A Utopia? Government without Territorial Monopoly

Abstract

We normally take it for granted: a government or state has its corresponding territory. This paper shows that government need not have a territorial monopoly. The paper advances a practical, constitutional proposal, based on the notion that there are meaningful government units, whose major characteristic is not the terrritorial extension but ist function. The constitution proposal allows for the emergence of governmental organisations, which will be called FOCJ according to the acronym for "Functional, Overlapping, Competing Jurisdictions". Their territory is variable, and they do not have a territorial monopoly over it. Rather, they are in competition with other such FOCJ, and they are, moreover, exposed to political competition.