ABSTRACT
The gradual emergence of the cosmopolitical accompanies the development of cosmopolitanism from an intellectual ethos to a vision of a global political consciousness that is generated and sustained by institutional structures. The cosmopolitical refers to a material global condition that, in the current conjuncture, has not yet generated a mass-based cosmopolitan consciousness. In comparison with older philosophical approaches, some of the proponents of new cosmopolitanism attempt to dissociate it from universal reason, arguing that cosmopolitanism is now a variety of actually existing practical stances that are provisional and can lead to strategic alliances and networks that cross territorial and political borders. Hence, transnational migration, Habermas argues, actually accelerates the decoupling of political culture from the pre-political identity of the majority cultural group so that it can be completely co-extensive with the public-discursive democratic process. Habermas’s cosmopolitan vision consists of a dynamic complex of interconnected public spheres at both the national and transnational level rather than a world organization.
