Migration in Political Theory The Ethics of Movement and Membership

Written by an international team of leading political and legal theory scholars whose writings have contributed to shaping the field, Migration in Political Theory presents seminal new work on the ethics of movement and membership.

The volume addresses challenging and under-researched themes on the subject of migration. It debates the question of whether we ought to recognize a human right to immigrate, and whether it might be legitimate to restrict emigration. The authors critically examine criteria for selecting would-be migrants, and for acquiring citizenship, as well as the tensions between the claims of immigrants and existing residents, and tackle questions of migrant worker exploitation and responsibility for refugees. All of the chapters illustrate the importance of drawing on the tools of political theory to clarifying, criticize and challenge the current terms of the migration debate.

Sarah Fine, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, King's College London,Lea Ypi, Professor in Political Theory, London School of Economics

Sarah Fine is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at King's College London. She was previously a Research Fellow at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. She specialises in issues relating to migration and citizenship. Her forthcoming book, Immigration and the Right to Exclude (OUP), sets out to challenge the idea that the state has a moral right to exclude would-be immigrants. Her publications include 'Freedom of Association Is Not the Answer' in Ethics.


Lea Ypi is a Professor in Political Theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Adjunct Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. She is the author of Global Justice and Avant-Garde Political Agency (Oxford University Press 2012), The Meaning of Partisanship, (OUP 2016, with Jonathan White) and the co-editor of Kant and Colonialism (Oxford University Press 2014, with Katrin Flikschuh).

1. The Ethics of Movement and Membership: An Introduction, Sarah Fine and Lea Ypi
Part One: Entry and Exit
2. Is there a Human Right to Immigrate?, David Miller
3. Immigration as a Human Right, Kieran Oberman
4. Is there an Unqualified Right to Leave?, Anna Stilz
5. Freedom of Movement and the Rights to Enter and Exit, Christopher Heath Wellman
Part Two: Migration, Equality, and Justice
6. The Special-Obligations Challenge to More Open Borders, Arash Abizadeh
7. Immigration and Discrimination, Sarah Fine
8. Taking Workers as a Class: The Moral Dilemmas of Guestworker Programmes, Lea Ypi
9. Selecting By Merit: The Brave New World of Stratified Mobility, Ayelet Shachar
Part Three: Migration and Membership
10. In Defense of Birthright Citizenship, Joseph H. Carens
11. The Significance of Territorial Presence and the Rights of Immigrants, Sarah Song
12. Are Refugees Special?, Chandran Kukathas
13. In Loco Civitatis: On the Normative Basis of the Institution of Refugeehood and Responsibilities for Refugees, David Owen