Democracy, Citizenship and Migration Policy

Abstract

Migration policy and law are changing very fast due to the increasing prominence of political unwillingness to host immigrants and refugees in the last decade. Political parties from left and right alike often adjust their discourse to adopt restrictive border, migration and citizenship policies. While the rise of anti-immigration sentiment is promoted by right-wing populist, authoritarian and xenophobic political parties and leaders around the world, the boundaries of ‘true people’ and ‘true members’ narrow down to exclude citizens of cosmopolitan orientation, of migration background and would-be immigrants. It seems that the crisis of democratic politics, lack of trust and authoritarianism is going hand in hand with a crisis of ‘political membership’ in culturally, religiously, racially and ethnically diverse societies. Within the emerging field of migration ethics in political theory, some scholars consider migration as a challenge to the stability of liberal democratic institutions, hence the admission and residence of immigrants needs to be limited. This restrictive liberal nationalist view has encountered cosmopolitan objections based on equality of opportunity; on the human right to migrate, hospitality or on common ownership of the earth that justify inclusive border and citizenship policies. However, during the last decades, migration, citizenship and border policies have been increasingly more restrictive, and social and political tensions triggered by disagreements on migration issues are structurally part of the public debates in democratic societies. To address such challenges, two perspectives offer new interesting insights in political theory. On the one hand, the consideration of the receiving societies’ perception of immigrants and their descendants; on the other, the role of sub-national levels of policies. The first perspective focuses on the perception of immigrants by the host societies, and suggests how this influences various central issues, such as access to welfare state, social benefits and state services. This includes what role differences in sexual orientation, gender, ethnicity and religion might play in representing a well-integrated immigrant. The second focuses on the consideration of local and urban citizenship policies as tools to examine the ethical dilemmas raised by migration and resistance to national citizenship and border policies. This panel will discuss these new developments shedding light on the relationship among democracy, citizenship and migration policy, in order to respond well to the overall decay in liberal democracies.

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