Free movement of people strains the republican ideal of non-domination against bounded civic community.
Evidence
Perhaps the greatest challenge to contemporary civic republican theory, however, is the problem of state borders and global migration. Republicans are in a strong position to advocate for stateless persons, refugees, and resident non-citizens who, in various ways, are clearly vulnerable to avoidable domination (Bohman 2009; Benton 2010). Much less obvious, however, is how to address the issue of international freedom of movement. Traditionally committed to a strong conception of citizenship, the republican ideal of political liberty has often seemed inseparable from the existence of bounded communities of fellow free citizens. Pettit (2012, 161–2) claims that since states have no choice but to maintain borders, the existence of migration controls as such cannot count as dominating, while Costa (2016) disagrees. Honohan (2014) insists that any migration controls a given state does implement should be non-arbitrary, but as Fine (2014) observes, this does not settle the ultimate question of whether freedom of movement can be reconciled with the need to maintain civic community. — Frank Lovett, Republicanism, 70
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the reader’s existing notes on republican liberty vs. liberal freedom, and to contemporary debates on open borders that surface in immigration-policy literature. — connects to: Freedom requires civic trust, not solitary defensive walls — Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and…, 1192
- QUESTION: Worth chasing: does Pettit’s claim that borders as such cannot dominate actually hold if a state’s boundary regime is arbitrary in design?
- corroborated: 5 independent passages support this claim — Frank Lovett, Republicanism, 70
Related
- Freedom requires civic trust, not solitary defensive walls (similarity 0.79)
Broader Connections
- Freedom requires civic trust, not solitary defensive walls
#complicates(0.72) — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 1192