New Cosmopolitanism, Democracy and the Place of Scottish Studies

Abstract

Cosmopolitanism is the hippest new theoretical ‘ism’ on the academic block. From Sociology to Political Philosophy, International Relations to the study of Literature, there is currently a wealth of academic capital invested in cosmopolitanism theory.2 Cosmopolitanism, for many intellectuals, offers a progressive global solution to the continued problem of what they see as the aggressive and irrational atavism that is nationalism. Stan van Hooft, for instance, claims that ‘nationalism is one of the chief enemies of cosmopolitan societies’, and he cites Ulrich Beck, the guru of cosmopolitanism theory, to substantiate his assertion.3 For van Hooft cosmopolitanism is the theoretical expression for the exercise of a truly ‘global ethics’.4 He defines cosmopolitanism as ‘the view that the moral standing of all peoples and of each individual person around the globe is equal’, and with somewhat Manichean zeal states plainly that, while ‘nationalism is a dangerous ideology’, ‘Cosmopolitanism is a virtue’.5 But if, as Fredric Jameson has suggested persuasively, postmodernism signifies