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News that the European Union won the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize undoubtedly gladdened the hearts of global governance advocates everywhere. Although the idea of universal government has appeared in many formulations over the years, most contemporary approaches use the EU as a model for where the march toward “one world” will ultimately end. After all if “global problems require global solutions,” the continent-wide EU strikes many as a paradigm for the entire planet. A cornerstone of the EU’s founding justification, and the underlying rationale for granting it the peace prize, was that European economic and political integration would quell the troublesome forces of nationalism that have been the basic, enduring cause of war around the world.

On the other hand,...