ICON S Conference 17 – 19 June 2016 Humboldt University Berlin

subjects relevant for understanding the relation of individual
and society, and it shows how the AYM, as one
constitutive element of the Turkish state, contributes to
social construction. However, the study inquires a less
piquant, yet illustrative topic – constitutional review of
surname legislation. In this endeavor I go beyond the
fixation on judgments as results of a judicial decisionmaking
process, and, instead, investigate the reasoning.
Drawing on social constructionist literature I will
show that in the opposing reasoning of majority and
minority opinion we can see competing constructions
of Turkish society at work.
Roman Zinigrad: Parallels between Civil Education
and Citizenship
The number of citizens in a state may grow in two
ways: birth and immigration. The process of acquiring
citizenship in both cases is usually presented in very
different manners: Birthright citizenship is thought to
be technical while the naturalization of immigrants is
understood to be of a more substantive nature. Questioning
the above axioms my paper will present two
interdependent arguments, both stemming from liberal
theory and applicable to (more or less) liberal-democratic
regimes. I will claim that the above viewpoint is in
fact reverse. Not only that children are also subjected
to substantive requirements as a precondition to de
facto citizenship, but these substantive requirements
are much more profound and intrusive than in the case
of naturalization. Given the validity of the first argument
the normative claim of the article will then be that these
substantive requirements for “birthright citizenship”
cannot be imposed on children of parents who object
to this policy.
57 IRREGULAR IMMIGRANTS ACROSS
BORDERS AND WITHIN: POLICED,
MANAGED, IMAGINED
This panel examines the treatment of irregular migrants,
and addresses questions of borders, movement and
displacement. We take immigration control as a series
of institutions, each with certain “nature” and “functions”
that affects the identity of both the individual
migrant and the host state. Often, we show, they lead
to unintended consequences. Together, the different
papers illuminate underlying racialized perceptions
of different modes of irregular migration, in both, Germany
and the United States.
Participants Linda S. Bosniak
Emily Ryo
Leti Volpp
Moria Paz
Name of Chair Moria Paz
Room DOR24 1.607
Linda S. Bosniak: Wrongs, Rights and Regularization
Assuming one supports programs of legalization
or regularization for irregular immigrants in some
circumstances, how is such support to be justified?
There are a variety of normative rationales out there
on behalf immigrant regularization which I will identify
and analyze. My particular focus – the idea I want to
follow throughout the discussion – is that of immigrant
wrongdoing. Wrongdoing or wrongfulness is a normative
premise that is addressed, one way or another,
in all of the pro-regularization arguments. I look at
how this presumption of wrongdoing is constructed,
understood, managed, processed, overlooked, minimized,
and even challenged en route to a regularization
outcome. Why is the idea of immigrant wrongdoing
so central? Because – in brief – it is a concept
that captures the normative force of the border once
interiorized in the liberal democratic state. The very
existence of irregular migrants presupposes both exclusionary
border rules and also their incompleteness
or failure. In keeping with liberalism’s often individualist
and moralized approach to social outcomes, immigrant
wrongdoing becomes the default organizing
frame for addressing this failure. Border fundamentalists
view this wrongdoing as preclusively barring
regularization. Those who support regularization find
themselves having to contend with the wrongdoing
issue, but seek by various means to get beyond it. In
this paper, I analyze the nature and significance of
these efforts.
Concurring panels 94