Abstract
In this essay I present three challenges to the view that democratic self-determination justifies immigration control. I propose, first, that the reason democratic states can claim immigration control powers is not that they are democratic, but that they are independent states. Exercising this power is legitimate when immigration control is needed to preserve the conditions for democratic self-government. Second, I argue that democratic norms provide positive reasons for promoting free international movement and admission claims for family migrants, labour migrants, and refugees. Third, I suggest that current disputes over immigration policy in the European Union reflect deeper conflicts between open and closed conceptions of democracy. If this is correct, then choosing closure over openness may put the future of democracy itself at risk and should thus not be regarded as an issue of democratic self-determination.
Zusammenfassung
Dieser Text kritisiert die weitverbreitete Ansicht, dass ein demokratisches Recht auf Selbstbestimmung Einwanderungskontrolle rechtfertigt. Erstens schlage ich vor, dass der Grund, warum demokratische Staaten grundsätzlich zur Einwanderungskontrolle ermächtigt sind, nicht darin besteht, dass sie demokratisch sind, sondern dass sie unabhängige Staaten sind. Die Ausübung dieser Befugnisse ist nur insofern legitim, als Einwanderungskontrolle erforderlich ist, um die Bedingungen für demokratische Selbstregierung zu bewahren. Zweitens argumentiere ich, dass demokratische Normen positive Gründe für die Förderung der Freizügigkeit und für Aufnahmeansprüche von Familienmigranten, Arbeitsmigranten und Flüchtlingen liefern. Drittens schlage ich vor, dass der gegenwärtige Dissens über die Einwanderungspolitik in der Europäischen Union tiefere Konflikte zwischen offenen und geschlossenen Vorstellungen von Demokratie widerspiegelt. Wenn dies zutrifft, dann kann die Entscheidung für Schließung die Zukunft der Demokratie selbst gefährden und sollte daher nicht als Frage der demokratischen Selbstbestimmung betrachtet werden.
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Notes
Only a few authors defend the right of states to full closure. Christopher Heath Wellman does so on grounds of an analogy between states and voluntary associations (Wellman 2008).
For Joseph Carens, the most influential theorist in this debate, the relevant tension is instead between an ideal theory argument for open borders and a realist argument for immigrant rights under nonideal conditions where states control immigration (Carens 2013).
Among the several competing versions of realism in normative political theory, I would generally endorse the “real-world justice” approach that Macdonald and Little summarise as a problem-centred methodological strategy, a focus on the political value of legitimacy, and a normative and critical commitment (Little and Macdonald 2015).
The number of EU citizens who have made use of their free-movement rights is roughly 11% compared with only 3% of current free movers in the EU population (Recchi et al. 2019).
We are concerned here with immigration across political borders, not with physical movement in space, which is regulated and restricted in many ways, e.g. through traffic and private property laws. National governments may even fully prohibit access to and settlement in certain parts of the territory, such as national parks, but these are administrative rather than political territories. There are also exceptional restrictions of internal free movement in the proper sense of the term in some democratic states, e.g. for settlement in indigenous territories in North America. These can be justified on grounds of special protection needs and indigenous claims to semi-sovereign forms of self-government.
Political theories hardly ever refer to the European Union when discussing free movement and its preconditions, which shows a disturbing lack of attention to real-world contexts.
See ICCPR Art. 12(4).
There is a relatively broad consensus on this point among political theorists who otherwise strongly disagree on the legitimacy of immigration control. See e.g. Abizadeh (2008) and Miller (2016, p. 37). As Andrea Sangiovanni has suggested to me, a duty to justification can coexist with a legitimate power to decide. My specific point here is that democratic legitimacy requires justifying the exercise of this power in democratic terms—or refraining from exercising it where no such justification can be provided.
Elsewhere I claim that the same principle that the exercise of self-determination is legitimate only if necessary to realise a legitimate claim to self-government applies also to secession of a territory from an independent state (Bauböck 2019b).
An argument along these lines was suggested early on by Bruce Ackerman (1980, p. 87–95).
David Miller defends a right of states to determine their overall immigration intake (Miller 2016, p. 160) but suggests that within such a quota they need to give priority to refugees (ibid.: 164). However, admitting economic migrants may actually enhance a state’s capacity to also admit refugees if it contributes to economic growth and greater acceptance of diversity (Bauböck 2019a). Instead of setting overall immigration quota, democracies should determine flexible targets and limits for each category of immigrants that is subject to immigration control.
Caleb Yong is among the few authors who distinguish “strong rights to immigrate for specifically protected reasons and a weak right to immigrate that establishes a presumption against immigration restrictions that lack a sufficient justification” (Yong 2017).
Unlike the right to emigrate and to internal free movement, the right to return to one’s country is not further qualified by public order clauses (ICCPR 1966, Art. 12(4)). States can, however, circumvent it if they can strip nationals of their citizenship, which they can do more easily with dual nationals.
See the Nottebohm judgment of the International Court of Justice (Liechtenstein v. Guatemala [1955] ICJ 1).
Thirty-eight percent of all residence permits issued for third-country nationals in 2015 were for purposes of family reunification (European Migration Network 2016).
For lack of space, I cannot distinguish here between temporary labour migration and economically motivated permanent immigration.
See de Haas (2010) for a critical overview of the debate on migration and development. De Haas emphasises that positive impacts of migration on development depend strongly on public policies and institutions in countries of origin.
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to Mattias Kumm, Klaus Detterbeck, Anja Jetschke, Rainer Forst, and Andrew Geddes for hosting presentations of draft versions of this paper and to the participants at Humboldt University Berlin, University of Göttingen, Goethe University Frankfurt, and the European University Institute in Florence for useful feedback. Special thanks to David Abraham, Chiara Destri, Andrea Sangiovanni, and two anonymous reviewers for very helpful written comments.
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Bauböck, R. The Democratic Case for Immigration. Polit Vierteljahresschr 61, 357–375 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11615-020-00229-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11615-020-00229-3
Keywords
- Democratic norms
- Immigration control
- Self-determination
- Self-government
- Free movement
- Labour migration
- Refugees
- European Union