National sovereignty, human rights and the democratic paradox:

a possible outlet based on the congruences between Donatella Di Cesare, Michael Walzer and David Miller

Abstract

This paper explores and recommends a way to overcome the democratic paradox, the fundamental moral dilemma between the national sovereignty of the liberal democratic State and the acknowledgment of the human rights of foreigners, highlighted by Donatella Di Cesare. This is achieved by reconstructing the paradox, based on the author's assessment of Michael Walzer and David Miller, and the solution she offers, which involves surpassing the state-centric order and creating a political community that is not dependent on national identity. Afterwards, the perspectives of these authors are scrutinized one by one to demonstrate that the criticisms raised by Di Cesare do not correspond to the works Walzer and Miller produced on political community and national identity. Lastly, we propose that there are commonalities between these three authors that could assist in the conceptual formulation of a concept of political community that can provide an initial answer to the democratic paradox.