Introduction: Rethinking Protection

Abstract

Despite its wide use, the meaning of protection remains open to interpretation. The lack of clarity is especially due to the fact that the concept of protection is often conflated with the concept of assistance to the point that refugee protection tends to refer to any policies for refugees, irrespectively of the ultimate outcome. The aim of this book is precisely to distinguish the politics of protection from the politics of assistance by highlighting the different rationale upon which each concept is articulated. In particular, it will be highlighted the difference between the public responsibility to protect and the private desire to assist, between guaranteeing rights and satisfying basic needs. It will be argued that there is a need to depart from the concept of (negative) protection that entails protection from—that is, protection from persecution, violence and life-threatening events—and embrace a concept of (positive) protection, a protection towards emancipation, which requires the direct involvement of the state, and particularly of the liberal/constitutional state. Instead of looking at protection from the sovereign states’ perspective—a perspective which privileges border controls and citizens’ safety—this book will discuss the key role of the state in providing protection. Because protection always already presupposes a national protection—that is a state that takes care of refugees as opposed to humanitarian assistance devolved to charities—it is here, at the national level, that our analysis will start by investigating, in particular, the specific role that the state is asked to perform as protector and guarantor of rights towards its own citizens and the aliens residing in its territory.