Citizenship and Humanity on the Frontier

Abstract

The Practice of Global Citizenship. By Luis Cabrera. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. 328 pp., $31.99 paperback (ISBN 978-0-521-12810-0). Cosmopolitan international theorists have long argued that there are duties to all other humans, as such, irrespective of borders (Singer 1972; Beitz 1979). According to a strong cosmopolitan position, borders of states are not morally relevant, and therefore it makes no sense to contrast thicker or more demanding duties of citizenship with thinner or less demanding duties of humanity (Brown 1992; Walzer 1994; Cochran 1999). Luis Cabrera's The Practice of Global Citizenship aims to rearrange this picture. Cabrera suggests it is appropriate to focus on duties of “citizenship,” which are indeed thicker and more demanding than duties of “humanity.” But in today's world, in his view, we owe these duties of citizenship to everyone, and not just to co-nationals. The book engages in “qualitative political theory,” which combines arguments, concepts, and conclusions from normative theory with detailed interviews and field work, and because of this, the book is a refreshing addition to its genre (Cabrera 2009; for another example, see also Rao 2010). Global citizenship is not merely put forward as an ideal toward which to aim. Rather, the book's main focus is on unpacking, firstly, the ways in which some individuals are already making great sacrifices in terms of their time and resources—in a way that goes beyond minimum standards of humanitarian aid—to improve the livelihoods of noncompatriots; and secondly, the ways in which supranational institutions, such as the European Union, are moving concretely toward thick and demanding conceptions of rights and duties across …