Elizabeth Cohen, Ph.D.

efcohen@maxwell.syr.edu

Syracuse University

Country: United States (New York)

Twitter

Website

Research Interests

Immigration & Citizenship

Publications:

Journal Articles:

(2015) The Political Economy of Immigrant Time, Polity

A look at how temporary immigration statuses have proliferated in the US and an evaluation of whether this is consistent with longstanding US immigration principles.

Books Written:

(2018) The Political Value of Time: Citizenship, Duration, and Democratic Justice, Cambridge University Press

Waiting periods and deadlines are so ubiquitous that we often take them for granted. Yet they form a critical part of any democratic architecture. When a precise moment or amount of time is given political importance, we ought to understand why this is so. The Political Value of Time explores the idea of time within democratic theory and practice. Elizabeth F. Cohen demonstrates how political procedures use quantities of time to confer and deny citizenship rights. Using specific dates and deadlines, states carve boundaries around a citizenry. As time is assigned a form of political value it comes to be used to transact over rights. Cohen concludes with a normative analysis of the ways in which the devaluation of some people’s political time constitutes a widely overlooked form of injustice. This book shows readers how and why they need to think about time if they want to understand politics.

(2009) Semi-Citizenship in Democratic Politics, Cambridge University Press

In every democratic polity there exist individuals and groups who hold some but not all of the essential elements of citizenship. Scholars who study citizenship routinely grasp for shared concepts and language that identify forms of membership held by migrants, children, the disabled, and other groups of individuals who, for various reasons, are neither full citizens nor non-citizens. This book introduces the concept of semi-citizenship as a means to dramatically advance debates about individuals who hold some but not all elements of full democratic citizenship. By analytically classifying the rights of citizenship and their various combinations, scholars can typologize semi-citizens and produce comparisons of different kinds of semi-citizenships and of semi-citizenships in different states. The book uses theoretical analysis, historical examples, and contemporary cases of semi-citizenship to illustrate how normative and governmental doctrines of citizenship converge and conflict, making semi-citizenship an enduring and inevitable part of democratic politics.

Other:

(2017) Why Trump's Immigration Policies Will Increase Undocumented Immigration, Politico

There are many reasons to be concerned about Trump’s executive order on border security and memoranda on immigration policy. He is clearly set on sealing the country’s southern border and indiscriminately deporting large numbers of people, a toxic combination of nativist policies with ominous implications for the U.S. economy and society. For all the deserved criticism of Trump’s proposal, one big thing has been taken for granted: that it would actually succeed in reducing the undocumented population. In fact, walling off the southern border and throwing out residents who have been working in U.S. for extended periods of time could yield the exact opposite result. Turning ourselves into an anti-immigrant police state could actually increase the population of long-term undocumented people in the U.S....

(2013) Should Illegal Immigrants Become Citizens? Let's Ask the Founding Fathers, Washington Post

An "originalist" look at whether the founders would have supported a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.