Reimagining national systems: Cosmopolitan Nationalism as a framework for educational regeneration

This article reinterprets Cosmopolitan Nationalism (CN) as a regenerative and ironic response to the entangled crises of neoliberalism, climate breakdown and epistemic erosion. It critiques the conceptual drift and ambivalence within the recent CN literature, identifying a tendency towards abstract moralism that blunts its civic potential. Through a thematic review of ten influential studies, the article evaluates the epistemological rigour and political clarity of CN as an educational framework. Rather than discarding the concept, it advances a renewed reading grounded in irony, affect and aesthetic rationality. Central to this reframing is the concept of Entfremdung (alienation), which CN might help to address by reconnecting education to ecological consciousness, artistic practice and civic belonging. The paper calls for a decisive turn away from technocratic, metric-driven logics and towards a more plural, just and relational vision of education; one capable of resisting co-option and renewing public hope in the face of systemic collapse.