Deconstructing Global Citizenship: Political, Cultural, and Ethical Perspectives

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The success of individual nation states today is often measured in terms of their ability to benefit from and contribute to a host of global economic, political, socio-cultural, technological, and educational networks. This increased multifaceted international inter-dependence represents an intuitively contradictory and an immensely complex situation. This scenario requires that national governments, whose primary responsibility is towards their citizenry, must relinquish a degree of control over state borders to constantly developing trans and multinational regimes and institutions. Once state borders become permeable all sorts of issues related to rights earned or accrued due to membership of a national community come into question. Given that neither individuals nor states can eschew the influence of the growing interdependence, this new milieu is often described in terms of shrinking of the world into a global village. This reshaping of the world requires us to broaden our horizons and re-evaluate the manner in which we theorize human personhood within communal boundaries. It also demands us to acknowledge that the relative decline of Euro-American economic and political influence and the rise of Asian and Latin American states at the global level have created spaces in which a de-territorialized and a de-historicized notion of citizenship and state can now be explored. The essays in this volume represent diverse disciplinary, analytical, and methodological approaches to understand what the implications are of being a citizen of both a nation state and the world simultaneously. In sum, Deconstructing Global Citizenship explores the question of whether a synthesis of contradictory national and global tendencies in the term global citizenship is even possible, or if we are better served by fundamentally reconsidering our ideas of citizenship, community, and politics.

Reviews

How does one live in an increasingly deterritorialized world that is still shaped by a state-centric conception of citizenship Taking up this profound question from the perspective of the Global South, this volume is a timely meditation on the forms and functions of citizenship in a globalized world. Drawing from many different disciplinary perspectives and covering a wide range of empirical and geographical contexts, the essays in this collection provide some important insights into mutating conceptions of citizenship, new forms of subjectivity, and shifting articulations of justice in our contemporary world. -- Shampa Biswas, Paul Garrett Professor, Whitman College
Many commentators have grappled with the impact of the multiple processes of globalization on the content and practices of citizenship. Few however have done this as incisively and innovatively as the contributors to the volume edited by Bashir and Gray. By bringing together superbly researched accounts from a diversity of disciplinary, historical, and regional perspectives, the collection provides a wealth of solid knowledge and sharp insights on the globalization and citizenship nexus. It is expected that the conceptual sophistication, empirical scope, and theoretical depth of the volume will make it invaluable for the teaching, explanation, and understanding of the complex and uneasy relationship between citizenship and globalization. -- Emilian Kavalski, Australian Catholic University

Author Bio

Hassan Bashir is associate professor of political science at Texas A&M University at Qatar. Phillip W. Gray is assistant professor of political science at Texas A&M University at Qatar.