  Despite Alexander Wendt’s (2003) teleological claim that a world government is ‘inevitable’, many people deride the concept as infeasible. Without another major crisis (such as a world war) to prompt international action, it is difficult to envisage why states would readily give sovereign power to a global state and who precisely would take the lead in this process. Although UN reform is often cited as one pathway forward, the veto position held in the Security Council by the United States, China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom undermines that option. From the perspective of desirability, moreover, opponents have argued that a world government would actually exacerbate the global democratic deficit. For example, Kant argued that a world government would become a ‘soulless despotism’ as global leaders abused their power without appropriate checks and balances. Other scholars have also suggested a world government—in which citizens have one vote from a constituency of seven billion—would be essentially meaningless and not enable individuals to participate meaningfully in their collective governance.