Globalisation, cosmopolitanism and ecological citizenship

Abstract

Globalization is patently changing our understanding of environmental politics. It relates to environmental problems in two ways. First, environmental problems and their effects are global, and hence solutions beyond the remit of nation states are required. Second, globalization may benefit local - global relationship and contribute to the realization of a sustainable society. These points obviously influence green political theory since one of its tasks is to understand the transformation of political community in the context of the global scope of environmental problems. One route is through laying the foundations for an autochthonous idea of citizenship namely, ecological or environmental citizenship. The goal of this article is to explore the connections between cosmopolitan reflections on citizenship on the one hand, and green political theory's attempts to develop its own idea of citizenship, on the other. It is argued that although the idea of ecological citizenship may be regarded as a kind of cosmopolitan or global citizenship, its features and current degree of development move towards a new kind of citizenship. © 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd.