Introduction 11and adopted by a privileged class who keep the discussion largely
tied to Western theoretical sources, “cosmopolitanism [... might] be
one version of ‘cultural imperialism.’”^37 However, I maintain that
this is not necessarily a characteristic or flaw inherent to cosmopol-
itan thought. As I demonstrate above, Pollock and Beckwith illus-
trate the fact that cosmopolitan scholars do not always employ a
Eurocentric model of the concept. What is more, the salient prin-
ciples that underlie cosmopolitanism call for a universality whose
very realization problematizes the application of a rigidly singular,
Eurocentric, interpretive framework. Indeed, although the terms
and concepts deployed in cosmopolitan discourse are mostly “of the
West,” as we can see in the works of David Harvey and others, they
often contradict those ideologies that would sustain and expand
Western hegemony. Stefan Jonsson stresses this point with particu-
lar sophistication and force:
If today we associate universal values with European culture this is
because that culture provided the terms through which these values
were codified as ‘human rights.’ [... However,] to appeal to universal-
ism as a way of asserting the superiority of Western culture is to betray
universality, but to appeal to universalism as a way of dismantling the
superiority of the West is to realize it.^38The charge of “cultural imperialism” is by no means the most
serious that has been levied against cosmopolitan theory. Peter
Gowan criticizes what he labels “new liberal cosmopolitanism,”
which is a more conventional, sociopolitical form of imperial-
ism that is known, “in the oleaginous jargon of the period, [... as]
“global governance”—reaching deep into the economic, social and
political life of the states subjected to it, while safeguarding interna-
tional flows of finance and trade.”^39 Gowan’s critique also resonates
with what Paul Gilroy censoriously labels “armed cosmopolitanism,”
which he defines as the cynical humanitarian internationalism that
is appealed to to justify aggressive geopolitical maneuverings.^40
Nonetheless, whereas Gowan and Gilroy raise legitimate concerns
about some of the ways in which the cosmopolitan idea is abused,
they do not necessarily undermine the validity or importance of
the theory. That the cosmopolitan idea is co-opted in the name of