Enfranchising the disenfranchised: should refugees receive political rights in liberal democracies?

Bender, Felix

doi:10.1080/13621025.2020.1825625

Cited by 14 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Distinguishing between what impacts and what regulates the autonomy of a people, we can understand 'subjection to rule' then to imply a regulation of the range of choices that a people possess and not merely the availability of any one such choice. Subjection to rule then means being subject to coercively backed collectively binding decisions by a political unit that regulate rather than impact the range of choices available to individuals (Bender, 2020;Dahl, 1989). Others also refer to subjection to rule as 'setting the ground rules for interaction' (Fraser, 2008, p. 411).…”

Section: The All-subjected Principlementioning

confidence: 99%

Should refugees govern refugee camps?

Bender

2021

Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosoph

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Should refugees govern refugee camps? This paper argues that they should. It draws on normative political thought in consulting the all-subjected principle and an instrumental defense of democratic rule. The former holds that all those subjected to rule in a political unit should have a say in such rule. Through analyzing the conditions that pertain in refugee camps, the paper demonstrates that the all-subjected principle applies there, too. Refugee camps have developed as near distinct entities from their host states. They have formed their own economic, legal and even political systems within which refugees are subjected to political rule. The paper then demonstrates that democratic rule should be preferred over any other decision-making procedure. No amount of experts can replace the institutions that would lead to the accountability of decision-makers and to the incorporation of refugees as situated and epistemically diverse knowers of the problems they face and the solutions that would work best.

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Section: The All-subjected Principlementioning

confidence: 99%

Should refugees govern refugee camps?

Bender

2021

Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosoph

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“…Following Turner (2021) and other scholars (Anderson, 2008;Waite et al, 2015) who challenge assumptions of migrant victimhood, this article assumes the capacity of undocumented migrant organizers (Bloom, 2017) as a starting point, without understating structural disenfranchisement through easy appeals to "resilience" (Bracke, 2016). With an eye on the legal and political disenfranchisement of the undocumented, this article aims to reinforce the human rights legal protections for undocumented migrant resistance by bridging the rich traditions of socio-legal and sociological inquiry on migrant social movements with the burgeoning attention in legal scholarship for the political rights and political practices of migrants (Åberg, 2021;Anthony & Sterkens, 2018;Bender, 2021;Ziegler, 2017Ziegler, , 2021.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Print Rights with a Thousand Masks: Migrant Vulnerability, Resistance and Human Rights Law

Dez

2022

Refuge

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PrintRights, a cooperative of undocumented asylum-seekers in Amsterdam, manufactured facemasks during the Covid-19 pandemic; first distributing them to undocumented migrants residing in the city’s emergency shelter system and then selling them on-line to the wider public. By distributing facemasks with a message, PrintRights performatively inhabited the right to distribute printed works, legally resisting alienage law prohibitions on employment. Engaging the theory of Judith Butler, this article analyzes the relationship between PrintRights’ resistance, vulnerability and human rights discourse. Drawing on fieldwork conducted with PrintRights, this article shows the potential of human rights discourse to support undocumented migrant resistance.

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“…[…] Political rights can thus be had without possessing citizenship'. 9 Ali Emre Benli agrees: 'The grounds of voting should, then, be disaggregated from the grounds of citizenship'. 10 The issues of enfranchisement and naturalisation are indeed conceptually distinct.…”

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confidence: 99%

Why Refugees Should Be Enfranchised

Kapelner

2023

J Applied Philosophy

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Many authors argue that refugees should be enfranchised independently of citizenship. The enfranchisement of refugees is often seen as crucial for affirming their agency in the politics of asylum. However, most arguments in the literature do not explain why precisely it matters that they exercise their agency in the realm of democratic decision‐making, i.e. why it matters that refugees participate in collectively wielding the public power to which they are subjected, rather than passively enjoy protection against the excessive and intrusive exercise of this power. This leaves it unclear what value refugee enfranchisement realises precisely, and what function or role it is meant to play within the overall provision of asylum. My goal is to propose a plausible explanation of the significance of democratic inclusion from the viewpoint of refugees' agency. I argue that refugee enfranchisement affirms refugees' agency by advancing their interest in acting as makers of justice within the political context in which they find themselves.

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Enfranchising the disenfranchised: should refugees receive political rights in liberal democracies?

Cited by 14 publications

References 40 publications

Should refugees govern refugee camps?

Should refugees govern refugee camps?

Print Rights with a Thousand Masks: Migrant Vulnerability, Resistance and Human Rights Law

Why Refugees Should Be Enfranchised

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