The Responsible Globalist

What Citizens of the World Can Learn from Nationalism

By: Hassan Damluji

Narrated by: Hassan Damluji

Brought to you by Penguin.

Today, globalism has a bad reputation. 'Citizens of the world' are depicted as recklessly uninterested in how international economic forces can affect local communities.

Meanwhile, nationalists are often derided as racists and bigots. But what if the two were not so far apart? What could globalists learn from the powerful sense of belonging that nationalism has created? Faced with the injustices of the world's economic and political system, what should a responsible globalist do?

British-Iraqi development expert Hassan Damluji proposes six principles - from changing how we think about mobility to shutting down tax havens - which can help build consensus for a stronger globalist identity.

He demonstrates that globalism is not limited to 'Davos man' but is a truly mass phenomenon that is growing fastest in emerging countries. Rather than a 'nowhere' identity, it is a new group solidarity that sits alongside other allegiances.

With a wealth of examples from the United States to India, China and the Middle East, The Responsible Globalist offers a boldly optimistic and pragmatic blueprint for building an inclusive global nation. This will be a century-long project where success is not guaranteed. But unless we can reimagine humanity as a single national community, Damluji warns, the gravest threats we face will not be defeated.

©2019 Hassan Damluji (P)2019 Penguin Audio

Best Book on Global Citizenship Today

There are a lot of great things about The Responsible Globalist. It is clearly written, tightly argued, well rounded, deeply meaningful, and serious about solutions. It avoids academic jargon without failing to address the concerns of serious thinkers. It provides a powerful introduction to global citizenship and then goes on to proffer innovative policy solutions. It is highly readable, does not lose air, and ends at its peak—rare qualities for a book indeed, and all the more so for a first time author. But perhaps the greatest thing about it is that it intelligently grapples with a profound paradox of identity that few people even recognize.


Damluji cites several surveys which suggest that people tend to identify more as citizens of the world than as members of their own nations. The finding holds across developed and developing nations alike, but Damluji points out that the citizens of less developed nations are actually far more likely to identify themselves as citizens of the world. People identify themselves as citizens of the world because we live on an intimately interconnected planet, but one might be forgiven for pointing out that people are far less likely to behave like citizens of the world. The paradox lies in the fact that while people tend to identify themselves as citizens of the world, global identities tend to appear far weaker than national identities. In fact, globalism can sometimes seem like a dirty word in a world of rising rightwing nationalism.


However, Damluji is not content to simply articulate the paradox, and to do so more saliently than any of the other authors I have come across in writing an academic work that also grapples with this paradox. He also provides a solid set of solutions that are worth considering. The title of the book does not really do justice to the list, though. It is not simply a list of what globalists might learn from nationalists in mobilizing their identities. It is also a great list of what global institutions need to be created in order to solve an ever increasing laundry list of global challenges. But perhaps it should not surprise us that some of the most important things we can do to grapple with big global challenges like climate change are also the same things that will build a stronger sense of global citizenship. For a sense of national identity also tended to emerge when states acquired the ability to take on the challenges of the people living with their territories.

All in all, this is an unusually mature work for such a young author and a serious contribution to the literature on cosmopolitanism, the ancient view that we are all citizens of the world and have moral duties to all the people living in it. It was a wonderful read my second time through it, as I am sure it will be on my coming third round.


~ Theo Horesh, author of Convergence: The Globalization of Mind