This dissertation examines liberal statist and liberal cosmopolitan attempts to explain global justice. It argues that liberal statists misidentify their own commitments regarding human rights, and that once these implications are drawn out, many statist and cosmopolitan theories of global justice converge on several of their central positions. Although statists and cosmopolitans differ in their methodologies, emphasis, epistemic commitments, and some logical commitments of their respective positions, I argue that they are nonetheless committed to many of the same positions about practices in the sphere of global justice. They share elements of a logical structure, based in liberal domestic principles, which commits them to similar practical implications. Their convergence is most visible in an examination of their human rights commitments. They nonetheless differ in their analytic priorities, and hence in the ease with which they arrive at many of their insights and conclusions. In particular, despite Rawls’s denial of the desirability or feasibility of cosmopolitanism, he shares many practical commitments with cosmopolitans such as Tesón, Beitz, Buchanan, Tan and Caney. Their shared liberal egalitarian premises arising from liberal domestic theory result in convergence on what they take to be the central questions of global justice, and moreover on their answers to these central questions. Liberal theories on both sides of the cosmopolitan and statist divide endorse a practical approach to human rights that links human rights compliance with such practical global justice privileges as non-intervention, humanitarian aid, treaty relations, and even tolerance. And this convergence entails a more united liberal account of global justice than theorists on either side of the statist and cosmopolitan divide have been willing to admit. / Thesis (Ph.D, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2013-05-21 14:40:51.218

In this dissertation, I argue that accounts of cosmopolitan literature tend to equate cosmopolitanism with sympathetic feeling. I further contend that sympathy is in fact implicitly central to a wider body of contemporary cosmopolitan theory. I distinguish between two strains of cosmopolitan thought that depend upon two distinct models of feeling: “critical cosmopolitanism,” which depends upon a cognitive-evaluative model of sympathy, and “affective cosmopolitanism,” which depends upon a relational model. Both branches of cosmopolitanism envision sympathy as perfectly human or humane; they gloss over the potential for feeling shame in cosmopolitan encounters. The minority of scholarship that does consider shame in relation to cosmopolitan practice also reifies shame as ideally human or humane. Whether through sympathy or shame, cosmopolitan subjects become cosmopolitan through feeling. I offer readings of J.M. Coetzee’s later fiction in order to critique the idealization of feeling as distinctly cosmopolitan. Coetzee’s work, I conclude, suggests another model for cosmopolitanism, one which foregrounds the limits of feeling for realizing mutuality and equality. / Thesis (Ph.D, English) -- Queen's University, 2012-06-26 10:17:59.252

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 394-421).

Thesis (M.A.)--Villanova University, 2009. / English Dept. Includes bibliographical references.

Adopting a critical cosmopolitan outlook the thesis identifies a constructive engagement with the European project at a time when the crisis of the Euro-zone is still threatening the very existence of the European Union. The purpose of the study is to determine whether cosmopolitanism is feasible in Europe. I argue that the EU can be conceived as a catalyst of cosmopolitanism without being cosmopolitan per se due its so far limited internal and external contexts of cosmopolitanism. In the case of the EU's limited inner cosmopolitanism, I seek cosmopolitan alternatives for the EU to overcome the crisis on the basis of an institutional and civil society analysis within the conceptual framework of cosmopolitan democracy. Instead of adopting the terminology of governance either for or by the people, my cosmopolitan approach focuses on governance with the people. The case of Greece is of utmost importance for my research as it reveals the causes and gravity of the crisis. It also broadens the empirical basis of cosmopolitan studies by embodying both the dynamics and challenges posed to cosmopolitanism which are exemplified in the paradoxes provoked; on the one hand there is aggravation of (fascist) nationalism and domination of economics on politics perhaps leading to Greece's de- Europeanisation; on the other hand the dynamics of a paradigm shift towards a post-crisis cosmopolitanism are revealed. That kind of cosmopolitanism needs to take under consideration the role of contestation and to redefine its position in the era of global capitalism for the confrontation of the crisis. In the case of the EU's limited external cosmopolitanism, my analysis of Turkey's possible impact on the EU and the reverse aims to demonstrate that Turkey's integration can contribute to the formation of a cosmopolitan, post-Western EU and post-national Turkey. What is of crucial importance for both cosmopolitan and Europeanisation studies is that the endogenous process of change within Turkey which is interlocking with the external dynamics of the EU may potentially lead to a distinctive ‘hybrid' type of cosmopolitanisation neither merely European nor simply Asian. The conclusions drawn from this multiple case study suggest that the current crisis may open new meanings for cosmopolitanism in Europe.

The goal of the thesis is to provide a critique of nationalism and its effect on international relations. It is also to look at alternatives to nationalism as human forms of organization and to see if they are viable. The main theories employed here are those of realism, which is tied to theories of nationalism, and cosmopolitanism. There are references to other theories but realism and cosmopolitanism are the basis of the main theoretical discussion. The theory of cosmopolitanism is also linked to the theory of social constructivism, which is an important part of the dissertation’s argument. The thesis follows the format of a critical literature review. It uses the already large amount of literature on nationalism and its alternatives for its sources. The thesis will posit that nationalism plays a more negative role in today’s international affairs than positive. However, it contains elements which are positive also and some of the reasons for the behavior linked to nationalism are accepted as parts of human nature. The thesis also looks at alternative forms of human organisation. It posits that there are and have been alternatives to nationalism. Although many of the alternatives have their own pitfalls or appear unrealistic in the present time, they are nonetheless accepted as something to be worked on or worked towards. The thesis supports moves towards more global governance and the promotion of cosmopolitan notions of coexistence. The thesis also posits that an acceptance of human particularism must be incorporated into any projects to foster more global cooperation. Hence, projects for more international harmony must redefine how interests are defined and how peace and security are reached as opposed to merely basing future forms of human organization on ethics alone.

Thesis advisor: Christopher J. Kelly / In an effort to shed light on recent doubts about the future of liberal democracy, this dissertation compares the political thought of Montesquieu and Rousseau – two eighteenth-century philosophers who, beginning from strikingly similar premises, diverged radically in their prescriptions. Whereas Montesquieu sought to rationalize political life by nudging religion to the periphery of public consciousness, by attenuating patriotism, and by shifting legislative and judicial power to educated professionals, Rousseau sought to shore up religion’s popular influence, to instigate revivals of patriotism, and to defend popular self-government. I first take up their views of “the state of nature.” My account differs from those of the previous interpreters who have read the state of nature as a hypothetical construct, but it differs also from those of the previous interpreters who have read the state of nature as historical, inasmuch as I show that neither Montesquieu nor Rousseau made implausible assumptions about the naturalness of asociality or peacefulness. Next, I focus on the issue popular enlightenment. Whereas commentators have tended to cast Montesquieu simply as a proponent of the pacifying effects of enlightenment and Rousseau as a critic of its morally corrupting effects, I argue that they were both primarily interested in the relation between the dwindling of religious faith and the maintenance of the psychological qualities that underlie resistance to foreign and domestic threats to liberty. I then turn to the question of cosmopolitanism, suggesting that Montesquieu embraced it not because of any extreme idealism but because of his horror at the repressiveness and belligerence of actual patriotic republics. Likewise, I maintain that Rousseau’s embrace of patriotic “intoxication” was not a product of any romanticism; instead, it was a product of his thoroughly rationalistic inquiry into the phenomena of law and government. Finally, I argue that the divergence between them on the question of popular self-government followed from their divergent understandings of freedom. This divergence cannot be reduced either to “negative liberty” versus “positive liberty” or to “liberty as non-interference” versus “liberty as non-domination,” two paradigms that have long dominated Anglo-American political theorists’ thinking about freedom. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

Adopting a social constructionist methodology, this research explores the contexts, discourse and practices of cosmopolitanism amongst African migrants in Johannesburg, South(ern) Africa’s economic hub and top migrant destination. The research argues that the central function of this cosmopolitanism is to serve as a counter-narrative to an exclusive South African nationalism and as an expression of a more general struggle to overcome the unwarranted limitations of being born in a country which does not provide enough opportunities. On the basis of both qualitative and quantitative data collected between 2006 and 2008 in Johannesburg, this study challenges the still widely held assumption that cosmopolitanism is not for those whose mobility is ‘unprivileged’ and argues that this assumption becomes particularly unsustainable once situated in the contexts of Africa’s unachieved nation-states, hyper-diverse urban centres and multiple alternative systems of belonging and identity. Instead, this study argues that it is exactly these conditions that have actually allowed a particular type of cosmopolitanism to emerge rather than having suppressed it. The three empirical chapters explore how migrants’ counter-narrative to discourses of nationalism, exclusion and pathologisation of migration constructs notions of mobility and space in particularly cosmopolitan, de-territorialised terms; generates a concept of cultural diversity and the engagement with the Other as normal, enriching and unproblematic; and establishes a more inclusive and multifaceted cosmopolitan social order that is claimed to be morally superior to that of nationalism. Finally, the conclusion provides some pointers towards three central imperatives for future research on cosmopolitanism: firstly, the imperative to address the present disconnect between cosmopolitanism from above and from below – and as part of that the lack of attention to empirical forms of cosmopolitanism; secondly, the importance of paying more attention to the social, cultural and economic contexts in which forms of empirical cosmopolitanism are embedded; and, thirdly, the need to overcome the three ‘isms’ that the majority of research on cosmopolitanism and migration remains stunted by: ethnocentrism, class-centrism and, somewhat ironically, methodological nationalism. The study argues that if we want to know more about how individuals become cosmopolitan agents of change and reformulate social orders ‘from below’, we should begin to treat migrant populations, and particularly those who move within and across the African continent, as a crucial source of knowledge about how to negotiate both the uncertainties and the opportunities that are intrinsic to more de-territorialised, post-national forms of social organisation and identity.

Over the course of the long nineteenth century, American Christianity changed dramatically, leaving lasting imprints on how families lived, worked, played, and prayed. As America’s prolific “first family,” the Adamses of Massachusetts were key interpreters of the place of religion within a rapidly changing American republic facing denominational turf wars, anti-Catholic violence, a burgeoning market economy, Civil War, shifting gender roles, and the collapse of providentialism. Constant globe-trotters who documented their cultural travels, the Adamses developed a cosmopolitan Christianity that blended discovery and criticism, faith and doubt. Claiming Puritan ancestry and the supremacy of a Unitarian covenant with God, the family was unusually forthright in exploring a subject as personal and provocative as faith. This dissertation shows how they interpreted religious ideas and rites in America over three centuries of civic service. I argue that the Adamses’ cosmopolitan encounters led them to become leading lay critics of New England religion, even as they marshaled Christian rhetoric to sustain American democracy. While scholars of American religion have relied on “fringe” groups to explain the growth and democratization of American Christianity, little has been studied of seekers like the Adamses, transnational agents of American thought and culture who sought avidly among other faiths yet chose to stay within the mainline fold. My study offers a new perspective on the political dynasty, by mapping the religious journeys of Americans who looked for God in eclectic places and then made their return, greatly changed, to the family pew.

During the twelfth century, the Norman monarchy in southern Italy and Sicily created a cosmopolitan culture that promoted connectivity, rather than domination, between the various kingdoms of the Mediterranean and Europe, in particular, those of the Byzantine Empire and of Fatimid Egypt. Rather than exhibiting <i>translatio imperii</i>'s unidirectional movement from east to west, the Normans in southern Italy created what I term <i>translatio normannitatis</i>; a multidirectional flow between east and west, which helped to circulate people, goods, and ideas. Using post-colonial and spatial theories, this dissertation explores the Norman monarchy's claim to be the successors of Troy and Rome, a vital element to their development of <i>translatio normannitatis</i>, as well as examining how texts and religious structures associated with the Norman kingdom in southern Italy and Sicily both reflect and endorse the cosmopolitan culture that the Normans created. Close readings of two romance texts - <i>Cliges </i>and <i>Guillaume de Palerne</i> - and the Norman monarchy's palace chapel in Palermo, Sicily - the Cappella Palatina - demonstrate the blendimg of European, Byzantine, and Islamic cultures fostered under Norman rule. The study of this unique place and time period, and its cosmopolitan atmosphere, creates a fuller picture of the medieval period, revealing its heterogeneity and combating modern tendencies to underestimate the intercultural nature of the medieval Mediterranean and Europe.<br>