"In addressing the asylum controversy in Europe today, much of the literature assumes that asylum policies result from the struggle between national interests that tighten asylum and humanitarianism that loosens it. This book challenges this simple tug-of-war image by examining asylum in Germany, Switzerland, and Britain from the late 1970s, when asylum was just beginning to cause political ripples, to the mid 1990s, when it had become one of the dominant issues in Europe.

By revealing the complex and often counter-intuitive roles that national interests, international norms, and morality play in shaping asylum, this book forces us to reconsider how we think about asylum and to explore alternatives to conventional assumptions."--BOOK JACKET.