International Theory 15 reinforces the idea that the state may decide what benefits to grant asylum seekers subject to no real accountability or constraint from the asylum seekers themselves— because, again, the Political Authority Principle guarantees political representation to members only. Even if some asylum seekers managed to successfully navigate Hong Kong’s complex bureaucracies and receive government assistance, the effect of directing all their political activity through these bureaucracies would be to reinforce the idea that it is the bureaucrats who should decide what (if any) assistance asylum seekers receive. Moreover, channelling asylum seekers’ political activity through a state’s institutions not only ensures that particular state has secure authority over those particular asylum seekers; it also reinforces the idea that state institutions in general ought to have discretion over who is granted state membership and its attendant benefits, as well as what (if any) rights and benefits non-members enjoy. That is, channelling asylum seekers’ political activity through Hong Kong’s government-approved channels not only reinforces the ways in which Hong Kong’s institutions embody the Political Authority and Sovereignty Principles; it also entrenches the broader organisation of the state system around the Political Authority and Sovereignty Principles. Though the details outlined above are specific to Hong Kong, this case illustrates a broader political dynamic that can occur elsewhere as well. Namely, it illustrates how channelling political activity through statist institutions can work to uphold state power and, more generally, the state system as it is currently organised (around the Political Authority and Sovereignty Principles). But if the state system itself produces the condition of statelessness—and the deprivations, harms, and injustices stateless people experience—then it is not clear that we can rely on statist institutions (which perpetuate that same system) to deliver justice for stateless people. The Insufficiency of Statist Institutions and Resistance as an Alternative In addition to Stilz and Wellman, discussed above, many others adopt a statist ideal that presents the state as the institution we should rely upon to deliver justice. Michael Walzer, too, argues that only sovereign states can reliably protect individuals and their rights.70 Discussing the scope of international moral and political obligations, Walzer writes that ‘the sovereign or semi-sovereign states of the global order’ alone can deliver needed justice to the world’s people and help us avoid the ‘[s] tatelessness and the anarchy and civil wars’ that he places ‘among the most important causes of human misery.’71 Nor is this mentality unique to nationalists. Lea Ypi, a cosmopolitan who endorses demanding principles of global justice, nonetheless maintains that we should pursue their achievement via state institutions.72 70 Walzer 2011; Walzer 2015. Walzer 2011, 46. 72 Ypi 2008; Ypi 2012; see also Lu’s (2019, 254–7) criticism of Ypi’s statism. This is not to suggest that Ypi fully endorses the current structure of the state system. She herself has argued against the strictest interpretations of state sovereignty, suggesting, for example, that a state’s claims to legitimate authority can be undermined by how it treats outsiders (see Ypi 2013). Still, Ypi (2008; 2012) suggests we should rely on states (at least for now) as central vehicles to advance global justice. She arguably doesn’t fully reckon with the extent to which relying on states in this way can entrench the current structure of the state system—even if Ypi herself ultimately wants to transcend it. 71 https://doi.org/10.1017/S175297192500003X Published online by Cambridge University Press