Some of More's commentators have shown that these very traits became those of the sovereign nation-states as they were established in Westphalian Europe. In so doing they also criticise More's lack of interest for justice and peace outside the island shores. Is it impossible to go beyond these limits of utopia?

This insular model of utopia is challenged when confronted with projects of a society of nations - especially today, in the contemporary context of "globalisation". Two hundred years after Kant's blueprint for an international organisation, the contemporary alternative conceptions of the relations between the different parts of the world are still being elaborated in reference to utopia - but this reference is often ambiguous.

What might be a non-insular utopia? Is there a radical change of paradigm in the conception of utopia? How can local utopias develop into a global utopia? Can the utopian territory be extended infinitely? Is it possible to imagine a utopia without a centre? Are many utopias possible, or is utopia always singular? Does the plea for a global utopia imply that all States as such be considered obsolescent, or is it the other way round? Would a worldwide form of government satisfy the criteria of a utopia, or is it bound to remain "utopian", in the most vague and negative sense of the term?

In order to examine these issues, I would like to analyse both the conceptual link and the critical relationship between utopia and the proposals for a new world order in the recent works of the theorists of "Cosmopolitan Democracy" and "Empire". This will enable me to highlight the different ways of understanding the utopian State, and to put to the fore the meanings of "utopia" when applied on a large scale.

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