Stranger in a Strange Land: The Alien and the State

• Date: 01 January 2019

e Indonesian Journal of International & Comparative Law

ISSN: 2338-7602; E-ISSN: 2338-770X

http://www.ijil.org

© 2019 e Institute for Migrant Rights Press

is essay was originally draed as a contribution to the 20th Annual Meeting of the

Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities at Stanford Law School,

on Mar 31 and Apr 1 2017. e line of argument presented is based on a previous paper

written in German titled ‘Der Fremde: Migration in staatstheoretischer Perspektive’

included in Julia Iliopoulos-Strangas ea, ed., Migration: Neue Herausforderungen für

Europa, für die Staatssouveränität und für den sozialen Rechtsstaat (2017). I would

like to thank William MacNeil for encouraging me to transform my presentation

into a (somewhat coherent) manuscript for publication, Gisela Kristoferitsch for her

research assistance and Myriam Becker for helping me completing the manuscript.

strangEr in a strangE land

the AlIen And the StAte

Christoph Bezemek

Institute of Public Law and Political Science, University of Graz

Email: christoph.bezemek@uni-graz.at

e relationship of the stranger and the political community has traditionally

been at the very core of various theoretical, historical and mythical accounts; in

dening membership, in answering who is to be included, accepted and (thus)

protected, in safeguarding a group’s position and its coherence. e essay argues

that many of these accounts still prove to be of great value in a legal and a politi-

cal perspective: None of the questions raised today when it comes to the phenom-

enon of migration and inclusion are particularly new; rather they have been

addressed frequently over the last centuries. We would be well-advised to rely

on a broader perspective, on the teachings of history, and the insights of political

philosophy when facing the intellectual and political challenges of our time.

Keywords: Alien, Foreigner, Hospitality, Human Rights, Language, Nation,

Shibboleth, Stranger.