strangers in our midst

Abstract

Migration challenges how we think about justice and state sovereignty. This is no less the case for political theorists, and this review symposium focuses on the work of one of the foremost political theorists working on these questions today. In his latest book – Strangers in Our Midst: The Political Philosophy of Migration – David Miller argues for a realist approach to migration, an approach that takes into consideration not just what we ought to do, but also the actual possibilities of implementing justice. In this regard, the relationship between (im)migration and state sovereignty and democracy is central. Miller’s approach is a ‘political’ one that seeks to take into consideration the fact that we live in political communities with (more or less) shared values, and that these political communities cannot easily be disentangled from the liberal democratic institutions of these states. In their reviews of Miller’s book, Sarah Song, Annie Stilz and Kieran Oberman all take issues with particular aspects of Miller’s approach, while also accepting the general thrust to think about migration in the context of state and popular sovereignty.