Reconstructing a State's Responsibility to Provide Safety to Its Constituent Population: Globalization, International Population Movements and Transterritorial Public.
Tomonori Taki
October 2008
Abstract:
This paper discusses how a state can reconstruct its function to provide safety to its constituent population after having become a destination country of international population movements (IPM). First, the paper considers why it is the responsibility of a state to provide safety to its constituent population. Second, using an International Political Economy perspective, it is claimed that a change in economic circumstances will lead to a change in the political domain. Third, when they accept new norms, actors in world politics could change their ways of action. Fourth, if a norm alternative to nationalism is formulated, the state could alter its action to provide safety to foreign nationals. Fifth, a state’s understanding of ‘the constituent population of a society’ can be modified in accordance with a changing knowledge of the characteristics of a state’s boundaries. It is concluded that a state’s responsibility to provide safety to its constituent population should remain unchanged, but an understanding of the form of such a population has to be updated. A state of destination country of IPM should characterize the foreign nationals within its territory as a ‘transterritorial public’, and provide safety to them just as it would to its nationals.
Key Words:
International population movements, International political economy, State boundaries, Migrants, Safety.
Contact Details:
Department of International Tourism,
Nagasaki International University
Sasebo, Nagasaki, Japan