Abstract

This article is a translation of Eine politische Verfassung für die pluralistische Weltgesellschaf which is published in Zwischen Naturalismus und Religion: philosophische Aufsäze (2005). The article deals with the project of forming a cosmopolitan order and a harmonization of national policies by agreeing upon and implementing shared global politics which require an intergovernmental coordination. This project has its origin from Hobbes and Kant, and Habermas discuss Kant"s concept of a world republic and a constitution which apply to all the citizens in the world. Habermas argues that the Kantian project must be understood in the international political situation today, and that we have to substitute the traditional and Kantian cosmopolitan ideal of a world republic by the project of a "constitutionalizationâ€? of international law. Habermas suggest that the world community need a political constitution for an emerging world society which allows for global governance without a global government. This solution Habermas denotes as a global extension of domestic politics. A presupposition for this argument is that it has been a shift that has taken place from the former national to the present post-national constellation. In order to realize this international coordination and transnational harmonization, the national states has to perceive themselves as members of an international community and to act accordingly. Such an arrangement requires first a change in the conception of state-sovereignty. Then citizens will enjoy, in addition to their national citizenship, the status of world-citizens.