Citizenship in a Global Age: Society, Culture, Politics

* What is citizenship?
* Is global citizenship possible?
* Can cosmopolitanism provide an alternative to globalization?

Citizenship in a Global Age provides a comprehensive and concise overview of the main debates on citizenship and the implications of globalization. It argues that citizenship is no longer defined by nationality and the nation state, but has become de-territorialized and fragmented into the separate discourses of rights, participation, responsibility and identity. Gerard Delanty claims that cosmopolitanism is increasingly becoming a significant force in the global world due to new expressions of cultural identity, civic ties, human rights, technological innovations, ecological sustainability and political mobilization. Citizenship is no longer exclusively about the struggle for social equality but has become a major site of battles over cultural identity and demands for the recognition of group difference. Delanty argues that globalization both threatens and supports cosmopolitan citizenship. Critical of the prospects for a global civil society, he defends the alternative idea of a more limited cosmopolitan public sphere as a basis for new kinds of citizenship that have emerged in a global age.

Gerard Delanty is Professor of Sociology at the University of Liverpool. He was Visiting Professor at York University, Toronto in 1998, and in 2000 Visiting Professor at Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan, and he has taught at universities in Ireland, Germany and Italy. He is the Chief Editor of the European Journal of Social Theory and author of many articles on social theory, the philosophy of the social sciences and the historical and political sociology of European societies. He has written the following books: Inventing Europe: Idea, Identity, Reality (1995), Social Science: Beyond Constructivism and Realism (1997), Social Theory in a Changing World (1999), Modernity and Postmodernity: Knowledge, Power, the Self (2000). He is also publishing a book on the university and the knowledge society with Open University Press.