ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the relation between cosmopolitan theory and world politics in these theoretical and historical contexts. It suggests that the critical discourse of cosmopolitanism has not been so much undermined by these contexts as re-inflected; or, rather, that the cosmopolitan gesture of thought and practice needs to reorganize itself in order to come to terms with the emerging political realities of the twenty-first century. The chapter defines that international liberalism could be usefully rethought in more cosmopolitan republican terms. It argues continued political and institutional cosmopolitanism, but one that is more modest and pragmatic than those canvassed in the first cosmopolitan response to globalization processes. The chapter responds to counterarguments with respective suggestions concerning: the role of international institutions in an interdependent, polycentric world; the increasing importance of state responsibility to basic cosmopolitan commitments; and republican example in a world of cooperation and conflict.
