Global governance, the next new thing in trendy international thought, has been typically portrayed as the nearly inevitable evolution upward from the primitive nation-state and its antiquated notions of constitutionalism and popular sovereignty.

Not “world government,” wildly unpopular among knuckle-draggers in America, but a rebranded alternative, more nuanced and sophisticated, would creep in on little cat feet before the Neanderthals knew what was up.

American exceptionalism was on its way to the ash heap. Terms like shared and pooled sovereignty were bandied about like new types of cell phones rather than fundamental shifts in the relationship between citizens and state. Multilateral treaties on an astounding array of issues were in prospect—not just the usual subjects of international relations, but matters heretofore quintessentially decided by nation-states: gun control, abortion, the death penalty, among others.

Although George W. Bush’s troublesome flag-waving tenure represented an unwelcome bump on the road, Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration was surely the high point of global governance’s advance. Here was a president who saw global warming as the threat it was, promising to stop the seas from rising. This self-proclaimed “citizen of the world” rejected U.S. unilateralism, took the United Nations seriously, and understood that European Union-style institutions were the real future. Not only would America have social democracy domestically, but it would join its like-minded confreres worldwide to celebrate global governance’s emerging transcendence. What could go wrong?

Fortunately, while globalista academics, their handmaidens in the political commentariat, leftist think tanks, and non-governmental organizations were hard at work, others, in the late ’90s, were awakening to the consequences of all that buzz. Sometimes derided as “new sovereigntists” by the multilateralist chorus, these analysts and practitioners began examining both the precepts and the implications of the global-governance agenda.

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