Cosmopolitanism and the Nation-State : Cosmopolitanism and the Nation-State
Cosmopolitanism : Cosmopolitanism An ideology and/or movement for universal community
Need not be fully conceived - enough that it maintains a spirit of deepening and extension that is universal
This encompasses both cultural and political cosmopolitanism
A personal cultural ideal as well as a political project
Contested Definitions : Contested Definitions Chris Brown, IR theorist: cosmopolitanism is the 'refusal to regard existing political structures as the source of ultimate value.' (Political definition)
Our definition is wider, in that it considers as cosmopolitan:
a) open-ended trans-national and supranational projects;
b) those who seek a universalist, trans-ethnic community within the boundaries of a particular state;
c) actors who would accord existing political structures some value, albeit less than their transcendent project.
Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism : Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism Cosmopolitanism seeks to transcend ties of space (soil) and time (blood/history)
Nationalism also seeks to transcend ties of clan and village - but stops at the national boundary
So cosmopolitanism and nationalism work well together at first, but then come to oppose each other
Nationalism seeks security in space (land) and time (history/ancestry)
The Origins of Cosmopolitanism : The Origins of Cosmopolitanism Cosmopolitanism: ‘The World is my City’
Stoics and Cynics, c. 300 BC - figures like Zeno of Cintium and Cicero in Rome
Link to Empire of Alexander; Roman Empire
Ancient Cosmopolitanism : Ancient Cosmopolitanism During periods of imperial expansion, universalism becomes more attractive
Desire to have rational, universalistic, single law
Accompanied by universal commonwealth (Cicero)
Emphasis on human reason - what unites us together across differences of particular culture
Religious Cosmopolitanism : Religious Cosmopolitanism Also the idea of God's kingdom on earth as prior to local cultures and polities
St. Peter's 'Jew nor Greek' passage
Papacy struggled to assert this-worldly universal authority against princes and kings of Europe
Dark Ages and Medieval periods a high point of universalistic claims (300 - 1300 AD)
Cosmopolitan Revival : Cosmopolitan Revival Renaissance revival of Stoic ideals & Holy Roman Empire pretensions, 1400s-1600s
In Europe, by 17th c., modern cosmopolitan political theory
World federalist ideas: Emeric Cruce, French monk, early 1600s. Called for a permanent assembly of princes (inc Sultan of Turkey) or their delegates to arbitrate international disputes; Sully's 'Grand Design' envisions more permanent federation
Penn's 'European Plan' and those of other 17th c Quakers
Most plans harked back to universality of Christendom or the Roman Empire
Enlightenment Cosmopolitanism : Enlightenment Cosmopolitanism Mid-18th c. ideas of Paine, Voltaire, Kant
Viewed religious enthusiasm as backward
View patriotic attachments as a barrier to universal reason
Paine: 'my country is the world ' and 'my religion is to do good'
Kant's Perpetual Peace (1795): unlike Paine or Rousseau, favoured a world government: a constitution and executive body for the family of nations
The Cosmopolitan Cultural Ideal, c. 1750 : The Cosmopolitan Cultural Ideal, c. 1750 An elitist ideal:
Competence
Experience
Aristocracy of taste
Access to exotic luxuries
Not available to native plebeians or parvenus
Grand Tour, Parisian fashions, Salons, 'Republic of Letters'
Already there is a cultural centre (Paris), so cosmopolitanism is inflected and not truly neutral (same claim today with American universalism)
French Revolution : French Revolution Ideas of the Revolution backed by many liberal cosmopolitans like Paine, Cloots
Declaration of the Rights of Man is universal
But counter-revolutionary forces generate nationalism which turns on cosmopolitanism, 1792-4
Foreigners expelled, Cloots, a Prussian francophile and atheist, is executed
Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism: can they be reconciled in a democratic age?
19th Century: the Age of Dualism : 19th Century: the Age of Dualism Most writers waxed eloquently about both cosmopolitanism and nationalism
Logical contradictions were glossed over
Mazzini: Young Italy, Young Europe
Kant: World Government, but importance of the state for freedom
Novalis (1807): 'Germanity is cosmopolitanism mixed with the most powerful [national] individuality'
Meinecke (1907): 'The best German national feeling also includes the cosmopolitan ideal of a humanity beyond nationality'
Dualism in the United States : Dualism in the United States Religious figures felt that immigration would bring the peoples of the world together in America in fulfilment of God's plan prior to the Second Coming
Secular writers looked to the Enlightenment cosmopolitan idea and America's fulfilment of it
But while most saw the US as a universal nation, they also felt it to be a more Anglo-Saxon and Protestant nation than England
Slide15 : 'The asylum of all nations...the energy of Irish, Germans, Swedes, Poles and Cossacks, and all the European tribes, of the Africans and Polynesians, will construct a new race...as vigorous as the new Europe which came out of the smelting pot of the Dark Ages'
'It cannot be maintained by any candid person that the African race have ever occupied or do promise ever to occupy any very high place in the human family...The Irish cannot; the American Indian cannot; the Chinese cannot. Before the energy of the Caucasian race all other races have quailed and done obeisance'
Emerson and 'Double-Consciousness' in American Identity, c. 1846
Socialist Dualism : Socialist Dualism Dualism pervaded even the Socialist International. Second International up to 1917 favoured colonialism and racist assumptions
Most American socialists assumed that immigration of 'backward' peoples would retard the onset of socialist revolution
In WWI, workers sided with their nations against their class, to the disappointment of many socialist intellectuals
The Eclipse of Dualism : The Eclipse of Dualism By the first decade of 1900s in USA: Liberal Progressives
Ecumenical Movement in Protestantism - especially in USA
WWI pacifists. War affects intellectuals
Union of Democratic Control: liberal historians attack nationalistic history writing
The Rise of Cosmopolitan Anti-Nationalism : The Rise of Cosmopolitan Anti-Nationalism Surrealism in modern art supersedes Futurism, 1920s
Most modernist intellectuals move left and the Left become cosmopolitan during inter-war period
Marks the beginning of cosmopolitan anti-nationalism
Two reasons: reflexivity and war
Interwar Politics, US : Interwar Politics, US US: intellectuals and religious elite struggles against Anglo-Protestant nationalism
Immigration restriction
Klan
Prohibition
Interwar Cosmopolitan Politics, Europe : Interwar Cosmopolitan Politics, Europe Growing peace movements advocate European unity in 1910s
French pro-European associations have 100,000s of members in 1920s
Paneuropa formed in Austria, led by Coudenhove-Kalergi, early 1920s. HQ provided by Chancellor Seipel of Austria
Draws on older European Idea
Peace, cosmopolitanism and European Idea linked
Interwar Cosmopolitan Politics, Europe : Interwar Cosmopolitan Politics, Europe Kalergi has links with French officials like Aristide Briand
French foreign minister and pan-European Briand, mid 1920s
French premier Herriot: 'United States of Europe', 1925
Pushed initiatives on both world peace (Geneva Protocols) and European federalism
Briand's Memorandum on a United Europe, 1929. Presented to League of Nations and sent to European leaders for discussion
Postwar Developments : Postwar Developments US: emphasises 'nation of immigrants' idea and statue of liberty. Bar on nonwhite immigrants relaxed
Europe: moves toward European unity spearheaded by Paneuropean groups with pre-war links
Leaders often have background in these organisations (i.e. Spinelli, de Gasperi- EEC commissioner)
EEC forms from 1950s. Idealism of European Commission partly driven by cosmopolitan-pacifist motivations ('avoiding war')
US cosmopolitanism is cultural, that of Europe is political
Postwar Internationalism : Postwar Internationalism World Federalists and Ecumenical Protestants in US strongly back UN as they did the League of Nations. Opposed by many at home
New UN human rights legislation. International law begins to come of age
Cosmopolitanism as a Successful 20th c. Movement : Cosmopolitanism as a Successful 20th c. Movement Many nationalist movements have been successful at taking power. What about cosmopolitan movements?
The idea of a permanent assembly of states and of a European Union were dreams that lay unrealised for centuries, why the change?
The dream of a universal nation in the US remained a fiction for centuries. Why the change in the 20th c.?
Main Reasons for Intellectual-Political Success : Main Reasons for Intellectual-Political Success Intellectual evolution of liberal-cosmopolitan logic during 1900-14 which began to regard nationalism as reactionary
Impact of mass warfare during 1914-45 which accelerated the antinationalist tendency within cosmopolitan thought
Increased societal reflexivity: expanding and intensifying networks of conceptual exchange sharpen contradictions between nationalism and cosmopolitanism
Recent Period : Recent Period Expansion of Higher Education and national electronic media
Peace and prosperity of 1945-73
Major attitude changes in US among 'baby boom' generation on issues of race, national identity, 1965-73
Rise of a 'postmaterialist' culturally-liberal cohort of university-educated cosmopolitans that are pro-immigration and pro-Europe
New 'Cosmopolitan Democracy' advocates in IR and Theory: Held, Giddens, Beck, Nussbaum
Beck's 'Cosmopolitan Manifesto', LSE c. 2000
Growing Cosmopolitanism in Europe? : Growing Cosmopolitanism in Europe?
Growing Cosmopolitanism in Europe… : Growing Cosmopolitanism in Europe…
Cultural Cosmopolitanism in US : Cultural Cosmopolitanism in US
Education and Cosmopolitanism : Education and Cosmopolitanism
Education and Cosmopolitanism: USA : Education and Cosmopolitanism: USA
Cosmopolitanism vs Universalism : Cosmopolitanism vs Universalism Some (ie David Hollinger) assert that cosmopolitanism emphasises cultural diversity as opposed to universalist uniformity
Cultural richness and hybridity as opposed to sterile universalism
Nationalists/ethnics argue that hybridity leads to universalism, and that both reflect the same culturally-neutral tendency
Nationalists/ethnics also contend that all cosmopolitan projects have certain biases at their core and are cultural imperialisms: (ie Greek, Roman, Russian-Soviet, French-Napoleonic, Turkish-Ottoman, American-'globalisation')
Modernisation can be Cosmopolitan or Nationalist : Modernisation can be Cosmopolitan or Nationalist
Conclusion : Conclusion Cosmopolitanism a long history, much longer than globalisation
Can be political or cultural
Cosmopolitan ideas gained ground in the 20th c
Became anti-nationalist due to ideological evolution and war
Political success is linked to both world war and intensifying/extending intellectual exchanges
Carried by higher-educated, 'postmaterialist' elites and middle class