Proponents of world government offer distinct reasons for why it is an ideal of political organization. Some are motivated negatively and see world government as the definitive solution to old and new human problems such as war and the development of weapons of mass destruction, global poverty and inequality, and environmental degradation. More positively, some have advocated world government as a proper reflection of the unity of the cosmos, under reason or God. Proponents have also differed historically in their views of the form that a world government should take. While medieval thinkers advocated world government under a single monarch or emperor who would possess supreme authority over all other lesser rulers, modern proponents generally do not advocate a wholesale dismantling of the sovereign states system but incremental innovations in global institutional design to move humanity toward world federalism or cosmopolitan democracy.

Catherine Lu, World Government, dans The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.