Abstract
Citizenship has developed as a central notion of political and legal theory in the last two decades. It has, in several respects, replaced justice in an effort to render it more concrete and integrative. There is a communitarian undertone in citizenship that could make it a less abstract way of thematizing fairness and autonomy. However, this may still be plausible if maintained within the precinct of a presupposed and implicit political facticity. It works and is meaningful in the context of a “city,” of an already existing political community. However, citizenship is also used to project a cosmopolitan form of good life. Global citizenship is the other side of a coin that is labelled global constitutionalism. The paper will challenge this use and expose its possible ideological motivation. It might be that globalism, in this case, is better equated with imperialism.
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Notes
- 1.
See the “statement of principles” of the Project for the New American Century of the 3rd June 1997 and the 25 signatures appended to it, to be found in http://www.newamericancentury.org.
- 2.
See the now so often quoted exercise by R. Kagan (2002).
- 3.
See, for instance, Kissinger 1994: final chapter.
- 4.
See Hardt and Negri 2000, whose central thesis is that “empire” is not equivalent to any centralized military, political and economic overwhelming rule. “Empire,” accordingly, is not overlapping with the present U.S.A. stronghold over the world. Hardt and Negri, rather, point out a “diffuse” empire, not identifiable with any specific State power.
- 5.
See, for instance, Amin 2003.
- 6.
For interesting remarks along lines of which acknowledge the priority of “legitimacy” over “legality,” echoing a well-known suggestion by Carl Schmitt, see Preuß 2003: 99 ss.
- 7.
J. M. Aznar, “La política española de defensa en nuestro mundo,” speech given at the Escuela Superior de las Fuerzas Armadas (ESFAS), Madrid, 20 October 2003; whose full text can be found in El País, 22 October 2003, 23–26.
Actually, one might recall that the distinctive feature of an Empire has been singled out by more than one scholar as the assumed prerogative of preventive war. “It was this willingness to attack any potential danger which made Rome see itself as destined to be mistress of the entire orbis terrarum” (Tuck 2001: 20).
- 8.
Cf. Chiesa 2003.
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La Torre, M. (2013). Global Citizenship? Political Rights Under Imperial Conditions. In: Merle, JC. (eds) Spheres of Global Justice. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5998-5_10
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