A thing can be described as “radical” if it gets to the “root” of something (radix). So how does James Ingram’s Radical Cosmopolitanism aim to get to the root of this universalist and highly contested conception of the “good life”? In short, Ingram offers a unique and compelling case for flipping the way cosmopolitanism has been approached by the overwhelming majority of political theorists, a shift away from what he calls “top-down” approaches to pursue instead the ideal from the “bottom up”—through universalization and democratization. In this ideal approach, cosmopolitanism is no longer a vision of morality or of specifically determined institutions but an ongoing “process of challenge and contestation” to anything that would deny or limit political equality and freedom (p. 151). The book is a much-welcomed turn in the literature on cosmopolitanism, helping to shift theorization from its standard moorings on Kantian and liberal premises toward a “negative-processual view of cosmopolitics” that the author labels a “critical-democratic politics of universalization” (pp. 4–5) or “a democratic, egalitarian politics from below” (p. 20).

The book is clearly written, structured lucidly, and largely free of the jargon that typically accompanies philosophical manuscripts of this nature. Ingram is also a master sign poster; previous arguments or themes are consistently repositioned later on in subsequent chapters, so that the narrative carries across the book as a semantic whole. This not only makes for ease of comprehension but fortifies his central argument that, by the end, appears quite convincing. Essentially, Ingram’s argument is twofold. Firstly, he argues that the tradition of cosmopolitan has mired itself in visions of ideal justice that tend toward particularism, and which are far removed from politics. Secondly, to overcome these limitations requires a cosmopolitanism from below in which people (“agents”) take center stage and in which cosmopolitanism is a sphere of global contestation and openness against anything that would limit “political equality and freedom.” In this way, Ingram pushes cosmopolitan ethics to live up to its universal vocation to become a disruption to existing ideas and institutions that would deny freedom (pp. 6–7). This renders cosmopolitanism an inherently critical exercise to perceive such exclusions and overcome them, an exposition of anything that would deny others full ethical respect (p. 10). Rather than moralism and determinacy, the “basic claim” of an emancipatory cosmopolitan politics is “indefinitely expansive” and an “infinitely repeatable process” of equal freedom and autonomy (p. 18). In short, Ingram’s goal is nothing less than “to rescue cosmopolitanism from cosmopolitans” (p. 14).

The manuscript is divided into two parts. The first is an extended critique of the top-down approaches to cosmopolitanism across history, ethics, and politics. One could equally call this a critique of traditionalist forms of cosmopolitan thought that are institutionalist, closed, and ethically particular. The second part focuses on the alternative notion of cosmopolitanism from the bottom up, an attempt to overcome some of the primary limitations in traditional cosmopolitanism identified in Part I. Chapter 1 offers an excellent overview of the development of cosmopolitan thought—from its Socratic origins to international law, from revolutionism to its postwar revival. This chapter is a useful stand-alone resource for any scholar interested in the history of ideas. More than this however, it forms Ingram’s foundation for his entire critique of traditional, top-down cosmopolitanism.

The author demonstrates convincingly how cosmopolitanism has been afflicted by the contradictions inherited from its Kantian origins. As discussed throughout the book (but particularly Chapters 1–3), Kant could not realize his vision of Perpetual Peace not only because his model created a system of hierarchies between different peoples whose asymmetrical relations affronted political equality but also because he could only identify agents of moral rather than political change (pp. 141–42). Traditional cosmopolitanism has largely remained stuck in this particularistic and apolitical approach that is both an “unreliable guide” and “highly ambivalent” (p. 101). Martha Nussbaum’s approach fares little better, for she seeks to act over others from a privileged position (pp. 72, 75). Neither can anthropology nor the proceduralism of John Rawls or Jürgen Habermas provide an adequate grounding: The former falls to exclusions and hierarchies, the latter to indeterminacy. For Ingram, following Theodor Adorno, the point is to criticize the circumstances in which these problems of cosmopolitanism as a position (and imposition) from above arise. That is, Ingram’s bottom-up approach is situated as a corrective to these dangers, setting forth the conditions that would be less unjust and is, therefore, an inherently provisional and “endless” critique of those things that would deny “the principle that all should have a say in what affects them, the principle of equal freedom” (p. 100). The question is not defining what the universal is but to “specify what would be involved in saying what it is” (p. 84).

If the dangers of universalism are that it can be particular and judgmental and can presuppose power/knowledge over others (p. 148), Part II is Ingram’s answer to why freedom and equality must be realized directly and against any hegemonic notion of universalism. As he affirms, his cosmopolitanism “is always a claim against the status quo” (p. 182). In Chapter 4, from Judith Butler, Ingram suggests that the point is not to articulate a version of universalism but a process that challenges all false universalisms, and through Pierre Bourdieu he comes to see equal inclusions as grounding any critique of false universalisms. In Chapter 5, Ingram develops from Hannah Arendt the notion of cosmopolitanism as fulfillment of participation in public life, and from Jacques Rancière that politics is the struggle towards such participation in public life (p. 224). These serve to develop the alternate framework of cosmopolitanism as a principle of democratic contestation, one that sees it as open-ended transformative logic against obstacles to political equality, rather than a specific form of institutionalization.

In the final chapter—that one could be forgiven for assuming would deal directly with the sociopolitical aspects of human rights in direct relation to cosmopolitanism—Ingram conjoins the various threads of his argument (particularly Arendt) to make political practice the center of concern for cosmopolitanism (p. 246). Here, the principle of equal participation is to be transformed from a right to have rights, to a right to politics. Stated positively, this constitutes a right of all individuals to participate in the decisions that affect them, or stated negatively, as a claim against that which would deny freedom and equality (p. 247). Moving decidedly away from conceptions of human rights based on coercive power or law and institutions, Ingram extols a new interpretation of human rights as a means to contest exclusions through an “open-ended” reading of the principle of equal freedom. Rights are agential and action based, rather than something bestowed by external powers onto passive subjects. Here, the questions of how these types of human rights are to be safeguarded by ourselves (p. 261), or what “social and political capacities” or “distribution of power” must underlie them (p. 292) are pointed toward but not addressed.

One could argue that perhaps a focus on lived struggles toward political freedom/equality/autonomy would have moved Ingram’s argument further toward the “radical” promise of his book. Moreover, his “negative” approach does seem to reduce cosmopolitan values to the notion that all individuals have an “equal” say in the “rules and arrangements that affect them” (p. 17). This normative horizon does not seem too far removed from the liberal cosmology of individual autonomy, rather than the radical variant of public participation toward which Ingram sometimes gestures. Nevertheless, his position does have the key benefit of circumventing any relativist or particularist tendencies by not vouching for any particularism at all: It does not assert some “perfect cosmopolitan justice” but positions itself as a critique of those conditions that would be more or less unjust (p. 99). This means that cosmopolitanism can be consistent with a politics of difference and identity.

One key limitation is a lack of engagement with social relations that could make this project actual rather than purely visionary. Of course, Ingram’s primary interest is in the theoretical development of cosmopolitanism as an idea, rather than contemporary conditions that could make this realizable. Moreover, the author does recognize the importance of social relations on a number of occasions (esp. pp. 99, 142). Yet without concerted development, Ingram’s argument is susceptible to the critique of realism (i.e., that it is too far removed from practice) that he raises in the conclusion, or of R.B.J. Walker’s critique regarding those who do not engage with the possibilities of politics that Ingram raises in the introduction. That is, in the absence of an account of the social relations necessary for this type of radical cosmopolitanism to emerge, Ingram’s “realism of possibility” (p. 270) remains underdeveloped. In light of this limitation, the question then becomes how he can bring into his analysis the social agency of cosmopolitan community required to bring it about (inclusive of, but not restricted to, ethical life, colonialism, gender, class, race, environment and so on). I say this as a spur to further work rather than as a detraction, for this book can be seen as a theoretical ground-clearing exercise that sets up the basis for which this sociopolitical analysis can emerge. As Ingram states, any ideal theory is an “incomplete moment of moral and political reflection” (p. 269).

One can only hope that he will soon pen a follow-up book that will deal decidedly with these questions. Regardless, Radical Cosmopolitanism offers an important contribution of acute relevance to students and scholars across political philosophy and international relations and should be read widely.