Bonnie Honig, Northwestern University
Democracy, Constitutionalism, and the National Security State

April 4, 2003
(date was changed from April 7):

5:00pm, 1301 Rolfe Hall
(location changed from 314 Royce)

Respondent: Juliet Williams, UC Santa Barbara

This paper looks at an episode of rights-claiming that occurred during the First Red Scare when thousands of people were saved from deportation by the actions of a single man who took it upon himself to act as if aliens had rights of habeas corpus, due process, and legal representation that they did not in fact have. There was room for such administrative initiative because there was no possibility in such cases of judicial review. Might this mean that judicial review is not always — and certainly not in times of emergency — a reliable or desirable way to secure rights and protect freedoms? How do “emergencies” invite us to think about the relationship between courts and democracy?

Bonnie Honig is Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University and Senior Research Fellow at the American Bar Foundation in Chicago. She is the author of Democracy and the Foreigner, Princeton University Press (2001), and Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics, Cornell University Press (1993), as well as editor of Feminist Interpretations of Hannah Arendt, Penn State Press (1995) and co-editor of Skepticism, Individuality and Freedom: The Reluctant Liberalism of Richard Flathman, University of Minnesota Press (2002). She is currently working on a project called Democracy, Constitutionalism, and the National Security State.

This is the first of two talks on The Question of the Foreigner: Immigration, Refugees, and Hospitality. The second lecture in this series will take place on May 19th.

Sponsored by the Transnational and Transcolonial Studies Multicampus Research Group and co-sponsored by the Center for Modern & Contemporary Studies.

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