The European Union, the United Nations, and the Revival of Confederal Governance

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By Frederick K. Lister

ISBN: 0-313-29890-4

ISBN-13: 978-0-313-29890-5

DOI:

200 pages

Greenwood Press

Publication: 7/30/1996

List Price: $115.00 (UK Sterling Price: £65.00)

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Media Type: Hardcover

Also Available: Ebook

Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4

Subjects:

Series Title: Contributions in Political Science

Series Number: 371

Description: Political scientists have traditionally classified voluntary polities as confederations, federations, or unitary states. But they have ignored the first of these classes, perhaps because Alexander Hamilton, wishing to mobilize support for the new federal constitution, discredited not only the United States Confederation but the whole class of confederations as a viable method of governance. More than 200 years later, confederation as a form of governance is still under a cloud. Yet it has been resurfacing, largely unrecognized for what it is, in the repertory of government. In the treaties of Rome and Maastricht and in the collective security system of the Charter, the European Union and the United Nations are already involved in forms of governance that are confederal in all but name. Lister's book describes confederal governance and how such "unions of states" differ from intergovernmental organizations on the one hand and federations on the other. Meticulously researched and carefully argued, it draws upon his five years of study of confederal unions from Ancient Greece through the 19th-century Germanic Confederation and the German Zollverein. But his book is not a "history" of confederations. Instead, it shows how long-term alliances sometimes evolve into unions of states and, in time, into communities of the peoples who live in those states. It also shows how the ties of confederal union have been institutionalized in modern times in the EU and how they might be institutionalized in a global collective security body.

Finally, the book stresses the urgency of moving in this direction because we shall face a very serious security problem in the next century. With the steady leakage of nuclear materials in Russia, the non-proliferation approach to controlling weapons of mass destruction appears to be breaking down. Lister argues that if and when governments are confronted with this looming problem, perhaps in the not-too-distant future, the confederal model may be the one that they will need to have updated and at their disposal.

Table of Contents:

Foreword by Benjamin Rivlin
Preface
The Opening Argument
The Nature of Confederal Governance
The European Union: Jumbo Confederation
The United Nations: A Collective Security Confederation in the Making
The Closing Argument
Selected Bibliography
Index

LC Card Number: 95-47183

LCC Class: JC357

Dewey Class: 327


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