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Virtual Citizenship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2014

Daniel M. Downes
Affiliation:
Centre for the Study of Regulated Industries McGill University
Richard Janda
Affiliation:
Faculty of Law McGill University

Abstract

This paper examines the importance of metaphor and media to the ideas of citizenship, nation, and place. In particular, the authors explore the relationship between citizenship and the double metaphor of the “nation-state”. If this double metaphor were to lose its hold on the collective imagination, what metaphor could take its place and be represented through modern media of communication? The authors use the example of deterritorialization, discussing first the emergence of the phenomenon particularly given the role of contemporary media of communication, and noting how it bears upon community, place and citizenship to suggest that such an erosion is taking place. They suggest that the “global market” metaphor is gaining ascendancy, and is represented in simulacrum through contemporary information technologies. The third part of this paper conducts a thought experiment implementing a deterritorialized, global market for citizenship, asking to what degree such a market already characterizes contemporary citizenship and assessing what is attractive and unattractive about it. The paper concludes with a caution against either ignoring or embracing this emerging normative construction.

Résumé

Cet article discute l'importance de la métaphore et des médias pour les notions de citoyenneté, de nation et de lieu. En particulier, les auteurs explorent, dans un premier temps, le rapport entre citoyenneté et la double métaphore de «l'État-nation». Si cette double métaphore perdait son emprise sur l'imaginaire collectif, quelle métaphore la remplacerait et serait répresentée par les médias de communication contemporains? Pour répondre à cette question, les auteurs étudient, dans un deuxième temps, le phénomène de déterritorialisation. Il suggèrent que la métaphore du “marché mondial” est en ascendance et que celle-ci est mise en relief par les technologies de l'information contemporaines. Dans un troisième temps, ils proposent un exercice visant à caractériser un marché de citoyenneté mondial, se demandant jusqu'à quel point ce marché existe déjà et dans quelle mesure ce marché est attrayant ou non. L'article conclut en émettant un caveat quant aux deux possibles réactions que peut susciter ce concept normatif émergeant, soit son acceptation inconditionnelle ou son rejet péremptoire.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association 1998

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References

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72. Gore, supra note 36 at 189. The information highway also resonated with Gore's own connection to infrastructure projects, since his father, a former Senator, had been the proponent of the American interstate highway system.

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78. Ibid. at 120.

79. Ibid. at 134–35.

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83. “Cyberdemocracy,” supra note 61.

84. Falk, supra note 27 at 39. See also Martha Nussbaum, “Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism” (October-November 1994) Boston Review 3. Nussbaum argues that civic education should cultivate a sense of cosmopolitan citizenship since our primary allegiance “is to the community of human beings in the entire world.”

85. Falk, Richard, Explorations at the End of Time: The Prospects for World Order (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992) at 1.Google Scholar

86. Ibid. at 16.

87. Ibid. at 226.

88. Sandel, Michael J., Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996) at 343.Google Scholar

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