The COVID-19 pandemic poses an unprecedented set of challenges to governments, policy makers and citizens; lockdowns and social distancing measures generate significant economic losses, fuel public expenditures and deficits and will no doubt significantly boost public debts. The burden of such measures is also likely to be disproportionately felt by the worse-off members of society and will weigh heavily on future generations. This is both unfair and runs the risk of politically destabilizing the recovery process. To avoid these outcomes unconventional policy measure such as taxes on private wealth and digital economic activities, but also public debt monetization, should be considered. From a political perspective, governments should realize that policy coordination is the only successful exit strategy following a systemic economic shock. While the EU is moving faster than we are accustomed to, it still seems unable to respond quickly enough given the nature of the circumstances. In this picture, the G-20, provided it acts quickly over the coming months, could emerge as the sole global policy forum left on the playing field that can avoid that national interests will prevail eventually producing collectively sub-optimal results in the long-run.

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This paper argues that the process of deriving legitimacy criteria for political institutions ought to be sensitive to features of the political context in which that process is to occur. The paper builds on Allen Buchanan’s ‘Metacoordination View’ of legitimacy, which we explicate in the first section. While sympathetic to Buchanan’s practical approach, we believe the idea of a metacoordination process to be underspecified across two dimensions, which we explain in the second section: (i) constituency and (ii) normativity. Both dimensions admit of differing specifications. In the third section, we suggest that how best to fill in these dimensions in any one instance depends upon the political context in which the metacoordination process is to occur. We highlight three relevant elements of a political decision context – criticality, institutional time point, and motivational landscape – and illustrate their significance by way of reference, respectively, to the World Health Organization, the European Economic and Monetary Union, and the Bank of International Settlements. The ‘context-dependence’ of the metacoordination process, and therefore of legitimacy, entails the possibility that institutions that are similar, even identical, in terms of their nature and function may nevertheless be held to differing legitimacy criteria in differing political contexts.

Cosmopolitanism, in the broadest sense, is a way of thinking about the human condition. It portrays humanity as a universal fellowship. The unity to which cosmopolitans refer can be intellectual (we all share a capacity for reason), moral (we are all part of a single moral community), or institutional (we are all vulnerable to the same political evils and thus require shared collective solutions). The cosmopolitan intuition with its drive to highlight commonality is undoubtedly important. It understands that human beings are capable of an enormous range of good and bad, and attempts to embed human activity in a framework of common rules and norms; hence, it seeks to tame the potential for violent conflict. It tries to give us reasons to care for each other and to broaden our moral and intellectual universe beyond the remit of our personal ties and immediate environment. It offers a model of political action that confronts some of the most pressing challenges we face in the twenty-first century and does so by suggesting inclusive institutional solutions. Yet, cosmopolitanism would not be an attractive philosophical position if it did not consistently strive to address some of its underlying tensions. One of the most intensely shared elements of the human experience is particularity, not unity. We come to the world from families and social and cultural groups, and often develop our moral sensibilities within the framework of public discourses based on specific political traditions. Critics often contend that cosmopolitanism downplays such particularity and is thus unable to reflect one of the most important aspects of persons’ lives. A second encompassing objection leveled at cosmopolitanism is its high degree of utopianism. Cosmopolitanism, its critics contend, is a flight from political reality. Its plans for institutional reform are too abstract to be credible and neglect the importance of power in human political relationships. Cosmopolitans should accept these challenges. Their aim should be to make cosmopolitanism more attractive by explaining the place of special ties in their moral outlook, and to make it more credible by detailing the urgency of cosmopolitan political reform. The enduring success of a cosmopolitan ethos is thus partly reliant on cosmopolitans’ ability to provide convincing answers to these alleged weaknesses.