Global citizenship

The concept of an overarching one world government system in which all humans are joined as citizens of earth such as to not replace but supersede current nation based government citizenships. The idea of global citizenship is often discussed in context of humans eventually meeting extraterrestrial race(s).

On December 10, 1948, the UN General Assembly Adopted Resolution 217A (III), also known as "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

Article 1 states that "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

Article 2 states that "Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty."

Article 13(2) states that "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."

As evidence in today's modern world, events such as the Trial of Saddam Hussein have proven what British jurist A. V. Dicey said in 1885, when he popularized the phrase "rule of law" in 1885. Dicey emphasized three aspects of the rule of law :

1. No one can be punished or made to suffer except for a breach of law proved in an ordinary court.
2. No one is above the law and everyone is equal before the law regardless of social, economic, or political status.
3. The rule of law includes the results of judicial decisions determining the rights of private persons.

The opening of the United States Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson in 1776, states as follows:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;

As cited above, the idea of Global Citizenship is commonly known as people who consider themselves Citizens on the global level; it is strongly connected with globalization and cosmopolitanism.

Related concepts

World Citizenship, as express by citations below can be considered synonymous with Global Citizenship.

An early incarnation of this sentiment can be found in Diogenes of Sinope (c. 412 B.C.), the founding father of the Cynic movement in Ancient Greece. Of Diogenes it is said: "Asked where he came from, he answered: 'I am a citizen of the world (kosmopolitês)'". This was a ground-breaking concept, because the broadest basis of social identity in Greece at that time was either the individual city-state or the Greeks (Hellenes) as a group. The Tamil poet Kaniyan Poongundran wrote in Purananuru, "To us all towns are one, all men our kin." In later years, political philosopher Thomas Paine would declare, "The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren and to do good is my religion." Albert Einstein described himself as a world citizen and supported the idea throughout his life, famously saying "Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind."

Garry Davis is an example of someone who has lived for 60 years as a citizen of no nation, only the world. Davis founded the World Service Authority in Washington, DC, which issues the World Passport (usually not considered a valid passport) to world citizens.

The changing notion of citizenship

Global citizenship in the United States

The term was used by U.S. President Barack Obama in 2008 in a speech in Berlin.

Geography, sovereignty, and citizenship

Global citizens may redefine ties between civic engagement and geography. The town hall meetings of New England and other regions of the U.S. seem increasingly supplanted by “electronic spheres” not limited by space and time. This heralds a potentially startling new mechanism in participatory democracy.

Absentee ballots opened up the way for expatriates to vote while living in another country. The Internet may carry this several steps further. Voting is not limited by time or space: one can be anywhere in the world and still make voting decisions back home.

Most of U.S. history has been bound up in equating geography with sovereignty. Thompson (1996), writing in the Stanford Law Review, suggests that we can do away with residency and voting in local elections. Frug (1996) even suggests that alienation in the way we regard our geography already creates a disconnect between it and sovereignty. If we are not entirely “home” at home, do boundaries make any difference anymore? This is not just an academic question, but one rife with rich and disheartening social and political possibilities. Global citizens float within, outside and through these boundaries.

Global citizenship in education

In our increasingly interconnected world, the actions and decisions of ordinary citizen are more likely to affect others across the globe than ever before. This can be extremely beneficial but can also be extremely dangerous. Within the educational system, the concept of global citizenship education (GCE) is beginning to supersede movements such as multicultural education, peace education, human rights education and international education. Additionally, GCE rapidly incorporates references to the aforementioned movements. The concept of global citizenship has been linked with awards offered for helping humanity. Teachers are given the responsibility of being social change agents. Audrey Osler, the director of the Centre for Citizenship and Human Rights Education at the University of Leeds, England affirms that “Education for living together in an interdependent world is not an optional extra, but an essential foundation”. With GCE gaining attention, scholars are investigating the field and developing perspectives. Here are a few popular perspectives:

Critical and transformative Perspective

Citizenship is defined by being a member with rights and responsibilities. Therefore GCE must encourage active involvement. Dr Michael O’Sullivan believes GCE needs to be taught from a critical and transformative perspective, whereby students are thinking feeling, and doing. GCE requires students to be politically critical and personally transformative. In this learning environment teachers provide social issues in a neutral and grade-appropriate way for students to understand, grapple with, and do something about.

Worldmindedness

Graham Pike and David Selby view GCE as having two strands Worldmindedness is the first strand which refers to understanding the world as one unified system and a responsibility to view the interests of individual nations with the overall needs of the planet in mind. The second strand is Child-centeredness, a pedagogical approach that encourages students to explore and discover on their own and addresses each learner as an individual with inimitable beliefs, experiences, and talents. J.E Yoo is also actively contributing to bring various countries all together and to bring understandings of different cultures.

Holistic Understanding

The Holistic Understanding perspective was founded by Merry Merryfield, and focuses on understanding the self in relation to the global community. This perspective follows a curriculum that attends to human values and beliefs, global systems/issues/history, cross cultural understandings, and the development of analytical and evaluative skills.

Causes and influences

Tension between local, national, and global forces

Many elements seem to spawn global citizenship, but one is noteworthy: the continuous tension that globalization has unleashed between local, national and global forces. An interesting paradox of globalization is while the world is being internationalized, at the same time it’s also being localized. The world shrinks as the local community (village, town, city) takes on greater and greater importance. Mosco (1999) noted this feature and saw the growing importance of technopoles, or highly-technologized city-states that hark back to classical Greece. If this trend is true then it seems global citizens are the glue that may hold these separate entities together. Put another way, global citizens are people that can travel within these various boundaries and somehow still make sense of the world.

Standardization

Any rights and obligations accorded to the global citizen come from the citizens themselves, growing public favor for “universal rights,” the rise of people migrating around the world, and an increasing tendency to standardize citizenship. Difference may exist on the cultural level, but in bureaucracies, increasing favor is placed on uniformity. Efficiency and utilitarianism lie at the core of capitalism; naturally a world that lives under its aegis replicates these tendencies. Postal agreements, civil air travel and other inter-governmental agreements are but one small example of standardization that is increasingly moving into the arena of citizenship. The concern is raised that global citizenship may be closer to a “consumer” model than a legal one.

Like much social change, changing scopes of modern citizenship tend to be played out in both large and minute spheres. Habermas (1994) tends to place global citizenship in a larger, social context, arguing that nations can be central engines of citizenship but culture can also be powerful. He regards the formation of the “European citizen” as a kind of natural epiphany of governmental conglomeration within the forces of globalization, only remotely alluding to the corporate conglomeration that has been both the recipient and cause of worldwide economic expansion. Others, including Iyer (2000) see globalization and global citizens as direct descendants of global standardization, which he notes, for instance, in the growing homogeneity of airports. Standardization and modernity have worked together for the past few centuries. Ellul (1964), Mumford (1963) and other scholars attack this as a form of oppression, in the same vein that Barber (1996) saw the proliferation of carbon-copy fast-food chains around the globe. Why not a set of basic citizen rights followed the world over?

Human rights

The lack of a world body puts the initiative upon global citizens themselves to create rights and obligations. Rights and obligations as they arose at the formation of nation-states (e.g. the right to vote and obligation to serve in time of war) are at the verge of being expanded. So new concepts that accord certain “human rights” which arose in the 20th century are increasingly being universalized across nations and governments. This is the result of many factors, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations in 1948, the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust and growing sentiments towards legitimizing marginalized peoples (e.g., pre-industrialized peoples found in the jungles of Brazil and Borneo). Couple this with growing awareness of our impact on the environment, and there is the rising feeling that citizen rights may extend to include the right to dignity and self-determination. If national citizenship does not foster these new rights, then global citizenship may seem more accessible.

One cannot overestimate the importance of human rights discourse in shaping public opinion. What are the rights and obligations of human beings trapped in conflicts? Or, incarcerated as part of ethnic cleansing? Equally striking, are the pre-industrialized tribes newly discovered by scientists living in the depths of dense jungle? Leary (1999), Heater (1999) and Babcock (1994) tend to equate these rights with the rise of global citizenship as normative associations, indicating a national citizenship model that is more closed and a global citizenship one that is more flexible and inclusive. If true, this places a strain in the relationship between national and global citizenship. Boli (1998) tends to see this strain as mutually beneficial, whereas Leary (1999) and McNeely (1998) regard the rupture between the two systems as merely evolutionary rather than combative.

Backlash to imperialism

Global citizenship may be the indirect result of Pax Americana. The 20th century, as well as the 21st, may be a time dominated by the United States. America’s domination of the WTO, IMF, World Bank and other global institutions creates feelings of imperialism among smaller nations. Cross national cooperation to counter American dominance may result in more global citizens. If economic, environmental, political and social factors push towards more global citizenry, we must also within this camp consider the ramifications of the post Cold War world, or realpolitik.

Change in nation-states

Another interpretation given by several scholars of the changing configurations of citizenship due to globalization is the possibility that citizenship is a possibly changed institution, even if situated within territorial boundaries that are national, if the meaning of the national itself has changed.

Criticisms

World state is not desirable

Not all interpretations of global citizenship are positive. For example, Parekh advocates what he calls globally oriented citizenship, and states, "If global citizenship means being a citizen of the world, it is neither practicable nor desirable" He argues that global citizenship, defined as an actual membership of a type of worldwide government system, is impractical and dislocated from one's immediate community. He also notes that such a world state would inevitably be "remote, bureaucratic, oppressive, and culturally bland."

Parekh presents his alternate option with the statement: "Since the conditions of life of our fellow human beings in distant parts of the world should be a matter of deep moral and political concern to us, our citizenship has an inescapable global dimension, and we should aim to become what I might call a globally oriented citizen." Parekh's concept of globally oriented citizenship consists of identifying withand strengthening ties towards one's political regional community (whether in its current state or an improved, revised form), while recognizing and acting upon obligations towards others in the rest of the world.

Many other people believe that global citizenship is a racist concept because it aspires to disengage people from their cultural allegiances and prepare the ground for a world government which, having no cultural connection with its people, would be anti-democratic and oppressive. They also think the concept defies a rational view of human nature in which self-interest is the fundamental guiding principle, albeit with the addition of a humane concern for others.

In contrast to questioning definitions, a counter-criticism can be found on the World Alliance of YMCA's website. An online article in YMYCA World emphasizes the importance of fostering global citizenship and global social justice, and states, "Global citizenship might sound like a vague concept for academics but in fact it’s a very practical way of looking at the world which anyone, if given the opportunity, can relate to." The author acknowledges the positive and negative outlooks towards globalization, and states, "In the context of globalisation, thinking and acting as global citizens is immensely important and can bring real benefits, as the YMCA experience shows."

Is "global citizenship" a buzzword?

In another example, Michael Byers, a professor in Political Science at the University of British Columbia, questions the assumption that there is one definition of global citizenship, and unpacks aspects of potential definitions. In the introduction to his public lecture, the UBC Internalization website states, "'Global citizenship' remains undefined. What, if anything, does it really mean? Is global citizenship just the latest buzzword?" Byers notes the existence of stateless persons, whom he remarks ought to be the primary candidates for global citizenship, yet continue to live without access to basic freedoms and citizenship rights.

Byers does not oppose the concept of global citizenship, however he criticizes potential implications of the term depending on one's definition of it, such as ones that provide support for the "ruthlessly capitalist economic system that now dominates the planet." Byers states that global citizenship is a "powerful term" because "people that invoke it do so to provoke and justify action," and encourages the attendees of his lecture to re-appropriate it in order for its meaning to have a positive purpose, based on idealistic values.

Bibliography

• Aris, Jenny (June 2007), "Connected to each other", YMCA World, retrieved 2009-10-28 
• Babcock, Rainer (1994), Transnational Citizenship, Aldershot, England: Edward Elgar 
• Blattberg, Charles (2012), "We Are All Compatriots", Rooted Cosmopolitanism, edited by Will Kymlicka and Kathryn Walker, Vancouver: UBC Press, retrieved 2012-04-10 
• Boli, John, “Rights and Rules: Constituting World Citizens” in Public Rights, Public Rules: Constituting Citizens in the World Polity and National Policy, edited by Connie L McNeely (1998: Garland, New York)
• Byers, Michael (2005), The Meanings of Global Citizenship, UBC Global Citizenship Speaker Series, retrieved 2009-10-28 
• UBC (March 28, 2008), "The Meanings of Global Citizenship - Dr. Michael Byers", Global Citizenship Speaker Series, University of British Columbia, retrieved 2009-10-28 
• Habermas, Jürgen, "Citizenship and National Identity" in The Condition of Citizenship, edited by Bart van Steenbergen (1994: Sage Publications, London)
• Heater, Derek, What is Citizenship? (1999: Polity Press, Cambridge, England)
• Falk, Richard (1994), "The Making of Global Citizenship", in Bart van Steenbergen, The Condition of Citizenship, London: Sage Publications 
• Keck, Margaret E. & Sikkink, Kathryn, Activists Beyond Borders (1998: Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York)
• Lagos, Taso G. (2002), "Global Citizenship - Towards a Definition", retrieved 2009-10-27 
• Leary, Virginia, “Citizenship, Human Rights, and Diversity,” in Citizenship, Diversity, and Pluralism, edited by Alan C. Cairns, John C. Courtney, Peter MacKinnon, Hans J. Michelmann, & David E. Smith (1999: McGill-Queens’ University Press, Montreal)
• McNeely, Connie L., “Constituting Citizens: Rights and Rules” in Public Rights, Public Rules: Constituting Citizens in the World Polity and National Policy, edited by Connie L. McNeely (1998: Garland, New York)
• Mosco, Vincent, “Citizenship and Technopoles,” from Communication, Citizenship, and Social Policy (1999: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham, England)
• Parekh, B (2003), "Cosmopolitanism and Global Citizenship", Review of International Studies 29: 3-17 

Further reading

• Bauman, Zygmunt, Intimations of Postmodernity (1992: Routledge, London)
• Bellamy, Richard, “Citizenship beyond the nation state: the case of Europe,” from Political Theory in Transition, edited by Noël O’Sullivan (2000: Routledge, London)
• Bennett, W. Lance, News: the Politics of Illusion (1996: Longman, New York)
• Bennett, W. Lance, “Consumerism and Global Citizenship: Lifestyle Politics, Permanent Campaigns, and International Regimes of Democratic Accountability.” Unpublished paper presented at the International Seminar on Political Consumerism, Stockholm University, May 30, 2001.
• Best, Steven & Kellner, Douglas, The Postmodern Turn (1997: Guilford Press, New York)
• Cabrera, Luis, The Practice of Global Citizenship (2010: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)
• Clarke, Paul Berry, Deep Citizenship ( 1996: Pluto Press, London)
• Eriksen, Erik & Weigård, Jarle, “The End of Citizenship: New Roles Challenging the Political Order” in The Demands of CitizenshipI, edited by Catriona McKinnon & Iain Hampsher-Monk (2000: Continuum, London)
• Franck, Thomas M., The Empowered Self: Law and Society in the Age of Individualism (1999: Oxford University Press, Oxford)
• Henderson, Hazel, “Transnational Corporations and Global Citizenship,” American Behavioral Scientist, 43(8), May 2000, 1231-1261.
• Iyer, Pico, The Global Soul (2000: Alfred A. Knopf, New York).
• Jacobson, David, Rights across Borders: Immigration and the Decline of Citizenship (1996: Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore)
• Lie, Rico & Servaes, Jan, “Globalization: consumption and identity – towards researching nodal points,” in The New Communications Landscape, edited by Georgette Wang, Jan Servaes and Anura Goonasekera (2000: Routledge, London)
• Kaspersen, Lars Bo, “State and Citizenship Under Transformation in Western Europe” in Public Rights, Public Rules: Constituting Citizens in the World Polity and National Policy, edited by Connie L. McNeely (1998: Garland, New York)
• Kennedy, John F., Profiles in Courage (1956: Harper & Brothers, New York)
• Preston, P.W., Political/Cultural Identity: Citizens and Nations in a Global Era (1997: Sage, London)
• Scammell, Margarett, “Internet and civic engagement: Age of the citizen-consumer” found at http://jsis.artsci.washington.edu/programs/cwesuw/scammell.htm
• Steenbergen, Bart van, "The Condition of Citizenship" in The Condition of Citizenship, edited by Bart van Steenbergen (1994: Sage Publications, London)
• Turner, Bryan D., "Postmodern Culture/Modern Citizens" in The Condition of Citizenship, edited by Bart van Steenbergen (1994: Sage Publications, London)
• Weale, Albert, “Citizenship Beyond Borders” in The Frontiers of Citizenship, edited by Ursula Vogel & Michael Moran (1991: St. Martin’s Press, New York)

External links

• UBC Defining and Modeling World Citizen
• UBC Current Global Citizenship Project
• UBC and Internationalization
• Attaining a Global Perspective by Robert J. Hanvey
• Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism by Martha Nussbaum
• The Spirit of Global Belonging: Perspectives from Some Humanity-Oriented Icons by Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq
• Christian Aid's Resource for Global Citizenship Education
• Oxfam's Resource for Global Citizenship Education
• Cosmopolitan Ideal or Cybercentrism? A Critical Examination of the Underlying Assumptions of "The Electronic Global Village" by Charles Ess
• Global identity?
• Pike, G., & Selby, D. (2000). In the global classroom 2. Toronto: Pippin Publishing.
• Pike, G., & Selby, D. (1988). Global teacher, global learner. London: Hodder & Stoughton
• Teaching Global Citizenship (English, Nederlands, français)