Luis Cabrera

Luis Cabrera is Professor of Political Science at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. He previously taught at the University of Birmingham (UK), and Arizona State University. His research focuses on the advancement of individual rights through the development of more robust and democratically accountable regional and global organizations, up to some form of fully integrated world government. His work is informed by field research at international organizations, and among activists, officials and migrants across more than 20 countries on five continents.

His most recent book, The Humble Cosmopolitan: Rights, Diversity, and Trans-state Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2020), addresses diversity critiques of universal moral principles and democracy across state borders. It draws on the work of Indian constitutional architect and anti-caste campaigner B.R. Ambedkar, and on extensive field research among globally oriented Dalit human rights activists in India, as well as officials of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. It also draws on field work with pro-Brexit activists in Britain, and in Istanbul and Brussels with advocates of eventual EU membership for Turkey. The book received Honorable Mention from the International Studies Association (USA) International Ethics Section Best Book Award panel.

His 2010 book, The Practice of Global Citizenship (Cambridge University Press), seeks to identify the universal human duties that correspond to individual economic and political rights. His theoretical claims were informed by extensive field work at sites of intense unauthorized immigration in the United States, Mexico, and Western Europe. The book was awarded the Yale H. Ferguson Prize from the International Studies Association (USA).

His 2004 book, Political Theory of Global Justice, offered an argument based in distributive justice for democratically accountable political integration above the state, up to some form of full global government.