Cosmopolitanism and the Legacies of Dissent

"The core idea shared by all cosmopolitan views is that all human beings belong to a single community and the ultimate units of moral concern are individual human beings, not states or particular forms of human associations. Nevertheless, the attempts toground a political theory on overarching universal principles contradicts the plurality of social, cultural, political, and religious interpretative standpoints in the contemporary world. Is dissent cosmopolitan? Is there a legacy of dissent for a theoryof cosmopolitanism? This book is a comparative, historical analysis of dissident thought and practice for contemporary debates on cosmopolitanism. In three parts, the editors and contributors explore the contribution of 'paradigmatic' dissident by the likes of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Havel, Sakharov, Mandela, Liu Xiaobo, and Aung San Suu Kyi toward a post-universalist cosmopolitan theory and examine the inherent cosmopolitanism of the seemingly 'peripheral' dissent of contemporary forms of protests, resistance, and direct action like the NO TAV movement and Occupy Wall Street. Through this timely book which allows for a much-needed new engagement in contemporary debates of cosmopolitanism, we learn how practical resistance to totalizing/hegemonic claims is generated and how dissident thinking might contribute to new, enriched ways of conceiving the non-totalizing foundations of cosmopolitanism. It presents an innovative look at the lessons scholars of cosmopolitanism can learn from dissent/dissident movements and what the role of dissent in cosmopolitan democracy can be"--

Tamara Caraus is a researcher, at the New Europe College in Bucharest, Romania. Her current area of research is in cosmopolitanism, radical political theory, agonistic democracy, dissidence/civil disobedience, global resistance. Tamara Caraus has undertaken several research projects in political philosophy at Institut fur die Wissenschaften vom Menschen, Vienna, Austria; University of Uppsala, Sweden; University of Groningen, The Netherland; Oxford University, UK; University College London, UK; Palacky University of Olomouc, Czech Republic and others.

Camil Alexandru Parvu is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Director of the "Fundamenta Politica" Research Centre at the University of Bucharest. His current research focuses on two directions: the critical foundations of cosmopolitanism and the contemporary articulations of radical democracy and populism. His current publications monitor the renewal of democratic thought and questions about the nature of populism and political movements such as Occupy Wall Street.