Cosmopolitan Political Thought

Abstract

Cosmopolitan political thought is an emerging subfield of political theory. It is motivated by a turn beyond studying the texts and ideas of the traditional Western canon and also by reflections on what kinds of approaches should characterize such study. It emerges from, yet distinguishes itself from, two other subfields: cosmopolitanism and comparative political theory. It acknowledges that theorizing beyond Western resources is crucial, but it suggests that the more important question is a methodological one. That is, it is not simply about the content of which ideas and texts are studied, but also about how they are studied and what assumptions are revealed by a given way of approaching non-Western resources. Cosmopolitanism traces the emergence of its ideas to the ancient Greek and Roman traditions of Stoicism, calling for recognizing the community of rational beings worldwide as the source of the most fundamental moral and social obligations. Contemporary cosmopolitanisms apply this idea to a diversity of themes and debates, ranging from questions of nationalism and global distributive justice to international law, human rights, global democracy, climate change, and just war theory. Comparative political theory, meanwhile, is a subfield of political theory that emerged to focus on the study of political thought from civilizations outside the West. These studies include, among others, histories of political thought within certain non-Western traditions (such as the Indic, Islamic, Chinese, African, or Latin American ones), the history of particular concepts within civilizations, conceptual comparison across civilizations, and the treatment of interpretive or commentarial debates pertaining to certain concepts or problems within certain traditions. Cosmopolitanism raises the question of broadening the scope of political questions to the global, but it privileges the West and suggests that its intellectual heritage contains resources for such theorizing. Comparative political theory addresses non-Western texts and ideas, but it remains silent on which approaches would constitute a more cosmopolitan evolution in political theory’s self-understanding. Cosmopolitan political thought moves beyond both these discourses, engaging in methodological reflection about how the tasks and purposes of political theorizing might be reconceived so that the very practices of theorizing might become more cosmopolitan. Among other things, it argues that any study of non-Western thought must proceed from within, from a perspective internal to the tradition and its central texts, preoccupations, ideas, and concerns. Thus, it emphasizes detailed study of, and immersion within, any important civilizational intellectual tradition as the prerequisite for any subsequent engagement with such ideas. The study of works within particular civilizations serves to further a more cosmopolitan mode of political theorizing rather than simply serving as an artifact of regionally specific interest.

Beyond compare? Free market Islamism as ideology

“…Moreover, in its marked degree of deliberate intellectual cross-pollination and self-conscious borrowing between 'Islam' and the 'West', libertarian Islamism's particular composite nature remains unidentified in post-Eurocentric comparative political theory which, nonetheless, seeks to move beyond conventional categories of Western political theory including hybrid and synthetic modes, thinkers and traditions in its focus on 'non-Western' thought. 82 The analytical constriction of Islamism can be tied to the liberal categories through which we have come to view global contexts of political and ideological action. This presumption of liberalism can also help to explain why libertarian Islamism has remained beyond our conceptions of the multifarious ideological factors which continuously reshape global Islamist politics.…”

“…First, in a preoccupation with forging a dialogue, consensus or synthesis between Islam and the liberal state and, second, in cosmopolitan, or global, forms of comparative political thought which tend to critique the Eurocentrism of Western political thought and neoliberalism. 20 In other words, CPT tends to be statist and liberal, on the one hand, or, when critical of the liberalism, focused on methodology or neoliberal hegemony, on the other. That libertarian Islamism falls in the gap between these approaches also reveals some of the limitations of CPT as an emergent field of study.…”

Beyond understanding: Comparative political theory and cosmopolitan political thought, a research agenda

“…Its use here does not suggest any strict divide between the 'West and the rest', only that the canon has a narrow range of sources. See Godrej (2011) for a good discussion of this issue. 4.…”

“…Notes 1. A note on usage I refer to normative cosmopolitan theory in order to distinguish the task of the normative defense of universalism from the cosmopolitan political theory developed by Godrej (2011) which refers to a form of methodological pluralism and inclusivity in political theory generally. 2.…”

Not All Is Lost in Translation: World Varieties of Cosmopolitanism

“…The objections to it are that it does not take sufficiently seriously non-western thought as offering knowledge in its own terms, for western modes of thought have prior legitimacy and, moreover, dictate the sources that might be taken as examples of relevant non-western knowledge. The assumption is always that the intellectual resources of the West are of universal relevance and that they cannot be known in their own terms, as Godrej (2011) argues of political philosophy. Thus non-western thought as represented by Gandhi, Confucius and Ibn Rushd (Averroes) is given value because these thinkers address questions that are considered important to western thought.…”