Ayelet Shachar published an essay on “The Marketization of Citizenship in an Age of Restrictionism” in Ethics and International Affairs which develops further Shachar’s critique of the global surge of the commodification of citizenship and provides a powerful argument why political membership should not be up for purchase. A podcast based on this publication appeared in the Ethics and International Affairs Author Interview Series under the title of “Golden Visas, Dreamers and the Ethics of Migration”, which was also featured in the Max Planck Research Magazine.

Benjamin Boudou made a major contribution to current debates in political theory on the ethical dilemma of borders with his second monograph “Le dilemme des frontières: éthique et politique de l’immigration“ published by Editions de l’EHESS, Paris in 2018. This book has been reviewed and discussed in Open Edition, Esprit, Le nouveau magazine littéraire, at the philosophy festival “CitéPhilo” in Lille, at Sciences Po Paris, and at the French Research Foundation of “Doctors Without borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)”.

In a research article on “Machiavelli and the Fortress City” published in Political Theory in 2018 Derek Denman made an original contribution in offering a new interpretation of Machiavelli’s concept of the fortress. The article argues that fortresses serve to privatize civic life and turns to Machiavelli to envision durable public spaces in place of urban fortifications.

With another conceptual intervention in political and legal theory on “Der Flüchtling als normative Idee” published by Metaphora, Dana Schmalz argues that the concept of the refugee is a normative one that emerged alongside state formation processes and that can nowadays serve both as the object as well as the engine of societal critique.

Stefan Schlegel published the article “Move inside the “Bell Jar”: A Property Rights Approach to the Skills of Migrants” in International Migration which develops the idea that control over somebody’s migration can be understood as a property right, exploring the implications for both migrants and states.

Tania Pagotto took on the question of religious minority rights and critically analysed “The ‘living together’ argument in the European Court of Human Rights case-law” in STUDIA z PRAWA WYZNANIOWEGO / STUDIES in LAW on RELIGION. She argues that the Court used the abstract idea of ‘living together’ as a legal justification for the prohibition of the full-face veil and failed to adopt a more fact-based approach.

With his article on “The Right to be Publicly Naked: A Defence of Nudism” published in Res Publica Bouke de Vries proposes to introduce a legal right for the freedom of public nudity (when this poses no health threat) rather than penalize it because it promotes individual well-being and has expressive political and religious value.

Caleb Yong published an article on “Justifying Resistance to Immigration Law: The Case of Mere Noncompliance” in the Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence which takes up the normative question of when potential migrants to, and citizens of, a constitutional democracy are morally justified to breaching immigration laws. The article argues that only egregiously unjust laws are sufficient for nonviolent compliance.