International Theory 7 those states are legitimate (and therefore enable them to achieve some degree of freedom from subjection to others’ wills).37 Importantly, to be legitimate in Stilz’s view, a state must meet several ‘substantive’ and ‘procedural’ criteria, but it need not be fully just.38 Stilz gives us a contemporary version of the familiar refrain: living outside a state’s authority (in a condition of statelessness) would be dangerous, and to escape that danger we ought to establish states and help them maintain power, even if they use it to commit injustice. Stilz’s version of this argument says that, in the state of nature, we would be unable to achieve justice and would constantly be subject to others’ unilateral wills. Therefore, we have a duty to form, maintain, and obey legitimate states. Even if our states commit injustice, as long as they are legitimate, we are obligated to obey and help maintain them—since they allow us to achieve some degree of equal freedom we could not if we were stateless. Both key argumentative moves Stilz makes—(A) grounding the state’s authority to coerce on its necessity for escaping the dangers of the state of nature and (B) positing that states can be legitimate and that their citizens can be obligated to obey them even when they are not fully just—remain common in contemporary political theory. For example, Wellman identifies ‘benefit theories’ as comprising one prominent school of thought regarding legitimacy and political obligation.39 These theories claim states have legitimate authority to coerce their citizens, and citizens have obligations to obey state commands, because states provide citizens significant benefits they would otherwise be unable to enjoy (e.g., in the state of nature).40 The idea of the state of nature plays a similar role in Wellman’s own view. Though he thinks it’s conceptually possible for a state to be legitimate (have a right to coerce) without citizens being morally obligated to obey it, ultimately he argues that we need states to escape the extreme dangers of the state of nature, that each citizen has an obligation to contribute their fair share to establishing and maintaining states that can help us do so (legitimate states), and that each citizen is therefore obligated to obey the commands of their state if it is legitimate.41 As these examples illustrate, political theorists commonly invoke the dangers of statelessness to justify state power and defend the position that people should establish, obey, and maintain states—even if they sometimes wield their power unjustly. Moreover, this reasoning occupies a prominent place in both historical and contemporary political theory. Granted, different theorists understand the dangers of statelessness differently. But the arguments surveyed above share an overarching logic: if statelessness is a detestable condition that exposes those who suffer it to many problems, the solution to these problems is state power—more state power, more stable state power, state power that is continually upheld and renewed by the people subject to it. Thus, this common narrative about statelessness underwrites a statist ideal that presents states as the primary guarantors of justice and protection and recommends obedience and allegiance to them as a result. Below, I will problematise how the common narrative 37 Ibid., 72. Ibid., 92–6. 39 Wellman 2001, 736–7. 40 See Ibid. 41 Ibid., 742–50. 38 https://doi.org/10.1017/S175297192500003X Published online by Cambridge University Press