Realising immigration as a human right: public justification and cosmopolitan solidarity

2021 ◽  
pp. 136843102098713
Author(s):  
David Martínez ◽  
Alexander Elliott

According to David Miller, immigration is not a human right. Conversely, Kieran Oberman makes a case for immigration as a human right. We agree with the latter view, but we show that its starting point is mistaken. Indeed, both Miller and Oberman discuss the right to immigration within the liberal paradigm: it is a right or not depending on the correct balance between the interests of the citizens of a given national state and the interests of the immigrants. Instead, we claim that public justification can underpin immigration as a human right. That said, the public justification of the right to immigration has several counterarguments to rebut. Before we deal with that issue, relying on Jürgen Habermas’s social theory, we examine the legal structures that could support the right to immigration in practice. To be sure, this does not provide the normative justification needed, instead it shows the framework that allows the institutional realization of this right. Then, through a combination of civic and cosmopolitan forms of solidarity, the article discusses the formation of a public sphere, which could provide the justification of the right to immigration.

2005 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 156-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Whipple

In this article, I introduce the Dewey-Lippmann democracy debate of the 1920s as a vehicle for considering how social theory can enhance the empirical viability of participatory democratic theory within the current context of advanced capitalism. I situate within this broad theoretical framework the theories of Habermas and Dewey. In the process, I argue (a) that while Dewey largely failed to reconcile his democratic ideal with the empirical constraint of large-scale organizations, Habermas, in particular his work on the public sphere, provides an important starting point for considering the state of public participation within the communication distortions of advanced capitalism; (b) that to fully understand the relation between communication distortions and public participation, social theorists must look beyond Habermas and return to Dewey to mobilize his bi-level view of habitual and reflective human agency; and, finally, (c) that the perspective of a Deweyan political theory of reflective agency best furthers our understanding of potential communication distortions and public participation, particularly in the empirical spaces of media centralization and intellectual property rights.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 45
Author(s):  
Cristina Lafont

In this essay I address the difficult question of how citizens with conflicting religious and secular views can fulfill the democratic obligation of justifying the imposition of coercive policies to others with reasons that they can also accept. After discussing the difficulties of proposals that either exclude religious beliefs from public deliberation or include them without any restrictions, I argue instead for a policy of mutual accountability that imposes the same deliberative rights and obligations on all democratic citizens. The main advantage of this proposal is that it recognizes the right of all democratic citizens to adopt their own cognitive stance (whether religious or secular) in political deliberation in the public sphere without giving up on the democratic obligation to provide reasons acceptable to everyone to justify coercive policies with which all citizens must comply.


Al-Ulum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 459-480
Author(s):  
Sulaiman Ibrahim

This paper explores al-Zamakhshari's thoughts on women's leadership in the public sphere in tafsir al-Kasysyaf's . Islam does not require the wife to submit to her husband as he is obliged to submit to God. On the contrary, with the existence of rights that must be fulfilled by the husband towards the wife, then as reciprocity of Islam gives the right for the husband to be obeyed as long as it does not conflict with the teachings of religion. However, in terms of leadership in the public sphere, az-Zamakhsyarîy is more likely to place the position of women under men. This is evident in his expression when interpreting the word فضل الله بعضهم علي بعض that leadership is given by Allah to men because of its advantages in several respects, even az-Zamakhsyarîy considers men to have many advantages over women


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-77
Author(s):  
Jani Marjanen ◽  
Ville Vaara ◽  
Antti Kanner ◽  
Hege Roivainen ◽  
Eetu Mäkelä ◽  
...  

This article uses metadata from serial publications as a means of modelling the historical development of the public sphere. Given that a great deal of historical knowledge is generated through narratives relying on anecdotal evidence, any attempt to rely on newspapers for modeling the past challenges customary approaches in political and cultural history. The focus in this article is on Finland, but our approach is also scalable to other regions. During the period 1771–1917 newspapers developed as a mass medium in the Grand Duchy of Finland within two imperial configurations (Sweden until 1809 and Russia in 1809–1917), and in the two main languages – Swedish and Finnish. Finland is an ideal starting point for conducting comparative studies in that its bilingual profile already includes two linguistically separated public spheres that nonetheless were heavily connected. Our particular interest here is in newspaper metadata, which we use to trace the expansion of public discourse in Finland by statistical means. We coordinate information on publication places, language, number of issues, number of words, newspaper size, and publishers, which we compare with existing scholarship on newspaper history and censorship, and thereby offer a more robust statistical analysis of newspaper publishing in Finland than has previously been possible. We specifically examine the interplay between the Swedish- and Finnish-language newspapers and show that, whereas the public discussions were inherently bilingual, the technological and journalistic developments advanced at different pace in the two language forums. This analysis challenges the perception of a uniform public sphere in the country. In addition, we assess the development of the press in comparison with the production of books and periodicals, which points toward the specialization of newspapers as a medium in the period after 1860. This confirms some earlier findings about Finnish print production. We then show how this specialization came about through the establishment of forums for local debates that other less localized print media such as magazines and books could not provide.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-122
Author(s):  
Mohammad Yufi Al Izhar

Human Rights are basically universal and their rights cannot be taken and revoked by anyone. This is interpreted no matter how bad a person's behavior, a person will still be considered as human as they should be, and will continue to have their rights as human beings, which means that their human rights are inherent and will always be permanently attached to him. Human Rights (HAM) are believed to be the right of life naturally possessed by every human being without exception and a special human thing such as class, group, or social level. Human Rights have basically been championed by humans in all parts of the world throughout the ages. The book written by Prof. Dr. Rahayu, which is very intended for both Faculty of Law students and non-Faculty of Law students, provides an answer to the doubts of the public regarding Human Rights that actually occur in Indonesia and internationally. She also explained the meanings of the struggle of each country that issued their public opinion in the interest of the International, this meant that something that happened in the international arena was certainly a collection of perceptions of settlement within a country. Therefore, Human Rights Law cannot be separated from the main supporting factors which are the material of the countries that make the agreement.


2019 ◽  
pp. 79-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Vallier

This chapter develops a conception of the public justification of the moral rules that are the object of social trust. The goal is to explain how complying with moral rules and abiding by our personal values and commitments are compatible. When this compatibility relation is established, a system of social trust can sustain itself in the right way by driving appropriately trusting and trustworthy behavior, and motivating holding the untrustworthy accountable. When moral rules are publicly justified, that is, justified for each person by her own lights, the compatibility relation obtains and moral rules can then form the basis for trust and trustworthiness and so sustain a social system with a high degree of justified social trust-moral peace. The chapter explains precisely what is to be justified, the kinds of reasons that constitute public justifications, and how public justification is rooted in moral peace and social trust.


2020 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 82-91
Author(s):  
Marina Milić Babić ◽  
Marina Hranj

Palliative care for children means active, complete care on physical, psychological, social and spiritual levels, and it includes collaboration and active work with the family. Palliative care for children lasts during the period of illness and continues after the death of the child in the form of expert assistance to the family in their grief. Such care follows the principles of individual, holistic, transdisciplinary and biopsychosocial-spiritual approaches that come together in promoting the quality of life of a child and his or her family. Numerous legal sources are the starting point for defining palliative care for children as a fundamental human right to health care, as well as for defining basic actions within this fundamental right. The right to palliative care includes rights from different systems, and collaboration and linking of different disciplines are needed in order to meet the needs of the child and his family. The aim of this paper is to present crucial knowledge in the field of palliative care for children and to examine how this right is implemented and legally regulated in the Republic of Croatia.


2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michal Tamir

The phenomenon of social exclusion in Israel is a vivid demonstration of the Basic Laws' failure to fulfil their integrative role. Despite the ‘constitutional revolution’ and the Supreme Court's ongoing endeavour over the last two decades to instil a bill of rights through its jurisprudence, Israeli society has failed to fully internalise values of equality. In terms of legal jargon, individuals continue to claim and exercise ‘sole and despotic dominion’ over their private property in order to avoid contact with individuals belonging to certain minority groups. In many cases, such behaviour in the private sphere results in exclusion from the public sphere.This phenomenon is especially astonishing considering the fact that many laws in Israel apply the right of equality to the private sphere. Furthermore, the Israeli Supreme Court has developed comprehensive human rights jurisprudence applicable to the private sphere. The gap between the law in the books and the law in action illustrates that effective implementation of human rights in the private sphere cannot be achieved solely by specific legislation or by jurisprudence that is sensitive to human rights. This argument is backed by several recent bills which preserve and enforce the exclusion of minorities, particularly of Arabs, from the public sphere. These bills illustrate that exclusion is indeed a growing phenomenon in Israeli society that cannot be overlooked. Moreover, they underscore the urgent need to entrench a direct obligation to apply human rights to the private sphere at the constitutional level. This will be achieved only when Israel adopts a full constitution.


1993 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
P Howell

This paper contributes to the ongoing discussion of the historical geography of modernity. It is argued that the exclusive focus on social theory has detrimental effects on the appreciation of normative political concerns and that it ignores the resurgence of normative political theory. Habermas's concept of the public sphere, and its place within his theoretical and empirical studies, is, by contrast, commendably concerned with linking the social and historical work with normative political theorising, and its usefulness for geographical investigation is applauded. However, the criticisms directed from, in particular, communitarian political theorists and contextualist social researchers would seem to make his attempt to bring a ‘strong’ theory of public political life back within the remit of a reconstructed social theory less plausible. One set of responses to this criticism comes in the form of the attempt to build geography into this normative political theory, turning public spheres into public spaces; Arcndt's political theory, in conclusion, is thus held to be a significant contribution to the historical geography of modernity.


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