Review article
https://doi.org/10.20901/pp.11.2.03
To open, or not to open (the borders), that is the question! – The immigration of labour migrants at the crossroads of cosmopolitanism and communitarianism
Nella Popović
orcid.org/0000-0001-6449-0166
; Judicial Academy in Zagreb
Abstract
The paper tackles the issues related to the entry of labour migrants in contemporary political theory and analyses how cosmopolitanism and communitarianism,as two opposed theoretical approaches, deal with this issue. The objective of the paper is to show that the two approaches are reconcilable in someelements despite the dichotomy in their theoretical tenets. For that purpose, the author first analyses the cosmopolitan approach through discourse ethics and open border arguments from the perspective of ethical universalism and the equal moral value of all human beings. These arguments are then juxtaposed to the communitarian arguments for limiting the right to entry of labour migrants from the perspective of ontological, deontological, social-political, legal-political and ethical arguments with which the receiving community justifies its right to close the borders. The paper detects common grounds between cosmopolitanism and communitarianism in the modes of defining entry rules and in the necessity of justifying the exclusion to those to whom the entry has been limited or denied. In the concluding reflection, the author ponders on how the established theoretical compatibilities between the two approaches may be relevant for the position of labour migrants at the legislative and the public policy level.
Keywords
immigration; labour migrants; receiving community; the right of entry; cosmopolitanism; communitarianism.
Hrčak ID:
273665
URI
Publication date:
9.3.2022.
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