Conclusion

Abstract

Working in normative theory, the book presents a new theory of citizenship simpliciter: as an institutional role permitting moral agency within a complex and differentiated institutional space. Further, in today's world of complex rule-making interdependence the prospects for democratically authoritative decision-making beyond the state depends on our being able to develop a new conception of citizenship, one able to accommodate national affiliation but not be bound by it, and one able to be institutionally and thus politically consequential. The Conclusion summarises the author's response to this problem: a conception of supranational citizenship as the institutional embodiment of the active and collective agency of reasonable composite selves in a community of rights, shaping their common and separate destinies under conditions of political equality and mutual recognition and respect. Whatever its territorial scope, insofar as that citizenship consists in effective powers and constitutes a political order conducing to the well-being and freedom of individuals, it authorises and justifies the framework of political authority. Additionally the chapter suggests in what ways the book contributes to Gewirth scholarship and to international political theory more generally.