Author’s Abstract

In this paper I will demonstrate that the Westphalia System is based on a fiction, and that the acceptance of this fiction perpetuates the conditions needed for inequalities in power between states to continue. In effect, an informal system of world government is already in place founded on the principle of hegemony. But within this system, the establishment of supranational governmental bodies is hampered by contradictions between principles (democracy, the common good, human rights and so on) and the need—created by the state of hegemony—to act hierarchically and “from above.”
Because the prevailing nature of international relations is substantially state-centric, it is unlikely that a new or balanced system will come into being in the near future. Today’s main schools of thought — liberal democracy, which currently dominates; Marxism, at present on the defensive; and postmodernism with its many shortcomings — are unlikely to help in this direction.