Cosmopolitanism

Cosmopolitanism has become a powerful current in the development of alternative globalisation discourses. Cosmopolitanism springs from strong moral intuitions. In the simplest terms it describes ‘the view that all human beings have equal moral standing within a single world community’ (Hayden, 2004, p. 70). It is a moral-normative conception which gives direction to a number of variants (For example see Binde (2004)). Hayden writes that ‘legal cosmopolitanism contends that a global political order ought to be constructed grounded on the equal legal rights and duties of all individuals’ (Hayden, 2004, p. 70). There are also descriptive accounts which, by contrast, focus on the way planetary governance is being constructed as ‘cosmocracy’ (Keane, 2005) ‘civil society going global’ (Kaldor, 2003) or as ‘sub-political’ agency (Beck, 1999).

Cosmopolitanism as a discourse reaches as far back as ancient Greece. As McGrew explains, the philosopher Diogenes saw himself as a citizen of the world, with the Greek stoic philosophers later developing the idea that every person is both a citizen of a locality by birth, as well as a citizen of a world community (McGrew, 2000, p. 413). The philosopher Immanuel Kant later developed European cosmopolitan thinking in the context of his 1795 essay ‘Project for a Perpetual Peace’. This came to inform a number of neo-Kantian articulations of cosmopolitanism.

As Held argues, at its core cosmopolitanism is based on the idea that, ‘human beings are in a fundamental sense equal, and that they deserve impartial political treatment… [cosmopolitanism] is a moral frame of reference for specifying principles that can be universally shared’ (Held, 2000a, p. 401). This view does not put the individual at the centre of global politics (in an exclusively self-interested way) but rather re-articulates the individual as part of a global polity with new rights and obligations. The notion of ‘autonomy’ within cosmopolitan discourse implies a participation in a greater whole: ‘‘the ‘self’ is part of a collectivity or majority enabled and constrained by the rules and procedures of democratic life… and entitlement to autonomy within the constraints of community’ (Held, 1995 p. 156, Quoted in McGrew 2000, p413).

The free association of people, and its political expression, provides the basis for individual autonomy, and reciprocally democracy forms the framework from which individuals freely associate: ‘members of a political community – citizens – should be able to choose freely the conditions of their own association…their choices should constitute the ultimate legitimation of the form and direction of their polity. A ‘fair framework’ for the regulation of a community is one that is freely chosen’ (Held, 1995, p. 145). Cosmopolitanism thus implies a new (global) autonomy in a new polity, in particular autonomy for the socially excluded in a planetary polity capable of re-distributing rights and power.

Cosmopolitan discourse sees history primarily as the shift from pre-national (Imperial) political organisation to a national(ist) (Westphalian) state. Most recently (through globalisation) entry into a post-Westphalian world is implied (i.e. a planetary stage of political governance). The crystallisation of a Westphalian model of statehood, and subsequent challenges to this model, can be seen as historical landmarks.

The Westphalian model refers to the treaty of Westphalia of 1648, which ended the 30 years war, which is considered to be the historical origin of the state system in the West. This state system developed in Europe over the past three centuries, and later spread across the world. For Held, such a system has a number of features. For example ‘sovereign states recognize no superior authority’, with ‘differences settled by force’, and with each state having absolute jurisdiction over ‘law making, settlement of disputes, and law enforcement’ and in which ‘minimal rules of co-existence exist’ between states (Held, 1995, p. 74). The Hobbesian inspired concept of the Westphalian system of states is conceived as an anarchical system: ‘A war of ‘all against all’ is taken as a constant threat, since each state is at liberty to act to secure its own interests unimpeded by any higher religious or moral strictures’ (Held, 1995, p. 74).

With the aftermath of WWII and the creation of the UN system, despite the cracks that began to show in this absolutistic concept of statism, the re-entrenchment of the sovereign rights of great states through the UN system continued, with only mild modifications. Yet, as certain cosmopolitan writers argue, the challenge to the absolute concept of sovereignty has accelerated within a new era of globalisation. There are a number of problems associated with globalisation which the nation state is failing to effectively address. Held cites as examples: ‘global financial flows, the debt burden of developing countries, environmental crisis, elements of security and defence [and] new forms of communication’ (Held, 1995, p. 268). He argues that ‘the hierarchical structure of the states system itself has been disrupted by the emergence of the global economy, the rapid expansion of trans-national relations and communications, the enormous growth of international organisations and regimes, and the development of trans-national movements and actors - all of which challenge its efficacy’ (Held, 1995, p. 268). Held and McGrew refer to this as a ‘political deficit’, whereby ‘democracy, regulation and justice’ escape states’ abilities to enforce an accountability of its actors: ‘As regional and global forces escape the reach of territorially based polities, they erode the capacity of nation states to pursue programmes of regulation, accountability and social justice in many spheres’ (Held, 2000a, p. 401).

The knowledge foundations of cosmopolitanism are based on the Kantian moral principle of a human community and polity of mutual concern and care. Other cosmopolitan thinkers like Santos build upon this principle by addressing issues of social exclusion as it is manifested through re-presentation, justice and globalisation. Santos specifically argues that for global justice to be possible, we must create the possibility of global cognitive justice (Santos, 2006, pp. 44-45), and shows how the WSF(P) offers the possibility of recognising the diverse experiences and epistemologies of the Global South.

Cosmopolitanism is both analytic and normative. Cosmopolitanism is a deeper reflection on historical geo-political change that links analytical work with normative advocacy. McGrew writes ‘It is both a reflection on the contemporary historical condition and also constitutive of it’ (McGrew, 2000, p. 415). Held argues it promotes ‘theorist as advocate, seeking to advance an interpretation of politics against countervailing positions… [creating]… the possibility of a new political understanding’ (Held, 1995, p. 286).

The key ontological assumptions that recur in cosmopolitan discourse concern a division of social structures and the roles they play. In specific terms a tripartite division or distinction between three spheres is often used: the political, the civil and the economic (Held, 1995, pp. 271, 279, 286). The political sphere is seen in formal terms, as the expression of concrete representation and governance. Civil society is seen as the aggregate of the complex associative interweaving of people from within a polity. Thus for some a healthy polity / democracy is underpinned by a healthy civil society which is not undermined by non-associative influences – e.g. corporate media, corporate political influence (Edwards, 2004). In some accounts, the economy is seen as an aspect of civil society, as it is also based on freedom of association. Most accounts, however, define the economic sphere as separate.

Transposing such notions onto the global stage, we can translate these divisions as global governance (or lack thereof), global civil society, and the global economy. These spheres together comprise systems of influence and power. Cosmopolitan thinking is concerned with the fair distribution of this influence and power (Held, 1995, p. 267):

The global order consists of multiple and overlapping networks of power involving the body, welfare, culture, civil associations, the economy, coercive relations and organised violence, and regulatory and legal relations. The case for cosmopolitan democracy arises from these diverse networks – the different power systems which constitute the interconnections of different peoples and nations. (Held, 1995, p. 271)

The futures outlook of the cosmopolitan discourse has both descriptive / analytical and normative dimensions. Some argue that cosmopolitan writers confusingly blur the distinction between normative and descriptive accounts (Roudometof, 2005). Keane argues that ‘Cosmocracy’ is an emerging empirical phenomenon, describing the development of planetary governance (which is at once ad hoc and full of ‘clumsy institutions’ (Keane, 2005, pp. 34-51).

Falk considers a post-Westphalian scenario inevitable, and distinguishes between dystopian post-Westphalian scenarios, unrealistic scenarios and desirable ones that are possible (Falk, 2004, pp. 26-28). Generally the normative thrust of the cosmopolitan vision aims to articulate the creation of a ‘transnational, common structure of political action’, ‘a global and divided authority system – a system of diverse and overlapping power centres shaped and delimited by democratic law’ (Held, 1995, p. 234).

In sharp (but not incommensurable) contrast to localisation discourse, the territorial ordering of power flows ‘downward’ from the global to the local implying: ‘the subordination of regional, national and local ‘sovereignties’ to an overarching legal framework…but within this framework associations may be self governing at diverse levels’ (Held, 1995, pp. 233-234). Or as McGrew writes, ‘it proposes the end of sovereign statehood and national citizenship as conventionally understood and their re-articulation within a framework of cosmopolitan democratic law’ (McGrew, 2000, p. 414).

Both Falk and Held maintain that a post-Westphalian order does not eliminate the State in a stage like transformation, but increasingly marginalises it from above (through global governance). Especially for Falk, the normative direction of cosmpolitanism and the marginalisation of the state system draw energy from ‘globalization from below’, grassroots movements to address the pathologies of state and corporate power (Falk, 2005, p. 29).

A cosmopolitan outlook sees agency as unjustly distributed, in some cases with oppressive statism, and in other cases with the neo-liberal displacement of the state by finance capital and trans-national corporations. A goal then is the just re-distribution of political agency (read as influence). For Falk the engine and energies for this transformation are to be found among some anti-globalisation forces pushing for ‘another globalisation’ from ‘below’, as well as high powered international civil society actors, (an example being the grassroots to institutional development the Rome Treaty for the ICC), and social democratic elites (Falk, 2005, pp. 19-20). Alternatively, in Beck’s notion of sub politics, social movements are fundamental in exposing the contradictions in late industrial society. In particular Beck shows how industrial societies’ manufacture risk by institutionalising a diffusion of innovations which have un-intended and un-imaginable consequences (Beck, 1999, p. 67). Beck sees transformed and enhanced public participation in what have otherwise been seen as state and ‘expert’ level issues. The public sphere is empowered to act as an ‘open upper chamber’ (Beck, 1999, p. 70).

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Source

Ramos, J. (2010) Alternative Futures of Globalisation: A Socio-Ecological Study of the World Social Forum Process, P.h.D. Thesis Dissertation, Queensland University of Technology