“You are a Greek Jew? I thought all Greeks were Orthodox?” As a Jewish-American growing up in New York City, whose paternal grandparents were Jews who had emigrated from Greece in the 1920s, I was frequently asked this question by well-meaning—if confused—friends and acquaintances. Indeed, while “Greek Jew” has always been a central aspect of my multiply-hyphenated American identity, in fact my grandfather Morris Isaac, né Izaki, was from Salonika and, it turns out, he himself grew up as a Turkish Jew under the Ottoman Empire, only to discover after World War I that he was in fact (now) not a Turkish but a Greek Jew (which was not, in the parlance of his time, synonymous with being an authentic “Greek”). Greek (Orthodox) or Jewish? Greek or Turkish? Pogroms, wars, “ethnic cleansings,” and sometimes even genocides have been undertaken to resolve such questions, and indeed my ancestors experienced all of these things in the opening decades of the twentieth century. For my family, such traumas are part of the story of how my grandparents came to leave Greece and migrate to the US and become Americans and US citizens (alas, many of their relatives were not able to leave, and most ultimately perished at the hands of the Nazis).

Many existing accounts of the American state search for identifiable features of stateness recognizable from the comparative politics of state theory. These are less present in the US because of a distinct history, institutional separation of powers, and an ideological populism based in opposition to public sector expansion. Despite these constraints the American state is a powerful actor in US politics and has been since the nineteenth century engaged in familiar revenue raising, regulatory, public order, coercive, military, and distributive functions. To understand these we propose a framework based on how the endogenous drive to standardize shapes these functions and gives a distinct character to the American state. We identify impulses to standardize, instruments of standardization, and enduring obstacles to this agenda.

Recent research on the politics of contemporary policymaking has centered the contributions of diverse conservative forces. Conservatives are viewed as the chief proponents of marketizing reforms featuring retrenchment of social programs, privatization of social services, deregulation, and tax reduction, as well as of disciplining policies that impose more stringent behavioral requirements on beneficiaries, employ testing and reporting to monitor recipient performance, and impose sanctions for non-compliance. These developments are often viewed as fostering a less egalitarian politics, especially for historically disadvantaged groups.

I examine the rise of standards, testing, accountability, and limited school choice policies in federal education policymaking, which are widely viewed as embodying the same conservative interests and ideologies that have shaped policymaking in other areas. Contrary to this conventional wisdom, I show that certain civil rights organizations, not conservative forces, provided much of the impetus for federal standards, testing, and accountability reforms, which they viewed as measures for raising the achievement of disadvantaged students. Tracing the origins and consequences of these policies, my research reveals that entrepreneurial progressives can achieve significant legislative successes that they believe will accomplish progressive objectives. However, these policy victories have yielded mixed substantive results, and they have also unleashed complex and unanticipated consequences.

Controversies over Mexican immigrants and undocumented aliens in Arizona and elsewhere show the need for fresh approaches to immigration. The “principle of constituted identities” holds that the more a government has coercively constituted the identities of non-citizens in ways that have made having certain relationships to it fundamental to their capacities to lead free and meaningful lives, the greater the obligations that government has to facilitate those relationships–all else being equal. The U.S. has coercively constituted the identities of many persons of Mexican descent, inside and outside its boundaries, in ways that have fostered aspirations for dual economic, cultural, and political “citizenships.” It has also shaped the identities, values, and interests of many whites in immigrant-receiving states in ways that make Mexican immigrants seem threatening, even as it has made those states pay most of the costs of absorbing immigrants. In consequence, the U.S. should adopt policies that give priority to Mexicans in immigration and that facilitate dual citizenships, while providing more aid to immigrant-receiving states.

The question of how to understand and address longstanding—and at times violent—hostility toward Mexican immigrants in the United States remains pressing. In his essay, Rogers Smith attempts to describe a just immigration policy, one that could ease anti-immigrant conflict, based on obligations upon the U.S. government that arise from its coercive shaping of the social identities and aspirations of Mexican immigrants. Smith is correct to focus on the conflicts between intersecting and contradictory factors that affect identity formation among immigrants, but I argue that a focus on similar conflicts among those who hold strong anti-immigrant views suggests that such contradictions may also be animating anti-Mexican immigrant hostility. Among the most important of these may be those arising from the American dream—a formative narrative that encourages euphoria about socioeconomic possibilities but that cloaks underlying economic instabilities, exploitation, and widespread vulnerabilities. The pain of these contradictions, typically unacknowledged by those whom they affect, can spike in times of economic downturn, exciting anti-Mexican immigrant sentiments that provide an outlet for the rage and agony of unresolved conflict.

In his compelling piece, “Living in a Promiseland? Mexican Immigration and American Obligations,” Rogers Smith argues that the greater the degree to which the U.S. has coercively constituted the identities of non-citizens in ways that have made having certain relationships to America fundamental to their capacities to lead free and meaningful lives, the greater the obligations the U.S. has to facilitate those relationships. Over the last hundred years, many rural communities in Mexico have been constituted more by U.S. immigration policy and the labor demands of U.S. employers than by similar policies and economic factors in Mexico. According to Smith, this means that Mexicans may be owed “special access” to American residency and citizenship, ahead of the residents of countries less affected by U.S. policies, and in ways that should justify leniency toward undocumented Mexican immigrants.

The provocative question raised by Rogers Smith's “Living in a Promiseland? Mexican Immigration and American Obligations” is whether the tortured history of U.S.-Mexican relations and the racialized context of Mexican immigrant reception can best be ameliorated through targeted immigration policies that would create added opportunities for Mexican migrants relative to others. I argue that the current, more universally-principled system of U.S. immigration policy, supplemented by an inclusive legalization program, can better serve the needs of potential Mexican migrants and Mexican immigrants resident in the United States. Also, I am more skeptical than Smith is about the depths of Mexico's commitment to seeking binational strategies to address the needs of its émigrés abroad.

My thanks to Rafael Alarcón, Edwina Barvosa, and Louis DeSipio for their thoughtful responses to my essay, and to Perspectives on Politics for occasioning this discussion. The respondents each highlight crucial challenges for my argument—but their essays also suggest how I might address those challenges more adequately. I will review the contributions of each writer and sketch the lessons I draw from them in turn.

The uncertain political status of America's millions of undocumented immigrants and their children has exposed deep and ongoing disagreement about how US citizenship should be accorded to foreign-born persons. I identify the principle of jus temporis, a law of measured calendrical time, that has worked in concert with jus soli and consent to construct citizenship law since the nation's founding. Jus temporis translates measured durations of time such as “time in residence” or “time worked” into entitlement to rights and status. It creates temporal algorithms in which measured calendrical time plus additional variables (e.g., physical presence, education, or behavior) equals consent to citizenship. I explore recent scholarly references to temporal principles and trace the history of how jus temporis was invoked by the nation's first Supreme Court jurisprudence on citizenship and the first Congressional debates about immigration and naturalization. Scholarly convergence on the principle of jus temporis as well as its originalist pedigree imbue this principle with the potential to resolve contemporary disagreements about the rights and status of foreign-born persons in the US.

Ever since 1954, when a unanimous Supreme Court declared that education is “a right that must be made available to all on equal terms,” Americans have been debating the meaning of educational equality, how it might be attained, and through what instrumentalities of government. Brown v. Board of Education was arguably the most important Supreme Court decision of the twentieth century, not only because it ended legal segregation in schools but also for incorporating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as a tool to promote racial equality in other aspects of American life. Brown also thrust the federal courts deeply into primary and secondary education and opened the door to further federal intervention in a sphere of government that historically belonged to the states and localities. Debates over federalism, separation of powers, policy alternatives, and the role of government in promoting educational and social equality remain very much alive today as the Obama administration puts forth its education agenda, states struggle with its demands, and Congress reconsiders the contours of No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

The world is movement. People migrate in response to labor needs and human disaster; money and memes flit between countries, and people move almost too quickly to track; the flow of energy and commodities bind consumers to providers in supply chains that neither party can usually envisage. Needless to say, this is as true of criminal activities as any other sphere of human endeavor, especially when it comes to trafficking drugs. According to the United Nations, as of 2010 the trade in opiates generates an annual turnover of up to $65 billion, with cocaine accounting for a further $88 billion. The crudest street gang peddling crack or heroin in a darkened stairwell is part of a complex transnational business, even if its members scarcely know from which country their product originally hails. The roaring torrents of Afghan opiates and Latin American cocaine crash through border checkpoints, leaving corrupted customs officers and pipelines for other illicit transfers in their wake, hollow out political systems, and transform into equally powerful flows of dirty money that in due course wash into every banking system in the world.

Jytte Klausen's The Cartoons That Shook the World offers an interesting political science account of the Danish cartoon controversy and of a broader set of tensions between multiculturalism, civility, and freedom of expression. The book is also a fascinating case study of how political science can itself become the object of dispute, due to Yale University Press' decision to publish the book without any reproductions of the controversial cartoons.

We have thus asked a range of political scientists to comment on the Danish cartoon imbroglio, the book's analysis of it, and the controversy over the book itself.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

Jytte Klausen's The Cartoons That Shook the World offers an interesting political science account of the Danish cartoon controversy and of a broader set of tensions between multiculturalism, civility, and freedom of expression. The book is also a fascinating case study of how political science can itself become the object of dispute, due to Yale University Press' decision to publish the book without any reproductions of the controversial cartoons.

We have thus asked a range of political scientists to comment on the Danish cartoon imbroglio, the book's analysis of it, and the controversy over the book itself.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

Jytte Klausen's The Cartoons That Shook the World offers an interesting political science account of the Danish cartoon controversy and of a broader set of tensions between multiculturalism, civility, and freedom of expression. The book is also a fascinating case study of how political science can itself become the object of dispute, due to Yale University Press' decision to publish the book without any reproductions of the controversial cartoons.

We have thus asked a range of political scientists to comment on the Danish cartoon imbroglio, the book's analysis of it, and the controversy over the book itself.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

Jytte Klausen's The Cartoons That Shook the World offers an interesting political science account of the Danish cartoon controversy and of a broader set of tensions between multiculturalism, civility, and freedom of expression. The book is also a fascinating case study of how political science can itself become the object of dispute, due to Yale University Press' decision to publish the book without any reproductions of the controversial cartoons.

We have thus asked a range of political scientists to comment on the Danish cartoon imbroglio, the book's analysis of it, and the controversy over the book itself.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

Jytte Klausen's The Cartoons That Shook the World offers an interesting political science account of the Danish cartoon controversy and of a broader set of tensions between multiculturalism, civility, and freedom of expression. The book is also a fascinating case study of how political science can itself become the object of dispute, due to Yale University Press' decision to publish the book without any reproductions of the controversial cartoons.

We have thus asked a range of political scientists to comment on the Danish cartoon imbroglio, the book's analysis of it, and the controversy over the book itself.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

We inhabit a thoroughly globalized world. People are increasingly and visibly connected by a “World Wide Web,” by a world market, and by universalist discourses of human rights and democracy. At the same time, full citizenship in a political community—and the rights conferred by such citizenship—is an exclusive status that remains, remarkably, tied to accidents of birth and historical circumstance. And what one has a right to—gainful employment, education, health care, political voice, mere presence—is largely a function of whether one has the precious status of citizenship or is, alternatively, regarded as an alien. Ayelet Shachar's The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality is a compelling account of the moral arbitrariness of this state of affairs. A study in “normative political theory,” it is a work of political science that incorporates legal theory, moral philosophy, political economy, and public policy. The author tackles issues of increasing global political importance—global disparities of wealth; unequal access to clear air, water, and a secure place to live; and the increasingly contentious politics of immigration and immigrant rights.

So it seems fitting to invite a range of political science scholars who work on these topics to comment on the book. The basic editorial charge of this symposium is thus straightforward: How do you assess Shachar's arguments and the attention she focuses on the phenomenon of “birthright lottery”? How does this argument bear upon the topics and approaches that characterize your own scholarship? And how do these topics and approaches shed light on the book and its arguments? While the focus of the symposium is this provocative book, the discussion of it should also be regarded as an opportunity to address the question of whether or not the bases of citizenship need to be fundamentally reconceived, and in what ways political science can and should contribute to such a rethinking.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

We inhabit a thoroughly globalized world. People are increasingly and visibly connected by a “World Wide Web,” by a world market, and by universalist discourses of human rights and democracy. At the same time, full citizenship in a political community—and the rights conferred by such citizenship—is an exclusive status that remains, remarkably, tied to accidents of birth and historical circumstance. And what one has a right to—gainful employment, education, health care, political voice, mere presence—is largely a function of whether one has the precious status of citizenship or is, alternatively, regarded as an alien. Ayelet Shachar's The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality is a compelling account of the moral arbitrariness of this state of affairs. A study in “normative political theory,” it is a work of political science that incorporates legal theory, moral philosophy, political economy, and public policy. The author tackles issues of increasing global political importance—global disparities of wealth; unequal access to clear air, water, and a secure place to live; and the increasingly contentious politics of immigration and immigrant rights.

So it seems fitting to invite a range of political science scholars who work on these topics to comment on the book. The basic editorial charge of this symposium is thus straightforward: How do you assess Shachar's arguments and the attention she focuses on the phenomenon of “birthright lottery”? How does this argument bear upon the topics and approaches that characterize your own scholarship? And how do these topics and approaches shed light on the book and its arguments? While the focus of the symposium is this provocative book, the discussion of it should also be regarded as an opportunity to address the question of whether or not the bases of citizenship need to be fundamentally reconceived, and in what ways political science can and should contribute to such a rethinking.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

We inhabit a thoroughly globalized world. People are increasingly and visibly connected by a “World Wide Web,” by a world market, and by universalist discourses of human rights and democracy. At the same time, full citizenship in a political community—and the rights conferred by such citizenship—is an exclusive status that remains, remarkably, tied to accidents of birth and historical circumstance. And what one has a right to—gainful employment, education, health care, political voice, mere presence—is largely a function of whether one has the precious status of citizenship or is, alternatively, regarded as an alien. Ayelet Shachar's The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality is a compelling account of the moral arbitrariness of this state of affairs. A study in “normative political theory,” it is a work of political science that incorporates legal theory, moral philosophy, political economy, and public policy. The author tackles issues of increasing global political importance—global disparities of wealth; unequal access to clear air, water, and a secure place to live; and the increasingly contentious politics of immigration and immigrant rights.

So it seems fitting to invite a range of political science scholars who work on these topics to comment on the book. The basic editorial charge of this symposium is thus straightforward: How do you assess Shachar's arguments and the attention she focuses on the phenomenon of “birthright lottery”? How does this argument bear upon the topics and approaches that characterize your own scholarship? And how do these topics and approaches shed light on the book and its arguments? While the focus of the symposium is this provocative book, the discussion of it should also be regarded as an opportunity to address the question of whether or not the bases of citizenship need to be fundamentally reconceived, and in what ways political science can and should contribute to such a rethinking.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

We inhabit a thoroughly globalized world. People are increasingly and visibly connected by a “World Wide Web,” by a world market, and by universalist discourses of human rights and democracy. At the same time, full citizenship in a political community—and the rights conferred by such citizenship—is an exclusive status that remains, remarkably, tied to accidents of birth and historical circumstance. And what one has a right to—gainful employment, education, health care, political voice, mere presence—is largely a function of whether one has the precious status of citizenship or is, alternatively, regarded as an alien. Ayelet Shachar's The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality is a compelling account of the moral arbitrariness of this state of affairs. A study in “normative political theory,” it is a work of political science that incorporates legal theory, moral philosophy, political economy, and public policy. The author tackles issues of increasing global political importance—global disparities of wealth; unequal access to clear air, water, and a secure place to live; and the increasingly contentious politics of immigration and immigrant rights.

So it seems fitting to invite a range of political science scholars who work on these topics to comment on the book. The basic editorial charge of this symposium is thus straightforward: How do you assess Shachar's arguments and the attention she focuses on the phenomenon of “birthright lottery”? How does this argument bear upon the topics and approaches that characterize your own scholarship? And how do these topics and approaches shed light on the book and its arguments? While the focus of the symposium is this provocative book, the discussion of it should also be regarded as an opportunity to address the question of whether or not the bases of citizenship need to be fundamentally reconceived, and in what ways political science can and should contribute to such a rethinking.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor