CMR UW Seminars: Recent Advances in Theory and Research on Migration
Seminar with professor Rainer Bauböck (the European University Institute) “The Democratic Case for Immigration”.
Rainer Bauböck is part time professor in the Global Governance Programme of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence where he co-directs GLOBALCIT, an online observatory on citizenship and voting rights. He is corresponding member Austrian Academy of Sciences and chairs the Academy’s Commission on Migration and Integration Research. He teaches at the Central European University Vienna campus as a guest professor. From 2007 to 2018 he held the chair in social and political theory at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of EUI. His research interests are in normative political theory and comparative research on democratic citizenship, European integration, migration, nationalism and minority rights.
Does democratic self-determination justify immigration control? Independent states need immigration control powers, but democracy narrowly circumscribes how they ought to exercise these. Democratic norms also provide positive reasons for promoting free international movement and admission claims for family migrants, labour migrants and refugees. Finally, current disputes over immigration policy in the European Union reflect deeper conflicts between open and closed conceptions of democracy. Choosing closure over openness may put the future of democracy itself at risk.
Seminar took place on 11 October 2021.
Venue: Karowa Street 18, Aula 18 (Department of Sociology, University of Warsaw)