Hospitality, Coercion and Peace in Kant

: In this essay, I discuss Kant ’ s right of hospitality in Toward Perpetual Peace. In the proposed reading, the right of hospitality protects foreigners from the xenophobic practices of the locals, while protecting the locals from the colonial practices of foreigners. The main question guiding this paper is whether hospitality is for Kant a moral injunction calling for a ‘ humane ’ treatment of foreigners; or whether it is rather a right senso strictu — namely, one that entails full coercive authority against violations. I argue that once the con-nections between the dilemma of coercion and the so-called ‘ institutionalization dilemma ’ are properly understood, they may be resolved in favor of the first op-tion, namely, coercion. Additionally, by examining the notions of non-central-ized coercion and transnational political participation, this paper explores a way to match hospitality ’ s need of coercion with Kant ’ s federalist proposal. to decisive some-how grounded in our common humanity, or is it strict right, coercive norm to which individuals, groups, and — notice — autonomous political entities are subject? This interrogation is the subject of this essay.

tality in general, the right to hospitality is, for him, what defines cosmopolitanism as aworld political project (ZeF 8:349).¹Indeed, Kant found anormative void in the relations between foreigners, considered individually, and collective political entities, or receptor states.This void, as he sawit, could not be filled by the traditionall aw of peoples, centered as it was on the conditions for just war.Kant'sfocus is not on just anyform of hospitality,but on that arising in the clearly asymmetrical situation in which foreign persons individuallye ncounter the authority and power of nationals tates.The philosopher'sp roposal to the European powers of his time (in his 1795 philosophical masterpiece, TowardP erpetual Peace)was not to have themagree on certain by-laws for waging war and for an ew balance of power (MdS 6:352).²Rather,i tl ay in the idea thatp eace and hospitality must go together.ForK ant,a si sw ell known, perpetual peace is the idea of apeaceful, 'even if not necessarilyfriendly',community of peoples.³It is preciselyt his sort of peace that demands the protectiono fs trangers.
Here, however,Kant'stext opensitself up to two diverging interpretations as to how exactlyt he protection of strangers is to be understood.⁴In one interpretation, his proposal would be asort of moralcall on the powers of Europe of his time not to treat foreign visitors with hostility,and perhaps to grant material assistance (asylum and refuge)t ot hosep ersons who wered isplaced by the wars those same powers undertook.I nt his reading, more generally, this is not a call for the full, legal protectionofforeigners, but an attempt at encouraging 'humane' treatment of foreigners in disgrace.⁵Compliance or non-compliance, if it  (See bibliography for abbreviated references) From FranciscodeV itoriatoHugoGrotius, Kant is far from beinga lone in consideringh ospitality as some sort of right of strangers.See also : Cavallar 2002. Perhapst he main historical referenceo fK ant'sp olitical intervention in this text is the peace treaty between Francea nd Prussia, known as the Peace of Basel, signed in April 1795.A saresult, Prussia lost territory on the left bank of the Rhine, and post-revolutionary Franceb ecame recognized as ac ontending party in the powerg ame of the European monarchies of the time.TowardP erpetual Peace was published in Königsbergi nA ugust 1795. In contrast to atruceoranarmistice, perpetual peace is not conditioned by the satisfaction of certain demands and claims.I ti s, furthermore, the earthlyp eaceo ft he living, not the eternal peaceo ft he dead.As an idea of reason,p erpetual peaceh as normativef orce for individual and collective agents even if the political state of affairs it purports to represent is never fully attainable.See: Anderson-Gold 2010. To my knowledge,Kant'sright of hospitality as such has not receivedthe attention it deserves amongKantian scholars,nor amongthose in the orbit of internationallaw theories and 'humanitarian' studies. Although he does not talk directlya bout hospitality as such, JürgenH abermas suggests that Kant is here "forced to relye xclusively on each government'so wn moral self-binding" (Habermas 1997, p. 118). is at all aconsideration, is always up to the agents' will.An alternativeinterpretation takesthe call to protect foreigners as acall to design and erect the political institutions that would realize thatp rotection.Such ar ealization would include encouragement and active recognition of hospitality (e. g., in public programs), as wella sal egal expression, with coercive authority over violators.
These two interpretations maya lso be put in the form of ad ilemma.L et us bear in mind that for Kant,a lthough anystrict right (jus strictum)i s" connected with an authorization to use coercion",s ometimes people think of ar ight in a wider sense (jus latium), such that "no lawbywhich an authorization to use coercion can be determined" (MdS 6:234).Thus, we seet he dilemmao fc oercion: hospitality is either ar ight merelyi namanner of speaking, so that av iolation of it would not carry punishable consequences (it would instead be up to the violating agent'sc onsciencet or ecognize the damagea nd to repair it); or it is a strict right,i nw hich case ag roup of competent judges( together with aw hole juridical system) is required to enforcei t.
It is not to be assumedt hat the issues raised by these mutuallye xclusive readings of Kant can be settled onlyb yt extual evidence.T his paper aims to show that,d espite their historical limits, Kant'st houghts on cosmopolitan rule are fullyc onsistent with the second horn of the dilemma-namely, the idea that hospitality requires foreigners to be legally protected.Furthermore, I arguet hat the way in which Kant conceiveso fs uch legal protection has important lessons to teach us for today'sp lanetary politics of peace.While the role of the right to hospitality maya ppear on the surface to be merelyt oe nable the legal protection of strangers, the theoretical complexity required to design the institutions that would provide such protectionisenormous.While these institutions-the institutions of peace-are meant to be expressions of practices that are in line with categoricalm orality and republican political ideals, they must inevitablyb ee rected in conditionso fi ntersubjective and collective violence.Here, too, Kant'scontribution remains wide and deep.In particular, Kantian hospitality points at am ode of cosmopolitan institution-building thatc ombines full coercive authority with clear respect for the autonomyo fp eoples.As we shall see, his proposal continues to challengereceivedideas about state borders, political power and what is due to strangers.

Neither xenophobian or colonialism
In Toward Perpetual Peace,K ant refers to hospitality as ag eneral restriction (Einschränkung)t hat applies to certain agents within ac osmopolitan right.Those limits combine, at least potentially, the possibilityofa ni mmense variety of hospitality practices,with principles thatcover the treatment of foreigners by public authorities and privatecitizens.Such principles concern both the objects of hospitality (foreign nationals as well as stateless persons) and the subjects of it (states or political collectives, and individual agents acting in their name).Under the general principle of hospitality,f oreignersh avet he right to appear, to present themselves, in the space of another people and not to be treated with hostility;t he receptor state,i nt urn, is endowed with the power to refuse admission.This power,h owever,h as limits:i ft he foreign person has fallen into disgrace and presents herself as being in aprecarious situation, it is not permissible for the receptor state to reject admission, nor to undertake anya ction which would increase the person'sv ulnerability.P ut otherwise,the foreign person enjoys certain immunities vis-à-vis the power of the state-not to be treated with hostility,and not to have her vulnerability increased.Although this immunity is limited to her attempt to make contact with the local community,the state in turn has alimited power to expel foreigners, namely,touse violence and force them out.O ne can see here, in an utshell, the sense in which ac osmopolitan right mayb es eena slimited to conditions of hospitality (ZeF 8:357).
Notice that such arestriction has momentous implications in understanding the status of foreign individuals, as well as the nature of state power under acosmopolitan world order.And notice that, within the framework of Kantian hospitality,the admission of af oreign person is mandatory in those cases (at aphysical border such as ar iver or an ocean) wherer ejection would likelylead to her demise.Hence, in that case admission is enforced-at least until the circumstances change.Now the principle of hospitality also limits the right of access to a territory,f or no foreign individual or collective has an ap riori right to establish itself in aforeign territory-unless thereisanex professo treatise or contract.Interestingly,t his includes,f or Kant,t he territories of so-called stateless peoples.In other words, the establishment of foreign colonies in the spaceo fapeople is onlyp ossible under conditions of mutual consent.O therwise, the situation is colonialism,a nd colonialism is evidentlyo pposed to perpetual peace.
At this point,one might alreadya ppreciate that hospitality is ad ual principle: on the one hand,apeople'spolitical autonomydraws alimit for the foreign cosmopolitan traveler; on the other, the autonomyo fp ersons (and presumably, such universal properties of human agencya sr ationality and dignity) puts a limit on the treatment of foreign persons by state power.Hospitality as acosmopolitan principle is at once aprotection for foreign persons against the xenopho-bic practices of the locals, and ap rotection for the locals against the colonial practices of foreigners.⁶

Twog rounds forK antian hospitality?
How is this unique principle of acosmopolitan right justified, according to Kant?One direct,yet complex answer is twofold:bythe rational nature of human agency,and by the planetary condition of human life.The formerexplains the innate right to freedom,which in turn is the basis of anyj ustified claim to ar ight; the latter explains the contingent fact that, ultimately, we are all neighbors, so that soonero rl ater we are bound to interact with those who are different from usstrangers.Here we have ac ombination of twoi mportant and complex theories whose details we cannot delve into in much depth here: Kant'sm oral theory, and his historic-geographic theory of the human species on planetE arth.
Concerningt he former, let us brieflyr ecall that,f or Kant,o ur morald uties are not derivedf rom our somewhat incidental, personal bonds with others, even though they applyt oour coordinated actions with others.Furthermore, recall thatt he sourceo fm oral bindingness lies onlyi nh uman rationality.This is not onlythe capacity for setting oneself certain ends and acting accordingly, but, first and foremost,acapacity for self-governance in acting purposefully: autonomy.I nt he Doctrine of Right,K ant givest his idea of human agencyaparticular expression: Freedom (independencef romb eingconstrained by another'sc hoice), insofar as it can coexist with the freedomofevery other in accordance with auniversal law, is the onlyoriginal right belongingt oe very man by virtue of his humanity.( MdS 8:238) Givent hat human action, by its own nature, presupposes the capacity of the agent for setting and pursuing ends in as elf-governed way, an absence of coercion mayb es een as an on-acquired right of all human agents.Coercion-being forced to act for the ends and maxims of others-is athreat to what humans are, namely, creatures capable of autonomy.This is whyt he right to freedom, understood as an absenceofcoercion, maybeseen as apre-contractual right-and in this sense, as an innate or non-acquired right.I no ther words, human agents have the right to freedom just by virtue of being the rational, autonomous beings that they are.F reedom in this sense-lawful non-domination, one mays ay-is the sourceo fa ll other (acquired) rights.Wem ay say, then, that our rational nature is the sourceo fa ll duties and all rights for human agents.
On the other hand, in Kant'sw ork on history,a sw ell as in his lectureso n pragmatic anthropology and physical geography,t here appears the important notion of ap lanetary condition: the fact that the surface of the Earth is round needs to be taken into account as an indispensable element in the social arrangement leadingt op eace-what could be called the 'civilc ondition',i n which social coordination enjoys am aximum of freedom for individual agents, together with am aximum of order or security.I nTowardP erpetual Peace,t he fact that the extension of the Earth thati sa dequate for human life is finite, and the fact that humans cannot just indefinitelyd isperse themselvesa long the surface of the planet, are grounds for the belief that, sooner or later,w e are boundt om eet human difference.Henceapossible motto for the planetary condition could be: In the end, we are all neighbors.In the Doctrine of Right (1797), the planetary condition shows up in the idea of an original community of the land (urspüngliche Gemeinschaft der Bodens).Thiso ught not to be understood as ac ommunal possessiono ft he surface of the Earth, but rather as the idea that all humans "are originally( namely, priort oa ny act of choice that establishes ar ight) in legitimate possession of land, that is, they have the right to be wherever nature or chance (apart from their will) has placed them…" (MdS 8:262)⁷ In another paper,Isuggested that Kantian cosmopolitanism mayb eu nderstood as an answer to the question of how autonomous agents deal with difference and,ultimately, with violence.⁸Here, in the discussion of the right to hospitality,o ne mayf ind another example of such an idea.Freedom-the innate right of human agents to act independentlyo fa nother'sc hoice-togetherw ith the planetary condition, warrantsthe derivation of the two previouslyidentified aspectso fK ant'sr ight of hospitality:a nticolonialism and anti-xenophobia.I ti s clear that, under the planetary condition, there is bound to be interaction, or commercium, among individuals and peoples.Non-domination, in turn,provides the theoretical spacef or the notion that persons (and groups) need not stay in the sameplace of residenceinwhich the contingencies of geographyand history have put them, and have the non-acquired right to seek the satisfaction of their needs and goals wherever their talents and resources mayt aket hem.From the planetary condition and the innateright to freedom, individual persons have the right of visitation, namely, the right to present themselvesinthe space of another people and not to be treated with hostility.Visitors, in turn, are not therefore authorized to interfere in the sphere of freedom of the hosting people, just as the receiving individuals and collectivesa re not authorized to reject visitors when such rejection would endanger them.In the latter case, Kant goes as far as saying that receiving states have the duty to accept them as visitors for as long as the external conditions remain, no matterw hat the material costs are.There is little doubt thatK ant is here pointing to what we now know as the right of asylum.

Utopianisma nd the dilemmao fc oercion
In the text of the third definitive article of TowardPerpetual Peace,there seems to be little doubt that the practical principle of hospitality bears the possibility of coercion of certain types of actions.In this,hospitality seems to be likeany other right in the narrows ense.It is true, however,that Kant aims at distinguishing a right thati sc reated by ac ontract (e. g., at ah otel'sf ront desk)f rom the right of hospitality understood as ar ight of visitation.It is relatively easy to jump from there to the conclusion that hospitality is aright without the possibilityofclaiming it [ohne Anspruch]; and from there in turn it is easy to draw the conclusion that hospitality is ar ight latio sensu,n amely, ar ight without coercion.
There is an answer-or,betterput,aglimpseofananswer-in these celebrated and perhaps moving words: Sincethe (narrower or wider)community of peoples of the earth has now gone so far that a violation of right in one placeo ft he Earth makes itself felt in all others,the idea of ac osmopolitan right is no fantastic and exaggerated wayofrepresentingthat right; it is, instead, asupplement to the unwritten codeofthe right of the stateaswellasthat of peoples for the sake of anyp ublic rights of human beings and so for perpetual peace.(ZeF 8:360) It must not be forgottent hat,i nt his passage, Kant has alreadyd enounced 'the litanyofevils' inflicted by European powers on the colonized peoples of America and Africa.This indicates that Kant was not naïvea ta ll in his political-philosophical proposal, and that he clearlyrecognizedasymmetries in power relationships.In one of its aims, the quoted passageisdirected at preventing apossible accusation of utopianism in the proposal of cosmopolitan hospitality.U topianism in this context would consist of imposing the satisfaction of certain goals or duties without giving aclue as to how to reach them.Hence, the Kantian cosmopolitan proposal would be utopian if it proposed ap lanetary juridical order restricted to hospitality without giving ac lue as to how to reach it-especially in thoses ituations in which the colonial European powers imposet heirc onditions on the rest of the world.Kant'sanswer is what could be called the 'political condition' of perpetual peace.
Not onlydoes this political condition refer to the necessary coordination between rational agents (i.e., as legislativem embers of ak ingdom of ends), but also, and abovea ll, to the requisite of buildingu paworld community on the basis of the active political participation of cosmopolitan citizens.In other words, the political condition is composed of the idea of the community of peoples of the Earth, and of the idea of cosmopolitan political participation.For Kant,i ti st his community of peoples-one in perpetual construction-that maycounteract the colonialist and expansionistundertakingsofEuropean powers; and it is the existenceo ft his community that allows for ac ertain historical optimism.Sooner or later (this mayb eK ant'sh idden optimistic reasoning), the right of hospitality will be backedbythe possibility of effective coercion by cosmopolitan authorities that are fullyl egitimized by the community of peoples.This is what would constitutet he project of making explicitt he implicit code generated by the human right to freedom, and what would completethe project of creatingp eace through rights.
Kantian optimism in relation to the political condition springs, at least in part,f rom the conviction that,b eing more visible for free citizens and self-governed peoples, violations of ap ublicc osmopolitan right will tend to decrease.The extent to which moral indignation in the face of violationsofthe right of persons and of peoples movethe citizens of the world to political participation, and to forcetheir authorities to take an active role in the prevention and punishment of those violations, is the extent to which we mayexpect the rise of cosmopolitan institutions that promoteapeaceful future.
It would be anachronistic to share Kant'so ptimism on his same historical grounds.H em ay well have been allowed to be optimistic in his ownt imes, so as to think that extraterritorial political participation (which is the ultimate meaning of the construction of ac ommunity of peoples) could attenuatea nd counteract the unmeasureda mbitions of European powers.T he political and moral violence of the lastc entury mayo rm ay not warrant skepticism vis-à-vis Kant'sh istorical optimism.
In retrospect,t he groundbreaking idea that the violation of ar ight in one part of the world is felt everywhereseems to presuppose that thereisnodistance between what agents feel(e.g.,moral indignation in the face of an atrocity) and what they actuallydo( i. e., activelyp articipatei nt he defense and expansion of political freedom for persons and peoples all over the world).Indeed, the innate right to freedom, which dictates the unwritten codex of the rights of humanity, finds its political expression in the republican mode of governance by apeople.
The republic, understood, as Kant does, as collective self-governance, is the mode of social coordination that makes political freedom possible.Politicalfreedom is freedom under external laws.Thisi st hen how the idea mayb eu nderstood that the violation of republican lawinone place is felt in all other places: if the right of asingle human is injured, the rights of all others are also injuredan instant generalization, through political means, of the effects of an attack on human freedom.Presumably, although this is more conjectural, asuccessful defense of, or even an advancement in the expansion of human freedom would make itself felt in all places.
If the latter is correct as asketch, in the details we find important difficulties.The republican mode of social coordination allows the communicability of feeling in the face of aviolation of the right to hospitality.This means that onlythose agents living in and organized underarepublic are able have that feeling.The republican feeling, as it maybecalled, is not of course anatural feeling;itiscultivated and,i np art,aproduct of ar evolution or turn in the self conception of persons, of peoples, and of the community of peoples.It becomes evident, then, that for Kant,the republican institutions-with their separation of powers, their principle of publicity and their equalitarian conditions of membership and participation-are the ones that can uphold the principle of hospitality.What, then, is the problem of institutionalization?
JürgenHabermas has clearlydescribed this situation: at the beginning of the twenty-first century,there are international institutions that enjoy relatively high moral authority and consensus among peoples, but have very scarcecapacity of enforcement,while at the samet ime the logic of the equilibrium of forces prevails among military powers that have ahighcapacity of enforcement (Borradori 2003).Briefly, the problem of the institutionalization of cosmopolitanism lies in the fact thatthe possibilities of execution of the right to hospitality are manifestly insufficient vis-à-vis its reiterated and systematic violations by military powers.⁹It should be obvious that,for Kant,cosmopolitan rule is not meant as asubstitute for national rule, but to supplement it.S upplementation, however,l eads directlytothe institutionalization dilemma:either an expanding federation of republics is the waytoreconcile the national and the cosmopolitan orders,and no public lawisestablished; or aworld state is instituted, but lawisnot realized on the basis of the right to freedom (Höffe2006,p.140).It is well known that Kant,  See: Kleingeld 2012,p.86.Habermas is currentlyana dvocate for the 'constitutionalization of international law';i.e., for "the process of extendingdemocracyand the rule of lawbeyond national borders" (Habermas 2014,p .5).
in the second definitive article of TowardP erpetual Peace,a dopts the first horn of the dilemma.Thus, federalism is aw ay of avoiding the need for special cosmopolitan institutions-judgesa nd enforcement apparatuseswith transnational jurisdiction.Sometimesthis is seen as asort of concession on Kant'spart to political realism or expediency;h ew as so keenlya ware of the barriers to cosmopolitan institution-building erected by national sovereignty,t hat "he conceived of the cosmopolitan community as af ederation of states,n ot of world-citizens" (Habermas 1997, p. 117).
At this point one can appreciate thatthe dilemma of coercionarises from the first horn of the institutionalization dilemma.N otice that here, the right to hospitality cannot be enforced, because there is actuallynoinstitutional authority to do so.Thisencourages the following reasoning:since under federalism there are no special cosmopolitan institutions to appeal to in case of awarranted claim to hospitality,hospitality is not enforceable; but if it is not enforceable (the reasoning continues) then it cannot be as trict right,a nd the cornerstone of cosmopolitanism amounts to nothing morethan amoral injunction directed at otherwise uncheckeds tate agents.
Thingsa re, however,m ore complex.It is evident that from the contingent fact that ac ertain lawc annot be enforced at ag iven point of time,i td oes not follow thatt he lawi si nvalid, nor thati tc arries no coercion.The link between the two dilemmas-that of coercion and that of institutionalization-hangsf undamentallyo nh ow federalism and cosmopolitism are seen to be articulatedi n TowardPerpetual Peace.While federalism is the answer to the question of lawful interstater elations,c osmopolitanism answers the question of the lawful relations between statesand foreign individuals.The usual understanding of that articulation takesstates(in the sense of unifiedpeoples under republican laws) to be the basic agents of federalism, and takes cosmopolitanism to be onlyasupplement of federalism, covering aresidue of normativity that was not previously contemplated.Note, however,t hat if Kant'ss econd definitive article does not solve the question of the legitimacy of interstatec oercion, then there will evidentlyb eapending problem with cosmopolitan coercion in the caseo faviolation of hospitality.I ns uch ac ase, the dilemmao fc oercioni nsistsa nd persists.
There is another possible understanding of such an articulation-if one takes individual persons to be the basic agents of the process towards perpetual peace.While it is true thatfederalism grapples with the problem of the legitimacy of coercion among states,i nt his reading, however,i ti sf ederalism that requires cosmopolitism.In other words, the legitimacy of coercion under af ederation of republican peoples-a faedump acificum-depends on the possibilityof fullye xercisingt he right to hospitality.O nt he path to perpetual peace, there would be little sense in declaring interstate relations lawful and peaceful when individuals comingf rom outside the community have no protection from natural or human-caused disasters,a nd when therei sn oc osmopolitan restriction to the exploitation and privatea ppropriation of the resourceso fo ther peoples.Federal coercion, under this reading, depends on cosmopolitan coercion.In other words, interstate coercion can onlybelegitimate if the rights of foreigners as such enjoy some sort of warrant.

Non-centralized coercive power and transnational politicalp articipation
My own position is aligned with the latter understanding of the articulation between federalism and cosmopolitanism.The problem of the legitimacy of coercion, under republican conditions,d oes not gets olvedo nce and for all.On the one hand, this is due to the desideratumt hatt he republic maybeperfected by learning from its errors;onthe other hand,and most importantly, legitimacy is not at otalizingconcept referringtoaproperty that something has or has not, once and for all.Kant considers this problem from different angles in his political thought.One maysay thatlegitimacy lies in the simultaneous realization of the idea of self-government in diverse contexts or frameworks.In the context of what is true about the individual agent,l egitimacy is present as ap rocess by which ag iven inhabitant of the Earth becomes aw orld citizen; in ac ollective framework, as the transformation of am ere aggregate of persons and groups (sustaining among themselvesawar with some degree of intensity) into one republican people; in the context of the community of peoples, by the transformation of permanent interstate warinto a cosmopolis-apolitical and juridical order that is structurallya ble to admit conflict and dissent, and which potentiallyi ncludes all the peoples of the Earth.There is al ogic of this sort in the threed efinitive articles of TowardP erpetual Peace-al ogic that leadst ot wo quite innovative elements of political philosophyi nK ant′st ime, and are perhaps uncomfortable in our times: the idea of an on-centralized coercive power,a nd the idea of transnationalp olitical participation.Iw ill now take up these two ideas in turn.
The idea of an on-centralized coercive power springsf rom the break of the republican reductivist maxim according to which manyp eoples under one law are one people (ZeF 8:354; MdS 6:343).In ar epublic, political power (Gewalt) comes from the unifiedw ill of the people, so therei savertical relation (one of subordination) between individual agents-the citizens with political privileges-and the republican power whose purpose is to uphold thosep rivileges.Ver-ticality,h owever,becomes as erious problem for interstate relations.Thisi so ne of the reasons whythe formula of a Weltrepublik-arepublic of republics-is ultimatelyu nable to capturet he desired, peaceful relations among peoples.The main problem with that proposal is not that,g iven its long-term dimensions, a world republic would become unmanageable(scientificand technological developmentsh avea lreadya nswered to thato bjection), nor that aw orld republic would run the risk of becominga'heartless despotism',for in anycase, that dangeri sa lsopresent at the local, republican level.The deeper problem is that different and diverse unified collective wills cannot transformt hemselvesi nto one single people.Usingt he rhetoric of the state of naturet hat Kant employs to describe situations of intersubjective and interstate violence, we mayo bserve that the analogyb etween the individual and collective contexts is maintained as to the motivations to coalesce; but the analogyi sb roken regardingt he structure of coercive power.I ni nterstate relations coercion cannot be vertical, for otherwise the unifiedc ollective will of each people would disappear.
In my reading,federalism is presented by Kant as asolution to the problem of verticalitywithin the republican mode of political coordination.But verticality is not the onlyc ondition under which coercion mayo ccur.A sh as alreadyb een pointed out,K ant wasc onsistent throughout his work in pointingo ut that the local problem of 'how to administer justiceu niversally' (IzE)c an onlybes olved on the condition that interstate relations become lawful, namely, when humanity abandons the planetary state of nature in which violence (intersubjective and among collectivities and peoples) prevails.All forms of despotism belong,i n this sense, to as tate of nature.This alreadyi ndicatest hat Kant does not understand that mode of political power which arises from the self-governance of a people as self-sufficient,n or as absolute.It is not af eat that one lonelyp eople can realize on its own, and it is not acapacity that acollectivity mayhaveornot have,o nce and for all.Federalism,t hats urrogateo faworld sovereign power, solvest he problem of the verticalityo fc oercion among republican peoples, which in the extreme would mean the disappearance of each people; but it does not solve the problem of the legitimacy of coercion.Preciselythat,Isubmit, is the role of the second important idea-transnationalp olitical participation.
The notion of transnationalp olitical participation is an elemento fw hat I have called here the 'political condition',which is an answer to the charge of utopianism in the presentation of cosmopolitan hospitality.The political condition has twom utuallyr elated components:t he community of peoples, and transnational political participation.The latter mayt ake severalf orms; in accordance with federalism, however,participationmust be horizontal, in conditions of freedom and equalitya mong persons and peoples.This means that political participation, which for Kant is tied up with the feeling of indignation in the face of a violation of ar ight in anyp art of the world, is independent of the privileges of local political participation.In turn, the formation of ac ommunity of peoples must be understood as the processbywhich coercion is legitimized.Such aprocess indeed includes an institutional scaffolding-but this does not constitute the whole process.In particular, the sort of political participation that carries with it the formation of world-citizenship is centered on the individual agent,c ontingentlyl ocated in ag iven space and time, and on what she can make for herself-in contrast to what natureh as made for her (APS; MdS; ZeF).In other words, the formation of world citizenship belongst ot he same process by which ac ommunity of peoples is formed: both call into question those impediments to political action thatare due to the contingent origins of aperson or of a collectivity.T his is relatively easy to understand in the context of foreign residents (people of foreign origin residingi nacountry)-of which there was no lack in Kant'sK önigsberg-but not so in the context of the participation of foreign nationals (persons and groups from foreign countries living in foreign countries).One should sayt hat the forms that such ap olitical participation could adopt are onlys ubjectt os peculation if attributed to Kant.
This beingt he concept of transnationalp olitical participation, whyw ould self-governedp eoples give up power to it?F irstly, the group of agents involved in the process (the citizens of the republic and the citizens of the world) is potentiallyo ne and the same: so the group of people who would give up power and the group of people to whom power is being givenisone and the same.Secondly, the citizens would have republican control over local authorities through local institutions and mechanisms, but alsoo verc osmopolitan authorities through planetary institutions and mechanisms.Cosmopolitan authority will be answerable to individual citizens, but also to local authorities; and these in turn will be answerable to cosmopolitan authorities and to their 'own' peoples.
In brief, what this meansi st hat doubts concerning horizontal coercive power among peoples maybedispelled by observing thatstate power,when conceived under republican principles, is neither self-sufficientnor absolute.It oughttorespond to the will of the equals, so that it cannot be arbitrarilye nforced, for example,o nf oreign residents and on peoples or individuals in otherp arts of the world; and it is not self-sufficient since, as we have shown, the legitimacy of vertical republican coercion depends on thato faf ederation of republics;a nd, beyond this,they both depend on the horizontal coercion characteristic of acosmopolitan condition.

Final remarks
The charge of utopianism regardingt he right to hospitality mayb ea nswered in one of two ways:with astory about the institutionalization of the moral and political ideals of cosmopolitanism; or with as tory about the sourceo fc osmopolitan coercion.The formerr esponds to the problem of the executiono re nforcement of cosmopolitan law, the latter to the problem of the legitimacy of coercion.While it is true that they both involvew hat Ih aveh ere called the political condition-that form of social coordination that is characteristic of selfgoverneda gents roaming the finite surface of the Earth-it is important not to confuse these two problems.
My claim in this paper maybeunderstood as an attempt to critically evaluate the last paragraph of the third definitive article of TowardPerpetual Peace.Ihave argued that the right to hospitality is for Kant both an anti-xenophobic and an anti-colonial principle, which carries with it full coercive force.Not onlyd oes the right to hospitality stem from the unconditional command not to instrumentalize other agents (where noncompliancei ss anctioned by the agent'so wn moral conscience)-it constitutes ac osmopolitan legal command whose breach bringsa bout systematic and negative consequences for the external freedom of noncomplying agents.So the dilemma of coercion is solvedbyaffirming the first horn (justified coercion of external freedom) and denying the second (a moral reprimand).It maybeopen to debate what are the proper jurisdictions and overlaps of the institutions involved, but the validity of the right of hospitality demands the possibility of effective coercion.
It is vital to stress here the role of transnationalpolitical participation as an element of ag lobal political condition with peaceful intent.T his is crucial in order to understand under what conditions coercion of state actions that violate hospitality is justified.It is by virtue of the political condition thatt he implicit code generated by lawful freedom can be made explicit; and this givessubstance to the project of creating peace through rights.That project is, as we saw, inseparable from am ultileveled political participation of individuals and collectivities, and is the sourceo ft he legitimacy of cosmopolitan coercion of those state actions that contravene the principle of hospitality.Aswehaveseen, interstate coercion under federalism is onlyl egitimate if the rights of foreigners as such have some sort of generalized trans-border warrant.
The othercomponent of the political condition in Kantian cosmopolitanism is the construction of acommunity of peoples.We might find in Kant some clues for such ac onstruction in ak ind of theory of republican political sentiments that,i na nalogyw ith aesthetic taste, we hope to share with diverse and distant persons and peoples.Republicans entiments-includingt he feeling of indignation-are an important part of the processo fc onstructingacommunity of peoples.It is not enough,insuch aprocess, to form groups or organizations with an affinityo fi nterests and relatively independent from state agencies-so-called 'non-governmental organizations'.I ne very case, and especiallyw hen it comes to corporations such as the religious and the military,t he public use of one's own reason would have to be upheld if such organizations aspire to be part of the community of peoples.
Finally, let us brieflyturn to the question concerning the scope of cosmopolitan authority,a nd whether it supplements or substitutes nationala uthorities.
The key seems to lie in one more sense in which cosmopolitan coercionm ay be reduced to conditions of hospitality.I ti st rue that,tothe extent that republican constitutions incorporate the cosmopolitan protectionofforeignersinto their principles, the traditionald ifference between foreign and domestic policies will tend to blur out.Sothe extent to which national jurisdiction ought to be supplemented by cosmopolitan lawd epends on the extent to which the local jurisdiction protects foreigners.The idea here is: one clear domain in which nationalauthority needs to be supplemented is the enforcement of the principle of hospitality.That is, even aperfect republic, in which power would be at once disseminated( e. g.,i nthe assemblyoff reea gents) and concentrated (in the united will of the people represented by the sovereign), is not self-sufficient when it comes to protecting the rights of foreigners as such-including undocumented and stateless persons and peoples.Since the treatment of foreigners is the space in which national governments maybem ost evidentlyp rone to ac onflict of political interests, it is preciselythere where functioning cosmopolitan institutions are needed.
Beyond interpretive matters,o ne possiblel esson of this essayi st hat suspicion is commendable in the face of the recurringa ttemptst ob ring up to date Kant'sh istoricaloptimism.If cosmopolitan penal justice( e. g., the International Criminal Court) had full coercive forcet op rocess the crimes against humanity that have been committed for the interests and by the state agents of the strongest military power in history,then perhaps Kant'shistorical optimism could be renewed.In the meantime, it is perhaps advisable to substitute optimism with a sober critique of humanitarian reason.