talks of June 2016. According to my teleocratic argument, this is the rhetorical situation of the endgame of a ‘world state’ in October 2022. The character of this situation discloses the conflict after peace of an international condition of anarchy in a project of global reform. In this event, the UNSC is polarised by political alliances – progressive and Western, anti–progressive and anti–Western – that are equally consensus-seeking and confrontational.