Cosmopolitan Civility

Essays reflecting on the prolific, pioneering, and wide-ranging scholarship of Fred Dallmayr. Prolific and pioneering, Fred Dallmayr has been an active scholar for over fifty years. His research interests include modern and contemporary political theory, hermeneutics, phenomenology, the Frankfurt School, continental political thought, democratic theory, multiculturalism, environmentalism, and cosmopolitanism. Dallmayr is also one of the founders of comparative political thought and his interest in non-Western political theory spans Chinese, Islamic, Indian, Buddhist, and Latin American traditions. In emulation of the vast interdisciplinary and international character of Dallmayr’s work, this book draws upon senior and emerging scholars from an array of disciplines and countries, with essays that are philosophical (in the Western and non-Western traditions), cultural and/or political, and international. Dallmayr himself responds to the essays in a concluding chapter. “This book is both unique and outstanding. In very few other volumes have I come across such cross-cultural, diverse, and high quality responses to an author’s work. It is truly rare to find a volume that is so broad ranging and at the same time clearly and coherently organized, just as it is rare to find a scholar of Dallmayr’s range and depth. He counts as one of the great humanists of our time, and this book is a richly merited tribute to him.” — Joseph Prabhu, editor of The Intercultural Challenge of Raimon Panikkar

Bangalore is often heralded as India’s future—a city where global technologies converge with multinational capital to produce a cosmopolitan workforce and vibrant economic growth. In this narrative the city’s main challenge revolves around its success: whether its physical infrastructure can support its burgeoning population. Most observers assume that Bangalore’s emergence as a “global city” represents its more complete integration into the world economy and, by extension, a more inclusive and cosmopolitan outlook among its growing middle class. Andrew C. Willford sheds light on a growing paradox: even as Bangalore has come to signify “progress” and economic possibility both within India and to the outside world, movements to make the city more monocultural and monolinguistic have gained prominence. Bangalore is the capital of the state of Karnataka, its borders linguistically redrawn by the postcolonial Indian state in 1956. In the decades that followed, organizations and leaders emerged to promote linguistic nationalism aimed at protecting the fragile unity of Kannadiga culture and literature against the twin threats of globalization and internal migration. Ironically, they support parochial cultural policies that impose a cultural and linguistic unity upon an area that historically stood at the crossroads of empires, trade routes, language practices, devotional literatures, and pilgrimage routes. Willford’s analysis, which focuses on the minority experience of Bangalore’s sizeable Tamil-speaking community, shows how the same forces of globalization that create growth and prosperity also foster uncertainty and tension around religion and language that completely contradict the region’s long history of cosmopolitanism. Exploring this paradox in Bangalore’s entangled and complex linguistic and cultural pasts serves as a useful case study for understanding the forces behind cultural and ethnic revivalism in the contemporary postcolonial world. Buttressed by field research conducted over a twenty-two-year period (1992–2015), Willford shows how the past is a living resource for the negotiation of identity in the present. Against the gloom of increasingly communal conflicts, he finds that Bangalore still retains a fabric of civility against the modern markings of cultural difference.

A Yale sociology professor discusses how everyday people meet the demands of urban living through islands of civility he calls "cosmopolitan canopies" and describes how activities carried out under this canopy can ease racial tensions and promote harmony.

Examines the critical role of urban taverns in the social and political life of colonial and revolutionary America From exclusive “city taverns” to seedy “disorderly houses,” urban taverns were wholly engrained in the diverse web of British American life. By the mid-eighteenth century, urban taverns emerged as the most popular, numerous, and accessible public spaces in British America. These shared spaces, which hosted individuals from a broad swath of socioeconomic backgrounds, eliminated the notion of “civilized” and “wild” individuals, and dismayed the elite colonists who hoped to impose a British-style social order upon their local community. More importantly, urban taverns served as critical arenas through which diverse colonists engaged in an ongoing act of societal negotiation. Inn Civility exhibits how colonists’ struggles to emulate their British homeland ultimately impelled the creation of an American republic. This unique insight demonstrates the messy, often contradictory nature of British American society building. In striving to create a monarchical society based upon tenets of civility, order, and liberty, colonists inadvertently created a political society that the founders would rely upon for their visions of a republican America. The elitist colonists’ futile efforts at realizing a civil society are crucial for understanding America’s controversial beginnings and the fitful development of American republicanism.

This book examines the concept of civility and the conditions of civil disagreement in politics and education. Although many assume that civility is merely polite behavior, it functions to aid rational discourse. Building on this basic assumption, the book offers multiple accounts of civility and its contribution to citizenship, deliberative democracy, and education from Eastern and Western as well as classic and modern perspectives. Given that civility is essential to all aspects of public life, it is important to address how civility may be taught. While much of the book is theoretical, contributors also apply theory to practice, offering concrete methods for teaching civility at the high school and collegiate levels.

Cosmopolitanism: Uses of the Idea offers an illuminating and dynamic account of an often confusing and widespread concept. Bringing together both historical and contemporary approaches to cosmopolitanism, as well as recognizing its multidimensional nature, Zlatko Skrbis and Ian Woodward manage to show the very essence of cosmopolitanism as a theoretical idea and cultural practice. Through an exploration of various social fields, such as media, identity and ethics, the book analyses the limits and possibilities of the cosmopolitan turn and explores the different contexts cosmopolitanism theory has been, and still is, applied to. Critical, diverse and engaging, the book successfully answers questions such as: How can we understand cosmopolitanism? What is the relationship between cosmopolitanism and ethics? What is the relationship between cosmopolitanism and identity? How do cosmopolitan networks come into being? How do we apply cosmopolitanism theory to contemporary, digital and mediated societies? This comprehensive and authoritative title is a must for anyone interested in cultural consumption, contemporary citizenship and identity construction. It will be especially useful for students and scholars within the fields of social theory, ethics, identity politics, cultural diversity and globalisation.

Contemporary cosmopolitan moral theorists argue that in our increasingly interconnected world all individuals need to recognize that moral duties span state borders, involving responsibilities such as respecting human rights. Such arguments usually focus on the duties of individuals or on reforms for international political and economic institutions. The Cosmopolitan Potential of Exclusive Associations draws attention to how non-state, not-for-profit transnational associations can advance moral equality in a plurality of less obvious ways. By synthesizing moral theories of cosmopolitanism with international relations scholarship it is possible to establish criteria for assessing whether and to what extent transnational associations like Doctors without Borders or the International Olympic Committee cultivate respect for fellow humans and build transnational communities. As these examples show, not all non-state associations have the purpose of advocating for human rights. Membership is also not necessarily inclusive of all humanity. Membership criteria exclude based on criteria such as professional expertise, athletic prowess, or certain religious beliefs. As a result, assessing their impact requires looking for partial expressions of cosmopolitanism that arise piecemeal and without self-conscious intention. Rather than defending one version of cosmopolitan theory as more applicable to evaluating the impact of associations, adapting and combining four common approaches to cosmopolitanism—(1) institutional cosmopolitanism, (2) natural duties cosmopolitanism, (3) cultural cosmopolitanism, and (4) deliberative democratic cosmopolitanism—makes it possible to evaluate institutional, developmental, shared identity, or public sphere effects of associations. Applying the criteria to associations that do not advance cosmopolitanism self-consciously shows the potential for partial forms of cosmopolitanism. Médecins sans Frontières, the first case explored, provides emergency medical care across the globe without establishing a transnational community with those it aids. The International Olympic Committee, the second case, brings the world together around global games in which national teams compete against each other. Dissidents in the Anglican Communion, the third case, unite globally around an interpretation of the Bible that excludes gay men from ordained ministry. Despite non-cosmopolitan elements, each case has lessons about how respect for moral equality can emerge without self-conscious belief in cosmopolitan moral philosophy.

Originally the constitution was expected to express and channel popular sovereignty. It was the work of freedom, springing from and facilitating collective self-determination. After the Second World War this perspective changed: the modern constitution owes its authority not only to collective authorship, it also must commit itself credibly to human rights. Thus people recede into the background, and the national constitution becomes embedded into one or other system of 'peer review' among nations. This is what Alexander Somek argues is the creation of the cosmopolitan constitution. Reconstructing what he considers to be the three stages in the development of constitutionalism, he argues that the cosmopolitan constitution is not a blueprint for the constitution beyond the nation state, let alone a constitution of the international community; rather, it stands for constitutional law reaching out beyond its national bounds. This cosmopolitan constitution has two faces: the first, political, face reflects the changed circumstances of constitutional authority. It conceives itself as constrained by international human rights protection, firmly committed to combating discrimination on the grounds of nationality, and to embracing strategies for managing its interaction with other sites of authority, such as the United Nations. The second, administrative, face of the cosmopolitan constitution reveals the demise of political authority, which has been traditionally vested in representative bodies. Political processes yield to various, and often informal, strategies of policy co-ordination so long as there are no reasons to fear that the elementary civil rights might be severely interfered with. It represents constitutional authority for an administered world.