Global citizenship, anyone? cosmopolitanism, privilege and public opinion

Abstract

This paper utilises the World Values Survey (WVS) and the Inter-university Survey on Allegiance (ISA) in order to evaluate the claim that cosmopolitanism is elitist. Variants of this claim include: (1) “Cosmopolitanism appeals to almost no one but the rationalist philosophers who articulate it”, (2) “Cosmopolitanism is systematically likely to appeal to privileged individuals”, and (3) “Cosmopolitanism is systematically likely to appeal to privileged societies.” Treating these claims as empirically testable hypotheses, I find that none is strongly supported by available data. Cosmopolitans can therefore be more confident than they have been in defending global citizenship as a practicable and desirable political ideal.

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