Sequestered Cosmopolitanism: Exception or New Paradigm?

Abstract

Even before the global pandemic crisis, cosmopolitanism was regarded as ‘a noble but flawed ideal’. A moral perspective, despite the efforts of theorists who worked towards cosmopolitan democracy, has little impact on the larger political landscape. After a full year of ‘social distancing’ that transformed our world, the question arises – what will happen to the idea that so strongly relies on human commonality, togetherness, and sociability if all those features are severely lacking in our everyday lives? Will this prolonged ‘state of exception’ redesign our society and our political arrangements in such a manner that the idea of cross-border solidarity becomes not just unattainable, but utterly unimaginable? Will the global society remain just a dream from some earlier, more naïve times? Or is it still possible to be a cosmopolitan, ‘a king of infinite space’, even when we are forcefully sequestered in our tiny nutshells? The chapter will confront this changing socio-political landscape in order to provide an examination of changes in the cosmopolitan idea in general – and probably to give a little hope for an uncertain future.

Citation

Beroš, M. (2024), "Sequestered Cosmopolitanism: Exception or New Paradigm?", Sarat, A. (Ed.) Reconceptualizing State of Exception: European Lessons from the Pandemic (Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Vol. 90), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 35-46. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-433720240000090003