Democratic confederalism : an alternative for facing tensions between global citizenship and localist citizenship
Journal
Problema. Anuario de Filosofía y Teoría del Derecho
Date Issued
2023
Author(s)
Lozano Ortega, Tatiana
Type
Resource Types::text::journal::journal article::review article
Abstract
This article explores the tensions between different conceptions of “citi-zenship.” On the one hand, we point out the virtues and limitations of cosmopoli-tan citizenship in the terms in which Seyla Benhabib understands it in The Right of Others...; on the other hand, we delve into another notion of citizenship, namely, the localist, in a version that could be at odds with some cosmopolitan values, that is, localism as understood by some Mexican autonomous communities, particularly the Zapatistas. Although Benhabib’s cosmopolitan federalism is inclusive in spirit, it is conceived within a preponderantly global perspective and ends up being asym-metrical. While her proposal has some positive aspects, it faces some difficulties in the case of Mexican autonomous communities. In this article, we shall introduce the notion of democratic confederalism as a form of sociopolitical organization that seeks to strengthen the self-organization of social actors and to recognize the practice of citizenship in the terms in which autonomous communities exercise it. We propose that democratic confederalism could be an alternative for decreasing tensions between global citizenship and the idea of citizenship within autonomous communities.