Critical review of cosmopolitanism part 1: scepticism towards the viability of cosmopolitan democracy and its implication for Africans

Abstract

This essay is the first of a two-part series about Cosmopolitan Democracy. It questions the viability of this idea, and the author seeks to understand the practicality of this concept on a pragmatic, rather than an idealistic lens, in the contemporary global society. Cosmopolitan Democracy, championed by globalists is a perspective of world governance or a "world state" concept where a decentralized system of governance is sustained by various decision-making sources whilst honouring states with some level of national autonomy. It is a concept which gives the morality of the individual a central viewpoint and this morality is what should be
regarded when sustaining societies, hence the massive attention on social justice by its proponents. Issues raised such as distributive justice, coercion and partiality, the cosmopolitan conceptual legitimacy at a global level, citizenship, reciprocity and sovereignty oppose the legitimacy and practicality of this concept, giving statists, sovereigntists, nationalists and other sceptics of the cosmopolitan Agenda reasons to question this ideology. With the complexities surrounding the conceptual definition and implementation of cosmopolitan democracy, a good number of scholars fear it may not be as progressive as it has been widely portrayed by its
adherents.