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Global citizenship is the idea that one's identity transcends geography or political borders and that responsibilities or rights are derived from membership in a broader class: "humanity". This does not mean that such a person denounces or waives their nationality or other, more local identities, but that such identities are given "second place" to their membership in a global community. Extended, the idea leads to questions about the state of global society in the age of globalization. In general usage, the term may have much the same meaning as "
world citizen Global citizenship is the idea that one's identity transcends geography or political borders and that responsibilities or rights are derived from membership in a broader class: "humanity". This does not mean that such a person denounces or waives ...
" or
cosmopolitan Cosmopolitan may refer to: Food and drink * Cosmopolitan (cocktail), also known as a "Cosmo" History * Rootless cosmopolitan, a Soviet derogatory epithet during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1949–1953 Hotels and resorts * Cosmopoli ...
, but it also has additional, specialized meanings in differing contexts. Various organizations, such as the
World Service Authority The World Service Authority (WSA), founded in 1953 by Garry Davis, is a non-profit organization that claims to educate about and promote "world citizenship", "world law", and world government. It is best known for selling unofficial fantasy do ...
, have advocated global citizenship.


Usage


Education

In education, the term is most often used to describe a
worldview A worldview or world-view or ''Weltanschauung'' is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the whole of the individual's or society's knowledge, culture, and point of view. A worldview can include natural ...
or a set of
values In ethics and social sciences, value denotes the degree of importance of something or action, with the aim of determining which actions are best to do or what way is best to live (normative ethics in ethics), or to describe the significance of dif ...
toward which education is oriented (see, for example, the priorities of the ''Global Education First Initiative'' led by the Secretary-General of the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizi ...
). The term "global society" is sometimes used to indicate a
global studies Global studies (GS) is the interdisciplinary study of global macro-processes. Predominant subjects are global politics, economics, and law, as well as ecology, geography, culture, anthropology and ethnography. It distinguishes itself from the rel ...
set of learning objectives for students to prepare them for global citizenship (see, for example, the Global Studies Center at the
University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the univers ...
).


Global citizenship education

Within the educational system, the concept of global citizenship education (GCED) is beginning to supersede or overarch movements such as
multicultural The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for " ethnic pluralism", with the two terms often used interchang ...
education,
peace education Peace education is the process of acquiring values, knowledge, attitudes, skills, and behaviors to live in harmony with oneself, others, and the natural environment. There are numerous United Nations declarations and resolutions on the importance ...
,
human rights education Human rights education (HRE) is the learning process that seeks to build up knowledge, values, and proficiency in the rights that each person is entitled to. This education teaches students to examine their own experiences from a point of view t ...
,
Education for Sustainable Development Sustainable development is an organizing principle for meeting human development goals while also sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services on which the economy and society depend. The desi ...
, and
international education International education refers to a dynamic concept that involves a journey or movement of people, minds, or ideas across political and cultural frontiers. It is facilitated by the globalization phenomenon, which increasingly erases the constrai ...
. Additionally, GCED rapidly incorporates references to the aforementioned movements. The concept of global citizenship has been linked with awards offered for helping humanity. Teachers are being given the responsibility of being social change agents.Mundy, K., et al. (eds). ''Comparative and International Education''. New York: Economic Policy Institute and Teachers College. Audrey Osler, director of the ''Centre for Citizenship and Human Rights Education'', the
University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , t ...
, affirms that "Education for living together in an interdependent world is not an optional extra, but an essential foundation". With GCED gaining attention, scholars are investigating the field and developing perspectives. The following are a few of the more common perspectives: * ''Critical and transformative perspective''. Citizenship is defined by being a member with rights and responsibilities. Therefore, GCED must encourage active involvement. GCED can be taught from a
critical Critical or Critically may refer to: *Critical, or critical but stable, medical states **Critical, or intensive care medicine * Critical juncture, a discontinuous change studied in the social sciences. * Critical Software, a company specializing i ...
and transformative perspective, whereby students are thinking, feeling, and doing. In this approach, GCED requires students to be politically critical and personally transformative. Teachers provide
social issues A social issue is a problem that affects many people within a society. It is a group of common problems in present-day society and ones that many people strive to solve. It is often the consequence of factors extending beyond an individual's cont ...
in a neutral and grade-appropriate way for students to understand, grapple with, and do something about. *''Worldmindedness''. Graham Pike and David Selby view GCED as having two strands. Worldmindedness, the first strand, 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, Child-centeredness, is 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. *''Holistic Understanding''. The Holistic Understanding perspective was founded by Merry Merryfield, focusing on understanding the self in relation to a global community. This perspective follows a curriculum that attends to human values and beliefs, global systems, issues, history,
cross-cultural Cross-cultural may refer to *cross-cultural studies, a comparative tendency in various fields of cultural analysis *cross-cultural communication, a field of study that looks at how people from differing cultural backgrounds communicate *any of var ...
understandings, and the development of analytical and
evaluative Evaluation is a systematic determination and assessment of a subject's merit, worth and significance, using criteria governed by a set of standards. It can assist an organization, program, design, project or any other intervention or initiative to ...
skills.


Philosophy

Global citizenship, in some contexts, may refer to a brand of
ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns m ...
or political philosophy in which it is proposed that the core
social Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives from ...
,
political Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studie ...
,
economic An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the p ...
, and
environmental A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...
realities of the world today should be addressed at all levels—by individuals, civil society organizations, communities, and nation states—through a global lens. It refers to a broad, culturally and environmentally inclusive worldview that accepts the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. Political, geographic borders become irrelevant and solutions to today's challenges are seen to be beyond the narrow vision of national interests. Proponents of this philosophy often point to
Diogenes of Sinope Diogenes ( ; grc, Διογένης, Diogénēs ), also known as Diogenes the Cynic (, ) or Diogenes of Sinope, was a Greek philosopher and one of the founders of Cynicism (philosophy). He was born in Sinope, an Ionian colony on the Black Sea ...
(c. 412 B.C.) as an example, given his reported declaration that "I am a citizen of the world (κοσμοπολίτης, ''cosmopolites'')" in response to a question about his place of origin. A
Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...
term, '' Yadhum oore yaavarum kelir'', has the meaning of "the world is one family". The statement is not just about peace and harmony among the societies in the world, but also about a truth that somehow the whole world has to live together like a family.


Psychological studies

Global pollsters and psychologists have studied individual differences in the sense of global citizenship. Beginning in 2005, the
World Values Survey The World Values Survey (WVS) is a global research project that explores people's values and beliefs, how they change over time, and what social and political impact they have. Since 1981 a worldwide network of social scientists have conducted r ...
(WVS), administered across almost 100 countries, included the statement, "I see myself as a world citizen". In the WVS Wave 6, conducted from 2010 to 2014, across the globe 29.5% "strongly agreed" and another 41% "agreed" with this statement. However, there were wide national variations, as 71% of citizens of Qatar, 21% of U.S. citizens, 16% of Chinese, and just 11% of Palestinians "strongly agreed". Interpreting these differences is difficult, however, as survey methods varied for different countries, and the connotations of "world citizen" differ in different languages and cultures. For smaller studies, several multi-item scales have been developed, including Sam McFarland and colleagues' Identification with All Humanity scale (e.g., "How much do you identify with (that is, feel a part of, feel love toward, have concern for) ... all humans everywhere?"), Anna Malsch and Alan Omoto's Psychological Sense of Global Community (e.g., "I feel a sense of connection to people all over the world, even if I don't know them personally"), Gerhard Reese and colleagues' Global Social Identity scale (e.g. "I feel strongly connected to the world community as a whole"), and Stephen Reysen and Katzarska-Miller's global citizenship identification scale (e.g., "I strongly identify with global citizens"). These measures are strongly related to one another, but they are not fully identical. Studies of the psychological roots of global citizenship have found that persons high in global citizenship are also high on the personality traits of openness to experience and agreeableness from the
Big Five personality traits The Big Five personality traits is a suggested taxonomy, or grouping, for personality traits, developed from the 1980s onward in psychological trait theory. Starting in the 1990s, the theory identified five factors by labels, for the US English ...
and high in empathy and caring. Oppositely, the
authoritarian personality The authoritarian personality is a personality type characterized by a disposition to treat authority figures with unquestioning obedience and respect. Conceptually, the term ''authoritarian personality'' originated from the writings of Erich Fro ...
, the
social dominance orientation Social dominance orientation (SDO) is a personality trait measuring an individual's support for social hierarchy and the extent to which they desire their in-group be superior to out-groups. SDO is conceptualized under social dominance theory a ...
, and
psychopathy Psychopathy, sometimes considered synonymous with sociopathy, is characterized by persistent antisocial behavior, impaired empathy and remorse, and bold, disinhibited, and egotistical traits. Different conceptions of psychopathy have been u ...
are all associated with less global human identification. Some of these traits are influenced by heredity as well as by early experiences, which, in turn, likely influence individuals' receptiveness to global human identification. Research has found that those who are high in global human identification are less prejudiced toward many groups, care more about international human rights, worldwide inequality, global poverty and human suffering. They attend more actively to global concerns, value the lives of all human beings more equally, and give more in time and money to international humanitarian causes. They tend to be more politically liberal on both domestic and international issues. They want their countries to do more to alleviate global suffering. Following a
social identity approach The term social identity approach refers to research and theory pertaining to social identity theory and self-categorization theory—two intertwined, but distinct, social psychological theories. Haslam, A. S. (2001). Psychology in Organizations. ...
, Reysen and Katzarska-Miller tested a model showing the antecedents and outcomes of global citizenship identification (i.e., degree of psychological connection with global citizens). Individuals' normative environment (the cultural environment in which one is embedded contains people, artifacts, cultural patterns that promote viewing the self as a global citizen) and global awareness (perceiving oneself as aware, knowledgeable, and connected to others in the world) predict global citizenship identification. Global citizenship identification then predicts six broad categories of
prosocial behavior Prosocial behavior, or intent to benefit others, is a social behavior that "benefit other people or society as a whole", "such as helping, sharing, donating, co-operating, and volunteering". Obeying the rules and conforming to socially accepted beh ...
s and values, including: intergroup
empathy Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. Definitions of empathy encompass a broad range of social, cog ...
, valuing diversity,
social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fu ...
, environmental
sustainability Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livin ...
, intergroup
helping Helping behavior refers to voluntary actions intended to help the others, with reward regarded or disregarded. It is a type of prosocial behavior (voluntary action intended to help or benefit another individual or group of individuals, such as shar ...
, and a felt responsibility to act. Subsequent research has examined variables that influence the model such as: participation in a college course with global components, perception of one's global knowledge, college professors' attitudes toward global citizenship, belief in an intentional worlds view of culture, participation in a fan group that promotes the identity, use of global citizen related words when describing one's values, possible self as a global citizen,
religiosity In sociology, the concept of religiosity has proven difficult to define. The Oxford English Dictionary suggests: "Religiousness; religious feeling or belief. ..Affected or excessive religiousness". Different scholars have seen this concept as ...
and religious orientation, threat to one's nation, interdependent self-construal prime, perception of the university environment, and
social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social me ...
usage. In 2019, a review of all studies of the psychology of global human identification and citizenship through 2018 was published.


Aspects


Geography, sovereignty, and citizenship

At the same time that globalization is reducing the importance of
nation-states A nation state is a political unit where the state and nation are congruent. It is a more precise concept than "country", since a country does not need to have a predominant ethnic group. A nation, in the sense of a common ethnicity, may inc ...
, the idea of global citizenship may require a redefinition of ties between civic engagement and geography. Face-to-face
town hall meeting Town hall meetings, also referred to as town halls or town hall forums, are a way for local and national politicians to meet with their constituents either to hear from them on topics of interest or to discuss specific upcoming legislation or ...
s seem increasingly supplanted by electronic "town halls" not limited by space and time.
Absentee ballot An absentee ballot is a vote cast by someone who is unable or unwilling to attend the official polling station to which the voter is normally allocated. Methods include voting at a different location, postal voting, proxy voting and online voti ...
s opened the way for
expatriate An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person who resides outside their native country. In common usage, the term often refers to educated professionals, skilled workers, or artists taking positions outside their home country, either ...
s to vote while living in another country; the Internet may carry this several steps further. Another interpretation given by several scholars of the changing configurations of citizenship due to globalization is the possibility that citizenship becomes a changed institution; even if situated within territorial boundaries that are national, if the meaning of the national itself has changed, then the meaning of being a citizen of that nation changes.


Human rights

The lack of a universally recognized world body can put 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 being expanded. Thus, 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 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, ...
by the United Nations in 1948, the aftermath of World War II and
the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ar ...
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 The right of a people to self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international law (commonly regarded as a ''jus cogens'' rule), binding, as such, on the United Nations as authoritative interpretation of the Charter's norms. It stat ...
. If national citizenship does not foster these new rights, then global citizenship may seem more accessible. Global citizenship advocates may confer specific rights and obligations of human beings trapped in conflicts, those incarcerated as part of
ethnic cleansing Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer ...
, and pre-industrialized tribes newly discovered by scientists living in the depths of dense jungle


UN General Assembly

On 10 December 1948, the UN General Assembly Adopted Resolution 217A (III), also known as "
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, i ...
". 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 opinions, 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 The trial of Saddam Hussein was the trial of the deposed President of Iraq Saddam Hussein by the Iraqi Interim Government for crimes against humanity during his time in office. The Coalition Provisional Authority voted to create the Iraqi Sp ...
have proven what British jurist
A. V. Dicey Albert Venn Dicey, (4 February 1835 – 7 April 1922), usually cited as A. V. Dicey, was a British Whig jurist and constitutional theorist. He is most widely known as the author of ''Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution ...
said in 1885, when he popularized the phrase "rule of law" in 1885. Dicey emphasized three aspects of the rule of law : # No one can be punished or made to suffer except for a breach of law proved in an ordinary court. # No one is above the law and everyone is equal before the law regardless of social, economic, or political status. # The rule of law includes the results of judicial decisions determining the rights of private persons.


US Declaration of Independence

The opening of the
United States Declaration of Independence The United States Declaration of Independence, formally The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen States of America, is the pronouncement and founding document adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at Pennsylvania State House ( ...
, written by
Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was previously the natio ...
in 1776, states as follows: "Global citizenship in the United States" was a term used by former
U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
in 2008 in a speech in Berlin.


Social movements


World citizen

In general, a world citizen is a person who places global citizenship above any nationalistic or local identities and relationships. An early expression of this value is found in
Diogenes of Sinope Diogenes ( ; grc, Διογένης, Diogénēs ), also known as Diogenes the Cynic (, ) or Diogenes of Sinope, was a Greek philosopher and one of the founders of Cynicism (philosophy). He was born in Sinope, an Ionian colony on the Black Sea ...
(c. 412 B.C.; mentioned above), a Cynic philosopher 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 Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...
poet Kaniyan Poongundran wrote in ''
Purananuru The ''Purananuru'' (, literally "four hundred oemsin the genre puram"), sometimes called ''Puram'' or ''Purappattu'', is a classical Tamil poetic work and traditionally the last of the Eight Anthologies (''Ettuthokai'') in the Sangam literatu ...
'', "To us all towns are one, all men our kin." In later years, political philosopher
Thomas Paine Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; – In the contemporary record as noted by Conway, Paine's birth date is given as January 29, 1736–37. Common practice was to use a dash or a slash to separate the old-style year from the new-style year. In th ...
would declare, "my country is the world, and my religion is to do good." Today, the increase in worldwide globalization has led to the formation of a "world citizen"
social movement A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a Social issue, social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of Group ...
under a proposed
world government World government is the concept of a single political authority with jurisdiction over all humanity. It is conceived in a variety of forms, from tyrannical to democratic, which reflects its wide array of proponents and detractors. A world gove ...
. In a non-political definition, it has been suggested that a world citizen may provide value to society by using knowledge acquired across cultural contexts. Many people also consider themselves world citizens, as they feel at home wherever they may go.
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
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." World citizenship has been promoted by distinguished people including
Garry Davis Sol Gareth "Garry" Davis (27 July 1921 – 24 July 2013) was an international peace activist best known for renouncing his American citizenship and interrupting the United Nations in 1948 to advocate for world government as a way to end nation ...
, who lived for 60 years as a citizen of no nation, only the world. Davis founded the
World Service Authority The World Service Authority (WSA), founded in 1953 by Garry Davis, is a non-profit organization that claims to educate about and promote "world citizenship", "world law", and world government. It is best known for selling unofficial fantasy do ...
in Washington, DC, which sells World Passports, a fantasy passport to world citizens. In 1956 Hugh J. Schonfield founded the
Commonwealth of World Citizens The Commonwealth of World Citizens (later named 'Mondcivitan Republic' after the Esperanto) was founded by Hugh J. Schonfield, an associate of H.G. Wells, in 1956. The organisation describes itself as a servant-Nation. Objectives Hugh Schonfie ...
, later known by its
Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international commun ...
name "Mondcivitana Respubliko", which also issued a world passport; it declined after the 1980s. The
Baháʼí Faith The Baháʼí Faith is a religion founded in the 19th century that teaches the essential worth of all religions and the unity of all people. Established by Baháʼu'lláh in the 19th century, it initially developed in Iran and parts of the ...
promotes the concept through its founder's proclamation (in the late 19th century) that "The Earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens." As a term defined by the
Baháʼí International Community The Baháʼí International Community, or the BIC, is an international non-governmental organization (NGO) representing the members of the Baháʼí Faith; it was first chartered in March 1948 with the United Nations, and currently has affiliates i ...
in a concept paper shared at the 1st session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, New York, U.S.A. on 14–25 June 1993. "World citizenship begins with an acceptance of the oneness of the human family and the interconnectedness of the nations of 'the earth, our home.' While it encourages a sane and legitimate patriotism, it also insists upon a wider loyalty, a love of humanity as a whole. It does not, however, imply abandonment of legitimate loyalties, the suppression of cultural diversity, the abolition of national autonomy, nor the imposition of uniformity. Its hallmark is '
unity in diversity Unity in diversity is used as an expression of harmony and unity between dissimilar individuals or groups. It is a concept of "unity without uniformity and diversity without fragmentation" that shifts focus from unity based on a mere tolerance ...
.' World citizenship encompasses the principles of social and economic justice, both within and between nations; non-adversarial decision making at all levels of society; equality of the sexes; racial, ethnic, national and religious harmony; and the willingness to sacrifice for the common good. Other facets of world citizenship—including the promotion of human honour and dignity, understanding, amity, co-operation, trustworthiness, compassion and the desire to serve—can be deduced from those already mentioned."


Mundialization

Philosophically, mundialization (French, ''mondialisation'') is seen as a response to globalization's "dehumanisation through espatialisedplanetarisation" (Teilhard de Chardin quoted in Capdepuy 2011). An early use of ''mondialisation'' was to refer to the act of a city or a local authority declaring itself a "world citizen" city, by voting a charter stating its awareness of global problems and its sense of shared responsibility. The concept was promoted by the self-declared World Citizen
Garry Davis Sol Gareth "Garry" Davis (27 July 1921 – 24 July 2013) was an international peace activist best known for renouncing his American citizenship and interrupting the United Nations in 1948 to advocate for world government as a way to end nation ...
in 1949, as a logical extension of the idea of individuals declaring themselves world citizens, and promoted by Robert Sarrazac, a former leader of the
French Resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...
who created the Human Front of World Citizens in 1945. The first city to be officially mundialised was the small French city of
Cahors Cahors (; oc, Caors ) is a commune in the western part of Southern France. It is the smallest prefecture among the 13 departments that constitute the Occitanie Region. The main city of the Lot department and the historical center of the Quer ...
(only 20,000 in 2006), the capital city of the Département of Lot in central France, on 20 July 1949. Hundreds of cities mundialised themselves over a few years, most of them in France, and then it spread internationally, including to many German cities and to
Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui h ...
and
Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the Na ...
. In less than a year, ten General Councils (the elected councils of the French "Départements"), and hundreds of cities in France covering 3.4 million inhabitants voted mundialisation charters. One of the goals was to elect one delegate per million inhabitants to a People's World Constitutional Convention given the already then historical failure of the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizi ...
in creating a global institution able to negotiate a final
world peace World peace, or peace on Earth, is the concept of an ideal state of peace within and among all people and nations on Planet Earth. Different cultures, religions, philosophies, and organizations have varying concepts on how such a state would ...
. To date, more than 1,000 cities and towns have declared themselves World cities, including
Beverly Hills Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California. A notable and historic suburb of Greater Los Angeles, it is in a wealthy area immediately southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Bev ...
,
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
,
Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with list of lakes in Minneapolis, thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. ...
,
St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
,
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...
,
Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anchor ...
, Hiroshima, Tokyo,
Nivelles Nivelles (; nl, Nijvel, ; wa, Nivele; vls, Neyvel) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the Belgian province of Walloon Brabant. The Nivelles municipality includes the former municipalities of Baulers, Bornival, Thines, and Monst ...
, and
Königswinter Königswinter ( ksh, Köningkswinte; Low Franconian: ) is a town and summer resort in the Rhein-Sieg district, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Geography Königswinter is situated on the right bank of the Rhine, opposite Bad Godesberg, at t ...
. As a social movement, mundialization expresses the solidarity of populations of the globe and aims to establish institutions and supranational
law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vari ...
s of a federative structure common to them, while respecting the diversity of cultures and peoples. The movement advocates for a new political organization governing
all humanity In demographics, the world population is the total number of humans currently living. It was estimated by the United Nations to have exceeded 8 billion in November 2022. It took over 200,000 years of human prehistory and history for the ...
, involving the transfer of certain parts of national
sovereignty Sovereignty is the defining authority within individual consciousness, social construct, or territory. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the person ...
to a Federal World Authority, Federal World Government and Federal World Court. Basing its authority on the will of the people, supporters hope it could develop new systems to draw on the highest and best wisdom of all humanity, and solve major planetary problems like
hunger In politics, humanitarian aid, and the social sciences, hunger is defined as a condition in which a person does not have the physical or financial capability to eat sufficient food to meet basic nutritional needs for a sustained period. In the ...
, access to
water Water (chemical formula ) is an Inorganic compound, inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living ...
,
war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
,
peace-keeping Peacekeeping comprises activities intended to create conditions that favour lasting peace. Research generally finds that peacekeeping reduces civilian and battlefield deaths, as well as reduces the risk of renewed warfare. Within the United N ...
,
pollution Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the ...
and energy. The mundialization movement includes the declaration of specified territory – a city, town, or state, for example – as world territory, with responsibilities and rights on a world scale. Currently, the nation-state system and the United Nations offer no way for the people of the world to vote for world officials or participate in governing our world. International
treaties A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between actors in international law. It is usually made by and between sovereign states, but can include international organizations, individuals, business entities, and other legal perso ...
or agreements, while binding at the international level, are not automatically enforceable under the laws of every state. Mundialization seeks to address this lack by presenting a way to build, one city at a time, such a system of true World Law based upon the sovereignty of the whole.


Earth Anthem

Author-politician
Shashi Tharoor Shashi Tharoor (; ; born 9 March 1956 in London, England ) is an Indian former international civil servant, diplomat, bureaucrat and politician, writer and public intellectual who has been serving as Member of Parliament for Thiruvananthapuram, ...
feels that an Earth Anthem sung by people across the world can inspire planetary consciousness and global citizenship among people.


Criticisms

Not all interpretations of global citizenship are positive. For example, Bhikhu Chotalal 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 alternative 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 with and 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. Michael Byers, a professor in Political Science at the
University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top three ...
, 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 Internationalization 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 In international law, a stateless person is someone who is "not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law". Some stateless people are also refugees. However, not all refugees are stateless, and many people who are st ...
, 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. Neither criticism of global citizenship is anything new.
Gouverneur Morris Gouverneur Morris ( ; January 31, 1752 – November 6, 1816) was an American statesman, a Founding Father of the United States, and a signatory to the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution. He wrote the Preamble to the U ...
, a delegate to the
Constitutional Convention (United States) The Constitutional Convention took place in Philadelphia from May 25 to September 17, 1787. Although the convention was intended to revise the league of states and first system of government under the Articles of Confederation, the intention fr ...
, criticized "citizens of the world" while he was on the floor of the convention on 9 August 1787:
As to those philosophical gentlemen, those Citizens of the World as they call themselves, He owned he did not wish to see any of them in our public Councils. He would not trust them. The men who can shake off their attachments to their own Country can never love any other. These attachments are the wholesome prejudices which uphold all Governments, Admit a Frenchman into your Senate, and he will study to increase the commerce of France: an Englishman, and he will feel an equal bias in favor of that of England.


See also

*
Alter-globalisation Alter-globalization (also known as alternative globalization or alter-mundialization—from the French alter- mondialisation—and overlapping with the global justice movement) is a social movement whose proponents support global cooperation and ...
*
Anti-patriotism Anti-patriotism is the ideology that opposes patriotism; it usually refers to those with cosmopolitan views and is usually of an internationalist and anti-nationalist nature as well. Normally, anti-patriotism stems from the belief that patrioti ...
* Cosmopolitanism *
Global civics Global civics proposes to understand civics in a global sense as a social contract among all world citizens in an age of interdependence and interaction. The disseminators of the concept define it as the notion that we have certain rights and respo ...
*
Global Citizens Movement The global citizens movement is a constellation of organized and overlapping citizens' groups seeking to foster global solidarity in policy and consciousness. The term is often used synonymously with the anti-globalization movement or the global ju ...
* Global democracy (disambiguation) *
Global governance Global governance refers to institutions that coordinate the behavior of transnational actors, facilitate cooperation, resolve disputes, and alleviate collective action problems. Global governance broadly entails making, monitoring, and enfor ...
*
Global justice Global justice is an issue in political philosophy arising from the concern about unfairness. It is sometimes understood as a form of internationalism. History Henrik Syse claims that global ethics and international justice in western tradit ...
*
Globality Globality is the consciousness of the world as a single place. The concept of globality was introduced in the social sciences by British sociologist Roland Robertson. It signifies the spreading and deepening consciousness of the world-as-a-whole an ...
*
Netizen The term netizen is a portmanteau of the English words ''internet'' and ''citizen'', as in a "citizen of the net" or "net citizen". It describes a person actively involved in online communities or the Internet in general.
*
Open borders An open border is a border that enables free movement of people (and often of goods) between jurisdictions with no restrictions on movement and is lacking substantive border control. A border may be an open border due to intentional legislation ...
*
Postnationalism Postnationalism or non-nationalism is the process or trend by which nation states and national identities lose their importance relative to cross-nation and self-organized or supranational and global entities as well as local entities. Although p ...
*
Subsidiarity Subsidiarity is a principle of social organization that holds that social and political issues should be dealt with at the most immediate or local level that is consistent with their resolution. The '' Oxford English Dictionary'' defines subsid ...
* Spaceship Earth * Think globally, act locally *
Transnationalism Transnationalism is a research field and social phenomenon grown out of the heightened interconnectivity between people and the receding economic and social significance of boundaries among nation states. Overview The term "trans-national" was ...
*
World community The term world community is used primarily in political and humanitarian contexts to describe an international aggregate of nation states of widely varying types. In most connotations, the term is used to convey meanings attached to consensus or ...
* Global union


References


External links


World Citizen Foundation

World Citizen



Oxfam: Women and citizenship in global teacher education: The Global-ITE project
{{Authority control
Citizenship Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection". Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
Political philosophy
Citizenship Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection". Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
Cosmopolitanism Global culture Global governance