The New Global Life of Cosmopolitanism in Social Science

Cosmopolitanism as an idea is not a new one.  Its use within the realm of social sciences and humanities has yet dramatically increased since the early 1990s, even becoming part of various labels – Ulrich Beck’s “cosmopolitan sociology”, Laurence Roulleau-Berger’s “cosmopolitisme méthodologique”, Adam Kuper’s “cosmopolitan anthropology” to name a few – and concepts – Daniele Archibugi’s “cosmopolitican” or “cosmopolitical democracy”, David Held’s “cosmopolitical governance”. The objective of this paper is first to investigate the link between the end of the Cold War and this resurrection of cosmopolitanism in the academy ; second to provide an historical analysis of the re-emergence of this perspective and of its use ; and third to study how this “cosmopolitization” of global social science and humanities addresses the issue of the “spatialization” of the world.