The first set of postdocs for our ERC project on popular government have just been advertised. These 3 postdocs will be based at UC Louvain with my co-PI Pierre-Etienne Vandamme and focus on contemporary democratic theory. Apply! jobs.uclouvain.be/Personnelsci...
New paper!
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Where does accountability lie in contemporary border regimes?
CFP: Special Issue of Moral Philosophy & Politics on "Citizenship and Global Inequality".
Please consider sharing & submitting. Open to interdisciplinary work that engages with philosophical debates.
#migcitsky #poltheory #philsky
www.degruyterbrill.com/journal/key/...
🚨New publication! Thrilled to finally see this paper out in @psrm.bsky.social 🎉
📊I study how gender shapes coalition preferences among politicians. Turns out mayors prefer forming governments with women-led parties, perceiving them as better communicators and more competent governors.
In stark contrast to the Trump administration's prioritization of the deportation machine, Spain's progressive government just announced a minimal-conditions program for the regularization of undocumented immigrants, estimated to benefit more than 500.000 people.
On labor market and fiscal effects, see also:
doi.org/10.1086/730122
If you want to read more about progressive approaches to irregularity, and how the logic of exceptional regularization programs can clash with the logic of institutionally or spatially limited protections for the undocumented (so-called 'firewalls'), I have just the paper:
doi.org/10.1186/s408...
What all this points to is that liberal democracies have very good reasons to operate regularization programs on a rolling (rather than exceptional) basis. Indeed, the U.S. used to do this, under its now-defunct 'immigration registry' program. This is a program that can be revived.
What the Spanish government realizes is that liberal democracies worth their name can't deport their way out of such problems. As we see in the US, large-scale removal campaigns and widespread undocumentedness both undermine some of the very same values, such as the open society and the rule of law.
Widespread undocumentedness threatens to create a permanent underclass. It also provides a pool of extraordinarily exploitable labor, weakening the bargaining power of workers as a class.
There are many reasons why undocumentedness is a problem for liberal democracy. The more people live in the shadows, the less the ideals of the open society and the rule of law are being realized. Fear of apprehension also disincentivizes the undocumented from civic behavior, e.g. crime reporting.
Among other (good) goals, this policy explicitly seeks to prevent migrants' vulnerability to a future Spanish version of ICE-style thuggery, feared to be unleashed if the right wins the next elections (as they are currently favored to do).
In stark contrast to the Trump administration's prioritization of the deportation machine, Spain's progressive government just announced a minimal-conditions program for the regularization of undocumented immigrants, estimated to benefit more than 500.000 people.
M. Gessen, gift link: The soviet secret police too "were ruled by quotas... Fundamentally, the terror was random. That is, in fact, how state terror works. The randomness is the difference between a regime based on terror and a regime that is plainly repressive"
Also, I hope you don't mind if I plug our recent migration dilemmas essay on "migration myths" here, as I feel it overlaps significantly with your discussion.
doi.org/10.1017/S089...
Thanks for the piece, Alex. It does seem, though, that most of your targets are advocacy or public discourse tropes rather than the highly varied research (normative and empirical) on these issues. I wouldn't say the latter necessarily track the former.
Congrats! Look forward to reading
📢New article in International Migration Review!
w/ @svidal.bsky.social (@lifelongmove.bsky.social) and Louise Caron, we study how immigrant descent and migration experiences in childhood shape later-life aspirations towards migration.
Check it out (it's OpenAccess!) 👇
doi.org/10.1177/0197...
go.bsky.app/5QRth7t
Die Rote Hilfe ist die älteste, größte und wichtigste Solidaritätsorganisation für linke Aktivist*innen. Wem es an Demokratie und Antifaschismus gelegen ist, sollte sie jetzt unterstützen. Shame on you @glsbank.bsky.social
Remember when every leader wanted their picture taken with Greta? She is still that truth teller, they just can't face the truth of their crimes.
Bar chart showing the distribution of childhood experience of transnational separation (TS) from a parent by age at first migration to the United Kingdom.
The last piece of my PhD thesis is now published on @demresjournal.bsky.social 🎉
Using retrospective data from @usociety.bsky.social, I find that only a minority of childhood migrants arrived in the UK with their parents.
Read more 👉 doi.org/10.4054/DemR...
#OtD 9 Oct 1945 the UK Labour govt defended its jailing of 226 Spanish Civil War and anti-Nazi resistance fighters, describing them as "members of an enemy paramilitary organisation". Some killed themselves, others were deported to Spain for execution stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1094...
Happy to give this talk at @upf.edu tomorrow!
For your summer reading: In a new piece on the ethics of migration policy dilemmas, we explain why a 'myth busting' approach to migration policy is insufficient and sometimes misleading.
All contributions to this roundtable on "dilemmas" are linked below.
🔍 Many migration policies involve conflicting yet equally important moral goals.
These aren't just philosophical puzzles, they're real tensions that shape decisions.
Here's how engagement w/ ethical dilemmas can improve debates and policymaking on migration➡️ www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
People often talk about how badly migrants are treated, and how misleading the media is. And it is. But this focus can overlook difficult moral dilemmas, where it's not clear - even if you have all the facts - what policy is ethically defensible. That's the focus of this special issue.
@ashwinivasantha.bsky.social @bboudou.bsky.social @theresehmann.bsky.social @felixbender.bsky.social @svenjaahlhaus.bsky.social @artsofdenial.bsky.social @jsjrgmndz.bsky.social @pattitlenard.bsky.social @deeesharp.bsky.social
@tamardewaal.bsky.social @cecimenjivar.bsky.social @knatter.bsky.social @zsoltkapelner.bsky.social @ulrikebialas.bsky.social @akoustov.bsky.social @andrewpgeddes.bsky.social @deefthymiou.bsky.social @eilidhbeaton4.bsky.social @eszterkollar79.bsky.social @pochoaespejo.bsky.social
May be of interest to: @sandelind.bsky.social @raffaelebazurli.bsky.social @rebeccabuxton.bsky.social @albertkraler.bsky.social @bradleyhsmith.bsky.social @amyrs.bsky.social @leilahadjabdou.bsky.social @adamhosein.bsky.social @closasanna.bsky.social @alexsager.bsky.social @lorenzopiccoli.bsky.social
