Canadians take pride in being good citizens of the world, yet our failure to meet commitments on the global stage raises questions. Do Canadians need to transcend local attachments and national loyalties to become full global citizens? Is the very idea of rooted cosmopolitanism simply a myth that encourages complacency about Canada's place in the world? This volume brings together leading scholars to assess the concept of rooted cosmopolitanism, both in theory and practice. In Part 1, authors examine the nature, complexity, and relevance of the concept itself and show how local identities such as patriotism and Quebec nationalism can, but need not, conflict with cosmopolitan values and principles. In Part 2, they reveal how local ties and identities in practice enable and impede Canada's global responsibilities in areas such as multiculturalism, climate change, immigration and refugee policy, and humanitarian intervention. By examining how Canada has negotiated its relations to "the world" both within and beyond its own borders, Rooted Cosmopolitanism evaluates the possibility of reconciling local ties and nationalism with commitments to human rights, global justice, and international law.
Is a global institutional order composed of sovereign states fit for cosmopolitan moral purpose? Cosmopolitan political theorists challenge claims that states, nations or other collectives have ultimate moral significance. They focus instead on individuals: on what they share and on what each may owe to all the others. They see principles of distributive justice - and increasingly political justice - applying with force in a global system in which billions continue to suffer from severe poverty and deprivation, political repression, interstate violence and other ills. Cosmopolitans diverge widely, however, on the institutional implications of their shared moral view. Some argue that the current system of competing sovereign states tends to promote unjust outcomes and stands in need of deep structural reform. Others reject such claims and contend that justice can be pursued through transforming the orientations and conduct of individual and collective agents, especially states. This volume brings together prominent political theorists and International Relations scholars -- including some skeptics of cosmopolitanism -- in a far-ranging dialogue about the institutional implications of the cosmopolitan approach. Contributors offer penetrating analyses of both continuing and emerging issues around state sovereignty, democratic autonomy and accountability, and the promotion and protection of human rights. They also debate potential reforms of the current global system, from the transformation of cities and states to the creation of some encompassing world government capable of effectively promoting cosmopolitan aims.
The legacy of Christian mission seems beyond dispute. Western churches carried imperialist and racist assumptions as they evangelized and encouraged the formation of indigenous churches. Amid those realities a different sensibility took root. As the history of Virginia Theological Seminary illustrates, missionaries who were alumni adapted to contextual circumstances in ways that challenged Western presumptions. Mission encouraged cosmopolitan ties featuring mutuality and reciprocity. The path to such relations was not straight nor always readily taken. Yet, over the seminary’s two-hundred-year history, the cosmopolitan direction has become evident on several continents. As missionaries came home, and leaders and students from abroad visited the seminary, the ideal of cosmopolitan relations spread. It became evident as mission churches took indigenous form and control. It was reinforced as Western churches explored the dimensions of social justice. American theological education affirmed the reality of diversity and recast its pedagogies in appreciative ways. This book traces an epic shift in mission and theological education measured by the rise of cosmopolitanism in the life of Virginia Theological Seminary.
In response to a renewed cosmopolitan enthusiasm, this volume brings together 25 essays in the development of cosmopolitan thought by distinguished cosmopolitan thinkers and critics. It looks at classical cosmopolitanism, global justice, culture and cosmopolitanism, political cosmopolitanism and cosmopolitan global governance.
Cosmopolitanism is about the extension of the moral and political horizons of people, societies, organizations and institutions. Over the past 25 years there has been considerable interest in cosmopolitan thought across the human social sciences. The second edition of the Routledge International Handbook of Cosmopolitanism Studies is an enlarged, revised and updated version of the first edition. It consists of 50 chapters across a broader range of topics in the social and human sciences. Eighteen entirely new chapters cover topics that have become increasingly prominent in cosmopolitan scholarship in recent years, such as sexualities, public space, the Kantian legacy, the commons, internet, generations, care and heritage. This Second Edition aims to showcase some of the most innovative and promising developments in recent writing in the human and social sciences on cosmopolitanism. Both comprehensive and innovative in the topics covered, the Routledge International Handbook of Cosmopolitanism Studies is divided into four sections. Cosmopolitan theory and history with a focus on the classical and contemporary approaches, The cultural dimensions of cosmopolitanism, The politics of cosmopolitanism, World varieties of cosmopolitanism. There is a strong emphasis in interdisciplinarity, with chapters covering contributions in philosophy, history, sociology, anthropology, media studies, international relations. The Handboook’s clear and comprehensive style will appeal to a wide undergraduate and postgraduate audience across the social and human sciences.
Is a strong cosmopolitan stance irretrievably arrogant? Cosmopolitanism, which affirms universal moral principles and grants no fundamental moral significance to the state, has become increasingly central to normative political theory. Yet, it has faced persistent claims that it disdains local attachments and cultures, while also seeking the neo-imperialistic imposition of Western moral views on all persons. The critique is said to apply with even greater force to institutional cosmopolitan approaches, which seek the development of global political institutions capable of promoting global aims for human rights, democracy, etc. This book works to address such objections through developing a novel theory of cosmopolitan political humility. It draws on the work of Indian constitutional architect and social activist B.R. Ambedkar, who cited universal principles of equality and rights in confronting domestic exclusions and the "arrogance" of caste. He sought to advance forms of political humility, or the recognition of equal standing, and openness to input and challenge within political institutions. This book explores how an "institutional global citizenship" approach to cosmopolitanism could similarly promote political humility globally, by supporting the development of democratic input and challenge mechanisms beyond the state. Such developments would challenge an essential political arrogance identified in the current system, where sovereign states are empowered to simply dismiss rights-based challenges from outsiders or their own populations--even as they serve as the designated guarantors of human rights. The book employs an innovative grounded normative theory method, where extensive original field research informs the development of moral claims. Insights are taken from Dalit activists reaching out to United Nations human rights bodies for support in challenging caste discrimination, and from their critics in the governing Bharatiya Janata Party. Further insights are drawn from Turkish protestors confronting a rising domestic authoritarianism, and from UK Independence Party members demanding "Brexit" from the European Union--in part because predominantly Muslim Turkey could eventually join. Overall, it is shown, an institutional global citizenship approach can inform the development of a global framework which would orient fundamentally to political humility rather than arrogance, and which could significantly advance global rights protections.
The political theory of Richard Vernon has been a guiding light for students of politics for over five decades. From the situated ethics of shared citizenship to the normative character of individuals’ connections to members of other societies and generations, Vernon has cleared a distinctive course in his contributions to the many complex dimensions of political morality. Justice, Rights, and Toleration centres on the core ideas that animate Vernon’s approcach to political theory. Contributors to this volume – all former students and colleagues of Vernon – offer critical engagement with the fundamental themes threaded throughout the thinker’s work on the perennial political challenges in liberal democratic societies, including the understanding of citizenship and political membership, justice within and between nations and generations, the rights of children and parents, and the idea of toleration. Vernon articulated a clear vision of the nature of these problems as well as a nuanced approach to addressing them, one rooted in the ideas of democratic dialogue and justice. The essays in this volume are a testament to the breadth of the pressing issues on which Vernon’s work continues to advance critical insights. Justice, Rights, and Toleration provides a worthy tribute to the wide range of Richard Vernon’s interests and the inspiration still to be found in his deep yet subtle body of work in political theory.
The cosmopolitan idea of justice is commonly accused of not taking seriously the special ties and commitments of nationality and patriotism. This is because the ideal of impartial egalitarianism, which is central to the cosmopolitan view, seems to be directly opposed to the moral partiality inherent to nationalism and patriotism. In this book, Kok-Chor Tan argues that cosmopolitan justice, properly understood, can accommodate and appreciate nationalist and patriotic commitments, setting limits for these commitments without denying their moral significance. This book offers a defense of cosmopolitan justice against the charge that it denies the values that ordinarily matter to people, and a defence of nationalism and patriotism against the charge that these morally partial ideals are fundamentally inconsistent with the obligations of global justice. Accessible and persuasive, this book will have broad appeal to political theorists and moral philosophers.
This book suggests that more can be said about cosmopolitanism than either the bold endorsement of a world state or the humble recognition of the equal moral worth of individuals, which makes everybody cosmopolitan. Identifying problems with the traditional concept and disentangling a variety of positions within the cosmopolitan paradigm, it introduces the more refined concept of cosmopolitanism as nonrelationism, which denies underived special duties among fellow citizens or other related individuals, such as family members or friends. Cosmopolitanism as nonrelationism promises to overcome an entrenched debate wherein everybody is a cosmopolitan, and brings back the radical character traditionally associated with the term. It portrays cosmopolitanism as a distinct and thorough position challenging classic proponents such as Barry, Caney, Nussbaum, and Pogge, and questioning their theories’ cosmopolitan character. Cosmopolitanism as nonrelationism has consequences for world politics without prescribing any unfeasible global order: It establishes normative criteria for evaluating institutions and provides guidance for the development of new ones.