There’s No Such Thing as a Global Citizen

Global problems like climate change require leaders with vision who move beyond narrow, short-term interests. YaleGlobal is among the many urging global solutions for such global problems. Jakub Grygiel, international relations professor, describes that goal as a “figment of the imagination of the few” to be avoided in practice. He expresses concern about schools of public policy “giving up on the goal of incubating policymakers with a clear sense of national identity and a powerful belief in the necessity and right to protect national interests” and points to the “tendency to portray the world as a collection of problems that only a worldwide cooperative process can address, rather than as a strategic landscape within which each country – with its particular history, intellectual foundations and cultural underpinnings – has to assess trade-offs and act to protect its citizens.” He suggests that being loyal to all is loyalty for nothing and that a “current global citizenship movement” will fail. More often than not, strong community citizenship overlaps with good national citizenship. So, too, concern for global problems may be the essence of good citizenship in both communities and nations. – YaleGlobal