Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
  • Publication
    The common good and the politics of community
    (Institute of Public Administration, 2000)
    In the last twenty years in Ireland, we have witnessed debates - notably about abortion and divorce - which featured not only radically opposed viewpoints but also significantly different vocabularies. Many advocates of divorce legislation, for example, spoke of the individual's right to remarry, focused on individual freedom as the most important value at stake, and opposed state intervention in matters perceived to be of personal morality. Their opponents spoke of the common good and the fabric of society, and argued that the state should support social institutions that embody the values of the community. At least at the polarised extremes of this debate, inhabited by so-called 'fundamentalist liberals' and 'authoritarian conservatives' the protagonists often seemed to talk different languages, built respectively around 'individual freedom' and 'the common good'.
      394
  • Publication
    Domination and migration: an alternative approach to the legitimacy of migration controls
    (Taylor and Francis, 2014-01-09)
    Freedom as non-domination provides a distinctive criterion for assessing the justifiability of migration controls, different from both freedom of movement and autonomy. Migration controls are dominating insofar as they threaten to coerce potential migrants. Both the general right of states to control migration, and the wide range of discretionary procedures prevalent in migration controls, render outsiders vulnerable to arbitrary power. While the extent and intensity of domination varies, it is sufficient under contemporary conditions of globalization to warrant limits on states' discretion with respect to admission. Reducing domination requires, rather than removing all immigration restrictions or democratically justifying them to all, that there be certain constraints on states' freedom to control migration: giving migrants a publicly secured status somewhat analogous to that enjoyed by citizens, subjecting migration controls to higher legal regulation, and making immigration policies and decision contestable by those who are subject to them.
    Scopus© Citations 24  578
  • Publication
    Friends, strangers or countrymen? The ties between citizens as colleagues
    (Blackwell (Wiley), 2001-03)
    Some analogies are better than others for understanding the ties and responsibilities between citizens of a state. Citizens are better understood as particular kinds of colleagues than as either strangers or members of close-knit communities such as family or friends. Colleagues are diverse, separate and relatively distant individuals whose involuntary interdependence as equals in a practice or institution creates common concerns; this entails special responsibilities of communication, consideration and trust, which are capable of extension beyond the immediate group. Citizens likewise are involuntarily interdependent in political practices, and have comparable concerns and obligations that are more substantial than liberal advocates of constitutional patriotism recommend. But these are distinct from and potentially more extensible than those between co-nationals sharing a common culture, which are proposed by nationalists and some communitarians. The relationship of citizens is a more valid ground for associative obligations than others apart from family and friends.
    Scopus© Citations 22  769
  • Publication
    Dealing with difference : the Republican public-private distinction
    (Routledge, 2000)
    This paper discusses the best way to deal with difference in the public sphere. The liberal public-private distinction focuses on control and relegates difference to the private. It is subject to the criticism that it is exclusive, marginalizes values, and relies on a distinction between the state and civil society which cannot be systematically sustained. The republican public-private distinction is paradigmatically different; it focuses on interest, envisages plural publics, and offers the possibility of public recognition by encouraging deliberation between different moral and cultural perspectives. Thus it avoids the criticisms levelled against the liberal use, without assuming, as communitarians and cultural pluralists do, that the public realm can unproblematically replicate private values.
      307
  • Publication
    Citizenship attribution in a new country of immigration: Ireland
    (Taylor and Francis, 2010-05-27)
    This paper examines how the change in Ireland's demographic condition from a country of emigration to one of large-scale immigration has affected citizenship attribution. The paper outlines the origin of Irish citizenship laws, with particular reference to the pure ius soli system applied to those born on the island of Ireland until 2005. While significant changes in citizenship attribution have emerged in response to increasing immigration, the specific character of these changes has been shaped also by other forces including the issue of Northern Ireland, the relationship of the Republic of Ireland to the UK, and the development and expansion of the European Union. These have influenced recent notable changes in the attribution of citizenship at birth and on the basis of marriage, and proposed changes in requirements for naturalisation. The paper examines whether and to what extent these changes represent a convergence towards a European norm and whether they signify a changing conception of citizenship in Ireland.
      526Scopus© Citations 12
  • Publication
    Should Irish emigrants have votes? External voting in Ireland
    (Routledge (Taylor & Francis), 2011-11-21)
    Ireland is one of the few countries in Europe not to offer some form of suffrage to its citizens who live abroad permanently. In contrast, it has been a frontrunner in the trend towards providing more liberal voting regimes for resident noncitizens, as since 1963 it has allowed all resident for the previous six months to vote and stand in local elections. In this paper I consider the normative case for and against external voting, the current comparative context of its increasing provision among European countries, and the range of ways in which voting rights abroad combine with the extensibility of citizenship by descent abroad. Addressing the Irish case, I argue that there is no basis for a general right to vote for external citizens, but that, nonetheless, persisting connections and the rate of return migration give some reason to grant votes to first generation emigrants, if differently weighted from those of resident citizens.
    Scopus© Citations 29  1416
  • Publication
    Reconsidering the claim to family reunification in migration
    (Political Studies Association, 2009-12)
    At a time when entrance to and residence in western states is a scarce resource, a high proportion of legal immigration is based on family reunion. It has recently been suggested that, rather than giving priority to family members, the claims of refugees should be given at least equal consideration by discriminating among family applicants by restricting admission to the immediate or nuclear family. In this paper I focus on the question why we might or might not give family reunification a high priority in admission. I first review the arguments for giving priority in admission to family members from the point of view of citizens and denizens, the state, and incomers. These include: the intrinsic value of, and right to, family life, the possibility of integration, and the agent-specific nature of the obligation. I next examine some arguments we might consider for reducing family priority in migration, namely: the inheritance of privilege, the anachronistic nature of the family, the contemporary prevalence of transnational family relationships, and the multiplier effect of family reunification. I next address the questions whether and how it might be justifiable to discriminate among family members, and if so, on what basis? I ask if restricting family reunification to immediate family is culturally discriminatory, or may run counter to the reasons we respect family life. Finally I outline some sorts of changes in current family reunification policies that may be justified on the basis of these considerations.
    Scopus© Citations 33  962
  • Publication
    Republican requirements for access to citizenship
    (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)
    This chapter considers from a republican perspective the legitimate conditions for naturalization. If citizenship is understood as membership in a self-governing community, some boundaries are justified. But citizenship may be acquired almost automatically by dint of long-term residence. Nonetheless, republican citizenship is quite demanding: it requires a capacity to communicate, an awareness of interdependence among citizens, a sense of responsibility to the wider society and an inclination to engage deliberatively with others in public debate. On a republican view, the state may promote these through civic education for all citizens, and may require language classes and participation in certain practical political exercises for applicants for citizenship. But the requirement that applicants achieve fixed standards in tests of knowledge, skills or values is not desirable. Few conditions not required of native born citizens should be required of those naturalizing, and these should be more a matter of participation than of skills or identity.
      526
  • Publication
    Toleration and non-domination
    (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013-06)
    The need for toleration is understood to derive from disagreements that arise from religious and cultural diversity. While a number of different justifications can be offered for toleration, the value of freedom is one of the most significant. This chapter focuses on the specific conception of freedom as non-domination, rather than on other conceptions such as non-interference or autonomy, and seeks to examine what light can be thrown by this conception on the way in which contemporary states should deal with issues arising from the fact of religious and cultural diversity. It considers whether there is a place for toleration in the strict sense of 'allowing something with which one disagrees', which has been criticised as paradoxical, out-moded and dominating. It argues that freedom as non-domination grounds a conception of secure toleration that avoids these criticisms, while requiring some elements that are normally associated with respect and recognition.
      618