The State and Cosmopolitan Responsibilities

Abstract

This panel investigates issues surrounding the incorporation of cosmopolitan moral, institutional, legal and political dimensions into contemporary state practices and structures. In particular, it investigates the idea that the state can become a vehicle for realizing cosmopolitan values. Adopting this state-‘friendly’ approach departs from most of the literature on cosmopolitan theory, which has been premised upon, or directed towards, the transcendence of the state and its eventual replacement by global forms of political community. Alternatively, this panel seeks to bring the state explicitly back into the cosmopolitan discourse, advancing enquiries into whether and how the state may be an agent of, rather than an obstacle to, cosmopolitanism. The papers in this panel are part of a forthcoming Oxford University Press publication of the same title. The panel will also coincide with the launch of the book at ECPR. The papers seek to develop arguments in favour of locating cosmopolitan moral and political responsibility at the state level as either an alternative to, or a corollary of, cosmopolitanism as it is more commonly understood qua requiring transnational or global bearers of responsibility.