Review Essay

Energy, Economics, and the Environment: Toward a Comprehensive Perspective, edited by Gregory A. Daneke. Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath, 1982.

Nuclear Power: Both Sides. The Best Arguments For and Against the Most Controversial Technology, edited by Michio Kaku and Jennifer Trainer. New York: W. W. Norton, 1982.     

The Globalization of Rights: From Citizenship to Human Rights

Globalization is shifting the balance away from membership-based citizenship towards universal human rights, thus we ask: how are new human rights generated? We argue that the movement for human rights follows on the heels of the much older and richer tradition of citizenship, as can be seen from the fact that many of the new claims put forward by human rights activists seek to define traditional citizenship rights as universal human rights. Most recently, we witness attempts by NGOs and CSOs to bring health, rights-based development, and identity rights under the umbrella of human rights. We examine the changing but continuous relationship of these two rights traditions, the gains made by human rights activists and the global solidarity and national enforcement capacity needed to underwrite their further progress.     

The Limits of Political Citizenship

Policy makers tend to focus on the extension of citizenship as the primary means by which new populations become incorporated into a society. Although acquiring formal citizenship is necessary in order to participate in many aspects of a state's civic, social, and political life, the extension of legal citizenship is far from a guarantee for full membership. Instead of focusing exclusively on naturalizing immigrants, we need to consider T.H. Marshall's three spheres of citizenship—the civil, political, and social. By extending social elements of citizenship prior to or at the same time as we extend other benefits, we will move towards more complete citizenship for and greater civil and political engagement among all residents in our society—non-citizens, naturalized, and native-born, alike.

Citizenship Education: Anti-political Culture and Political Education in Britain

The British Government white paper 'Excellence in Schools' and the subsequent report of the Advisory Group on Citizenship Education for Citizenship recommend that schools educate pupils in citizenship and democracy. This recommendation is considered in the context of reasons why there has traditionally been no formal or well articulated political education in schools. Among these reasons a pervasive antipathy to politics and to government is identified as one of the most powerful. This antipathy is expressed from the left and the right wings of the political spectrum, and the 'critical' opposition to both, as well as from interests such as those defending professional and personal autonomy. These arguments imply that 'politics' is optional, not a set of practices and institutions with which individuals must be familiar. It is argued that this proposition cannot be valid.     

Economic Globalization and Political Atrophy

Economic globalization is the systematic expansion of corporate capital across national boundaries in search of markets, raw materials, low-cost labor, and technological advantage, which is made possible by growing capital mobility and facilitated by increasingly open conditions of trade, communications and information-sharing. The process has extended its speed and scope over the past few decades, further solidifying the world capitalist system and with it the leading national and international centers of power. Yet economic trends associated with corporate expansion into every region of the globe have no parallel in the realm of politics, where we see diminution of national and local governing structures, erosion of established ideologies, depoliticization of social movements and NGOs, and the failure of any international system of governance to take hold. We are presently witnessing a profound depoliticizing dynamic in which the global triumphs over the local, the commodity over culture, homogenization over diversity, and economics over politics. This political impasse reflects not only a certain Hobbesian character of global civil society but also the crisis of the left and the limits of Seattle-style protests. More basically, it points toward tremendous material and ideological obstacles facing popular struggles against corporatedriven globalization under any circumstances.     

The Decline of Citizenship in an Era of Globalization

This article seeks to identify the linkages between traditional conceptions of citizenship based on affiliation with a territorial state and the rise of global market forces. The basic argument set forth is that the erosion of state autonomy and the emergence of arenas of decision and power beyond the control of the state have been weakening traditional bonds of identity between individuals and the state. This pattern is particularly pronounced in the liberal democratic states of the West, which were the main settings within which citizenship in its modern forms emerged. The latter parts of the article consider the prospects for new forms of political identity that are reshaping the meaning of citizenship, creating multiple loyalties and superseding the monolithic conception of citizenship associated with a Westphalian system of world public order. It is, as yet, too soon to depict the contours of post-Westphalian citizenship, but its essence will be shaped by an allegiance to shared values and to the experience of community, a dynamic that will increasingly diminish the reductive association of the citizen exclusively with a particular sovereign state.     

Citizenship Norms and the Expansion of Political Participation

A growing chorus of scholars laments the apparent decline of political participation in America, and the negative implications of this trend for American democracy. This article questions this position – arguing that previous studies misdiagnosed the sources of political change and the consequences of changing norms of citizenship for Americans' political engagement. Citizenship norms are shifting from a pattern of duty-based citizenship to engaged citizenship. Using data from the 2005 'Citizenship, Involvement, Democracy' survey of the Center for Democracy and Civil Society (CDACS) I describe these two faces of citizenship, and trace their impact on political participation. Rather than the erosion of participation, this norm shift is altering and expanding the patterns of political participation in America.     

Review Essay: Death and Delusion on the Trade Front

Books reviewed in this article: How to Kill a Country: Australia's Devastating Trade Deal with the United States Linda Weiss, Elizabeth Thurbon and John Matthews All the Way with the USA: Australia, the US and Free Trade Ann Capling Community and Local Governance in Australia Paul Smyth, Tim Reddel and Andrew Jones (eds) The Thirty Year Problem: The Politics of Australian Tax Reform Richard Eccleston Into the Future: The Neglect of the Long Term in Australian Politics Ian Marsh and David Yencken Yes, Premier: Labor leadership in Australia's States and Territories John Wanna and Paul Williams (eds) Making and Breaking Universities Bruce Williams Ethics and organisational politics Chris Provis Power Politics. The electricity crisis and you John Spoehr (ed) Markets in Vice, Markets in Virtue John Braithwaite Pensions: Challenges and Reforms, International Studies on Social Security, Vol. 9 Editors Einar Overbye and Peter A. Kemp