ABSTRACT
This chapter develops in detail the central argument for the right to exclude, namely the argument in terms of a collectively exercised individual right of freedom of association. The chapter offers concrete examples to support this approach and then defends it in its subsections against a number of objections, many of which rely on misinterpretations of the nature of liberal-democratic states and of liberalism itself. In particular, the chapter will refute the objection from the gap between membership rights and territorial rights, the objection from harmless “mere presence,” the objection that freedom of association proves too much (by allowing banishment), the objection that an individualist account does not apply to states since they are non-voluntary associations, the objection from (further) differences between states and other associations, the objection that immigration restrictions are “illiberal,” the objection that associativist accounts cannot distinguish between “newcomers by birth” and newcomers by travel, and the objection from historical and global distributive injustices. All these objections fail. The right to exclude is not only compatible with liberalism and liberal democracies, it is a thoroughly democratic and liberal right.
