Global Citizenship

Citizenship Studies, 2004

Canadian Journal of Communication, 2007

Vocabularies of citizenship Citizenship theory has undergone a revival in the past 15 years, with the emergence of journals such as Citizenship Studies and many a book and article devoted to its consideration (Balibar, 2004; Klymicka & Norman, 1994; Young, 2000; Yuval-Davis, 1997). Citizenship is not merely an academic matter. Debates on who may or may not become a member of a polity and what such membership entails have been fuelled by recent historic events. These include the reshaping of national boundaries in Europe (Balibar, 2004); demands for the extension of rights and obligations to migrant labourers and asylum seekers (Gabriel & Macdonald, 1996; Soysal, 1994); new restrictions on immigration (Balibar, 2004; Sharma, 2006), the incarceration of nationals from other countries at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay (Agamben, 2005); and the suspension of the most basic of civil and legal rights in the wake of the so-called war on terror (Snaza, 2003; Zizek, 2001). The discourse on citizenship is, as Ruth Lister asserts, "contested at every level from its very meaning to its political application, with implications for the kind of society to which we aspire" (2003, p. 3). In Canada, mentions of citizenship in the media often touch upon the independence and sovereignty of Québec (Oakes & Warren, 2007), on multiculturalism (Bannerji, 2000; Mooers, 2005), and on territorial land claims issues for First Nations peoples (Kulchyski, 2001). The deliberate dismantling of systems of social security and public services has given the concept of social citizenship new life in the field of social policy studies. (Lister, 2003; Marshall, 1950). Although most often associated with politics, the study of citizenship is germane to scholars beyond the disciplines of sociology and political science. Within communication studies, the term "citizenship" is echoed in calls for media democracy (Raboy, 2006), an end to digital divides (Crow & Longford, 2000; Shade, 2002), and for greater participation in and support for citizens' media (Rodríguez, 2001). Citizenship has a putative origin story-the roots of citizenship are said to lie in ancient Greece, the birthplace of the civic republic and tradition-however, theories of citizenship have bifurcated in an endless and dizzying set of divisions. In simplistic terms, there exists a primordial distinction between formal readings of political citizenship and more expanded versions of citizenship predicated in a communitarian ethos (Young, 2000). Within this schema the liberal notion of the citizen is a person who bears rights, both civil and political, that guarantee freedom, that provide formal equality to sovereign individuals, and that often bring about sets of obligations to serve one's country or to obey its laws. In contrast, more communitarian theories of citizenship emphasize that citizenship is not sim

2017

The concept of global citizenship has entered into the lexicon of diverse movements for peace and justice over the past decade. But what does it mean to be a " global citizen? " And how does this concept advance the goals of such movements? The Greek and Latin roots of the term citizen denote an inhabitant of a city, or a community, who possessed certain rights and privileges associated with membership in that community. Of course, many categories of people did not possess the rights and privileges of citizenship in the communities of Greek and Roman antiquity. Nonetheless, the concept of citizenship was a democratic ideal that expanded the boundaries of self-determination beyond the sphere of autocratic rulers. This is the difference between a citizen and a subject: a citizen is a participant in self-governance whereas a subject is not.

2018

This volume focuses on citizenship as a contested concept. We understand citizenship-as well as other key concepts in politics and Political Science-as objects of interpretative disputes both in their empirical reality and when they are used as analytical categories. This theoretical and methodological perspective on concepts challenges the common understanding and usage of concepts in Political Science in general, and in Comparative Politics in particular. A widely shared understanding in Political Science is that concepts serve as our tools, or lenses, with which we analyse reality. This is why it is important to carefully reflect on the concepts used. The way we choose and interpret a concept also shapes the lens with which we analyse reality-it shapes our angle, our way of analysis and our research design. The character and properties of the lenses and tools we use affect the way we obtain different views on reality and they can change our analytical results. To carefully reflect upon a concept is especially important where it is the basis for the comparative method of analysis. This is why a number of renowned comparativists such as Giovanni Sartori (1970) or Philippe Schmitter (2017) have underlined that it is crucial to be precise and reflected in defining and operationalising the research concepts. In a positivist approach, which is not infrequent in Comparative Politics, a concept then is understood as something that just needs to be defined and operationalized, in order to measure something on this basis. In this volume we argue contrary to such a positivist and essentialist view and suggest a reflexive and constructivist perspective on concepts instead. This opens up a broader

Globality denotes the development of society on a universal scale. Society is no longer contained by the nation state and social solidarity in the Durkheimian sense becomes global rather than national. This development intensifies the ethical challenge of modernity: the development of a cosmopolitan conception of the human subject. This paper asks what this ethical challenge demands both of us as individual citizens and of the states to which we belong. A cosmopolitan conception of the human subject is one that abstracts from group-based differences of identity in specifying what it is to be a person. Whether people get to be persons depends on the action of the state in providing a constitutional framework of right. It depends also on individuals becoming both willing and able to be self-determining persons who can recognise their fellows as persons. The development of a cosmopolitan conception of right is hindered by profound ambivalence about the modern project of self-determination and the demands it makes of us. It is hindered also by the lack of a secular account of the human subject and by conceptions of human rights that follow upon an onto-theological conception of the human subject. These are anti-statist in orientation and share this in common with laissez-faire economic globalism. Cosmopolitan right depends on both persons and states understanding what it would mean to re-conceive the res publica such that states are oriented as public authorities within a constitutionally governed interstate order.

Global citizenship refers to an individual's sense of belonging and responsibility to the global community, and involves recognizing and acting upon the interconnectedness of all people. It can be defined in terms of rights and responsibilities, or as a mindset that emphasizes the interconnectedness of the world and the impact of individual actions on the global community. Global citizenship is important in today's interconnected world due to globalization, environmental sustainability, social justice, and respect for diversity. The responsibilities and duties of a global citizen include respecting the rights and cultures of others, advocating for social justice and equality, and taking action to protect the environment and promote sustainability.