As previously promised, here is a link to Danny and my paper offering a limited defense of immigration restrictions, just published in Cosmos + Taxis, a peer-reviewed, open access journal. Set forth immediately below is a summary, after which I offer a few thoughts on what I learned from the obstacles we had to surmount in getting it published.
Abstract: Contemporary liberal theorists generally support open borders and some argue that liberalism is incompatible with substantive immigration control. We argue that it has not been shown that there is an inconsistency in the idea of a liberal state enforcing such controls and that it may be obligatory for a liberal state to impose substantive restrictions on immigration. The immigration control on which we focus is that concerning people from societies that resemble closed societies, particularly those in which Islamic fundamentalism is endemic. We suggest that, if the threat we envision is real, then a liberal state has a right to limit immigration from such societies.
It seems clear to me that academia is infected with deeply-held ideological biases and a fervent commitment to leftist dogma, and that these presuppositions determine the papers selected by philosophy (and other humanities/social science) journals for publication. Sadly, Danny and my experience in attempting to place our paper in a peer-reviewed journal did nothing to falsify my theory. In fact, our paper represents a test case for this thesis inasmuch as it flies in the face of the dominant academic opinion regarding immigration control.
After extensive research conducted in the course of drafting our paper, I can identify only two others that express views congenial to our own. The first, a short piece by Johnny Anomaly, written for a general readership, briefly touches on the concern for liberal values that we champion (Prof. Anomaly was kind enough to offer us helpful critical comments on our paper).
The second is a well-reasoned paper published by Hrishikesh Joshi in a different philosophy journal. He does offer an argument for immigration control like ours, but as we say in our paper, “unlike us, Joshi does not relate it to the characteristic duty of a liberal state. Instead, he says that the value of retaining a liberal democracy trumps the value of unrestricted immigration.” Thus, our paper offers a new, fresh perspective on this question.
Even so, our effort was not well received. More than once, the first referee would be receptive, while the second one was hostile, resulting in rejection. On other occasions we were invited to revise and resubmit, and after doing so thoughtfully and diligently, were rejected, causing us to question whether the invitation was sincere. Other rejections appeared to be based on incoherent arguments. Finally, the rejections we received from different journals were sometimes for mutually exclusive reasons; for example, our hypothesis was trivially true and entirely implausible.
Now, I am clearly not an objective observer in this matter. And, it is true that after a roughly 18-month ordeal, we did find a journal with an editor and referees open-minded enough to publish our paper. Perhaps our essay is just not that interesting or insightful, and the previous rejections were warranted. Rather than try and convince you to the contrary, I will just say that “the proof is in the pudding.” In other words, read it and decide for yourself.
