ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the problems with Michael Walzer's treatment of the issue. The first concerns his use of various models of membership such as the club and the family: he derives both too much and too little from these particular models, and there are others available which give very different answers to these questions. The second is the extent to which the communitarian approach allows any 'external' criticism of communities' self conceptions and their membership practices as unreasonable. The third is the extent to which Walzer's approach is compatible with the principle of the moral equality of persons, which many would see as paramount. The chapter presents that Walzer's thesis on membership, and deals with the problems. It investigates that here is the use Walzer makes of his 'models of membership': the neighbourhood, the club and the family. The chapter discusses the family model first. What emerges, then, is a specifically communitarian justification of immigration controls.
