Global Cosmopolitans

As globalization creates the need for leaders who transcend national borders, this book provides an insider's view of what makes them special. This is the first book to present a framework for understanding this fast-growing and influential group and it provides tools for readers to discover their own inner competitive edge.

A growing number of people in the world have embraced globalization and actively seek opportunities to live, study, and work in other cultures. Highly talented and deeply motivated, they have been shaped by the new political/economic opportunities, technological realities and personal choices that have configured their lives. They are the Global Cosmopolitans. Professor Linda Brimm, whose last book, Global Cosmopolitans: The Creative Edge of Difference, defined and named this phenomenon, now introduces the Global Cosmopolitan Mindset and Skillset and examines what are the dilemmas and opportunities of composing a global life over time. Dr. Brimm has interviewed Global Cosmopolitans at different life stages and has garnered insights from those on the front line of the global economy. She describes how they understand the life dilemmas and opportunities implicit in navigating the rapidly changing global environment and how they learn from the lives they are creating. While these are people using the expertise developed over their global journey to manage change, lead organizations, make a difference in the world, or create their own ventures, she helps us understand what they have learned and how this global learning opportunity has contributed to the development of a Global Cosmopolitan Mindset and Skillset. This book relates some of the stories that global leaders and entrepreneurs have shared with Dr. Brimm. These concrete examples help us understand what the individuals have learned from their personal experience. Emerging from these stories are the unique attitudes and skills that are necessary to confront life challenges, embrace change and take steps to create new life chapters. Whether you are a Millennial considering joining this ‘Cosmopolitan Club’, an existing Global Cosmopolitan reflecting on what is next, someone in mid-career contemplating an international move, part of an organization trying to develop its responses to a global workforce, or a leader considering who can best run global organizations, this book provides a unique insight into the Global Cosmopolitan Mindset and Skillset – as well as the challenges and rewards of pursuing a global life.

As globalization creates the need for leaders who transcend national borders, this book provides an insider's view of what makes them special. This is the first book to present a framework for understanding this fast-growing and influential group and it provides tools for readers to discover their own inner competitive edge.

Eighteenth-century Sweden was deeply involved in the process of globalisation: ships leaving Sweden’s central ports exported bar iron that would drive the Industrial Revolution, whilst arriving ships would bring not only exotic goods and commodities to Swedish consumers, but also new ideas and cultural practices with them. At the same time, Sweden was an agricultural country to a large extent governed by self-subsistence, and - for most - wealth was created within this structure. This volume brings together a group of scholars from a range of disciplinary backgrounds who seek to present a more nuanced and elaborated picture of the Swedish cosmopolitan eighteenth century. Together they paint a picture of Sweden that is more like the one eighteenth-century intellectuals imagined, and help to situate Sweden in histories of cosmopolitanism of the wider world.

This book offers a moral argument for world government, claiming that not only do we have strong obligations to people elsewhere, but that accountable integration among nation-states will help ensure all persons can lead a decent life.

The Global Commonwealth of Citizens critically examines the prospects for cosmopolitan democracy as a viable and humane response to the challenges of globalization. Arising after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the decisive affirmation of Western-style democracy, cosmopolitan democracy envisions a world politics in which democratic participation by citizens is not constrained by national borders, and where democracy spreads through dialogue and incentives, not coercion and war. This is an incisive and thought-provoking book by one of the world's leading proponents of cosmopolitan democracy. Daniele Archibugi looks at all aspects of cosmopolitan democracy in theory and practice. Is democracy beyond nation-states feasible? Is it possible to inform global governance with democratic norms and values, and if so, how? Archibugi carefully answers questions like these and forcefully responds to skeptics and critics. He argues that democracy can be extended to the global political arena by strengthening and reforming existing international organizations and creating new ones, and he calls for dramatic changes in the foreign policies of nations to make them compatible with global public interests. Archibugi advocates giving voice to new global players such as social movements, cultural communities, and minorities. He proposes building institutional channels across borders to address common problems, and encourages democratic governance at the local, national, regional, and global levels. The Global Commonwealth of Citizens is an accessible introduction to the subject that will be of interest to students and scholars in political science, international relations, international law, and human rights.

The term cosmopolitan is increasingly used within different social, cultural and political settings, including academia, popular media and national politics. However those who invoke the cosmopolitan project rarely ask whose experience, understanding, or vision of cosmopolitanism is being described and for whose purposes? In response, this volume assembles contributors from different disciplines and theoretical backgrounds to examine cosmopolitanism’s possibilities, aspirations and applications—as well as its tensions, contradictions, and discontents—so as to offer a critical commentary on the vital but often neglected question: whose cosmopolitanism? The book investigates when, where, and how cosmopolitanism emerges as a contemporary social process, global aspiration or emancipatory political project and asks whether it can serve as a political or methodological framework for action in a world of conflict and difference.

Certain types of tourism, such as volunteer tourism and student travel, have long been associated with global citizenship. To travel and to experience other societies and other cultures is linked with a cosmopolitan outlook, and also with the capacity to empathise and act ethically in relation to people in distant countries. In turn global citizenship – being a ‘citizen of the world’ - has become increasingly important both as a moral and political identity. Encouraged by employers, validated by universities, travel has become a marker of moral and intent for altruistic and ambitious youth with a mind to travel and the bank balance to facilitate it. The chapters in this volume explore the relationship between tourism, global citizenship and cosmopolitanism. The chapters were originally published in a special issue of Tourism Recreation Research.