Introduction to

Global Citizenship
Lesson II
Defining Global
Citizenship
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What is Global Citizenship?

Global citizenship is the umbrella term for social, political,
environmental, and economic actions of globally minded
individuals and communities on a worldwide scale.

The term can refer to the belief that individuals are members
of multiple, diverse, local and non-local networks rather than
single actors affecting isolated societies.

Promoting global citizenship in sustainable development will

allow individuals to embrace their social responsibility to act
for the benefit of all societies, not just their own.
Dimensions of Global
Citizenship
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Participation: From Liberal

Democracy to Information Society
Participation can only be truly valid if it satisfies certain
requirements concerning unhindered access to information
if such access to information is limited, then the claims
made by the democratic system to being participatory lose
their legitimacy.
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Information crosses national boundaries and shapes global

political practices. Indeed, the sheer volume of information
available on the Internet has been hailed by some as a
positive step towards a free, unhindered, truly democratic
form of active participation on a global scale.

When information is regulated in such a way as to render it

subordinate to political rationality, the political system
operating within state boundaries remains unchallenged.
Citizens’ rights remain dependent upon national laws and
conditions, and their‘ duties’ continue to be to that nation.
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Global citizens have the responsibility to understand the

major global issues that affect their lives. For example, they
need to understand the impact of the scarcity of resources
on societies; the challenges presented by the current
distribution of wealth and power in the world; the roots of
conflict and dimensions of peace-building; the challenges
posed by a growing global populations.
Back to Overview Duties: From National Interests to the
Survival of the Planet
In the national model, this aspect of citizenship has an
essentially contractarian base: certain rights are allocated to
citizens in return for the acceptance of certain duties.
Ideally, this is a reciprocal arrangement, and involves the
establishment of a specific relationship between individual
and state.

In the context of global citizenship, then, the social contract

between citizen and state, which was so central to the
nation-state model, is replaced by an ideally reciprocal
relationship between the human (as citizen) and the planet.
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The rights attributed to these citizens of the Planet Earth are,

necessarily, human rights, ideally to be enjoyed by all. The
duties required of these citizens are duties towards the
world as a whole, that is, towards the maintenance, security
and protection of the planet.

Themes of Ecological Citizenship

1. Rights of Animals
2. Responsibilities towards nature
3. Awareness of ecology as a global issue
 Rights: From Citizenship to Humanity
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Human rights have re-emerged as central to the discourse

of international law, international relations and politics, due
partly to noticeable attempts at genocide performed by
freely elected governments and partly to the gradual
unification of the world.

Human rights are now considered crucial to any project of

global inclusion. Although flawed, the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights remains the take-off point for any discussion
of the legally recognized nature of human rights.
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Membership: From Political State to
Multicultural Society
‘Multiculturalism’ offers the fourth challenge to the nation
state model—a challenge to the idea of membership and,
from that, to the idea of social rights, where these have been
defined in the past according to questions of inclusion and
exclusion.

Migration and the constant global flows of people have

forced us to accept that people’s cultural or national
identification may not simply relate to their country of
residence, even if they are citizens of that country.
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As one of the aims of the modern, nation-state model

of citizenship was to build a sense of national solidarity and
integration, the assumption seemed to be that new citizens
would become integrated into the host country, and feel a
sense of belonging primarily to it.
Approaches of Global
Citizenship
Back to Overview Global Competitiveness
Approach
Because we live in a globally interconnected world, young people
everywhere need to be prepared to take their place in it, particularly
in relation to jobs and the economy.

In the globalized world, people move, businesses move, and through

technology, individuals can work for businesses located in different
countries. As such, one’s well-being is affected as much by someone
who lives thousands of miles away as by local neighbors, by
governments in other nations as well as their own, and by businesses
in foreign lands as well as local ones. To prepare students to live
successfully in the globalized world, schools must adopt a global
perspective (Zhao, 2009, p. 3).
 Cosmopolitan Approach
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Because we all live as part of a shared global community, it is

important that we understand more about each other, learn about,
and respect different cultural perspectives, and seek solidarity and
the application of ‘universal’ values, for example, those values related
to human rights.

To be cosmopolitan in this sense is to be open to those from other

places, take an interest in their cultural practices, learn about these
practices through reading, travel, and personal contact, and even to
shape a personal identity as a cosmopolitan through such
experiences (Oxley and Morris, 2013, p. 10; Waks, 2008).
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Advocacy Approach
Because inequity and unfair conditions are evident throughout the world, it
is important that people work to challenge and overcome these inequities.
This approach is closely related to social justice, civic action and
empowering individuals and communities to raise their voices.

Global citizens know that a world that deprives 1.2 billion people living in
extreme poverty of their basic rights and opportunities is unjust and
unacceptable. Global citizens believe that we must take action to end the
injustice of extreme poverty, by changing the rules that keep people
trapped in the cycle of poverty. Global citizens act to ensure that
everybody, regardless of where they are born, has the basic rights,
education, services, and infrastructure that will allow them to move beyond
poverty (Global Citizen, formerly the Global Poverty Project).