The spectre of statelessness

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6431075
AutoresLucia M Rafanelli (0000-0003-1097-7758, autor de correspondencia)
Año2025
Volumen17
Número2
Páginas238-267
Fecha de publicación2025-04-14
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaInternational Theory (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1752-9719 • E-ISSN: 1752-9727
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s175297192500003x
OpenAlexW4409409668
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas32

A prominent theory of political obligation argues that, to avoid the dangers of statelessness (basic needs deprivation, rights violations, and political disenfranchisement) people should establish, maintain, and obey states. This theory underwrites a statist ideal that presents states as the primary guarantors of justice and democracy. I challenge this statist ideal, arguing that statist institutions are ill-equipped to provide full justice, especially for stateless people. I argue that statelessness is a product of the state system’s structure and that eliminating the dangers of statelessness therefore requires challenging the core organising principles of the state system. I conclude that stateless people have broad prima facie moral permissions to resist the state system’s constitutive norms, practices, and institutions; that others may have obligations to support their efforts; and that addressing the dangers of statelessness requires resisting rather than obeying statist institutions. I also offer a corrective to the literature on refugees’ political obligations, illuminating how even obedience to a relatively just state or camp authority can uphold a state system that is unjust overall. I examine these issues in conversation with empirical scholarship on stateless people’s activism, like Hong Kong’s ‘Refugee Occupy’ movement

Citizenship · Political science · Politics · Statelessness · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · Law · Political Philosophy and Ethics