ABSTRACT
It will be apparent from the chapters in this book that there are few definite answers concerning global citizenship. Contributors disagree whether we are global citizens and indeed about what is meant by being a global citizen. When someone claims that we are global citizens she may have in mind one or more of several strands: first, that we have significant obligations to play our part in creating a better world; second, that we are as a matter of fact global citizens in virtue of various facts about the modern world like the legal fact that we have internationally instituted human rights and the causal fact that our actions do have global impacts for which we are responsible; third, that as a matter of fact many people, by their choices, are global citizens by virtue of their involvement or participation in a variety of activities (such as working through NGOs with global concerns); fourth, that although the institutions in the world do not really reflect this as yet, being a global citizen is about being committed to the development of appropriate institutions at a global level, either forms of global governance and global democracy that fall short of world government or world government itself.
