Habermas and the Cosmopolitan Condition

Habermas and the Cosmopolitan Condition is a concise and detailed analysis of one of the most influential thinkers of our time that demonstrates the importance of Habermas' theory of cosmopolitanism for contemporary debates regarding global order. In Habermas and the Cosmopolitan Condition, Amsalu Tebeje Tesfahun discusses Habermas' theory of communicative action, public sphere and discourse theory of law and democracy in order to analyze his conception of the cosmopolitan condition as a constitutionally structured multilevel global governance without global government geared towards a global realization of human rights and democracy. Tesfahun then offers a critical examination of Habermas' cosmopolitan project. He shows how the development of cosmopolitan consciousness and global public sphere is compromised by economic globalization and the difficulty of overcoming global social and economic inequalities through world domestic politics. He argues that popular based nationalism might make the state serve majority of people in postcolonial south. This book will be of great interest to students and researchers in the fields of international political and social theory.