Global Public Institutions for Global Problems

Many urgent global problems—global poverty, climate change, human trafficking, and warfare—currently demand our attention, and a set of global public institutions exists to tackle them. Among the better-known institutions of this kind are the International Labor Organization and International Monetary Fund, which are United Nations (UN) agencies, and the International Atomic Energy Agency and International Organization for Migration, which are independent agencies but associated with the United Nations.

Because there is no world state or globally integrated government akin to the state, there are many points of disanalogy between global public institutions and their domestic counterparts. Their function can nevertheless be described in similar terms. The UN General Assembly or UNESCO organization, to name two examples, are responsible at the global level for tasks that are performed domestically by the US Congress or Department of Education. All are public institutions. Unlike corporations or NGOs, public institutions take on duties of administration, regulation, and the distribution of goods at a given level of politics—the bounded polity in the case of the state, and the world in the case of global institutions. They also more or less consciously view themselves as public institutions, fulfilling a public function. In contrast, when NGOs perform duties of governance, such as when they administer a health program or distribute resources, they do so as private actors, representing the particular values and interests of a select group of individuals. For example, on their websites, global public institutions will often claim to represent the world population as a whole and/or to have a formal, international mandate to tackle some of the world's most pressing problems. NGOs instead tend to emphasize their independence from public policy and formal structures of governance, and indeed it is part of the World Association of NGO's Code of Conduct that NGOs are both independent and self-governing. In other words, even NGOs that regularly take on tasks of governance are self-consciously ‘outsiders,’ complementing the work of states or other public institutions if the NGO's mission happens to share a ‘common cause’ with a public policy or goal or stepping in where public institutions fall short (e.g., Reference BuckinxBuckinx 2012; WANGO 2005).

Public institutions at the state or global level can acquit themselves more or less well of their tasks. One standard for evaluating their performance is the civic republican one, which focuses on the extent to which the institution shields individuals from domination while also avoiding becoming a dominating actor itself. In republican theory, domination is akin to subjection or servitude: a person is dominated when she is not effectively shielded from the ability of other actors to interfere on an arbitrary basis in her decision making (Reference LovettLovett 2018; Reference MaynorMaynor 2003; Reference PettitPettit 1997). Freedom as non-domination is not an all-or-none concept; it is a matter of degree. An actor may have a greater or lesser capacity to interfere arbitrarily in another's choices, he may have a capacity to interfere more or less arbitrarily, and he may have a capacity to interfere arbitrarily in a larger or smaller set of choices that are more or less important to the victim (cf. Reference PettitPettit 1997).

Public institutions have a dual responsibility of ‘freedom protection’ and ‘domination avoidance.’ First, they must protect individuals against domination by third parties. The broad aim of the administrative, regulatory, and distributive duties of public institutions is thus to reduce the vulnerability of individuals to domination and to enhance their freedom. Properly enforced labor laws, for example, shield workers from the dominating power of employers. And when the state distributes goods such as medical care or education, citizens are better able to resist submission to the power of others. Second, public institutions must avoid dominating others. They must carry out their tasks of governance without becoming agents of domination in the process.

It is difficult to strike a good balance between these two responsibilities. The more powerful a public institution becomes, the more likely it is to acquit itself well of the first responsibility—that of ‘freedom protection’—because it will have more resources at its disposal to push through its agenda. The more powerful the institution becomes, however, the more likely it also is to turn into an agent of domination. In order to prevent this from happening, institutions are checked by other institutions and subjected to regulation and law. Citizens, however, play the most important role, since they should monitor the institutions and the ways in which these are checked internally.

Citizenship, Trust, and Vigilance

Encouraged by a sense of allegiance to the state and pride in the community, citizens should remain watchful and press for change when institutions become ineffective and/or dominating. Vigilance is best understood as an attitude as well as a practice. It is an attitude of caring watchfulness that is predicated, at best, on an orientation to the public good based on a genuine love of country, that is, patriotism, or, if need be, on a selfish assessment that the pursuit of individual life projects depends on the continuation of the state in its current, democratic form. Jeremy Bentham encouraged public distrust toward public institutions, placing little confidence in the honesty or altruism of public officials. Public power was to be regarded with general suspicion (Reference Bentham and J.Bentham 1843; see also e.g., Reference RosenRosen 1983). In Jonathan Bruno's reading, Bentham, however, also understood the value of trust; namely, a particularized trust toward the institutions that proved themselves worthy of it (Reference BrunoBruno 2017). It is the “paradox of trust and democracy” that democratic governance requires trust on the part of the citizenry in order to be effective, but in order to endure over time, it requires the establishment of institutions that assume the worst of officials and what they might do if their power is insufficiently restrained. Too much trust, and the democratic system of governance will over time be undermined by corruption and captured by special interests; too little trust, and it will not get off the ground in the first place.

The relationship between trust and distrust, and its import for the functioning of a democracy, can be explained in two different ways. First, it is possible to conclude that trust and mistrust can attach to different objects and can therefore be present simultaneously. It may be possible to mistrust political leadership, for instance, while maintaining trust in institutional structures (Reference NorrisNorris 1999, Reference Norris2011). Second, trust and expressions of mistrust can also coherently co-exist, such that citizens ‘confidently rely’ on political leaders but nevertheless maintain a demanding set of expectations for them to regularly prove that this trust is not misplaced (Reference PettitPettit 1997). Moreover, a certain level of trust may be a prerequisite to motivate individuals to watch over institutions. If abuses of power are expected as a matter of course, citizens will lack the motivation to continuously check the offending agent's power.

In a republican state, an attitude of watchfulness or vigilance is a crucial complement to the array of institutional mechanisms that similarly check the state's power. This is an arduous duty, since it involves paying close attention on an ongoing, indefinite basis to a matter that is not (usually) of immediate, personal interest. Reference BellamyRichard Bellamy (2000) views civic participation as the primary condition for the protection of liberty: citizens are free when they participate in the political decision-making process of the republic. Placing an emphasis on ‘freedom as citizenship,’ Iseult Honohan sees subjection to state authority as the basis for citizenship, and citizens as ‘involuntarily interdependent as equals in a practice or institution’ (Reference HonohanHonohan 2001a; Reference Honohan2001b). John Barry, for his part, defines citizenship as the “mediating practice which connects the individual and the institutional levels of society, as well as a common identity which links otherwise disparate individuals together as a collectivity with common interests” (1996: 123).

The requisite vigilance is more likely to obtain when citizens feel a sense of pride in and allegiance to the state. This individual disposition and behavior is perhaps best described as patriotism or love of the state (Reference ViroliViroli 1995). Because it is so important for the continued health of the polity, much is done—by the state, citizens, and other actors in society—to bring about and encourage such an attachment and attitude. Public education inculcates common values and informs citizens about the character and aims of the state and its current functioning. Liberal political theorists such as Amy Gutmann and Stephen Macedo have offered accounts of how liberal values can be instilled through educational practices and policies (Reference GutmannGutmann 1995, Reference MacedoMacedo 1990, Reference Macedo2000), thereby ‘creating citizens’ (cf. Reference CallanCallan 1997) fit for the liberal polity. While this is a demanding ideal of citizenship, the republican ideal is arguably more demanding, since it places relatively more weight on a deeply felt commitment to watchfulness.

Global Conditions for Civic Vigilance

There is, of course, a gap between theory and practice. Many contemporary societies are characterized by a lack of trust in public institutions and lack of regard for their functioning. Nevertheless, the crucial conditions for vigilance do exist. Citizens do feel some allegiance to their state, especially in relation to others—as evidenced in trivial and not so trivial circumstances, from the American channel NBC's US-centric coverage of the Olympic Games to the willingness of many Ukrainian civilians to take up arms against invading Russian troops.

Reference MillerDavid Miller (1999) argues that social justice schemes function best when an underlying collective identity creates “bonds of solidarity.” The sociological literature suggests that a common social identity—such as that cultivated through citizenship, from passports and national anthems to common standards in public education, and a common vernacular—helps individuals view the interests of other group members as their own (Reference Brewer and KramerBrewer and Kramer 1985; Reference Brewer, Silver, Sheldon, Timothy J. and Robert W.Brewer and Silver 2000; Reference PippengerPippenger 2023; Reference TajfelTajfel 1982). This inclination to cooperate is likely a precondition for a robust civil society. Reference Alesina and Edward L.PAlberto Alesina and Edward L. Glaeser (2004) found that redistributive social welfare policies gain more support in racially homogenous areas.

In contrast with the domestic state, the global order has high levels of cultural, linguistic, racial, and socio-economic diversity. For Reference NagelThomas Nagel (1991), solidarity is essentially exclusive, and a globally extended sense of solidarity and an inclusive scheme of global justice are therefore not feasible. However, as the success of large nations shows, individuals can be incentivized to care for millions of strangers on the basis of relatively abstract political ties. It is therefore not improbable to suggest that individuals may over time, and under the right conditions, become willing to share with and sacrifice for non-compatriots (Reference CaneyCaney 2005). After all, the bond between compatriots results only in part from common characteristics and fates. States also undertake various measures to strengthen this bond (e.g., Reference Singer and D. K.Singer 2004), and the same strategies could be employed globally to incentivize global trust and solidarity, as well as allegiance to global public institutions.

Rogers Smith's (2015) work is instructive in this regard. Smith offers a descriptive account of how polities develop, and he highlights the contingent nature of conceptions of citizenship, which can be more or less exclusionary—with regard to immigrants, minorities and other outsiders within the polity, and presumably also individuals beyond it. He argues that a ‘spiral of politics’ links the formulation of ideas, including, crucially, narratives of peoplehood, with political actors who “inherit, modify, and elaborate ideas to guide political conduct” (Reference SmithSmith 2015: 24), which often results in political transformation or evolution. Stories of peoplehood include economic and political elements and convey the normatively good traits that describe the members. Since these narratives are subject to change, Smith advises that we actively discourage providentialist or exceptionalist narratives, and instead adopt and promote moderate, flexible, and multiple conceptions of peoplehood that are inclusive of non-citizens and national minorities.

While Smith does not focus on narratives that extend beyond the state or the people, other scholars do. The unique construction of EU citizenship, in particular, has provided inspiration for normative accounts of supranational citizenship. EU citizenship is held by citizens of individual member states in conjunction with their state citizenship, and it is commonly described as “the fundamental status of nationals of the Member States, enabling those who find themselves in the same situation to enjoy the same treatment in law irrespective of their nationality” (European Court of Justice 2001: para 31). Among global governance scholars, it is commonly viewed as the main precedent for how to build transnational citizenship. For instance, Reference HabermasHabermas (2012) notes that, since individuals are both national and EU citizens, they can take on the national identity when voting in national elections and the European identity when voting for the European parliament (Reference HabermasHabermas 2012). Scholars such as Bohman have similarly been inspired by the EU, in general, and EU citizenship, in particular, as the basis for their normative accounts of global governance.

Bohman develops an account of global governance that extends the political subject from a unitary people, the demos, to multiple, overlapping demoi, which he views as a better context for the realizing of non-domination (2007). Connected to one another by public spheres, these various demoi or political communities provide opportunities for the exercise of the normative powers of citizenship. Bohman highlights the emergence of distributive “public of publics” (2007: 77) such as the internet rather than a public sphere in the more familiar, unified sense, since it can mediate communication between and among different publics. The distributive “public of publics” is a decentered space that becomes a public sphere through the reflexive, democratic activity of individuals.

Citizens can properly resist domination only when their right to be recognized as members in the human political community is acknowledged as a basic human right, and human rights must thus be reconceptualized as membership rights in the political community of humanity. The optimal global institutional structure, according to Bohman, is a large and differentiated federation that disperses power at different levels and in different locations. Similarly, José Luis Martí advocates for a global republic constrained in part by engaged civic action in a global public sphere (2010).

However, in a system of overlapping publics and institutions, individuals will have multiple and potentially conflicting allegiances. An overarching sense of allegiance to the larger political community may still be needed to sustain the system as a whole (e.g., Reference Miller, C. and J.Miller 2008b). The EU, so often touted as a successful real-world example of multi-level governance, may have the requisite formal checks and balances, but it lacks a unifying demos and may therefore suffer from a lack of civic engagement and subjective legitimacy (Reference BickertonBickerton 2011).^{Footnote 1}

Richard Bellamy stakes out a more moderate position. He is sympathetic to the idea of a European demoicracy (cf. Nicolaidis 2013) or a union of peoples and offers a normative argument for ‘republican intergovernmentalism’—a republican association of sovereign states which are non-dominating in character and guarantee free movement among them (Reference BellamyBellamy 2019). This is at once a general model and one that is inspired by, and designed to critique, the EU. Bellamy recognizes the EU in his model and defends it against critics who demand more supra-state or transnational integration from the EU, as well as against theorists such as Bohman who see it as already on its way to being realized. Against Bohman, he argues that EU citizenship is best conceived as supplementary to national citizenship. Empirically speaking, Bellamy also claims that the Grzelczyk judgment wrongly depicts the status of EU citizenship as equivalent to or above national citizenship. Rather, EU citizenship was originally conceived as a way to defend the fundamental status of national citizenship in an interconnected region, and the value of EU citizenship lies in the way it reinforces mutual respect among sovereign states so that their citizens can move freely between them.

The past several decades have seen an increased level of global integration. The role and character of the state has changed, and new global public and private actors have emerged and become increasingly influential (e.g., Reference Held, I. and C.Held 1999). Indeed, research suggests that some individuals already self-identify as ‘citizens of the world’ and that they may therefore have already developed the global sense of solidarity that Nagel claimed was infeasible (e.g., Reference ArchibugiArchibugi 2008; Reference Marchetti, J. and D.Marchetti 2005). Scholars such as Christine Straehle and Lea Ypi may be right to argue that solidarity—understood as a shared sense of responsibility for the welfare of others—is possible at the global scale under the right institutional conditions and/or with the right encouragement (Reference Lenard Patti Tamara and YpiLenard et al. 2010). That said, it remains the case that we currently live in a time where this is not yet the case.

Harnessing Civic Vigilance

Before considering how we might encourage individuals to develop an attitude of global vigilance, let us pause to note why this would be desirable. While the construct of a bounded community was always fictitious, it is arguably no longer a useful heuristic for theorizing (e.g., Reference HeldHeld 2016). While the global order falls short of a world state, it is characterized by an extensive set of formal and informal institutions and processes, some of which display elements of ‘democracy beyond the state’ (Reference AgnéAgné 2022). The world is so thoroughly integrated that concern for others or for the functioning of institutions cannot in good faith stop at national borders. Citizens of democratic or republican states should care about what their own states do abroad—frequently, such states are dominating actors abroad—and they should care about the functioning of the international institutions that already exist and that, when unchecked, may commit abuses of power. Citizens who care about health policy, for example, should care about and pay attention to international institutions and processes that are analogous to those they know from the domestic political order; in this case, the World Health Organization, for instance, instead of their own health ministry or the Centers for Disease Control.

But how might we encourage individuals to form an attachment to global institutions, such that they will pay closer attention to their functioning? In what follows, I consider two related strategies.

The first strategy proposes that we should make global public institutions responsive to the domestic institutions to which citizens already feel a strong allegiance. This strategy cautiously assumes that we may not be capable of cultivating an attitude of vigilance at the global level in the short term. Instead, it proposes that we improve the functioning of global public institutions by making them responsive and accountable to domestic institutions. This strategy focuses on citizen-led pressure on domestic, republican-democratic states to achieve political change at the global level. If successful, the improved global public institutions might then in turn come to inspire a sense of allegiance and global vigilance.

Ypi provides a mechanism by which citizen-led pressure can result in political change at the global level. She argues that states provide the right context for political agency that can be harnessed in pursuit of goals of global justice. Politically engaged activists in social movements gain an awareness and understanding of global problems as citizens in a particular state and develop their activism accordingly.

However, while Ypi provides a mechanism for the emergence of the cosmopolitan avant-garde, the causes that the avant-garde espouses include both substantive and political ones. And since individuals choose their own causes, it is not clear how citizens can be motivated to pressure their state to, specifically, effect the sort of global institutional change that will in turn encourage global vigilance.

At this stage, it is possible to object that participants of social movements such as the Seattle protests or Black Lives Matter already embody the attitude of global watchfulness that this strategy aims to bring about. In Seattle, for example, protestors voiced opposition to the neo-liberal policies by the WTO, which may look at first glance like a display of vigilance by close observers of the WTO's functioning. There is, however, a difference between this behavior and the governance-oriented vigilance that is displayed by citizens vis-a-vis their government—or the governance-oriented vigilance that we hope to see individuals worldwide adopt. As I described earlier, civic vigilance is an umbrella term for various forms of public-oriented action. Vigilant citizens remain aware of the goals and performance of their public institutions, they aim to strengthen the responsiveness of such institutions and hold them to account for domination, and, where necessary, they promote institutional reform.

I grant that some of this work is performed by the protestors in various social movements. However, there are a few notable differences between the attitudes and behavior of participants in the protests and those of vigilant citizens. First, like other protest movements, the ones mentioned here had a temporary, intermittent character. Where national institutions endure over many generations, and in certain cases over hundreds of years, protest movements are creatures of their time and dependent on contemporary priorities and sensibilities.

Second, and relatedly, individuals attending protests can do so as members of private organizations—such as NGOs, labor unions, and religious groups—and their goals could have been, and indeed in some instances were, modified in line with changing collective interests. The social movements in question were of a relatively short duration, of a few years at best, and such activists moved on to other causes, often changing their organizations’ priorities accordingly. It remains to be seen whether the Black Lives Matter or #MeToo movements generate a more sustained commitment by their advocates. Unlike social causes championed by civil society organizations, the institutions and values of the state are for the most part ‘bequeathed’ to us by our ancestors. Bills of rights and constitutions may be subject to reinterpretation and renewal, but they form the basis for our social engagement. While they are often related in practice, civil society causes are in principle untethered from democratic politics and values, and social movements distinct from citizenship.

Finally, participants join social protest movements for a wide range of reasons that are not always deliberate or well thought out: because they care about the cause or were encouraged to do so by their organization, because they respect other participants, because they hope to impress someone or promote a business prospect, or for no reason other than the desire to not be left out. A moral obligation out of a sense of patriotism or love of an institution may play a central role for some participants—perhaps even for most—but it is one of many motivations, and the social movement does not centrally depend on it to sustain itself. The vigilance of the citizen, in contrast, is the attitude of paying close, sustained, and continuous attention to public institutions out of a sense of civic love and obligation. It is performed with a view to public interests rather than the chosen, personal priorities of the individual. As participants in social movements, individuals can play a role in holding public institutions to account, but they will do so as outsiders, and only to the extent that personal and public concerns align. This strategy thus envisions something quite distinct from what took place in, for example, Seattle.

However, a complementary part of the strategy recommends that we also harness the allegiance of individuals to particular civil society organizations that champion international causes. While many civil society organizations focus on local causes, such as the town's food bank, others focus on issues that transcend borders, such as the plight of refugees or climate change. Individuals in countries around the world donate their time and money to a wide range of NGOs, private foundations, and loosely organized social movements in pursuit of various international objectives. Those individuals who are already committed members or donors of internationally minded NGOs should be encouraged to regard these organizations with the same critical eye as they do their state institutions. They should be encouraged to demand accountability from the leadership, following up on the efficacy of programs and the fiscal responsibility of the organization, for instance, as well as the extent to which it builds in protections for the individuals it purports to help, in much the same way that they demand those things from their state. An extensive literature exists on the role of philanthropy in democratic systems, some of which focuses on the civil society organizations themselves (e.g., how to make them procedurally just or oriented toward social justice), and some of which looks at how philanthropic impulses might be harnessed to promote democracy (e.g., Reich et al. 2016, Reference RubensteinRubenstein 2022, Reference Rubenstein2015).

Such vigilance, however, can only be the first step. Given the private character of civil society organizations, it is important to prevent them from supplanting public global institutions in global governance. It is thus important for individual donors and members to demand that the organizations and movements in question perform their tasks consciously as second-best agents, on the understanding that in a less non-ideal world, globally vigilant citizens would directly demand those same things from the global public institutions, without needing to go via private organizations. Individuals should also encourage these organizations to act as proxies to prevent domination by global public institutions.^{Footnote 2} The literature on ecology has developed accounts of proxy representation (by humans of non-humans) (e.g., Reference WhitesideWhiteside 2013), and the literature on the role of NGOs has offered conceptions of proxy representation and accountability as well (see e.g., Reference MansbridgeMansbridge 2003; Reference RubensteinRubenstein 2007).

The first strategy relies on a virtuous circle, starting with vigilant citizens prompting their states to pursue global reform, which over time promotes citizens’ interest in—and vigilance toward—reformed global institutions. Of course, not all attempts at global reform are successful, and reform failures may lead to indifference or even hostility toward global institutions. Fortunately, however, there is some evidence that this need not necessarily be the case. Let's take climate change activism as an example. Climate change policy has been marked by a series of disappointments, where the successes include the Kyoto Protocol, which ultimately failed to curb emissions, and the Paris Agreement, which did not address non-compliance. The significant attendance by civil society at the yearly UN Climate Change Conferences or COPs (Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) suggests, however, that activists remain keen to pressure their governments to pursue ambitious climate goals. The first 14 COPs saw little participation by civil society. By COP27, which I attended, more than ten thousand individuals associated with the non-governmental sector participated, and COP28 saw the largest contingent of NGO participants yet. The relative paucity of achievements in this policy area does not appear to dampen citizens’ interest. A case study by Amandine Orsini, Loïc Cobut and Maxime Gaborit, which looks at the impact of the non-adoption of a climate bill in Belgium, seems to confirm this. The bill in question was proposed at the tail-end of a period of sustained climate activism in Belgium, when tens of thousands of people joined a climate march and the Youth for Climate movement started its school strikes. A group of academics drafted a proposal for a climate bill, but it ultimately failed. In spite of their disappointment, however, most participants told the researchers that they saw potential in the ‘new climate activism dynamics’ of the movement and one mentioned their willingness to “walk an additional mile without a second reflection” (Orsini et al. 2021).

In summary, the first strategy recommends that citizens demand that their states take action to reform global public institutions in political ways—or, alternatively, in substantive, broadly speaking ‘freedom-promoting’ ways, such that, as evidence of global achievements emerges, individuals might start to gradually identify with and care about the global public institutions in question, and they might eventually be motivated to keep track of their performance on a more regular basis. In extension, they might approach relevant civil society organizations with the same attitude of watchfulness. However, the question remains how individuals might be encouraged to develop the sort of concern with global institutions that will serve as the initial basis for an attitude of global vigilance.

Cosmopolitan States and Global Citizenship Education

As scholars have noted, the interests and commitments of citizens emerge in part through the state's civic education (e.g., Reference KennedyKennedy 1997). The second strategy complements the first by focusing on another possible agent at the vanguard of ‘freedom-promoting’ change; namely, the so-called cosmopolitan state. An extensive literature exists on the role of the state—or agents facilitated by states—as the initiative taker with cosmopolitan intent and in pursuit of cosmopolitan objectives (e.g., Reference Beardsworth, Brown and ShapcottBeardsworth et al. 2019, Reference YpiYpi 2011).

For Reference GlennH. Patrick Glenn (2013), the cosmopolitan state is at once a social reality—Glenn argues that the nation-state with a common language, ethnicity and religion has never existed—and a normative ideal. The nation-state is both undesirable and impossible, and Glenn proposes that all states instead are and must be cosmopolitan in character. Citizens have multiple, overlapping identities and states are cosmopolitan in three respects: they are rooted in common laws, constitutionalism, and institutional cosmopolitanism. He argues that judicial review appeals to common principles and concepts that derive from common laws, which predate the state, have a long history on the European continent and, because of colonialism, also beyond it. Constitutionalism, for its part, places limits on state authority and allows for the accommodation of differences among populations. Finally, the autonomy of states has always been limited, since their administrative structures have in the same territorial space competed with those of the Church, sub-state units such as cities, and, more recently, supra-state entities such as regional and global institutions.

Reference Shapcott and L.Richard Shapcott (2018)’s account differs from Glenn in that it accepts the existence and coherence of the nation-state. Instead, Shapcott makes the explicitly normative argument that the nation-state ought to be reconceptualized as a cosmopolitan one, concerned with not only protecting freedom within but also freedom beyond its borders. This argument can be traced to Immanuel Kant (see e.g., Brown 2006). A ‘responsible cosmopolitan state’ is thus a way for normative theorists to connect existing global practices with the ideals from cosmopolitan theory (Brown 2011).

Unlike the state as we know it, the cosmopolitan state considers all human life equally valuable and adopts a foreign policy that eschews domination or oppression (e.g., Reference Buckinx, Richard, Garrett and RichardBuckinx 2019; Reference ShapcottShapcott 2013). In order to promote the goal of global freedom at home, it might put in place incentives for citizens to adopt a posture of global caring or watchfulness. The state or parts of it can then take the initiative when the citizenry doesn't. On Ypi's account, domestic avant-garde agents constrain and encourage fellow citizens to support political change in line with cosmopolitan sensibilities and goals (Reference YpiYpi 2011).

The argument that global public institutions may enhance domestic democracy is a familiar one (e.g., Reference Keohane, Macedo and MoravcsikKeohane et al. 2009). This strategy focuses on the ability of the globally oriented and freedom-promoting state to return the favor and enhance the functioning of global public institutions. The cosmopolitan state might, for instance, publish regular reports about the various achievements and failures of global public institutions or fund an independent think tank to generate freedom-promoting solutions. Citizens might be taught about the goals and achievements of global public institutions in institutions of public education. Students might also receive additional course credits for internships and volunteering in which they mirror the behavior of the globally vigilant individual, and tax credits proportionate to the hours they spend on globally vigilant behavior. Awards might be given out to citizens who have made a significant global impact.

Global citizenship education, in particular, is crucial. An umbrella term for a range of educational curricula and practices, global citizenship education is “a framing paradigm which encapsulates how education can develop the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes learners need for securing a world which is more just, peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, secure and sustainable” (UNESCO 2014), and it follows the launch of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Global Education First Initiative (GEFI), which focused on education as the means to foster global citizenship. Conceptually, global citizenship education ranges from increasing students’ knowledge about global issues to teaching cognitive, social, and communication skills to help students consider different perspectives and empathize with individuals whose backgrounds and cultures differ from theirs.

In the decade since the launch of GEFI, UNESCO has done extensive work to provide curricula for global citizenship education, and relevant programs have been integrated into elementary and secondary education systems across the world (e.g., Reference VanderDussen ToukanVanderDussen Toukan 2018). The burgeoning empirical literature on global citizenship education has surveyed students, teachers, and policy makers in countries as diverse as Nepal, Ghana, Finland, and Colombia, noting that important lessons on, for instance, human rights, peace, and sustainability can successfully be taught in the classroom in countries across the world (Reference De Poorter and Aguilar-ForeroDe Poorter and Aguilar-Forero 2020; Reference Kasa, Karilainen, Rajala, Cantell and KallioniemiKasa et al. 2023; Reference Parejo, Reynés-Ramon and Cortón-HerasParejo et al. 2022; Shah and Brett 2021). A particularly interesting global project involving secondary school students led to a Youth White Paper on Global Citizenship that exemplified their orientation toward global justice and community (Pillay and Karsgaard 2023).

For our purposes, the normative questions about global citizenship education are twofold: what are its aims—what must be taught and for what reason(s)—and how can these aims be pursued in an ethical manner? On the first question, the broader aim is not the creation of global citizens, if that is taken to mean individuals who identify primarily with the world as a whole rather than any smaller unit. Globally vigilant citizenship is prior to this and sets its ambition substantially lower. What we need in order to reduce domination in the global order are non-dominating global institutions—so constituted through appropriate checks and balances and maintained in large part because of the vigilance of individuals worldwide. We may well be witnessing the emergence of a generation of truly cosmopolitan citizens, but we won't know for a while, and fortunately, our global order can be substantially improved even in their absence.

There are a few prerequisites for developing vigilance with regard to global institutions. Citizens must have access to knowledge about these institutions as well as the global order in which they operate. They must have access to information and the right sort of disposition to make sense of that information—background knowledge to place the new information, curiosity to find out more about what they don't know, and humility to accept limits to knowledge and understanding. In educational settings, they must learn about other systems of rule, domestic and international, contemporary and historical, in order to develop the capacity to think critically about features of the global order and its public institutions. Citizens must also have trust in said institutions—perhaps not as they are now but as they could be. If the global public institutions are irredeemable, it will be impossible to motivate citizens to care enough about them to track them and critique their performance. Global citizenship education can teach citizens about historical episodes and mechanisms of political change and highlight the opportunities and vehicles that might be able to facilitate change in the present day.

Reference Nussbaum and JoshuaMartha Nussbaum (1996) argues that the purposes of civic education ought to include the development of a modicum of sympathy with non-citizens, and an attitude of vigilance to ensure states do not adopt policies that undermine the capabilities of persons. Against Nussbaum, Julian Culp argues that global citizenship education ought to be conceived in a more explicitly democratic—or democratizing—way, as ‘transnational democratic conscientization’ in pursuit of promoting democracy domestically as well as transnationally (Reference CulpCulp 2019: 110). Culp argues that the primary purpose of such education ought to be to enable citizens to participate in and democratically influence domestic and global decision making.

My account also values the democratic and democratizing character of global citizenship education, albeit perhaps not for the same reasons as Culp. First, democracy matters because it makes the requisite kind of learning possible. Liberal-democratic values allow for uncomfortable discussions about injustices, even when those injustices are perpetrated by the state itself, and they also provide inspiration for the sort of order we might wish to see established abroad. Second, democratic processes make it possible to hope for change, without which global vigilance loses its meaning. In the republican tradition, vigilance often focuses on the maintenance of minimally just domestic institutions. In the current global order, vigilance must be used to effect change—to reduce the dominating character of global public institutions. Third, it is impossible to envision the transformation of global public institutions into non-dominating ones without referring to their democratization. Many, though not all, forms of global domination are directly or tangentially related to failures of democracy: a lack of accountability in global public institutions, their capture by special interests, or their refusal to grant affected persons a measure of joint control.

The second normative question asks about the ethical ways to achieve the objectives of global citizenship education, and it seems clear that the answer must include a role for the cosmopolitan state. At present, the integration of global citizenship education into national curricula remains far from assured. Since UNESCO is a state-based organization and education policies are implemented at the state and/or sub-state level, the implementation of global citizenship education will, for the time being, continue to depend on states. Research has found that students take away different messages depending on their national origin and the characteristics of the national educational system (e.g., Reference Nygren, Kronlid, Larsson, Novak, Bentrovato, Wasserman, Welply Oakleigh and GuathNygren et al. 2020), and national values may come into conflict with global ones, even in Western democracies. In the United Kingdom, for instance, global citizenship education is increasingly being reoriented around ‘fundamental British values,’ which schools have a statutory duty to promote (Reference Bamber, Bullivant, Clark and LundieBamber et al. 2018).

At its core, this is a problem about the character of states, since many states are not (yet) cosmopolitan, and their support for global citizenship education cannot, therefore, be taken for granted. In spite of this, global citizenship education has been remarkably successful in its reach and impact. For a decade now, millions of students worldwide have been exposed to a variety of pedagogies and educational practices that focus on global issues and values such as peace and sustainability, and not all of these students have resided in cosmopolitan states. Ultimately, however, cosmopolitan states are best placed to promote the sort of education that leads to globally vigilant citizenship. As previously mentioned, the cosmopolitan state is unlike the republican state as we know it. While republicanism has distanced itself from the glory-seeking state and citizens from its past, assumptions about the boundedness of the polity—also familiar to us from liberalism—have frequently blinded scholars to the effects of their states abroad. Often, the state is a non-dominating, freedom-promoting agent at home while it pursues projects of domination abroad. The cosmopolitan state resists this distinction. While it may not have the same obligation of ‘freedom promotion’ abroad as it does at home, the obligation to avoid domination is the same in both contexts, since that is what the equal moral worth of individuals demands. Inward-looking or outwardly aggressive states cannot be relied upon to have a global sensibility adequate to the task of setting up institutions and practices of global citizenship education.