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Citizenship 191

such a way as to ensure a healthy and flourishing environment in the
long term.
The environmental movement is beginning to see some success in its
contribution to global civil society. The activities of environmental orga-
nizations are contributing to the growth of public awareness and some
consideration has been given to environmental issues on the part of inter-
national political institutions. There is now a system of international laws,
conventions, and treaties covering such cases as protection of the North
Sea, the elimination of CFC gases, and so on. Furthermore, most over -
developed countries have accepted that they must reduce or stabilize
carbon emissions to some extent, even when, as in the US, they did not
sign the Kyoto Protocol. However, compared to the seriousness of envi-
ronmental destruction, and the importance of changes needed to deal with
it adequately, such measures are extremely limited.

Note

1 There are different definitions of cultural citizenship. For some commentators,

multiculturalism includes the claims of all minorities (including gay men, for
example, as well as cultural minorities) to be included in society as full citizens
whose “ cultural difference ” is respected (e.g., Pakulski, 1997 ). For others, the
most important aspect of cultural citizenship is communication and dialogue
(Turner, 2001 ). I discuss communication and dialogue in chapter 5 on democ-
racy and limit the discussion of multiculturalism to Kymlicka ’ s defi nition of
rights to live and choose within “ societal cultures. ” One more caveat: the
commonsense understandings of culture as “ national, ” “ high, ” “ low, ” “ dif-
ference, ” and so on are obviously different from the more technical way in
which I am using “ culture ” throughout this book to understand “ signifying
practices ” that are crucial to how society is reproduced and transformed.