World citizenship and transnational activism

Transnational activism and globalization call into question whether world citizenship is replacing national citizenship, and whether citizenship is necessarily tied to a bounded political community (Faulks 2000: Ch. 6). William Kymlicka, David Miller and Stephen Neff stress bounded citizenship and defend the association between citizenship and nation-states (Kymlicka 1996; Miller 1999: 60-80; Neff 1999: 105-19), but Andrew Linklater (1999: 35-59), Gerard Delanty (2000) and Geoffrey Stokes (2000) argue that national citizenship is obsolete under globalization. This chapter joins the debate. It demonstrates the existence of world citizenship by examining the normative commitment, behaviour and organization of transnational civil society. Further, the chapter adds the idea of cultural equality to the notion of world citizenship in order to address problems associated with transnational activism. The chapter then presents a sceptical critique of world citizenship and discusses the Asian conditions that constrain the development of world citizenship.