Immigration and freedom

Immigration is often seen as a danger to western liberal democracies because it threatens to undermine their fundamental values, most notably freedom and national self-determination. In this book, however, Chandran Kukathas argues that the greater threat comes not from immigration but from immigrati...

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Main Author: KUKATHAS, Chandran
Format: text
Language:English
Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2021
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Online Access:https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2919
https://press.princeton.edu/books/ebook/9780691215389/immigration-and-freedom
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spelling sg-smu-ink.soss_research-41762024-07-24T06:48:44Z Immigration and freedom KUKATHAS, Chandran Immigration is often seen as a danger to western liberal democracies because it threatens to undermine their fundamental values, most notably freedom and national self-determination. In this book, however, Chandran Kukathas argues that the greater threat comes not from immigration but from immigration control. Kukathas shows that immigration control is not merely about preventing outsiders from moving across borders. It is about controlling what outsiders do once in a society: whether they work, reside, study, set up businesses, or share their lives with others. But controlling outsiders—immigrants or would-be immigrants—requires regulating, monitoring, and sanctioning insiders, those citizens and residents who might otherwise hire, trade with, house, teach, or generally associate with outsiders. The more vigorously immigration control is pursued, the more seriously freedom is diminished. The search for control threatens freedom directly and weakens the values upon which it relies, notably equality and the rule of law. Kukathas demonstrates that the imagined gains from efforts to control immigration are illusory, for they do not promote economic prosperity or social solidarity. Nor does immigration control bring self-determination, since the apparatus of control is an international institutional regime that increases the power of states and their agencies at the expense of citizens. That power includes the authority to determine who is and is not an insider: to define identity itself. Looking at past and current practices across the world, Immigration and Freedom presents a critique of immigration control as an institutional reality, as well as an account of what freedom means—and why it matters. 2021-03-01T08:00:00Z text https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2919 info:doi/10.2307/j.ctv16rdcgw https://press.princeton.edu/books/ebook/9780691215389/immigration-and-freedom Research Collection School of Social Sciences eng Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University Political Science Politics and Social Change
institution Singapore Management University
building SMU Libraries
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider SMU Libraries
collection InK@SMU
language English
topic Political Science
Politics and Social Change
spellingShingle Political Science
Politics and Social Change
KUKATHAS, Chandran
Immigration and freedom
description Immigration is often seen as a danger to western liberal democracies because it threatens to undermine their fundamental values, most notably freedom and national self-determination. In this book, however, Chandran Kukathas argues that the greater threat comes not from immigration but from immigration control. Kukathas shows that immigration control is not merely about preventing outsiders from moving across borders. It is about controlling what outsiders do once in a society: whether they work, reside, study, set up businesses, or share their lives with others. But controlling outsiders—immigrants or would-be immigrants—requires regulating, monitoring, and sanctioning insiders, those citizens and residents who might otherwise hire, trade with, house, teach, or generally associate with outsiders. The more vigorously immigration control is pursued, the more seriously freedom is diminished. The search for control threatens freedom directly and weakens the values upon which it relies, notably equality and the rule of law. Kukathas demonstrates that the imagined gains from efforts to control immigration are illusory, for they do not promote economic prosperity or social solidarity. Nor does immigration control bring self-determination, since the apparatus of control is an international institutional regime that increases the power of states and their agencies at the expense of citizens. That power includes the authority to determine who is and is not an insider: to define identity itself. Looking at past and current practices across the world, Immigration and Freedom presents a critique of immigration control as an institutional reality, as well as an account of what freedom means—and why it matters.
format text
author KUKATHAS, Chandran
author_facet KUKATHAS, Chandran
author_sort KUKATHAS, Chandran
title Immigration and freedom
title_short Immigration and freedom
title_full Immigration and freedom
title_fullStr Immigration and freedom
title_full_unstemmed Immigration and freedom
title_sort immigration and freedom
publisher Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University
publishDate 2021
url https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2919
https://press.princeton.edu/books/ebook/9780691215389/immigration-and-freedom
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