Do Our Citizenship Requirements Impede the Protection of Political Asylum Seekers?: A Comparative Analysis of European Practices

by Hakan G. Sicakkan, Stein Ugelvik Larsen (Foreword)

Current debates concerning European treatment of asylum seekers hinge, in the view of Sicakkan (comparative politics, U. of Bergen, Norway), on the relationship between states' citizenship models, which prescribe the criteria to determine individuals' legitimacy (a reversed understanding of the notion of legitimacy), and their present asylum determination frames, which are the instruments of states' boundary maintenance against those who have a legal right to entry and residence. He examines this relationship for 19 West European states, creating typologies of European political systems with respect to their asylum determination frames and to the internal features of states. He also develops quantitative-comparative indicators of the legal and institutional frames of asylum determination in his selected countries. Finally he addresses questions concerning the incorporation of states' interests into the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the expansion of the definition of refugee, the problem of dilution of the refugee status under the Convention, and enabling states to reassume responsibility for refugees. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

452 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008