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Citizenship presents two faces. Within a political community it stands for inclusion and universalism, but to outsiders, citizenship means exclusion. Because these aspects of citizenship appear spatially and jurisdictionally separate, they are usually regarded as complementary. In fact, the inclusionary and exclusionary dimensions of citizenship dramatically collide within the territory of the nation-state, creating multiple contradictions when it comes to the class of people the law calls aliens--transnational migrants with a status short of full citizenship. Examining alienage and alienage

Citizenship presents two faces. Within a political community it stands for inclusion and universalism, but to outsiders, citizenship means exclusion. Because these aspects of citizenship appear spatially and jurisdictionally separate, they are usually regarded as complementary. In fact, the inclusionary and exclusionary dimensions of citizenship dramatically collide within the territory of the nation-state, creating multiple contradictions when it comes to the class of people the law calls aliens--transnational migrants with a status short of full citizenship. Examining alienage and alienage l.

By now one might hope that the robust body of theoretical work recently published on immigration ethics would have taken general political philosophy a long way from the prevailing Rawlsian-style insularity premise, according to which society is "a closed system isolated from other societies" into which persons "enter only by birth and exit only by death." But there are still a great many political theorists whose focus is unreflectively endogenous and who assume away questions of states' constitutive scope and boundaries. One of the signal merits of David Miller's new book,Strangers in Our Midst, is that it lucidly demonstrates why ignoring state boundary constitution is untenable for political theory. Miller shows that foundational debates in political philosophy are inescapably related, both as premise and entailment, to many normative immigration questions.

AbstractIn this paper, I examine arguments commonly made by both theorists and advocates on behalf of regularization of unauthorized immigrants in liberal democratic states. Most such arguments begin with the premise that the irregular immigrant has committed at least a

This commentary addresses scholars and activists in liberal national states who advocate on behalf of undocumented immigrants, and offers some reflections on some of the intellectual and political challenges we encounter. I will suggest that the nature of our standard arguments on behalf of immigrants can sometimes give too much ground to current social conditions, and that we may – in our efforts to remain immediately policy-relevant – relinquish the opportunity to develop more fundamental social criticism of existing immigration relations.

We inhabit a thoroughly globalized world. People are increasingly and visibly connected by a "World Wide Web," by a world market, and by universalist discourses of human rights and democracy. At the same time, full citizenship in a political community—and the rights conferred by such citizenship—is an exclusive status that remains, remarkably, tied to accidents of birth and historical circumstance. And what one has a right to—gainful employment, education, health care, political voice, mere presence—is largely a function of whether one has the precious status of citizenship or is, alternatively, regarded as an alien. Ayelet Shachar's The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality is a compelling account of the moral arbitrariness of this state of affairs. A study in "normative political theory," it is a work of political science that incorporates legal theory, moral philosophy, political economy, and public policy. The author tackles issues of increasing global political importance—global disparities of wealth; unequal access to clear air, water, and a secure place to live; and the increasingly contentious politics of immigration and immigrant rights.So it seems fitting to invite a range of political science scholars who work on these topics to comment on the book. The basic editorial charge of this symposium is thus straightforward: How do you assess Shachar's arguments and the attention she focuses on the phenomenon of "birthright lottery"? How does this argument bear upon the topics and approaches that characterize your own scholarship? And how do these topics and approaches shed light on the book and its arguments? While the focus of the symposium is this provocative book, the discussion of it should also be regarded as an opportunity to address the question of whether or not the bases of citizenship need to be fundamentally reconceived, and in what ways political science can and should contribute to such a rethinking.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

Citizenship is not a static concept. It is not inherently national & exclusively nation-centered understandings of citizenship are too narrow for the current era of globalization. However, the claim that citizenship has been denationalized or postnationalized still needs to be proven. Four meanings of citizenship are reviewed in the context of denationalized citizenship -- legal status, enjoyment of rights, active engagement in the life of a polity, & public identity. Postnational citizenship fits least with citizenship as legal status, but better with the other meanings, especially with citizenship as collective identity & solidarity. With the decentralization of the nation-state as the locus of collective institutional & associative life, denationalized citizenship is a desired good. A commitment to pluralization & even beyond, to postcitizenship, is discussed. 61 References. M. Pflum