Sarah Song

This article examines the provocative analogy between feudalism and modern citizenship in Joseph Carens’s case for open borders. The analogy raises a distributive objection against bounded citizenship: modern citizenship is an inherited status assigned by birth and is attached to great advantages or disadvantages, and states reinforce these objectionable inequalities by restricting people’s mobility across borders. I argue the analogy is misleading. The case for bounded citizenship does not stand or fall with feudalism. One can be committed to the value of equality and defend bounded citizenship while rejecting feudalism. A key aspiration of the modern liberal ideal of citizenship is to recognize and promote the equality of citizens. One way to promote the equal standing of citizens is to respect their right of collective self-determination, including the right to make decisions about matters of immigration and membership in their political community. A commitment to equality is compatible with bounded citizenship if we adopt certain qualifications on the right of collective self-determination, including the duty to remedy historical injustice, the duty to extend membership to resident noncitizens, the duty to take in refugees and other necessitous migrants, and the duty to alleviate global poverty through development assistance.

How should we think about immigration and what policies should democratic societies pursue? Sarah Song offers a political theory of immigration that takes seriously both the claims of receiving countries and the claims of prospective migrants. Immigration is one of the most polarizing issues in contemporary politics. It raises questions about identity, economic well-being, the legitimacy of state power, and the boundaries of membership and justice. How should we think about immigration and what policies should democratic societies pursue? Some contend that borders should generally be open and people should be free to migrate in search of better lives. Others insist that governments have the right to unilaterally close their borders and should do so. In Immigration and Democracy, Sarah Song develops an intermediate ethical position that takes seriously both the claims of receiving countries and the claims of prospective migrants. She argues that political membership is morally significant, even if morally arbitrary. Political membership grounds particular rights and obligations, and a government may show some partiality toward the interests of its members. Yet, we also have universal obligations to those outside our orders. Where prospective migrants have urgent reasons to move, as in the case of refugees, their interests may trump the less weighty interests of members. What is required is not open or closed borders but open doors. An accessible ethical framework that clarifies and deepens the ideas with which members of democratic societies can debate immigration, Immigration and Democracy considers the implications of a realistically utopian theory for immigration law and policy.

This essay examines Susan Moller Okin’s writing on conflicts between religious freedom and sex equality, and her criticism of ‘political liberal’ approaches to these conflicts, which I take to be a part of her lifelong critique of the public–private distinction. I argue that, while Okin ultimately accepted a version of the distinction, she was much less hopeful than most liberal theorists that private actions could be made just without a great deal of public coercion. This comes through especially in her writing on religion. I suggest an approach to addressing these conflicts that seeks to respect religious liberty more than Okin’s prescriptions suggest she did but which, in my view, is more consistent with Okin’s own liberal commitments.

The boundaries of democracy are typically defined by the boundaries of formal status citizenship. Such state-centered theories of democracy leave many migrants without a voice in political decision-making in the areas where they live and work, giving rise to a problem of democratic legitimacy. Drawing on two democratic principles of inclusion, the all affected interests and coercion principles, this article elaborates this problem and examines two responses offered by scholars of citizenship for what receiving states might do. The first approach involves expanding the circle of citizenship to include resident noncitizens. A second approach involves disaggregating the rights conventionally associated with citizenship from the legal status of citizenship and extending some of those rights, including voting rights, to resident noncitizens. This article argues that both approaches fall short of satisfying the democratic principles of inclusion, which call for enfranchising individuals not only beyond the boundaries of citizenship but also beyond territorial boundaries.

Democracy is rule by the demos, but by what criteria is the demos constituted? Theorists of democracy have tended to assume that the demos is properly defined by national boundaries or by the territorial boundaries of the modern state. In a recent turn, many democratic theorists have advanced the principles of affected interests and coercion as the basis for defining the boundaries of democracy. According to these principles, it is not co-nationals or fellow citizens but all affected or all subjected to coercion who constitute the demos. In this paper, I argue that these recent approaches to the boundary problem are insufficiently attentive to the conditions of democracy. Democracy is not merely a set of procedures; it also consists of substantive values and principles. Political equality is a constitutive condition of democracy, and solidarity is an instrumental condition of democracy. The affected interests and coercion principles create serious problems for the realization of these conditions – problems of size and stability. Building on this critique, this paper presents democratic considerations for why the demos should be bounded by the territorial boundaries of the state, grounded in the state’s role in (1) securing the constitutive conditions of democracy, (2) serving as the primary site of solidarity conducive to democratic participation, and (3) establishing clear links between representatives and their constituents. I examine and reject a third alternative, a global demos bounded by a world state, and conclude by considering some practical implications of my argument.

Immigrant legalization policies pose an ethical dilemma between justice and the rule of law. On the one hand, liberal democracies aspire to the principles of individual liberty and equality. Building on liberal ideals of justice, compelling arguments have been made for granting legal status and a path to citizenship to unauthorized migrants by virtue of the social ties they have developed, their contributions to the host society, and their vulnerability to exploitation. On the other hand, legalization poses a challenge to another important value, the rule of law, which requires government to operate within a framework of law in accordance with well-established public norms. Immigrant legalization programmes are said to undermine the rule of law because they reward lawbreaking, allow queue-jumping, and incentivize further unauthorized migration. This article clarifies each horn of the dilemma, focusing on rule of law arguments. We offer a critical reappraisal of immigrant legalization policies by reflecting on the normative meaning of the rule of law and by examining empirical evidence assessing the effects of legalization. Our central contention is that legalization policies can enhance the rule of law. We offer five rule of law arguments in support of legalization, which help to mitigate the dilemma between justice and the rule of law. We conclude by discussing some policy implications of our analysis.

This article brings Gillian Brock and Alex Sager's recently published books into conversation with my book, Immigration and Democracy. It begins with a summary of the main normative arguments of my book to set the stage for critical engagement with Brock and Sager's books. While I agree with Brock's Justice for People on the Move that state power must be justified to both insiders and outsiders, I think she gives too little weight to the value of collective self-determination. I distinguish between justice and collective self-determination and argue that each is an important component of legitimacy. Sager's Against Borders focuses on immigration enforcement and contends that violence is inherent in border controls. Every legal system is backed by the threat of the use of force; the question is whether the use of force by state agents is justified. In contrast to Sager, I argue that the proper response to the injustices of current immigration enforcement is reform, not abolition, of the immigration system.

Justice, Gender and the Politics of Multiculturalism explores the tensions that arise when culturally diverse democratic states pursue both justice for religious and cultural minorities and justice for women. Sarah Song provides a distinctive argument about the circumstances under which egalitarian justice requires special accommodations for cultural minorities while emphasizing the value of gender equality as an important limit on cultural accommodation. Drawing on detailed case studies of gendered cultural conflicts, including conflicts over the 'cultural defense' in criminal law, aboriginal membership rules and polygamy, Song offers a fresh perspective on multicultural politics by examining the role of intercultural interactions in shaping such conflicts. In particular, she demonstrates the different ways that majority institutions have reinforced gender inequality in minority communities and, in light of this, argues in favour of resolving gendered cultural dilemmas through intercultural democratic dialogue.

Carens has done more than any other political theorist or philosopher to develop the normative perspective of prospective migrants from within the liberal democratic tradition, but he has not sufficiently engaged with the other side of the argument – in particular, with the value of political community and the principle of collective self-determination. What is at stake for the immigrant-receiving country that might justify its claim to control immigration? I first examine Carens’ theory of social membership and its connection to political community. I then discuss his method of ‘political theory from the ground up’ and his interpretation of democratic principles. I conclude with a discussion of the principle of collective self-determination.