“Global citizenship” has been a fashionable term for a while, despite its meaning and practicability are still debatable. According to Derek Heater, any global citizenship will have to be based on some version of “multiple citizenship” rather than one. The basic building block will remain the local or provincial one, followed by that of the nation-state; above these might come the regional or continental level, with the world level capping the whole. The different poles of allegiance – personal, associational, ethnic, cultural, political – that shape us may also be laying the groundwork for more fluid sense of identity vis-à-vis the global system.(sorry the quote is from my note and I can no longer find the reference)
From this interpretation, I understand the term global citizenship as an idea derived between nationalism and cosmopolitanism. While nationalism stresses the love of one’s community/state, cosmopolitanism emphasizes universal experience and the abstract understanding of universal well-being. Both nationalism and cosmopolitanism can be extreme and therefore undesirable. This is because nationalism can produce enmity against other communities/states, and cosmopolitanism can encourage one to ignore the special ties and attachments within one community. In regard to how to promote international humanitarianism as a global citizen, I find Bhikhu Parekh’s argument quite insightful. Although he understands the term global citizen a citizen of “the whole world” and “has no political home”,[1] his definition of his preferred term “globally oriented citizenship” is indeed compatible with Heater and my understanding of global citizenship (which should be based on the foundation of local citizenship). To promote humanitarianism or stop inhumane practices in other states, Parekh argues that as a global oriented citizen, one should strengthen their democratic engagement with their states and energize their national citizenship, because ones’ “universal duties to humankind can be best discharged through the mediating agency of the state”.[2]
Parekh’s understanding of global citizenship (or in his terms globally oriented citizenship) reminds us the interdependence between national and global institutions. Many times, global institutions are challenged because they are detracted from national institutions. This phenomenon needs to be addressed because without national solidarity and the collective support for these global institutions, these institutions lack the legitimacy to influence other states.
In sum, being a global citizen begins with being a democratic national citizen.
[1] Bhikhu Parekh, “Cosmopolitanism and Global Citizenship,” Review of International Studies 29, no. 01 (2003): 12, doi:10.1017/S0260210503000019.
[2] Parekh, 13.
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