"The Rights of Others examines the boundaries of political community by focusing on political membership - the principles and practices for incorporating aliens and strangers, immigrants and newcomers, refugees and asylum seekers, into existing polities. Boundaries define some as members, others as aliens. But when state sovereignty is becoming frayed, and national citizenship is unraveling, definitions of political membership become much less clear. In her Seeley Lectures, political theorist Seyla Benhabib makes a powerful plea, echoing Immanuel Kant, for moral universalism and cosmopolitan federalism. She advocates not open but porous boundaries, recognizing not only the admittance rights of refugees and asylum seekers, but also the regulatory rights of democracies. The Rights of Others is an intervention in contemporary political theory, of interest to students and specialists in politics, law, philosophy, and international relations."--BOOK JACKET.