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Debating Brain Drain

May Governments Restrict Emigration?

Gillian Brock and Michael Blake

Debating Ethics

Excellent resource for those hoping to understand the many normative issues raised by considering ethical questions associated with emigration
One of the first monograph-length studies of the morality of emigration by two political philosophers
Provides comprehensive and accessible treatment of the normative issues associated with various policy options meant to address the problems that arise out of critical shortages of skilled personnel
Helps map areas of convergence and disagreement in a sophisticated debate, while also indicating some areas for fruitful further research

Debating Brain Drain

May Governments Restrict Emigration?

Gillian Brock and Michael Blake

Description

Many of the best and brightest citizens of developing countries choose to emigrate to wealthier societies, taking their skills and educations with them. What do these people owe to their societies of origin? May developing societies legitimately demand that their citizens use their skills to improve life for their fellow citizens? Are these societies ever permitted to prevent their own citizens from emigrating?

These questions are increasingly important, as the gap between rich and poor societies widens, and as the global migration of skilled professionals intensifies. This volume addresses the ethical rights and responsibilities of such professionals, and of the societies in which they live. Gillian Brock and Michael Blake agree that the phenomenon of the brain drain is troubling, but offer distinct arguments about what might be permissibly done in response to this phenomenon.

Debating Brain Drain

May Governments Restrict Emigration?

Gillian Brock and Michael Blake

Debating Ethics

Introduction

Part I
By Gillian Brock

1. Introduction to Part I
2. What Does Global Justice Require?
3. Prosperity in Developing Countries, the Effects Departing Individuals Have on Those Left Behind, and Some Policy Options
4. Whose Responsibility is it to Remedy Losses Caused by the Departure of Skilled Migrants?
5. Consideration of Central Anticipated Objections
6. Summary of Conclusions from Part I

Part II
By Michael Blake

7. The Right to Leave: Looking Back
8. The Right to Leave: Looking Forward
9. The Right to Leave and What Remains

Part III
Responses by Gillian Brock and Michael Blake

10. Brock Responds to Blake
11. Blake Responds to Brock

Index

Debating Brain Drain

May Governments Restrict Emigration?

Gillian Brock and Michael Blake

Debating Ethics

Author Information

Gillian Brock is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. Her recent and current research focuses on global justice and related fields. Her most recent works with Oxford University Press include Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Account (2009) and Cosmopolitanism versus Non-Cosmopolitanism (2013).

Michael Blake is Professor of Philosophy and Public Affairs at the University of Washington. He writes about international distributive justice and the ethics of immigration. He is the author of Justice and Foreign Policy (OUP, 2013).

Debating Brain Drain

May Governments Restrict Emigration?

Gillian Brock and Michael Blake

Debating Ethics

Reviews and Awards

Gillian Brock is joint recipient of The 2014 Amartya Sen Prize Contest

"The authors provide an interesting set of arguments for their positions and responses to each other's critiques in a very readable format...Recommended." --Choice

"...this volume is overall a lively and challenging work that has much to teach most any reader. It will be particularly valuable in courses on political philosophy, where it will spur difficult debate while enabling the instructor to pick up the threads and use them to explain many of the most important issues in the field. For that reason this volume is particularly highly recommended." --Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews Online

"...an important book. Both authors take seriously the dangers that unfettered individualism in migration may bring. The book presents a nuanced counterweight to arguments for open borders that are simply based on individual gains, and which neglect the social consequences that can derive from such migration." -- Developing World Bioethics

"Debating Brain Drain does an excellent job at raising some of the key issues that are essential to understanding the nature of brain drain, the normative challenges it poses, and what sorts of strategies can be legitimately deployed to defend against its supposed harms. Both thinkers offer compelling and sophisticated arguments to justify their respective positions. The back-and-forth between Brock and Blake is extraordinarily helpful for readers attempting to understand the nuanced views that both theorists offer." -- Contemporary Political Theory

"a welcome addition to the literature on justice in global migration...Debating Brain Drain is a highly engaging book. Brock and Blake deserve praise for the seriousness and sensitivity with which they approach the controversial and underexplored topic of restrictions on emigration. In virtue not only of this but also its provocative arguments, Debating Brain Drain ought to be regarded as an important contribution to the development of a new direction in the study of the normative dimensions of global migration." -- Ethics

"an interesting exploration of an issue that falls in the intersection of social philosophy, political philosophy, and applied ethics. The issue is whether it is ever justifiable to restrict emigration from a country, especially of the highly educated. Gillian Brock and Michael Blake have written a well-balanced book on the subject, with both sides getting a fair exposition...Brock and Blake have given us a wealth of pertinent arguments to consider. They are to be commended for their valuable work." -- Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review

"Gillian Brock and Michael Blake offer a rich, nuanced, thoughtful, and compelling debate regarding whether it is permissible, just, and wise for developing countries to enact restrictions on the right of skilled workers to emigrate" -- Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations

"Debating Brain Drain is an excellent book and I have learned much from both Gillian Brock and Michael Blake's contributions." -- Journal of Medical Ethics

Debating Brain Drain

May Governments Restrict Emigration?

Gillian Brock and Michael Blake

Debating Ethics

From Our Blog

Debating the brain drain: an excerpt on emigration

While there has been considerable normative theoÂrizing on the topic of immigration, most analyses have focused on the relation between the migrant or prospective migrant and the society she will join'issues of admission, accommodation, integration, and so forth.

Posted on December 20, 2015

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Global health inequalities and the "brain drain"

There are massive inequalities in global health opportunities and outcomes. Consider, for instance, that Japan has around twenty-one physicians per 10,000 people, while Malawi has only one physician for every fifty thousand people. This radical inequality in medical skills and talents has, obviously, bad consequences for health; people born in Malawi will live, on average, 32 years fewer than their counterparts born in Japan.

Posted on October 5, 2015

Read the blog post