Dimensions of Cosmopolitanism: Patriotism and Disaffection Among U.S. Peace Corps Volunteers

Abstract

In a globalized world, how do individual people navigate experiences with difference? How do they internalize cosmopolitan values? Using a large mixed-methods data set, this article explores the ways that individuals can be both cosmopolitan and nationalist at the same time. It does so by operationalizing cosmopolitanism, and analyzing how it develops among U.S. Peace Corps volunteers. This article distinguishes two patterns. Patriotic cosmopolitans, although they become sensitive to global context throughout service, come to identify more with U.S. values. They become particularly connected to ideas of freedom, choice, and administrative efficiency, and deeply supportive of the existing institutional and political order. Disaffected cosmopolitans come to see those same values as troublesome considering their identities as global citizens, and dis-identify with the United States because of them. The different types of cosmopolitanisms yield different types of relationships with the state, which express in different patterns of professional engagement and voluntarism.

Keywords:

• Cosmopolitanism
• development
• Peace Corps
• nationalism
• patriotism

Notes

1 The term “patriotic” cosmopolitanism is rooted in an old Republican distinction “between love of country (patriotism) and respect for state (nationalism)” (Turner 2002: 49). Love of one’s country as love for the republic does not, in this line of thought, rule out respect for other cultures and places (see also Viroli 1995).

2 This is not entirely without precedent: Osland and Osland (2005) have found that some expat cultural values become stronger in response to another culture.

3 While prior to service 74 percent of volunteers reported regular voting, that number climbs to 85 percent among returned volunteers. This stands in contrast to the national average of 35 percent of Americans who vote regularly (Pew Research Center 2006). So volunteers—before they are volunteers—already vote at much higher rates than average, and the experience of being in the Peace Corps drives that rate higher.

4 This stands in contrast to national volunteer rates, which ranged from 17.8 percent to 44.6 percent between 2011 and 2013 (Corporation for National & Community Service 2014).

5 Eight percent of RPCVs report volunteering for religious organizations, versus 33.9 percent in the country generally (Corporation for National and Community Service 2014).

Additional information

Funding

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation, Grant Nos. 2011111006 and 1434437.