Identity, Individualism, and Activism beyond the State

The concept of global citizenship has risen to prominence through its use by policy makers, activists, and scholars, who employ the idea of global interconnectedness to encourage individuals to actively engage with transnational issues. Proponents of global citizenship claim that it will promote greater global unity and equality of rights, and even generate a new, post-national identity. Yet self-professed global citizens operate in a transnational realm marked by extreme disparities in power between the members of different states and economic classes. This article assesses whether global citizenship can live up to the claims of its adherents, or whether it will replicate the existing inequalities and moral hazard currently manifest in global policy-making. The article uses the work of T.H. Marshall to identify the conditions under which citizenship has generated equality and unity in the national realm and examines whether these conditions are present beyond the state. It then compares the resulting theory with global citizenship's observed impacts in transnational activism. It concludes that unity and equality of rights cannot be achieved globally in the absence of a commonly shared pool of social and economic resources and that, ironically, global citizenship may worsen existing power imbalances by legitimating elites' use of power. Notes *The author wishes to thank Sofia Näsström, Matthias Ecker-Ehrhradt, Lora Viola, and Michael Goodhart for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. 1. Martha Nussbaum, “Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism”, in M. Nussbaum and J. Cohen (eds), For Love of Country: Debating the Limits of Patriotism, (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1996); April Carter, The Political Theory of Global Citizenship (London: Routledge, 2001), p. 13; Ian Lister, “Educating Beyond the Nation”, International Review of Education, Vol. 41, No. 1–2 (1995), pp. 109–118; cf. Bruce Robins, “Introduction Part I: Actually Existing Cosmopolitanism”, in Pheng Cheah and Bruce Robins (eds), Cosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling Beyond the Nation (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998). 2. Carter, op. cit. 3. It is true that in Greece and Roman society citizenship was restricted to relatively small minorities of the population, and that even in Renaissance Europe, citizenship was often held only by wealthy males. However, the practice of citizenship within a given polity should not be confused with philosophies of citizenship stretching beyond its boundaries. The evolution of the idea of world citizenship is quite distinct from the evolution of citizenship as practiced. For a detailed contrast of these two strains, see Derek Heater, Citizenship: The Civic Ideal in World History, Politics and Education (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004). 4. Allen W. Wood, “Kant's Project for Perpetual Peace”, in Cheah and Robins (eds), Cosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling beyond the Nation, op. cit.; Nussbaum, op. cit.; Carter, op. cit. 5. Lister, op. cit., and Nussbaum, op. cit., are notable exceptions. 6. See, for example, Ronald Lipschutz, “Reconstructing World Politics: The Emergence of Global Civil Society”, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, No. 21, Vol. 3 (1992), pp. 389–420; Rodger A. Payne, “Deliberating Global Environmental Politics”, Journal of Peace Research, No. 33, Vol. 2 (1996), pp. 129–136. 7. Richard Falk, “The Making of Global Citizenship”, in J. Brecher, J.B. Childs, and J. Cutler (eds), Global Visions: Beyond the New World Order (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1993), p. 41. 8. Daniele Archibugi and David Held (eds), Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995). 9. Nussbaum, op. cit. 10. Margaret Scammell, “The Internet and Civic Engagement: The Age of the Citizen Consumer”, Political Communication, Vol. 17 (2000), pp. 351–355; Richard Falk, “The Decline of Citizenship in an Era of Globalization”, Citizenship Studies, Vol. 4 (2000), pp. 5–17; W. Lance Bennett, “Branded Political Communication: Lifestyle Politics, Logo Campaigns, and the Rise of Global Citizenship”, in M. Micheletti, A. Follesdal, and D. Stolle (eds), Politics, Products, and Markets: Exploring Political Consumerism Past and Present (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 2006). 11. Andrew Dobson, Citizenship and the Environment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); Derek Bell, “Liberal Environmental Citizenship”, Environmental Politics, Vol. 14, No. 2. (2005), pp. 179–194. 12. Robin Richardson (ed.), Learning for Change in World Society (London: World Studies Project, 1976), p. 1. 13. Lister, op. cit., p. 116; also Lynn Davies, “Global Citizenship: Abstraction or a Framework for Action?”, Educational Review, No. 58, Vol. 1 (2006), pp. 5–25. 14. Nussbaum, op. cit., p. 13. 15. Cf. Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998). 16. Margaret E. Keck, “Governance Regimes and the Politics of Discursive Representation”, in N. Piper and A. Uhlin (eds), Transnational Activism in Asia: Problems of Power and Democracy, (London: Routledge, 2004). 17. See, for example, Ann Marie Clark, Diplomacy of Conscience: Amnesty International and Changing Human Rights Norms (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001); Carter, op. cit. 18. Oxfam, “Global Citizenship”, available: (accessed 19 April 2010). 19. See, for example, Bruce Rich, Mortgaging the Earth: The World Bank, Environmental Improvishment, and the Crisis of Development (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994); also “NGO Statement on Aid Effectiveness”, issued in Paris, (25 February 2005), available: (accessed 11 January 2011). 20. Constructivism within political science reflects a similar belief, positing that norms, rather than material interests or direct calculations of power, drive state actions. Interestingly, activists seem to have begun acting on an implicit understanding of constructivism well before the idea was codified within political science. See Clark, Diplomacy of Conscience, op. cit., and Alexander Wendt, “Anarchy is What States Make of it: The Social Construction of Power Politics”, International Organization, Vol. 46, No. 2 (1992), pp. 391–425. 21. Kenneth Anderson, “The Ottawa Convention Banning Landmines, the Role of International Non-governmental Organizations and the Ida of International Civil Society”, European Journal of International Law, Vol. 11, No. 1 (2000), pp. 91–120. 23. Alicia Barcena, “Global Environmental Citizenship”, Our Planet, Vol. 8.5, available: (accessed 8 June 2010). 22. Center for Environmental Philosophy, (accessed 8 June 2010). See also Derek Bell, “Liberal Environmental Citizenship”, Environmental Politics, Vol. 14, No. 2. (2005), pp. 179–194. 24. Andrew Dobson, op. cit.; Gill Seyfang, “Shopping for Sustainability: Can Sustainable Consumption Promote Ecological Citizenship?”, Environmental Politics, Vol. 14, No. 2 (2005), pp. 290–306; Bell, op. cit. For a discussion of the links between “ecological” or “environmental” citizenship and “global citizenship”, see Angel V. Saiz, “Globalisation, Cosmopolitanism and Ecological Citizenship”, Environmental Politics, Vol. 14, No. 2 (2005), pp. 163–178. 25. Rainer Bauböck, Transnational Citizenship: Membership and Rights in International Migration (Brookfield, VT: Edward Elgar Publishing, 1994), p. 16. 26. Ibid., p. 18. 27. Falk, The Making of Global Citizenship, op. cit., p. 42. Also Bennett, op. cit.; Scammell, op. cit.; Lister, op. cit.; Dobson, op. cit. 28. Nussbaum, op. cit., p. 13; Lynn Davies, “Global Citizenship: Abstraction or a Framework for Action?”, Educational Review, No. 58, Vol. 1 (2006), pp. 5–25. 29. Nussbaum, op. cit.; cf. Carter, op. cit. 30. Bennett, op. cit.; Scammell, op. cit. 31. Michael Goodhart, “Civil Society and the Problem of Global Democracy”, Democratization, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2005), pp. 13–14; see also John Clark, “The Globalization of Civil Society”, in J. Walker and A. Thompson (eds), Critical Mass: The Emergence of Global Civil Society (Ontario: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2008). 35. Paul Wapner, “Politics Beyond the State. Environmental Activism and World Civic Politics”, World Politics, Vol. 47, No. 3 (1995), p. 313. 32. Davies, op. cit.; Nussbaum, op. cit.; Lister, op. cit.; cf. Goodhart, op. cit. 33. Peter J. Spiro, “New Global Communities: Nongovernmental Organizations in International Decision-Making Institutions”, The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 1 (1995), pp. 45–56. 34. Carter, op. cit.; see also Barcena, op. cit. 36. Falk, The Making of Global Citizenship, op. cit., p. 40. 37. For more on constructivism, see note 20. 38. Richard Price, “Transnational Civil Society and Advocacy in World Politics”, World Politics, Vol. 55, No. 4 (2003), pp. 579–606; cf. Clark, op. cit.; cf. Keck and Sikkink, op. cit. 39. Wood, op. cit.; Nussbaum, op. cit.; cf. Barcena, op. cit. 40. Falk, The Decline of Citizenship, op. cit., p. 6. 41. It is important to note that this is not the only conception of global citizenship. The idea of migrants as “transnational citizens” has begun to be addressed in the political science and sociology literature (see, for example, Carter, op. cit.; and Michael Peter Smith, “Transnationalism, the State and the Extraterritorial Citizen”, Politics and Society, Vol. 31 No. 4 (2003), pp. 467–502. However, this discourse is distinct from the normative vision of global citizenship addressed in this paper. 42. Dobson, op. cit.; Seyfang, op. cit. 43. Falk, The Making of Global Citizenship, op. cit. 44. Falk, The Decline of Citizenship, op. cit.; Scammell, op. cit.; Bennett, op. cit. 45. Seyfang, op. cit., p. 302. 47. Seyfang, op. cit., p. 303. 46. Scammell, op. cit., p. 351. 48. Falk, The Making of Global Citizenship, op. cit., p. 39. 49. Scammell, op. cit.; Falk, The Making of Global Citizenship, op. cit., Bennett, op. cit.; Barcena, op. cit.; cf. Robins, op. cit.; cf. Tim Hayward, “Ecological Citizenship: Justice, Rights and the Virtue of Resourcefulness”, Environmental Politics, Vol. 15, No. 3 (2006), pp. 435–446. 50. Saiz, op. cit.; Falk, The Making of Global Citizenship, op. cit. 51. See Hayward, op. cit. 52. See Nussbaum, op. cit. 53. Saiz, op. cit. 54. Hayward, op. cit.; Falk, The Making of Global Citizenship, op. cit.; Bell, op. cit. 55. T. H. Marshall, “Citizenship and Social Class”, in T.H. Marshall and T. Bottomore (eds), Citizenship and Social Class (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950). 56. Ibid. 57. Ibid., p. 71. 58. David Held, Models of Democracy (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006); Andreas Schedler, “What is Democratic Consolidation?”, in L. Diamond and M. F. Plattner (eds), The Global Divergence of Democracies (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). 59. See, for example, Vali Nasr, “The Rise of ‘Muslim Democracy’” in L. Diamond and M. F. Plattner Democracy: A Reader (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009) and Francis Fukuyama, “Confucianism and Democracy”, in Diamond and Plattner (eds), The Global Divergence of Democracies, op. cit. 60. Emma Jones and John Gaventa, Concepts of Citizenship: A Review. (Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, 2002); Richard Bellamy, Citizenship: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); J. M. Barbalet, Citizenship: Rights, Struggle, and Class Inequality (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999). 61. Bellamy, op. cit.; Barbalet, Citizenship: Rights, Struggle, and Class Inequality, op. cit. 62. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1944). 63. For example, Saiz, op. cit. and Dobson, op. cit. 64. Cf. Bauböck, op. cit. 65. See, for example, Archibugi and Held, op. cit. and David Held, “Democratic Accountability and Political Effectiveness from a Cosmopolitan Perspective”, Government and Opposition, Vol. 39, No. 2 (2004), pp. 364–391. 66. Sofia Näsström, “The Challenge of the All-Affected Principle”, Political Studies, Vol. 59, No. 1 (2011), pp. 116–134. 67. Goodhart, op. cit. 68. Robert Wade, “Accountability Gone Wrong: The World Bank, Non-governmental Organisations and the US Government in a Fight over China”, New Political Economy, Vol. 14, No. 1 (2009), pp. 25–48. 69. See Robert Dahl “Can International Institutions Be Democratic?”, in I. Shapiro and C. Hacker-Cordon. (eds), Democracy's Edges (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 70. Cf. Dobson, op. cit.; Hayward, op. cit. 71. Christopher L. Pallas, “Good Morals or Good Business? NGO Advocacy and the World Bank's 10th IDA”, in Anders Uhlin and Eva Erman (eds), Legitimacy Beyond the State? Re-examining the Democratic Credentials of Transnational Actors (London: Palgrave, 2010); Jan Aart Scholte, Renate Bloem, Richard Samans, Kumi Naidoo, Chantana Banpasirichote Wungaeo, Virginia Vargas and Barry Aminata Touré, “Global Civil Society Forum and Poverty”, in M. Glasius, M. Kaldor and H. Anheier (eds), Global Civil Society 2009: Global Civil Society and Poverty Alleviation (London: SAGE Publications, 2009); cf. Paul Nelson, “Conflict, Legitimacy, and Effectiveness: Who Speaks for Whom in Transnational NGO Networks Lobbying the World Bank?”, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 4 (1997) pp. 421–441. 72. See, for examples, Scammell, op. cit.; Bennett, op. cit. 73. Falk, in The Making of Global Citizenship, acknowledges this, claiming that there are two competing versions of global citizenship, one based on the grassroots networking of activists and the other on the economic ties among corporate and political elites. 74. Jonathan Koppell, World Rule: Accountability, Legitimacy, and the Design of Global Governance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010). 75. Diane Stone, “Knowledge Networks and Global Policy”, in D. Stone and S. Maxwell (eds), Global Knowledge Networks and International Development (New York: Routledge, 2005); Pallas, op. cit.; Spiro, op. cit. 76. Goodhart, op. cit. 77. Scammell, op. cit.; Bennett, op. cit.; Robins, op. cit.; cf. Goodhart, op. cit. 78. Barcena, op. cit. 79. Catherine Gwin, US Relations with the World Bank 1945–92 (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1994). 80. Robert Wade, “Greening the Bank: The Struggle Over the Environment, 1970–1995”, in D. Kapur, J. Lewis and R. Webb (eds), The World Bank: Its First Half Century Volume 2: Perspectives, (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1997); Ibrahim Shihata, The World Bank in a Changing World, Vol 2. (Boston, MA: M. Nijhoff Publishers, 1991). 81. John Mitchell, “Public Campaigning on Overseas Aid in the 1980s”, in A. Bose and P. Burnell (eds), Britain's Overseas Aid Since 1979 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991); Richard Jolly, “Adjustment with a Human Face: A UNICEF Perspective on the 1980s”, World Development, Vol. 19 No. 12 (1991), pp. 1807–1821; Carolyn Long, Participation of the Poor in Development Initiatives: Taking Their Rightful Places (Sterling, VA: Earthscan Publications, 2001). 82. Information regarding the IDA-10 is derived from the author's review of internal NGO documents and Congressional records, as well as interviews with NGO staffers directly involved in these events. Interviews were conducted in-person in Washington DC and by phone between October 2007 and August 2008. 83. US Treasury documents, “IDA Deputies Meeting, Dublin, July 1–2, 1992”, prepared 14 August 1992 and “IDA10 Deputies' Report. Revised Draft”, August 1992. 84. World Bank, “Meeting Between IDA Deputies, Executive Directors, and NGOs”, 16 September 1992. Also Letter from Mazide N'diaye, Co-Chair, NGO/World Bank Working Group, to Lewis Preston, President, World Bank, 30 October 1992. 85. Jim Lobe, “Finance: IDA on the Edge”, IPS — Inter Press Service, 9 October 1995. 86. Clark, Diplomacy of Conscience, op. cit.; Price, op. cit. 87. Spiro, op. cit.; Keck and Sikkink, op. cit.; Anderson, op. cit.; Michael Edwards, “Introduction”, in M. Edwards and J. Gaventa (eds), Global Citizen Action (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2001). 88. This is not to say that elites are not also influenced by norms or that constructivism cannot be used to analyse elite policy-making. However, in the study of activism, it has been most commonly used to support a “people power” understanding of activist success. 89. Cf. Thomas Risse, “The Power of Norms versus the Norms of Power: Transnational Civil Society and Human Rights”, in A. Florini (ed.), The Third Force: The Rise of Transnational Civil Society, (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2000). 90. Falk, The Making of Global Citizenship, op. cit. 91. Wade, Accountability Gone Wrong, op. cit. 92. See, for example, Nussbaum, op. cit. 93. Cf. Keck and Sikkink, op. cit. 94. Dennis F. Thompson, The Democratic Citizen, (London: Cambridge University Press, 1970). 95. Ibid. 96. Pallas, op. cit.; cf. Clifford Bob, The Marketing of Rebellion: Insurgents, Media, and International Activism, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005

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