ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that both the theory and practice of citizenship are in need of substantial rethinking if they are to meet the challenges of the contemporary human predicament. In many ways the challenge of the new citizen is to practice a dialogue that recognizes and taps into the diversity of our civilizational inheritance. As John Urry puts it, globalization seems to involve some weakening of the power of the social and a corresponding development of “‘post-national’citizenship”. A globalizing world is by necessity a fragmenting world—a world of traveling cultures, global refugee flows, mushrooming diasporas, and new forms of religious and ethnic polarization. Supranational fusion, subnational fission, and transnational interconnectedness are the three dominant trends that are shaping the social, cultural, economic, and ecological landscape. Partly because of its global economic, political, and military dominance, the West has come to believe in the universality of its culture and to measure progress in the light of its own achievements.
