Abstract

Although immigration raises fundamental questions about political community, it has received relatively little theoretical attention. Existing treatments generally proceed, either implicitly or explicitly, from particular theoretical perspectives and therefore do not seem applicable to the full range of polities that can confront the issue of immigration---thus, for example, I argue that the most substantial treatment of immigration, Joseph Carens's case for open borders, is so clearly indebted to liberal theory that it appears to have little to say to other kinds of regimes. Here I try to outline a theory of immigration with wider applicability. I argue that because immigration policies are closely related to particular conceptions of the nature and purposes of politics, and because no widely persuasive argument has been made that only one or a limited number of such conceptions is legitimate, countries are entitled to considerable discretion in adopting immigration policies that reflect their own such conception. I illustrate the close connection between conceptions of politics and immigration policies at the practical level by reference to the policies of Germany and the United States and at the theoretical level by reference to the thought of Will Kymlicka and Michael Walzer. Finally, I suggest some limitations on countries' discretion in setting immigration policy