1. Institute for World Order Studies (IWOS)

2. What Is World Order Research?

3. The IWOS Research Perspective

4. Core Concepts

5. Central Research Question

6. Research Areas

7. Current Research Programme

8. Research Standards

9. International Scholarly Cooperation

10. About the Founder

Research on International Order, Democratic Fusion and Constitutional Transformation

The Institute for World Order Studies (IWOS) is an independent research institute based in Switzerland. It investigates the historical development, structural tensions and possible long-term transformation of international political order. Its work is situated at the intersection of International Relations, political theory, global governance, comparative constitutionalism, international law and historical institutional analysis.

IWOS proceeds from a fundamental research problem: the functional organisation of contemporary society increasingly transcends territorial borders, while legitimate political authority remains predominantly fragmented among sovereign states. Economic interdependence, technological systems, environmental risks, security challenges, scientific cooperation and digital communication have acquired a global scale. Political responsibility, constitutional legitimacy and democratic decision-making, however, continue to be organised principally within national jurisdictions.

The resulting divergence between Functional Global Interdependence and Structural Political Fragmentation constitutes the central analytical problem of the IWOS research programme. The Institute examines whether existing international institutions can manage this divergence, under which conditions cooperation may develop into deeper constitutional integration, and how such processes could preserve democracy, pluralism, the rule of law and the political autonomy of participating communities.

IWOS does not present a predetermined model of world government, a prediction of historical inevitability or a programme of immediate political transformation. Its purpose is to establish a rigorous and cumulative research agenda through which the long-term evolution of political authority can be studied, compared, criticised and empirically assessed.

World order research examines the institutions, norms, power structures and forms of political authority through which relations among political communities are organised. It extends beyond the study of individual conflicts or the foreign policies of particular states. Its central concern is the architecture within which international cooperation, competition, legitimacy, law and collective action become possible.

Every international order contains at least four interconnected dimensions:

1. Authority - who possesses the capacity to make, implement and enforce collective decisions;

2. Legitimacy - why political actors and societies recognise particular institutions and decisions as justified;

3. Constitutional identity - how political communities understand their membership, autonomy and relationship to a wider order;

4. Competition - how conflicts over power, security, resources, status and institutional design are regulated or intensified.

Traditional approaches to International Relations have generated indispensable explanations of power balancing, institutional cooperation, norm formation, international society and political identity. IWOS builds upon these traditions while asking an additional question: should the sovereign state system itself be treated as the permanent constitutional framework of international politics, or as a historically developed institutional form that may continue to evolve?

This question does not require the rejection of statehood. The constitutional state remains an indispensable site of democratic participation, legal protection, political responsibility, cultural memory and social solidarity. The research challenge is therefore not simply whether sovereignty should disappear, but whether sovereignty may gradually be transformed from exclusive external independence into constitutionally regulated participation within wider institutions of shared authority.

IWOS studies world order as an evolving constitutional system. This perspective treats political institutions neither as immutable structures nor as temporary instruments of power. Institutions are understood as historically developed arrangements through which political communities organise authority, legitimacy, rights, responsibility and conflict under changing social and material conditions.

The Westphalian state system represented a consequential institutional achievement. It contributed to the territorial consolidation of authority and later provided the framework within which constitutionalism, representative government and democratic citizenship could develop. Its historical importance, however, does not by itself demonstrate that it constitutes the final possible form of political organisation.

Contemporary conditions differ substantially from those under which territorially bounded sovereignty emerged. Financial markets, communication networks, ecological systems, supply chains, migration, military technology, artificial intelligence and transnational public risks increasingly connect societies in ways that individual states cannot fully control. The constitutional scale of political authority and the functional scale of collective problems are therefore becoming progressively misaligned.

IWOS investigates this misalignment without assuming that integration necessarily constitutes progress. Deeper integration may increase collective capacity, but it may also centralise power, weaken democratic accountability or reproduce hierarchy. Any transformation of international order must consequently be evaluated according to demanding political, legal and normative criteria.

• Functional Global Interdependence

Functional Global Interdependence describes the growing integration of economic, technological, ecological, scientific, communicative and security processes across territorial borders. It is not limited to an increase in diplomatic contact or international trade. It denotes a structural transformation in the organisation of social life through which decisions taken within one jurisdiction increasingly produce consequences beyond it.

• Structural Political Fragmentation

Structural Political Fragmentation refers to the continued division of legitimate political authority among sovereign states. States may cooperate extensively while retaining separate constitutional decision-making structures, electoral publics, legal systems and security responsibilities. The central problem arises when collective challenges operate at a scale that exceeds the institutions authorised to address them.

• Democratic Fusion

Democratic Fusion is a theoretical hypothesis concerning the voluntary constitutional integration of democratic states. It describes a possible process through which participating political communities may establish shared institutions of legitimate authority while preserving democratic government, political plurality, fundamental rights, constitutional autonomy and the rule of law.

Fusion is distinct from conquest, imperial domination, hegemonic absorption and administrative centralisation. It does not presuppose the abolition of states or the homogenisation of political identities. Its defining question is whether previously external relations among democratic states can gradually become internal constitutional relations governed by common institutions and jointly authorised procedures.

• One-State-One-Vote and Dual Representation

The principle of One-State-One-Vote protects the constitutional equality of participating states. Standing alone, however, it cannot provide sufficient democratic representation of citizens. IWOS therefore investigates models of dual representation in which states and citizens participate through institutionally differentiated chambers.

Such an architecture would have to reconcile equality among political communities with equality among citizens. It would also require rules concerning subsidiarity, qualified majorities, constitutional amendment, judicial review, fiscal responsibility, withdrawal and the protection of minorities.

• Democratic Imperium

The concept of Democratic Imperium addresses the relationship between effective public authority and democratic legitimacy. The term imperium identifies the capacity to make and implement collectively binding decisions. Its democratic qualification subjects that authority to constitutional constraints, political equality, rights protection, pluralism and continuous public justification.

The concept does not rehabilitate historical empire. It asks whether extensive political authority can be separated from domination and whether integration across states can occur without establishing a permanent hierarchy between a political centre and subordinate peripheries.

• The 1000-Year Project

The 1000-Year Project is a long-term scientific research programme concerning the evolution of international political order. The designation of one thousand years is an analytical horizon, not a prediction or timetable. It creates conceptual distance from electoral cycles and immediate geopolitical crises, allowing institutions commonly perceived as permanent to be examined as historically contingent and potentially transformable.

The project is deliberately non-teleological. It does not assume that Democratic Fusion will occur, that integration will be irreversible or that any future constitutional order will represent historical progress. It investigates the conditions under which transformation, stagnation, regression, fragmentation or hierarchical integration may arise.

Under which historical, institutional and normative conditions may sovereign democratic states gradually evolve towards a constitutionally integrated international order while preserving democracy, constitutionalism and political legitimacy?

This question is conditional rather than predictive. It requires the identification of causal mechanisms, scope conditions, institutional thresholds, countervailing forces and observable indicators. It also requires serious consideration of failure: constitutional integration may remain impossible, reproduce inequalities, generate new legitimacy deficits or reverse under conditions of crisis.

The IWOS research programme is organised around interconnected fields of inquiry:

1. theories of international and world order;

2. sovereignty and the evolution of political authority;

3. democratic legitimacy beyond the state;

4. comparative federalism and constitutional integration;

5. international organisations and regional institutions;

6. global governance and institutional fragmentation;

7. peace, security and geopolitical competition;

8. international and comparative constitutional law;

9. political identity and constitutional patriotism;

10. technological and ecological transformation;

11. long-term institutional development;

12. empirical indicators of integration, stagnation and regression.

The Institute welcomes critical engagement from scholars working within Realism, Liberalism, Constructivism, the English School, critical theory, international political sociology, global constitutionalism, international law and comparative politics. Democratic Fusion is intended to become a researchable and contestable hypothesis, not a doctrine insulated from criticism.

The 1000-Year Project: Beyond Sovereignty

The principal IWOS research programme examines whether democratic political communities may develop forms of constitutional integration beyond sovereign fragmentation. It analyses the structural crisis of contemporary international order, the limits of established paradigms, the constitutional design of shared authority, the role of international and regional organisations, and the conditions governing long-term institutional transformation.

The first research monograph is:

Johann, R.-G. (2026). The 1000-Year Project: Beyond Sovereignty - A Theory of Democratic Fusion and the Future of International Order. IWOS Research Monograph No. 1, Version 1.1. Institute for World Order Studies, Switzerland.

Read the official online research edition

Intellectual Foundations

The research programme develops ideas initially formulated in:

Johann, R. (2022). Theorie der Imperiumsbildung im 21. Jahrhundert: Ein neuer Ansatz für die Internationalen Beziehungen. Baden-Baden: Tectum Wissenschaftsverlag.

Johann, R. G. (2023). “Neue Weltordnung nach der Theorie der Imperiumsbildung im 21. Jahrhundert.” Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte, 24(1), 115-141.

Johann, R.-G. (2025). World Order in the Twenty-First Century - Manifesto.

DOI: 10.3726/ZWG0120235

These publications provide the theoretical foundation for the systematic development, critical assessment and future empirical examination of Democratic Fusion.

IWOS is committed to the following principles:

1. conceptual clarity and transparent definitions;

2. engagement with established and competing scholarship;

3. separation of analytical claims from normative commitments;

4. explicit formulation of assumptions and limitations;

5. development of falsifiable propositions where appropriate;

6. critical examination of alternative explanations;

7. transparent citation and version information;

8. openness to scholarly criticism and theoretical revision;

9. respect for academic independence and research ethics.

The Institute's long-term objective is to connect theoretical innovation with comparative and empirical research. Future studies will therefore develop indicators, case-selection criteria and comparative methods through which the conditions of Democratic Fusion can be assessed across historical and contemporary institutional settings.

World order cannot be adequately studied from a single disciplinary, national or theoretical perspective. IWOS therefore seeks scholarly exchange with researchers and institutions working on International Relations, global governance, constitutionalism, international law, federalism, political theory, peace and security, technological change and long-term institutional development.

Forms of cooperation may include:

1. academic workshops and conferences;

2. critical discussions of working papers;

3. external scholarly reviews;

4. comparative research projects;

5. guest lectures and research seminars;

6. interdisciplinary contributions to the IWOS research programme;

7. institutional partnerships supporting open and independent research.

Cooperation does not require agreement with the theory of Democratic Fusion. Critical examination, competing explanations and negative findings are essential to the scientific development of the programme.

Dr. Rami-Georg Johann is a political scientist and author of Iraqi origin based in Switzerland. His research focuses on International Relations, theories of international order, empire formation, democratic integration, and the long-term constitutional evolution of political authority.

He received his doctorate in political science from the University of Vechta, Germany, where he also taught for six years. His doctoral research developed the Theory of Empire Formation in the Twenty-First Century and conceptualised Democratic Fusion as a distinct model of political integration. His broader research examines the historical, institutional, and normative conditions under which political authority may evolve beyond the conventional framework of sovereign statehood towards more deeply integrated constitutional forms of international order.

He is the founder and Scientific Director of the Institute for World Order Studies (IWOS).

ORCID: 0000-0001-9439-4909