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Abstract
This article demonstrates that notions of “global citizenship”, as communicated beyond academic debates in political theory and sociology, can be situated within two overarching discourses: a civic republican discourse that emphasizes concepts such as awareness, responsibility, participation and cross-cultural empathy, and a libertarian discourse that emphasizes international mobility and competitiveness. Within each of these discourses, multiple understandings of citizen voice can be identified. Exploring how myriad ways of thinking related to “global citizenship” are springing forth in public debate serves to illustrate new ways in which a wide variety of political, social and economic actors are reflecting upon the meaning of voice and citizenship in the context of increasing public recognition of global interdependence. Not only has “global citizenship” emerged as a variant within the concept of citizenship, but the concept of “global citizenship” contains many variants and sources of internal division. How the concept of “global citizenship” continues to evolve in public discourse, especially in response to watershed events, promises to remain a fruitful line of inquiry for years to come.
Notes
1 This is a revised version of a paper presented at the “Voice and Citizenship” conference held in April 2004 and sponsored by the Department of Communication at the University of Washington. I would like to thank the participants at the conference, particularly Philip Howard and Lance Bennett, for their helpful comments. I also wish to thank David Marquand, Anthony McGrew, Stuart White, the two anonymous reviewers for Citizenship Studies, as well as the interview respondents quoted in this article, whose insights have propelled my research forward.
2 Based on the Westlaw “All News Plus” database, published references to global citizenship and its cognates in English increased in absolute terms by 1055% from 1991 to 2000—by far the most dramatic increase in usage compared with similar keyword combinations such as world citizenship, international citizenship, planetary citizenship and earth citizenship. When accounting for increases in all published references to “citizenship” during the same time period, published references to global citizenship increased by 335% (Schattle, Citation2004).
3 For some key contributions to this debate, see Nussbaum (Citation1996), Held (Citation1999), Dower (Citation2000), Carter (Citation2001) and Kymlicka (Citation2001).
4 The interviews were conducted by telephone, and full, unedited transcripts were produced for each interview. All respondents who contributed to this research agreed to be quoted by name. Confidentiality was not offered, since practically all of the individuals who gave interviews for this project had made statements in public with regard to global citizenship.
5 QSR-NUDIST, which stands for Non-Numerical Unstructured Data Indexing, Searching and Theorizing, Release 4.0. For a good explanation of the origins of the software and its rationale, see Richards and Richards (Citation1994).
6 For examples of this approach, see Falk (Citation1994) and Urry (Citation2000).
7 J. G. A. Pocock provides an exhaustive account how Machiavelli strengthened the republican tradition by framing the polity itself as an essential structuring principle of civic virtue “in which every citizen's ability to place the common good before his own was the precondition of every other's” (Pocock, Citation1975, p. 184).
8 For a comprehensive overview of the historical development of civic republican ideals and their applicability to political institutions and practices, see Honohan (Citation2002).
9 Interview with James Ensor, advocacy manager, Community Aid Abroad, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 9 October 2000.
10 Interview with Maude Barlow, chair, the Council of Canadians, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 19 April 2000.
11 Interview with Tomasz Terlecki, executive director, CEE Bankwatch, Krakow, Poland, 13 November 2000.
12 Interview with Anne-Christine Habbard, former secretary-general, International Federation of Human Rights, Paris, France, 26 June 2001.
13 Interview with Peter Rosset, former co-director, Food First/the Institute for Food and Development Policy, Chiapas, Mexico, 15 February 2001. Rosset is now a researcher at Centro de Estudios para el Cambio en el Campo Mexicano (Center for the Study of Rural Change in Mexico).
14 Interview with Kevin Danaher, co-founder, Global Exchange, San Francisco, CA, USA, 31 August 2001.
15 Interview with David Hallman, climate change program coordinator, World Council of Churches; program officer for energy and environment, United Church of Canada, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 25 June 2001.
16 Interview with Louise Arbour, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 10 January 2001. At the time of her interview, Justice Arbour was serving on the Supreme Court of Canada, and recently had finished her tenure as chief prosecutor for the United Nations war crimes tribunals on Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.
17 Interview with Gwen Noyes, real estate developer, Cambridge, MA, USA, 18 June 2000.
18 Emily Moore, Internet journalist, www.learn.co.uk (formerly education writer, The Guardian), London, UK, 28 September 2000.
19 In the eyes of some critics, the ascendancy of the new cosmopolitan elite class has imperiled the very essence of democratic citizenship. As Christopher Lasch lamented (Citation1995, p. 6): “The new elites are home only in transit, en route to a high-level conference, to the grand opening of a new franchise, to an international film festival or an undiscovered resort. Theirs is essentially a tourist's view of the world—not a perspective likely to encourage a passionate devotion to democracy”. Likewise, Craig Calhoun (Citation2002, p. 108) worries that cosmopolitanism weakens traditional forms of solidarity in local and national communities without bringing about new robust forms of solidarity: “If cosmopolitan democracy is to be more than a good ethical orientation for those privileged to inhabit the frequent traveler lounges, it must put down roots in the solidarities that organize most people's sense of identity and location in the world”.
20 Interview with Cynthia Hogan, regional sales manager, Novartis AG, East Hanover, NJ, USA, 2 October 2000.
21 Interview with Rick Ellis, former chief executive officer, Television New Zealand, Auckland, New Zealand, 12 October 2000.
22 Swersky's cohort included 62 students from 27 countries and had no dominant culture: “There was something about that that I found extremely appealing: it was sort of getting beyond the cultural barrier—sort of creating something that was truly global. That's always been fascinating to me” (Interview with Nava Swersky, venture capitalist, Columbine Capital Ltd., Tel Aviv, Israel, 10 October 2000).
23 Interview with Miles Colebrook, group president, JWT International, London, UK, 26 July 2000. Colebrook has since retired.
24 Interview with Jonathan Chevreau, financial journalist, National Post, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 6 April 2000.
25 As Davidson and Rees-Mogg (Citation1997, p. 373) have advised their readers: “Citizenship is obsolete. To optimize your lifetime earnings and become a Sovereign Individual, you will need to become a customer of a government or protection service rather than a citizen. Instead of paying whatever tax burden is imposed upon you by grasping politicians, you must place yourself in a position to negotiate a private tax treaty that obliges you to pay no more for services of government than they are actually worth to you”.
26 As of April 2000, when Chevreau was interviewed, the Canadian taxation rate on retirement savings plans was 25% for early withdrawal, compared with 50% upon retirement, making it, in Chevreau's view, a “relative bargain” to take the money and run.
27 As van Gunsteren has observed, in linking notions of individual competence with civic ideals: “A chairman who does not break the rules but is otherwise incompetent in presiding over and guiding a meeting can be a disaster … Goodwill and a consensus on norms and values, which have a central place in many discourses on ‘feelings’ of citizenship, are not enough” (van Gunsteren Citation1998, pp. 24–25, 27).
28 Interview with Brian O'Sullivan, principal, Father Bressani Catholic High School, Woodbridge, Ontario, Canada, 28 September 2000. O'Sullivan is now on the faculty of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto.
29 Linda Braun, quoted in “Principal urges international outlook”, The Southland Times, 28 July 1999. Braun has since retired.
30 This is equivalent to approximately US$175,000.
31 Interview with Linda Braun, principal, Southland Girls High School, Invercargill, New Zealand, 25 September 2000.
32 All interviews for this research were conducted before the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States and the end of the Taliban rule over Afghanistan. This interview occurred in June 2001.
33 Habbard interview (supra note 12).
34 Habbard's comments also amount to an indirect rejoinder to Michael Walzer's critical reply to Nussbaum that fundamental citizen allegiances ought to start at the center, in one's most immediate political community, and that moral commitments beyond the nation are not “citizen-like commitments” (Walzer, Citation1996, p. 126). And yet, the observations from many respondents in this article also highlight the gap between individuals adopting a sense of “global citizenship” for themselves—within whichever communities they are situated—and the development of global institutional structures that would render a more entrenched model of cosmopolitan citizenship.
35 Colebrook interview (supra note 23).