Tikvah Scholar
Academic Year 2012-2013
Liav Orgad
Liav Orgad is an Assistant Professor at the Radzyner School of Law, IDC Herzliya. His research interests include constitutional theory, comparative constitutional law, citizenship theory, comparative immigration law, and multiculturalism. He holds LL.D. and LL.M. degrees from the Hebrew University, an LL.M. degree from Columbia Law School, and LL.B. and B.A. degrees from the IDC. Orgad was a Visiting Researcher at Harvard Law School, a Visiting Scholar at Columbia Law School, and a Fellow at the Roosevelt Academy, Utrecht University. He served on Israel’s Advisory Committee on Immigration Policy and the National Security Council and was a Fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI). In 2011, he was awarded the Eric Stein Senior Scholar Prize for "best scholarly article" by the American Society for Comparative Law, the Gorney Prize for Outstanding Young Scholars by the Israeli Association of Public Law, and the Zilberg Prize for Excellent Dissertation by the Hebrew University. He has been awarded Rothschild Fellowship, Fulbright Post-Doctoral Fellowship, and E. David Fischman Scholarship. He is currently working on a book: "Cultural Defense of Nations: A Liberal Theory of Majority Rights" (Oxford University Press, under contract).
http://portal.idc.ac.il/en/faculty/oliav/Pages/Bio.aspx
Research
Cultural Defense of Nations: A Liberal Theory of Majority Rights
Cultural Defense of Nations addresses one of the greatest challenges facing liberalism today: Can culturally distinct mass immigration be reconciled with nation-states seeking to preserve their culture? Given the proposition that certain elements of the culture of majority groups are vulnerable, do they have a (legal) right, grounded in liberalism rather than communitarian claims, to defend core elements of their culture?
The project proposes a new liberal approach to cultural defense of majority groups and discusses its justifications and limitations. It addresses two questions: Is the cultural continuity of majority groups a legitimate end to restrict immigration, and is culture a legitimate criterion to restrict immigration? The research spotlights a new trend of "cultural convergence" of nationalism, under which liberal states define the essence of their citizenship, thereby the rules of joining their community, in cultural terms. The findings reveal a troubling trend in liberal democracies, which, ironically, in order to protect liberalism, violate the same values they seek to protect. The research criticizes this condition and develops more liberal standards for protecting core elements of a majority groups' culture that can be implemented in nation-states.
