ABSTRACT

This chapter explores how cosmopolitan ideas have been applied to the contemporary problem of military intervention for humanitarian purposes.2 In many ways, the elaboration of a cosmopolitan theory of military intervention is interesting as much as for what it reveals about the emerging cosmopolitan paradigm as for what it offers to ongoing and heated debates about military intervention. This is because it starkly illustrates some of the dilemmas and conundrums faced by those who seek to situate themselves as cosmopolitan actors – as politicians, activists, academics or citizens – in what is, at best, only a partially cosmopolitan world.