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How do considerations related to backlash affect the desirability of pursuing otherwise justified immigration policies? This paper argues that backlash-related considerations bear on immigration policy decisions in ways that are both more powerful and complicated than typically recognized. The standard possibility, the egalitarian backlash argument , endorses immigration restrictions in order to protect support for egalitarian distributive institutions. The paper shows that this account does not, by itself, provide a convincing rationale for restricting immigration because such diminished support is (a) likely outweighed by the benefits of more permissive immigration policies and (b) caused by the objectionable preferences of citizens. However, the paper develops an alternative account of the relevance of backlash-related considerations, the democratic backlash argument , which holds that increased levels of immigration threaten to contribute to undermining democratic institutions. This argument provides a more powerful rationale for restricting immigration, one that can—under identified conditions—justify immigration restrictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The editors of the journal "Politics, Philosophy & Economics" aim to process submitted manuscripts in a timely manner to benefit authors and scholarly debate. They have made decisions on 72% of submissions within 30 days, 87% within 60 days, and 97% within 90 days. The acceptance rate has remained around 5%, similar to previous years. The editors express gratitude for the support of Associate Editors, the Editorial Board, and reviewers, acknowledging that maintaining efficiency depends on continued support from scholars worldwide. While an increase in submissions could pose a challenge, the editors are currently pleased with their efforts. [Extracted from the article]

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2009.00796.x Byline: Ryan Pevnick (1) Abstract: John Locke's non-religious arguments for tolerance are often seen as inadequate. He is criticized for: (1) failing to give reasons in support of a strict separation between the roles of church and state; and (2) wrongly insisting that the coercion of belief is irrational. I argue that once we understand Locke's arguments for tolerance within the context of his social contract framework, his non-sectarian arguments can circumvent such criticisms. Lockean arguments for tolerance are thus stronger than typically supposed. Author Affiliation: (1)New York University Article History: (Accepted: 24 September 2008)

Writing in Ethics & International Affairs 22, no. 1, Mathias Risse presented a novel way to think about the problem of immigration in the context of global justice, adopting the [...]

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2007.00694.x Byline: Ryan Pevnick (1) Abstract: A prominent position in the global justice literature holds that claims of distributive justice are only 'activated' by the densely coercive institutional apparatus of states. I dispute this view in three ways. First, I argue that coercion is either justified by its results and rationale or it cannot be justified at all; as a result, coercive institutions do not demand an independent justification via distributive justice. Second, I contend that because the shape of coercive institutions is the result of political choices that have distributive implications, one cannot make normative judgements without asking why coercive institutions have the shape that they do. Third, even accepting (for the sake of argument) the claim that coercive institutions must be justified by a special focus on distributive justice among those subject to them, I argue that the resulting position does not justify restricting distributive justice to state borders. If (any of) these arguments are correct, it is a mistake to think that a concern with the coercive nature of political institutions legitimates restricting claims of distributive justice to compatriots. Author Affiliation: (1)University of Virginia Article History: (Accepted: 29 January 2007)

Tom Christiano, Jon Riley, and Andrew Williams have concluded their successful tenure as Editors of Politics, Philosophy & Economics (PPE). They have established PPE as a leading outlet for work in political philosophy. Avia Pasternak, Ryan Pevnick, and David Wiens will take over as Co-Editors, aiming to maintain the journal's reputation while expanding its reach. The transition will be facilitated by the continued involvement of current Associate Editors and the addition of new scholars to the editorial team. The journal's reviewing process has been efficient, with the majority of submissions processed within one month. The new editors express gratitude for the support of the PPE community and look forward to continuing their work. [Extracted from the article]

Voters entrust policy-making authority to representatives between elections, but it is the voters' role, at election time, to effect I accountability i by evaluating what their representatives have done and will do. This vulnerability stems from the fact that lottocratic systems would typically move representatives in and out of office more frequently than electoral systems (because incumbents would be returned for subsequent terms at far higher rates in electoral systems). In other words, our claim is I conditional i : a I well-designed i electoral system, not just I any i electoral system, will have benefits that result from the combination of high pivotality and accountability that lottery-based systems have no clear way to duplicate. First, it is worth highlighting that - unlike traditional Madisonian arguments for the instrumental superiority of electoral systems - our argument does not depend on the ability of electoral systems to select particularly well-qualified individuals for public office. Well-designed electoral systems may, in fact, have this benefit, but the claim that electoral systems have epistemic advantages relative to lottocratic alternatives does not require it. [Extracted from the article]

Democracy is instrumentally crucial to the protection of important and non-controversial human rights such that the most reliable way to protect I those i rights is to accept a human right to democracy. The standard instrumental argument for a human right to representative democracy holds that such a right is justified because such forms of government are uniquely effective at preventing states from (1) violating certain urgent rights of their citizens and (2) upsetting international peace and thereby threatening the protection of important human rights. For instance, if regime type X was marginally worse at protecting personal integrity rights, but far better at eliminating poverty, then - provided that one accepts either that there are subsistence rights or that rights can sometimes be outweighed by other important goals - it may become difficult to defend an instrumentally justified human right to democracy. Therefore, if the institutional explanation is correct, the upshot of the instrumental argument would be that I non-democracies are liable to interference because, in the absence of democratization, democracies are more likely to attack them and, in the process, generate human rights violations. i That, though, is surely a perverse explanation of why peaceful, rights respecting non-democracies should be liable to interference. This egalitarian component of democracy is central to the debate, because those who deny that there is a human right to democracy typically insist that any rights-respecting regime must include opportunities for ordinary citizens to participate in the governance of the regime. [Extracted from the article]

Epistocratic arrangements are widely rejected because there will be reasonable disagreement about which citizens count as epistemically superior and an epistemically superior subset of citizens may be biased in ways that undermine their ability to generate superior political outcomes. The upshot is supposed to be that systems of democratic government are preferable because they refuse to allow some citizens to rule over others. We show that this approach is doubly unsatisfactory: although representative democracy cannot be defended as a form of government that prevents some citizens from ruling over others, it can be defended as a special form of epistocracy. We demonstrate that well-designed representative democracies can, through treatment and selection mechanisms, bring forth an especially competent set of individuals to make public policy, even while circumventing the standard objections to epistocratic rule. This has implications for the justification of representative democracy and questions of institutional design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many argue that an important goal of campaign finance reform should be to ensure that competing candidates have roughly equal financial resources with which to contest campaigns. Although there are very important reasons to worry about the role that money has come to play in many democracies, this article argues in three main steps that this particular position lacks compelling justification. First, while advocates of such positions often rely on an analogy with much smaller deliberative settings to defend the view that advocates of competing perspectives should be given equal resources, there are differences between such settings and campaigns that undermine the analogy's appeal. Second, independent arguments – connected to the importance of ensuring that the wealthy do not dominate public debate and preventing corruption – may speak strongly in favor of a generous system of public funding, but fail to provide reason to ensure that advocates of competing positions have access to equal resources. Third, it is impossible to meaningfully level the playing field without objectionably restricting civil liberties. An implication of these arguments is that common criticisms of voucher-based systems of public funding, which hinge on an implicit commitment to the importance of a level playing field, fail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An excerpt of the article "Book symposium on Debating Brain Drain: May Government Restrict Emigration?" is presented with focuses on the need for legitimate states to impose coercive measures top restrict skilled workers' emigration.

According to traditional arguments, judicial review is a legitimate element of representative government because it allows decisions about individual rights to be made in a venue more insulated from electoral pressure than are legislative institutions. The hope is that this insulation helps generate better outcomes than would a system of legislative supremacy. The relevance of this outcome-oriented perspective has been challenged on four main grounds: majoritarian, participatory, disagreement-based, and methodological. The first two contend that judicial review is procedurally illegitimate, while the second two argue that we should assess judicial review on procedural grounds. We show that none of these arguments undermine the traditional insulation-based and outcome-oriented approach to the question of judicial review’s legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers information on the history of the U.S. nonprofit sector and the tax-deductible status of donations to U.S. charitable, non-profit organizations. The author finds merit in determining how public policy affects the non-profit sector given its increasing stake in the U.S. economy. It also discusses topics including which groups properly qualify for public support, criticism on issues of distributive justice and its inconsistency with current commitments to political equality.

The article discusses the justification of government policy intended to limit immigration using the argument that unlimited immigration violates social trust. The popular belief that maintenance of a welfare state is impossible unless social trust is maintained through the limitation of immigration and migration is described, along with the author's argument against such a belief, presented in three sections. The first section examines and challenges the empirical evidence popularly presented for the social trust belief; the second section argues that the claim is based on empirical evidence as well as a dubious normative component; and the third section argues that the social trust belief appeals to a false choice.

The article presents a study about the principle of fair play and its contribution in generating political obligations in the U.S. The principle of fair play needs to account for the ways in which successful provision of public goods affects the ability of foreigners to develop similar schemes of provision. The structure of incentives facing state leaders is constructed in a way that hinders the independent development of schemes for the provision of presumptively beneficial public goods.