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Grant comments on Singleton: the risks and benefits of one world governments - Less Wrong
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It probably wouldn't stop political competition, but it very well may slow competition in political systems. If there was one world democratic or republican government, would it let something like futarchy develop? That isn't to say that futarchy would have an easy time coming into being anyway, but it seems like it might be harder under a single world government.
More generally, how often does political innovation occur without violence, or the threat of it? It took violence in the case of the American and French revolutions. Reforms in the UK seem to have come at sword-point, though the monarchy was never completely overthrown.
It seems to me that peaceful political innovation requires some sort of peaceful succession process, which is not currently supported by any laws or norms I'm aware of.
I think there's widespread agreement that a probable problem would be stagnation or lack of progress - through a lack of competition.
Hopefully, if such a system is ever realized, imagined challenges (the threat of extinction, the threat of future aliens) would keep it from becoming too lazy and complacent.
I agree that stagnation and lack of progress is a real danger for a unified world, but there would be challenges open to such a world that could help mitigate this. One of these is an open-ended exploration, and ultimately colonisation, of the universe around us (quite independently of whether or not there is a perceived threat from aliens!).
Indeed, I have argued elsewhere:
http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~ucfbiac/Space%20Interests_files/jbis_culture.pdf
that a positive feed-back loop may exist between space exploration and world government: a future world government my require space exploration to avoid stagnation, but equally only a world government may be able to afford to engage in space exploration on a sufficient scale to make a difference. Moreover, the 'cosmic perspective' on human affairs that will inevitably follow from a large-scale programme of space exploration may help make the cultural and psychological case for a unified humanity (and thus for a world government.....).
Incidentally, although the word 'singleton' used here appears to be a new coinage, the idea of world government has a long history in Western political thought. See, e.g., Derek Heater, World Citizenship and Government (Macmillan Press, 1996).