The Ethics and Politics of Asylum

In Chapters 1 and 2, I considered the question of responses to refugees from the viewpoint of ethical (or ideal) theory. In the next chapters I want to look at the actual responses of four liberal democratic states towards refugees and asylum seekers. By examining the recent behaviour of these states it is possible to identify both the ways in which the practices of states depart from the requirements of ideal theory and the range of real-world factors that currently shape and constrain how liberal democratic states respond to refugees. These factors will need to be taken into account in my attempt to furnish practical prescriptions for state behaviour in the final two chapters of this work. My examination of the practical responses of states, however, will begin, in this chapter, with Germany. I will then move on to consider the cases of the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia.