This article brings to bear findings from the debate on the boundary problem in democratic theory on discussions of workplace democracy to argue that workplace democrats’ focus on workers is unjustified and that more constituencies will have to be included in any prospective scheme of workplace democracy. It thereby provides a valuable and underdiscussed perspective on workplace democracy that goes beyond the debate’s usual focus on the clarification and justification of workplace democrats’ core claim. It also goes beyond approaches like (...) stakeholder theory in law and economics that determine decision-making rights without taking into account genuinely democratic considerations. My discussion proceeds by considering three principles for inclusion from democratic theory for the specific case of the corporation. I submit that two of them, the all-coerced and the all-subjected principle, are not appropriate for this specific case, because they cannot capture the distinguishing features of the corporation. The all-affected principle however is appropriate but has a very wide range. I further argue that this is not as big of a problem as it first might seem and that this principle is still the most appropriate for defining the demos of the democratic corporation. The article closes by pointing out the consequences of this result for the workplace democracy debate and for the legitimacy of the market as a coordination mechanism. (shrink)

This paper argues that libertarianism—and only libertarianism—can vindicate immigration's status as a human right whose protection is morally required in nearly all circumstances. Competing political theories such as liberal egalitarianism fail to rule out significant immigration restrictions in a range of realistic conditions. We begin by outlining the core tenets of libertarianism and their implications for immigration policy. Next, we explain why arguments that appeal to alternative principles are unable to provide robust justification for open borders. We conclude by considering (...) whether our argument vindicates libertarianism or undermines open borders. (shrink)

According to the democratic borders argument, the democratic legitimacy of a state's regime of border control requires granting foreigners a right to participate in the procedures determining it. This argument appeals to the All-Subjected Principle, which implies that democratic legitimacy requires that all those subject to political power have a right to participate in determining the laws governing its exercise. The scope objection claims that this argument presupposes an implausible account of subjection and hence of the All-Subjected Principle, which absurdly (...) implies that all domestic laws subject foreigners to their requirements. I argue that this objection misconstrues the logical structure of the legal requirements enshrined in domestic laws: domestic laws typically enshrine narrow-scope, not wide-scope, legal requirements. To be sure, some state laws do subject foreigners to their requirements, and the All-Subjected Principle conditions democratic legitimacy on granting foreigners some say in determining them. But the best reading of the Principle does not have such general expansionary implications. (shrink)

The philosophical debate on the freedom of movement focuses almost exclusively on long-term migration, what I call, migration as settlement. The normative justifications defending border controls assume that the movement of people across political borders, independent of its purpose and the length of stay, refers to migration as settlement. “Global mobility,” “international movement,” and “immigration” are oftenused interchangeably. However, global mobility also refers to the movements of people across international borders for a short length of time such as travel, short-term (...) and circular migration. While most scholarly attention has focused on long-term migration, the vast majority of cross-border movement of people (approximately 85% of all cross-border movements in 2019) is short-term. The existing literature offers normative arguments for border controls, which are grounded on states’ right to self-determination, the freedom of (dis)association, the welfare state, the duty to compatriots, and brain drain. In this paper, I argue that these arguments do not justify excluding travelers, short-term and circular migrants from the territory. (shrink)

In the last seven years, close to twenty thousand people have died trying to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea. Rescue missions by private actors and NGOs have increased because both national measures and measures by the EU’s border control agency, Frontex, are often deemed insufficient. However, such independent rescue missions face increasing persecution from national governments, Italy being one example. This raises the question of how potential migrants and dissenting citizens should act towards the EU border regime. In (...) contrast to the literature, which mainly addresses migration on the basis of justice requirements, this article focuses on the legitimate authority of the EU’s border regime. Focusing on the legitimacy criteria for states’ claims to regulate migration opens a fruitful normative perspective, given the pervasive disagreement over the content of justice in migration. What reasons for compliance and non-interference does legitimacy supply for potential immigrants and dissenting citizens? And what legitimacy standard may be appropriate for the power that individual states claim over potential immigrants? We argue that, even assuming a minimal legitimacy standard for the state-migrant relationship, the structure of the EU’s border regime exhibits unique features, which cause it to stand in tension with such a standard. By coordinating its Member States’ border regimes, especially through Frontex, the EU claims and exercises power over potential immigrants. However, the asymmetrical delegation of state powers to the EU means that the power involved in regulating European borders is, in core respects, unaccountable. This unaccountability, we argue, is significant for the legitimacy of the EU’s border regime. This article sheds new light on the morality of unauthorised rescue missions by assessing the permissibility of resistance to the EU’s border regime. (shrink)

The ethics of immigration is currently marked by a division between realists and idealists. The idealists generally focus on formulating morally ideal immigration policies. The realists, however, tend to dismiss these ideals as far-fetched and infeasible. In contrast to the idealists, the realists seek to resolve pressing practical issues relating to immigration, principally by advancing what they consider to be actionable policy recommendations. In this article, I take issue with this conception of realism. I begin by surveying the way in (...) which it exemplifies what certain political theorists have recently called ‘problem-solving’ realism – a species of realism which they reject as incoherent. These theorists demonstrate that what counts as a ‘feasible’ solution is far harder to establish than most problem-solving realists would have us believe. Applying this general critique to the specific domain of immigration ethics turns out to radically undermine the notion of realism that prevails in this sphere of applied ethics. I conclude that we should therefore revise our conception of what constitutes a genuinely realist approach to the problem of immigration. (shrink)

Modern thinking about democracy is largely governed by the concept of constituent power. Some versions of the concept of constituent power, however, remain haunted by the spectre of totalitarianism. In this article, I outline an alternative view of the identity of the people whose constituent power generates democratic authority. Broadly speaking, constituent power signifies the idea that all political authority, including that of the constitution, must find its source in some idea of ‘the people’, whose authority is never exhausted by (...) constituted power. The deficiency I seek to address is that of asking who the people is to whom any claim of authority refers, while avoiding the pitfalls of totalitarianism. I show the most famous totalitarian view of constituent power – advanced by Carl Schmitt – to be not only politically unsavoury but also ontologically unjustified. To outline my alternative view, I draw on Jacques Derrida’s concept of just decisions to argue that the undecidable inaugurates collective responsibility by demanding a response. This suggests a view of ‘the people’ as a doing rather than a being. I conclude by showing how this avoids totalitarian views of popular sovereignty by demonstrating its congruency with Claude Lefort’s democratic theory as opposed to totalitarianism. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung: Das Internet bietet die Möglichkeit, eine beliebig große Anzahl von Personen durch unterschiedliche Formen der Deliberation und Beschlussfassung politisch einzubinden. Insbesondere im kommunalen Kontext wird die Online-Partizipation – etwa im Rahmen städtischer Bürgerhaushalte – bereits vielfach als Mittel erprobt, um die soziale Akzeptanz und Legitimität politischer Entscheidungen zu erhöhen. Die Legitimität demokratischer Verfahren hängt neben anderen Faktoren maßgeblich von der Konstitution des Demos und der damit festgelegten Allokation der Teilnahmerechte ab. In historischer Perspektive hat vor allem die Exklusion bestimmter (...) Gruppen, insbesondere von Frauen, Besitzlosen oder nichtweißen Personen, die Legitimität klassischer Offline-Verfahren, wie z. B. Parlamentswahlen, in Frage gestellt. Die neuen Formen der Online-Partizipation bergen hingegen – so die zentrale These des Aufsatzes – die Gefahr der Über-Inklusivität, weil sie häufig auf jegliche Zugangsbeschränkung verzichten. Selbst wenn die Verfahren, wie in der Praxis üblich, einen konsultativen Charakter haben und die politischen Entscheidungsträger formal nicht binden, führt ihre Offenheit zu Legitimationsproblemen. Daraus entsteht die Notwendigkeit, normative Kriterien für die Vergabe von Partizipationsrechten zu entwickeln, die den Besonderheiten der Online-Deliberation angemessen Rechnung tragen. (shrink)

Supporters of open borders sometimes argue that the state has no pro tanto right to restrict immigration, because such a right would also entail a right to exclude existing citizens for whatever reasons justify excluding immigrants. These arguments can be defeated by suggesting that people have a right to stay put. I present a new form of the exclusion argument against closed borders which escapes this “right to stay put” reply. I do this by describing a kind of exclusion that (...) has not been discussed in depth, which I call “territorial exclusion.” Territorial exclusion is the process according to which the group that wishes to exclude current citizens secedes from the territory in which those citizens reside. I argue that the wrongness of territorial exclusion explains why there is no pro tanto right for a state to exclude immigrants, because otherwise there would be a pro tanto right for the state to kick people out by seceding from the territory they inhabit. Because kicking people out like this is typically wrong, borders cannot be closed. (shrink)

The open borders view is frequently dismissed for making infeasible demands. This is a potent strategy. Unlike normative arguments regarding open borders, which tend to be relatively intractable, the charge of infeasibility is supposed to operate as what we call a "normative argument-stopper." Nonetheless, we argue that the strategy fails. Bringing about open borders is perfectly feasible on the most plausible account of feasibility. We consider and reject what we take to be the only three credible ways to save the (...) charge of infeasibility: by proposing an alternative account of feasibility; by proposing an alternative, more circumscribed interpretation of the subject-matter of feasibility claims; and by proposing a more expansive account of the addressees of the demand for open borders. The first fails to vindicate the claim that infeasibility is a normative argument-stopper. The second does not provide an argument against open borders at all. The third underestimates the power of at least some non-state actors. We conclude by drawing some lessons for the open borders view and the use of feasibility in politics more generally. (shrink)

International migration is increasing not only in absolute terms but also as a percentage of the global population. In 2019, international migrants made up 3.5 per cent of the global population, compared to 2.8 per cent in the year 2000. Over the past two decades, a philosophical literature has emerged to investigate what justice requires with respect to these vast migrant flows. My article criticizes much of this philosophical work. Building on the work of Charles Mills (2015), I argue that (...) the terms in which many Anglo-American philosophers presently debate migration justice neglect and even obscure consideration of the ways in which current migration flows may be shaped by Euro-American colonialism and neo-colonialism. Such exclusions produce systematic biases in much of our philosophical literature. To develop less biased understandings of migration justice, I propose that Anglo-American philosophers should revise our methods and our conceptual frameworks to enable exploring the possible extent and ethical implications of colonial and neo-colonial influence. This is one part of the much larger task of decolonizing our political philosophy. (shrink)

While many argue investment-based criteria for immigration are wrong or at least problematic, skill-based criteria remain relatively uncontroversial. This is normatively inconsistent. This article assesses three prominent normative objections to investment-based selection criteria for immigrants: that they wrongfully discriminate between prospective immigrants that they are unfair, and that they undermine political equality among citizens. It argues that either skill-based criteria are equally susceptible to these objections, or that investment-based criteria are equally shielded from them. Indeed, in some ways investment-based criteria (...) are less normatively problematic than skill-based criteria. Given this analysis, the resistance to investment-based migration criteria, but not to skill-based criteria, is inconsistent. (shrink)

Populism is widely thought to be in tension with liberal democracy. This article clarifies what exactly is problematic about populism from a liberal–democratic point of view and goes on to develop normative standards that allow us to distinguish between more and less legitimate forms of populism. The point of this exercise is not to dismiss populism in toto; the article strives for a more subtle result, namely, to show that liberal democracy can accommodate populism provided that the latter conforms to (...) particular discursive norms. What the article calls a ‘liberal ethics of populism’ turns out to be closely bound up with a broader ethics of peoplehood, understood as a way of articulating who ‘the people’ are in a way that is compatible with liberal–democratic principles of political justification. Such an ethics, concludes the article, inevitably has a much wider audience than populist political actors: its addressees are all those who seek legitimately to exercise power in the name of the people. (shrink)

The best arguments for a nation-state’s right to exclude unwanted outsiders actually condemn nation-level regimes of restriction. Two argumentative steps lead to this conclusion. The first points out that the best arguments for exclusion generalize: if they show that nation-states have the right to exclude, they perform the same service for a great many towns, cities, subnational states, and provinces. The second step constructs a dilemma. The right to exclude is important enough to justify the suffering of would-be immigrants, or (...) it is not. If it is, the right to exclude is very important indeed–would-be immigrants often suffer grievously. But nation-level regimes would then be a serious moral problem: they would deprive a great many municipalities of a right that matters a great deal. Turning to the dilemma’s second horn, if the right to exclude is not important enough to justify the suffering of would-be immigrants, nation-level regimes are straightforwardly immoral. Either way, we arrive at this paper’s central thesis: the best arguments for a nation-states right to exclude actually condemn nation-level regimes of exclusion. (shrink)

Arash Abizadeh claims that ‘[a]nyone accepting the democratic theory of political legitimation domestically is thereby committed to rejecting the unilateral domestic right to control state boundaries’. He bases this conclusion on the premise that ‘to be democratically legitimate, a state’s regime of border control must result from political processes in which those subject to it—including foreigners—have a right of democratic participation’. I shall argue that this premise, even if it were correct, does not support the conclusion since ‘democratic legitimacy’ is (...) morally irrelevant: that something is ‘democratically illegitimate’ in no way suggests, let alone implies, that it is also morally impermissible or contravenes a moral right. I shall consider counter-arguments advanced against this objection by Maxime Lepoutre and Abizadeh himself and argue that they fail. Thus there is no valid democratic argument against border coercion. (shrink)

According to the coercive approach to distributive justice, the coercive nature of the political state requires justification in the form of distributive benefits owed only to members of the state. In this paper I analyze and dismiss traditional objections to the coercive approach, and I proceed to raise two novel objections. First, according to my equivocation objection, I contend that the coercive approach’s leap from coercive burdens to certain distributive benefits is based on an equivocation. When this equivocation is clarified, (...) the conclusion of the coercive approach is undermined. Attempts to circumvent the equivocation inevitably lead to my second objection, the coercion as cooperation objection. Through this objection it becomes clear that the coercive approach collapses into the cooperative approach, an approach to distributive justice that may change the scope of distributional obligations beyond that of the political state. (shrink)

The recent global surge in large-scale foreign land acquisitions marks a radical transformation of the global economic and political landscape. Since land that attracts capital often becomes the site of expulsions and displacement, it also leads to new forms of migration. In this paper, I explore this connection from the perspective of a political philosopher. I argue that changes in global land governance unsettle the congruence of political community and bounded territory that we often take for granted. As a case (...) study, I discuss the European Union’s Renewable Energy Directive as a significant driver of foreign land acquisitions. Using its global power, the European Union (EU) is effectively governing land far outside of its international borders and with it the people who live on this land or are expelled from it. As a result, EU citizens ought to consider such people fellow members of their political community. This has implications for normative debates about immigration and, in particular, for arguments that appeal to collective self-determination to justify a right of political communities to exclude newcomers. The political community to which EU citizens belong reaches far beyond the EU’s official borders. (shrink)

This article argues that, far from being a merely defensive act of individual protest, civil disobedience is a much more radical political practice. It is transformative in that it aims at the politicization of questions that are excluded from the political domain and at reconfiguring public space and existing institutions, often in comprehensive ways. Focusing on the reconstitution of the political community also allows us to reconceptualize constituent power. Rather than portraying it as a quasi-mythical force erupting only in extraordinary (...) moments, constituent power can be conceptualized as a dynamic situated within established orders, transgressing their logic and reconfiguring them from within. Civil disobedience as a transformative and potentially comprehensive practice aimed at reconstituting the political order can then be seen as an internal driving force keeping this dialectic in play. A concrete example can be found in protests and border struggles by irregularized migrants. They show how unexp... (shrink)

In his 2007 Ethics article, “Responsibility Incorporated,” Philip Pettit argued that corporations qualify as morally responsible agents because they possess autonomy, normative judgment, and the capacity for self-control. Although there is ongoing debate over whether corporations have these capacities, both proponents and opponents of corporate moral agency appear to agree that Pettit correctly identified the requirements for moral agency. In this article, I do not take issue with either the claim that autonomy, normative judgment, and self-control are the requirements for (...) moral agency or the claim that corporations possess them. I claim that if both of these claims are correct, then corporate moral agency entails that, in a liberal democracy, corporations should have the right to vote. I show that under the conception of democracy supported by most liberal political theorists, all parties subject to the law are entitled to the right to vote, and all parties that possess autonomy, normative judgment, and self-control are subject to the law. Therefore, if the proponents of corporate moral agency are correct, then corporations satisfy the requirements for the right to vote. I then consider potential objections to this argument. I show that the strongest objection to the corporate right to vote is undermined by Pettit’s own argument for corporate autonomy. I then show that objections derived from other arguments for limiting the rights of corporations are equally unavailing. I conclude with some observations about the implications of my argument for the question of corporate speech rights. (shrink)

Despite the prevalence of externalization, much work in the ethics of immigration continues to assume that the admission of immigrants is determined by state immigration officials who decide whether to admit travelers at official crossings. This assumption neglects how decisions about entrance have been increasingly relocated abroad – to international waters, consular offices, airports, or foreign territories – often with non-governmental or private actors, as well as foreign governments functioning as intermediaries. Externalization poses a fundamental challenge to achieving just migration (...) policies. It reliably harms vulnerable people, prevents refugees from receiving protection, leads to human rights abuses, and dissipates blame and accountability, creating a serious lacuna in assigning moral responsibility. (shrink)

This essay argues that we should find Crimmigration, which is the collapsing of immigration law with criminal law, morally problematic for three reasons. First, it denies those who are facing criminal penalties important constitutional protections. Second, it doubly punishes those who have already served their criminal sentence with an added punishment that should be considered cruel and unusual (i.e., indefinite imprisonment or exile). Third, when the tactics aimed at protecting and serving local communities get usurped by the federal government for (...) immigration enforcement purposes, they often undermine these original aims or get used in ways that conflict with the U.S. Constitution. These concerns should prompt us therefore either to reject the government’s plenary power over immigration or require the federal government to be more consistent about maintaining the separation between criminal law and immigration law. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this paper, I critique one way of arguing for global democracy on grounds of affected interests and defend another. A famous argument for global democracy, which I call the Demos-Based Argument, attempts to justify global democracy based on the claim that affected interests vindicate individual claims to democratic participation or representation. I analyze and evaluate the Demos-Based Argument and consider different ways of interpreting and justifying its crucial premise: the Principle of Affected Interests. The result is that the argument (...) fails. One lesson of the discussion of the Demos-Based Argument is that the most promising, though eventually unsuccessful, justification of the Principle of Affected Interests is utilitarian. Given the failure of the Demos-Based Argument, the question suggests itself if there is another way to argue for global democracy on utilitarian grounds. I will outline a promising alternative argument for global democracy, which I call the Direct Argument. Like the De... (shrink)

Dieses Dossier stellt die Fragen der Migrationsethikdebatte: Gibt es ein Recht auf Einwanderung in einem liberalen demokratischen Staat wie der Schweiz? Welche Argumente sprechen grundsätzlich für oder gegen offene Grenzen? Was leistet die Philosophie hinsichtlich der Einwanderungsproblematik?

This article addresses the problem of ‘the legitimacy of the people’, that is, what constitutes the legitimate demarcation of the political units within which democracy is practiced? It is commonplace among philosophers to argue that this problem cannot be solved by appeal to democratic procedure because every attempt to do so results in an infinite regress. Based on a social contract theoretical analysis of the problem, this view is rejected. Although contract theorists have ignored the problem of the legitimacy of (...) the people, this article nevertheless argues for one specific, and currently dominant, type of contract view – ‘contractarianism’ – that it contains the conceptual tools to solve it. In a contractarian view, the people are understood as a cooperative venture for mutual advantage and accordingly consist of only those individuals for whom it is mutually beneficial to bind themselves to one another. It is argued that contractarianism offers a procedurally democratic solution to the problem of the legitimacy of the people that does not cause an infinite regress. Furthermore, this article refutes a classic criticism of contractarianism’s account of moral standing. Finally, the article demonstrates contractarianism’s practical implications for one specific articulation of the problem of the legitimacy of the people, namely, immigration. (shrink)

Contemporary republicans have adopted a less-than-charitable attitude toward private beneficence, especially when it is directed to the poor, worrying that rich patrons may be in a position to exercise arbitrary power over their impoverished clients. These concerns have led them to support impartial public provision by way of state welfare programs, including an unconditional basic income (UBI). In contrast to this administrative model of public welfare, I will propose a competitive model in which the state regulates and subsidizes a decentralized (...) and nonstatist provision of support for the poor. This model will fix the historically objectionable features of private provision by having the state prevent collusion among private charities, deliver information to recipients about alternative sources of assistance, and give substantial grants to charities as well as tax incentives and vouchers to donors. I will contend that such an approach would do a better job of minimizing domination of the poor than traditional welfare states and may prove more politically feasible than a UBI, at least in the near term in certain national contexts. (shrink)

This paper develops a domination-based practice-dependent approach to justice, according to which it is practices of systemic domination which can be said to ground demands from justice. The domination-based approach developed overcomes the two most important objections levelled to alternative practice-dependent approaches. First, it eschews conservative implications and hence is immune to the status quo objection. Second, it is immune to the redundancy objection, which doubts whether empirical facts and practices can really play an irreducible role in grounding justice. In (...) theorising dominating practices in terms of practices of social power, a domination-based approach makes justice dependent on factual information in three ways: First, the principle of non-domination is indeterminate and can only be spelled out by taking into view particular contexts of domination. Second, the principle of non-domination is conditional on the existence of practices of social power. Third, social power possesses a structural ontology – to know whether A has social power over B we need to turn to social rules distributing agents' higher order status of normative authority towards each other. This explains in what way practices of social power – and of domination – are both factual and normative practices and hence how such practices are non-redundant in grounding justice. (shrink)

According to neo-republicans, democracy is morally justified because it is among the prerequisites for freedom as non-domination. The claim that democracy secures freedom as non-domination needs to explain why democratic procedures contribute to non-domination and for whom democracy secures non-domination. This requires an account of why domination is countered by democratic procedures and an account of to whom domination is countered by access to democratic procedures. Neo-republican theory of democracy is based on a detailed discussion of the former but a (...) scant discussion of the latter. We address this lacuna by interpreting the two most influential principles of inclusion, the all-subjected principle and the all-affected principle, in light of neo-republican commitments. The preliminary conclusion is that both principles are able to capture relations of domination between the democratic state and the people controlled by it in the relevant sense. Yet, the state has virtually unlimited powers to control residents, but only limited powers to interfere in the lives of non-residents. Republican aspirations are therefore more in tune with the all-subjected principle according to which only residents in the territory of the state should be granted rights to political participation. (shrink)

This paper focuses on a hypothetical case that represents an intervention request familiar to those who work with individuals with intellectual disability. Stacy has autism and moderate intellectual disability. Her parents have requested treatment for her hand flapping. Stacy is not competent to make her own treatment decisions; proxy consent is required. There are three primary justifications for proxy consent: the right to an open future, substituted judgment, and the best interest standard. The right to an open future justifies proxy (...) consent on the assumption of future autonomy whereas substituted judgment justifies proxy consent via reference to past autonomy. Neither applies. Stacy has not been, nor will she be, competent to make her own treatment decisions. The best interest standard justifies proxy consent on the grounds of beneficence. It is unlikely that hand flapping harms Stacy. None of the three primary means of justifying proxy consent apply to Stacy’s case. (shrink)

Abizadeh has argued that because border controls coerce would-be immigrants and invade their autonomy, they are entitled to participate in the democratic institutions that impose those controls. In reply, the author distinguishes between coercion and prevention, shows that prevention need not undermine autonomy, and concludes that although border controls may restrict freedom, they do not give rise to democratic entitlements.

This chapter argues that people have a human right to immigrate to other states. People have essential interests in being able to make important personal decisions and engage in politics without state restrictions on the options available to them. It is these interests that other human rights, such as the human rights to internal freedom of movement, expression and association, protect. The human right to immigrate is not absolute. Like other human freedom rights , it can be restricted in certain (...) extreme circumstances. Outside these circumstances, however, immigration restrictions are unjust. Having presented the argument for a human right to immigrate, the chapter responds to objections from distributive justice, culture and scarcity. (shrink)

This essay explores the intersection of racism, racial embodiment theory and the recent hostility aimed at immigrants and foreigners in the United States, especially the targeting of people of Latin American descent and Latino/as. Anti-immigrant and anti-foreigner sentiment is racist. It is the embodiment of racial privilege for those who wield it and the materiality of racial difference for those it is used against. This manifestation of racial privilege and difference rests upon a redrawing of the color line that is (...) meant towards preserving exclusive categories of political membership. The charge of racism, however, is elided by the fact that this hostility takes the form of a specious embracement of law and lawfulness. “Illegal” in this sense not only captures the actions of those who enter the United States through clandestine or informal means, but, in light of the history of immigration and citizen- ship law, the term operates as a racial trope that designates non-white status, thus marginalizing and alienating certain immigrants from ongoing nation-formation processes. I explain the source for anti-immigrant hostility in the United States, which I take to be connected to the longevity of white normativity as the basis for American identity. I then critically assess how the idea of national belonging is crucial to the perpetuation of white-ways-of-being, especially when citizenship has historically been a venue for the embodiment of racial and even colonial privilege. I conclude by posing several questions about the nature of racial identities and racism that suggest new avenues for further research on racial embodiment in a “postracial” era. pp. 65–90. (shrink)

This book offers an original account of a distinctly republican theory of social and global justice. The book starts by exploring the nature and value of Hegelian recognition theory. It shows the importance of that theory for grounding a normative account of free and autonomous agency. It is this normative account of free agency which provides the groundwork for a republican conception of social and global justice, based on the core-ideas of freedom as non-domination and autonomy as non-alienation. As the (...) author argues, republicans should endorse a sufficientarian account of social justice, which focuses on the nature of social relationships and their effects on people's ability to act freely and realize their fundamental interests. On the global level, the book argues for the cosmopolitan extension of the republican principles of non-domination and non-alienation within a multi-level democratic system. In so doing, the book addresses a major gap in the existing literature, presenting an original theory of justice, which combines Hegelian recognition theory and republican ideas of freedom, and applying this hybrid theory to the global domain. Fabian Schuppert creates a grand synthesis uniting neo-republican insights on freedom with Hegelian recognition theory. The result is an account of agency that arises from the idea of non-domination whose aim it is to safeguard individual freedom. When combined with Hegelian recognition theory a social focus also emerges. This amalgam comments on many of the major disputes concerning global justice from a cosmopolitan perspective. Because of the broad scope and the many contemporary discussions engaged this book will be of keen interest to scholars as well as a welcome addition to the classroom. (shrink)

Several political theorists argue that states have rights to self-determination and these rights justify immigration restrictions. Call this: the self-determination argument for immigration restrictions. In this article, I develop an objection to the self-determination argument. I argue that if it is morally permissible for states to restrict immigration because they have rights to self-determination, then it can also be morally permissible for states to deport and denationalize their own citizens. We can either accept that it is permissible for states to (...) deport and denationalize their own citizens or reject the self-determination argument. To avoid this implication, we should reject the self-determination argument. That is, we should also reject the conclusion that rights to self-determination can justify any significant immigration restrictions. (shrink)

Despite being fundamental to democracy, the normative concept of the people, i.e. the demos, is highly unclear. This article clarifies the legitimacy of the demos’ boundaries by structuring the debate into three strains of justification: first, normative membership principles; second, its democratic functionality and the necessity of cohesion for this essential function; and third, a procedural understanding of the demos. It will be shown that normative principles can only justify its expansion towards the ideal of an unbounded demos. On the (...) other hand, the democratic function of the demos can be understood as a criterion for its restriction. This, however, is only possible on the basis of an existing polity and not for the initial constitution of the demos. Consequently, a legitimate demos has to take both inclusionary and exclusionary tendencies into account. These tendencies need to be weighed against each other in the democratic process, which leads to a fundamentally procedural understanding of the legitimacy of the demos. (shrink)

In Europe and other regions of the world public debate concerning how many immigrants should be admitted, which rights those admitted should have, and which conditions can be required for access to citizenship is intense and enduring, and these have increasingly become central electoral issues. On the one hand, the harsh treatment of migrants is often a matter of public criticism; on the other hand, states are concerned about problems of welfare, security and social unrest that they have come to (...) associate with large-scale migration. At its most fundamental level, this debate concerns the question of how best to balance particularist principles of democratic self-determination and state sovereignty and universalist principles of individual freedom and human rights. The articles in this special issue examine whether the concept of domination can cast a distinctive light on the normative issues arising in this tension between state sovereignty and universal principles with respect to migration and the position of non-citizens in contemporary liberal democratic states. These issues arise both externally insofar as foreigners are subject to migration controls, and internally insofar as migrants live in states of which they are not full members. The issue thus examines the potential of domination as a concept to bring to bear on issues of migration controls, differential residence statuses and access to membership. (shrink)

Many of us take it for granted that states have a right to control the entry and settlement of non‐citizens in their territories, and hardly pause to consider or evaluate the moral justifications for immigration controls. For a long time, very few political philosophers showed a great deal of interest in the subject. However, it is now attracting much more attention in the discipline. This article aims to show that we most certainly should not take it for granted that states (...) enjoy a moral right to exclude would‐be immigrants. It is neither obvious nor uncontroversial. And if we cannot find adequate justifications for the existence of such a right, then we need to re‐evaluate the very backbone of current approaches to immigration policy. The paper begins with an overview of the existing academic debate about the extent of the right to freedom of movement. Next it introduces three arguments in support of the state’s right to exclude would‐be immigrants which draw on claims about the collective right to self‐determination. Finally it outlines three important challenges faced by these arguments in support of the state’s right to exclude. (shrink)

Is it possible to justify territorial rights? Provided a justification for territorial rights can be found, does it ground claims toparticularterritories? And provided a claim to particular territories can be justified, what kind of claim is it? Is it a claim to jurisdiction? A claim to control resources? A claim to control the movement of people across borders? In this paper I review some prominent accounts seeking to answer these questions. After outlining their main features, I focus on some difficulties (...) they encounter, in particular with regard to the justification of exclusion. (shrink)

This study is devoted to the ways and means to justify a ‘more’ cosmopolitan realization of certain policy implications, in the case of immigration. The raison d’être of this study is the idea that the contemporary debate over open borders suffers from indeterminate discussions on whether liberal states are entitled to restrict immigration. On the other hand, most of the liberal cosmopolitan accounts neglect the detrimental consequences of their open borders argument – which take it as a means to compensate (...) people in need –, such as brain drain and the effects of brain drain on the opportunity sets of members of sending countries. Therefore I offer a moral cosmopolitan account of immigration which takes the interests of would-be immigrants, the residents in receiving, along with the residents in sending countries in respect to their opportunity sets because of the way arbitrary border control represents the inequality of opportunity. I do not provide a well-formed immigration policy here, yet I believe the account provided here is more feasible in considering phenomena such as brain drain. (shrink)

In this thesis I defend the principle of global egalitarianism. According to this idea most of the existing detrimental inequalities in this world are morally objectionable. As detrimental inequalities I understand those that are not to the benefit of the worst off people and that can be non-wastefully removed. To begin with, I consider various justifications of the idea that only those detrimental inequalities that occur within one and the same state are morally objectionable. I identify Thomas Nagel’s approach as (...) the most promising defence of this traditional position. However, I also show that Nagel’s argument does not even justify the elimination of detrimental inequalities within states. A discussion of the concept of political legitimacy rather shows that egalitarian justice is not a necessary condition of the justifiability of the exercise of coercive political power. I, then, consider other, more Rawlsian approaches to the question of detrimental inequalities. These views appear more plausible than Nagel’s position and argue that egalitarian duties also arise in certain international contexts. But also these more global theories of distributive justice suffer from shortcomings. Since they make the application of duties of justice dependent on the existence of social practices they cannot adequately account for the justified interests of non-participants that are affected by these practices. The counter-intuitive implications of practice-dependent theories lead me to investigate the plausibility of a theory that does not limit justice to existing practices and that argues for the inherent value of equality. This theory is global egalitarianism. I defend global egalitarianism by debilitating three objections that opponents of this idea frequently present in the relevant literature. Finally I also address two particular objections to the idea that global egalitarian duties are institutionalizable with the help of coercive global authorities. (shrink)

This paper lays the foundations for a democratic defence of the argument that at least some non-citizens are entitled to claim rights of political participation with regard to states in which they are not resident. First I outline a distinctively democratic case for granting participatory rights to certain non-resident non-citizens, based upon the central claim that in a democracy those who are governed ought to have the opportunity to participate in the exercise of government. I offer support for extending rights (...) of participation to some non-resident non-citizens by addressing two possible democratic objections, relating to political equality and reciprocity. (shrink)

In this article, I develop a new account of the liberal view that principles of justice are meant to justify state coercion, and consider its implications for the question of global socioeconomic justice. Although contemporary proponents of this view deny that principles of socioeconomic justice apply globally, on my newly developed account this conclusion is mistaken. I distinguish between two types of coercion, systemic and interactional, and argue that a plausible theory of global justice should contain principles justifying both. The (...) justification of interactional coercion requires principles regulating interstate interference; that of systemic coercion requires principles of global socioeconomic justice. I argue that the proposed view not only helps us make progress in the debate on global justice, but also offers an independently compelling and systematic account of the function and conditions of applicability of justice. -/-. (shrink)

It is normally taken for granted that states have a right to control immigration into their territory. When immigration is raised as a normative issue two questions become salient, one about what the right to exclude is, and one about whether and how it might be justified. This paper considers the first question. The paper starts by noting that standard debates about immigration have not addressed what the right to exclude is. Standard debates about immigration furthermore tend to result either (...) in fairly strong cases for open borders or in denials that considerations of justice apply to immigration at all, which results in state discretion positions. This state of debate is both theoretically unsatisfactory and normatively implausible. The paper therefore explores an alternative approach to the right to exclude immigrants from the perspective of recent debates about the territorial rights of states. The right to exclude claimed by states is analysed and it is shown to differ both conceptually and normatively from rights to impose political authority within a territory. The paper finally indicates how this analysis might broaden the focus of debates about immigration and suggest alternative regimes of migration regulation the possibility of which is obscured by traditional justice approaches. (shrink)

A number of recent articles have invoked the republican ideal of non-domination to justify either open borders, and/or the reduction of states’ discretionary powers to unilaterally determine immigration policy. In this paper, I show that such arguments are one-sided, as they fail to fully account for the deep ambiguity of the very ideal which they invoke. In fact, non-domination lends just as powerful support to maintaining state border controls as it does to dismantling them. There are only two exceptions to (...) the rule. It is well established that promoting non-domination demands, one the one hand, that refugees be admitted, and second, that all migrants have a right to contest decisions concerning their own admission. But aside from these things, the policy implications of the ideal are unclear. In itself, therefore, it is insufficient to justify either open borders, or the reduction of states said discretionary powers. Such arguments will have to rely on other, additional moral criteria. -/- . (shrink)

A citizen is a member of a political community who enjoys the rights and assumes the duties of membership. This broad definition is discernible, with minor variations, in the works of contemporary authors as well as in the entry “citoyen” in Diderot's and d'Alembert's Encyclopédie..

The aim of this paper is to offer a broad characterization of the kind of account that I believe cannot plausibly face conclusively the problem of the ethics of immigration restrictions in a non-ideal world at the level of the constitutional essentials. I argue that justice-based accounts of immigration controls fail to normatively evaluate what immigration controls do to outsiders subjected to them in non-ideal conditions, so judgments of justice by themselves tend to be overall bad for the interest of (...) immigrants. I explain this by insisting that a prior question about the legitimacy of immigration controls have been overlooked by familiar accounts. A full account of the ethics of immigration suitable for guiding constitutional essentials should be able to connect distinct kinds of justice-based evaluations in order to ask both, what legitimacy requires from territorial institutional control as well as what justice requires from immigration policy. (shrink)