A Dilemma of Democratic Citizenship

A transcript of the public lecture by James Tully

Citizenship in the West is understood as a status of the individual incorporating rights and duties. However, this understanding of citizenship can also be viewed as a democratic deficiency of modern citizenship. In May 2010 James Tully, professor at UVic, gave a public lecture on this topic called "A Dilemma of Democratic Citizenship". In this lecture he explains that the dilemma arises when citizens try to respond to four major local and global problems of public goods today.

"These four problems are:
 (1) the problem of environmental destruction and climate change;
 (2) the problem of the horrendous inequality, exploitation and poverty of the Global south and the growing inequalities within the Global north and south;
 (3) the problem of global wars and the militarization; and
 (4) the problem of distrust and disrespect for different civilizations and peoples.

These global problems are interconnected. The historical processes of modernisation, industrialisation, western expansion, exploitation of the world’s resources and economic globalisation that are the cause of the ecological crisis are also the major cause of the inequalities between the global north and south. The primary purpose of the huge global military empire of the United States is to protect and expand the very processes of economic globalisation that are deeply implicated in the ecological and inequality problems. The ranking of peoples and their different religious or civilizational ways of life as respectworthy or threatening are also closely related to their conformity or non-conformity to western modernization.
 
 When glocal citizens try to exercise their civic response-abilities in response to these four problems they find that the official modes of citizenship available to them are not very effective. The official institutions and channels of citizenship are limited. Moreover, as we will see, these limits often shield from public engagement the very processes and institutions that partly give rise to the four global problems. These limits on official channels of citizenship thus lead to a fifth problem, the limitation or incapacitation of responsible citizenship. This limitation on and ineffectiveness of the exercise of civic capacities or capabilities is what we can call a “democratic deficit” of local and global citizenship.
 
 In response to the limitations on and ineffectiveness of democratic citizenship, citizens try to reform the official institutions of modern citizen participation, or they become frustrated with electoral politics and the official public sphere and turn away from them. While many turn away from participation altogether, many others turn to alternative ways of addressing these global problems. This complex phenomenon is what I call cooperative citizenship."

Read the full lecture here:A Dilemma of Democratic Citizenship