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This book investigates the role of irregular migrants in the transformation of citizenship, and argues that irregular status is an immanent (rather than aberrant) condition of global capitalism, one that is formed by the fast-tracked processes of globalization. It describes how irregular migrants complicate the boundaries of citizenship and stretch the parameters of political belonging. It explains that this group is comprised of refugees, asylum seekers, “illegal” labor migrants, and stateless persons, and argues that they occupy new sovereign spaces that generate new subjectivities. The book casts irregular migrants as more than mere victims of sovereign power, shuttled from one location to the next. Incorporating examples from the United States, Australia, and France, it shows how migrants reject their position as “illegal” outsiders and make claims on the communities in which they live and work. It says that, for these migrants, outsider status operates as both a mode of subjectification and as a site of active resistance, forcing observers to rethink the enactment of citizenship. The book connects irregular migrant activism to the complex rescaling of the neoliberal state. Mapping the broad dynamics of political belonging in a neoliberal era, the book provides an insight into the social and spatial transformation of citizenship, sovereignty, and power.

While the Obama administration's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) has expanded health care coverage for millions of Americans, it has fallen short in offering universal health care to all. In Health Care as a Right of Citizenship, Gunnar Almgren argues that the ACA's primary significance is not in its expansion of health care entitlements but in its affirming by an act of Congress the idea that comprehensive health care must be available to all as a right of citizenship. The mainstream American public now views access to affordable health care to all citizens as a crucial function of just and effective governance—and any proposed alternative to the ACA must be reconciled with that expectation. This ambitious book examines how the American health care system must be further reformed to bring it closer in line with the ideals of a modern democracy, as well as how the ACA may change in the coming years. It suggests the next, natural step in the realization of health and well being as a fundamental human right. Based on a close analysis of the writings of sociologist TH Marshall and philosopher John Rawls, this book examines the theoretical foundations for health care as a social right of citizenship. Almgren then translates these theoretical principles into core health care policy aims. Throughout, he argues that the ACA is but an evolutionary step toward a more radical and fundamental health care reform. Almgren suggests how such a restructured health care system might operate, with specific proposals for its financing and delivery systems. He also explores the special issues and considerations that all nations must grapple with as they seek to provide a sustainable social right to health care. Health Care as a Right of Citizenship will stimulate and challenge readers who take an interest in America's health care policy, particularly those who wish for a health care system that is both financially sustainable and capable of making healthcare accessible, adequate, and affordable to all Americans, irrespective of their societal position and individual health needs.

Refugee displacement is a global phenomenon that has uprooted millions of individuals over the past century. In the 1980s, repatriation became the preferred option for resolving the refugee crisis. As human rights achieved global eminence, refugees' right of return fell under its umbrella. Yet return as a right and its practice as a rite created a radical disconnect between principle and everyday practice, and the repatriation of refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) remains elusive in cases of forced displacement of victims by ethnic conflict. Reviewing cases of ethnic displacement throughout the twentieth century in Europe, Asia, and Africa, this text juxtaposes the empirical lack of repatriation in cases of ethnic conflict, unless accompanied by coercion. The emphasis on repatriation during the last several decades has obscured other options, leaving refugees to spend years warehoused in camps. Repatriation takes place when identity, defined by ethnicity or religion, is not at the center of the displacing conflict, or when the ethnic group to which the refugees belong are not a minority in their original country or in the region to which they want to return. Rather than perpetuate a ritual belief in return as a right without the prospect of realization, the text calls for solutions that bracket return as a primary focus in cases of ethnic conflict.