In this lecture Benhabib will explore the theoretical contradictions at the heart of a post-sovereigntist Europe that struggles with vestiges of statist sovereigntism against the realization of cosmopolitan human rights.
The current EU refugee crisis seems to threaten the viability of the Schengen borders and raises questions about the future of the European Union and the possibility of a Brexit. But difficulties and disagreements concerning the status of asylum seekers and refugees, and more generally about third-country nationals and resident aliens, are not new in the EU. They were just as acute during the Yugoslav Wars of the mid-1990's. Why are these matters so contentious? The promise of the European common market was "the free movement of goods, services and persons." The latter has never been fully realized.
Speaker: Seyla Benhabib, Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy, Yale University
Chair, Peter Verovšek, Lecturer in Social Studies, Harvard University
[ 2016 March 1 ]