ABSTRACT
Political boundaries are increasingly under pressure. As a consequence of the global transformations that are changing the international system, the criteria for determining the inclusion in or the exclusion from new political constituencies are under revision. At the national level, the external migratory pressure coupled with domestic political dynamics is generating an intense debate on the legitimacy of keeping migrants out of national political life. Migration and the policy of admission of aliens into political communities is increasingly recognized as a key issue of both political agendas and academic debates. As a political issue, migration is at the centre of a controversy where the proponents of more open policies argue against tight border controls on grounds that are often composed of multiple components. Economic theses are frequently mixed with cultural, political, legal or security arguments. Pragmatic approaches are often entangled with ideological stances, idealistic attitudes or racist positions. All of this contributes to create a burning situation that not only heats political debates but sometimes also descends to the streets. As a theoretical issue, migration is equally controversial for it intersects a core node of political theory, namely the notion of citizenship. According to liberalism, individuals are entitled to a set of rights including the right to mobility, and yet this right is constrained by an equally recognized right to collective self-determination and national autonomy. This tension is more and more problematic in a world in which individual human rights are on the rise and state sovereignty is in decline in many respects – except for the issue of immigration.
