Since the early 2000s, asylum policy in Western states has become increasingly dominated by the concept of the ‘pull factor’—the idea that the economic rights afforded to asylum seekers can act as a migratory pull, and will have a bearing on the numbers of asylum applications received. The pull factor thesis has been widely discredited by researchers but remains powerful among policymakers. Through an analysis of the pull factor in the UK context, and drawing on insights from Cultural Political Economy, this article argues that the hegemony of the pull factor thesis is best understood as a ‘policy imaginary’ which has become sedimented through both discursive and extra-discursive practices and processes. The article offers a means of understanding how a common sense assumption—which is challenged by a large body of evidence—has come to dominate policymaking in a key area of concern for politicians and policymakers.
AndersonB (2013) Us and Them? The Dangerous Politics of Immigration Control. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2.
BalesK (2013) Universal Credit: Not so universal? Deconstructing the impact of the asylum support system. Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law35(4): 427–443.
3.
BalesK (2015) The essential living needs of asylum seekers: Lessons learned from R (Refugee Action) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] EWHC 1033. Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law37(2): 247–249.
4.
BarskyRF (1994) ‘Why Canada? Why Québec?’: Assessing the convention refugee’s choice of Québec and Canada as host country in 1992 (unpublished intermediary report).
5.
BleichE (2002) Integrating ideas into policy-making analysis frames and race policies in Britain and France. Comparative Political Studies35(9): 1054–1076.
6.
BoswellCGeddesAScholtenP (2011) The role of narratives in migration policy making: A research framework. British Journal of Politics and International Relations13(1): 1–11.
7.
BrekkeJ-PAarsetFM (2009) Why Norway? Understanding Asylum Destinations. Oslo: Institute for Social Research.
8.
BrinkMPasariboeM (1993) Asylum Seekers in the Netherlands. Amsterdam: Instituutvoor Sociale Geografie, University of Amsterdam.
9.
CastlesSLoughnaS (2003) Trends in asylum migration to industrialized countries: 1990–2001. United Nations University discussion paper, no. 2003/31. Helsinki: UNU-WIDER.
CrawleyH (2010) Chance or Choice? Understanding Why Asylum Seekers Come to the UK. London: Refugee Council.
12.
CrawleyHHemmingsJPriceN (2011) Coping with Destitution: Survival and Livelihood Strategies of Refused Asylum Seekers Living in the UK. Oxford: Oxfam.
13.
DayKWhiteP (2002) Choice or circumstance: The UK as the location of asylum applications by Bosnian and Somali refugees. GeoJournal56(1): 15–26.
14.
DoyleL (2009) ‘I Hate Being Idle’ Wasted Skills and Enforced Dependence among Zimbabwean Asylum Seekers in the UK. London: Refugee Council.
15.
FaircloughI (2016) Evaluating policy as practical argument: The public debate over the first UK Austerity Budget. Critical Discourse Studies13(1): 57–77.
16.
GabrielatosCBakerP (2008) Fleeing, sneaking, flooding: A corpus analysis of discursive constructions of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK press, 1996–2005. Journal of English Linguistics36(1): 5–38.
17.
GilbertAKoserK (2006) Coming to the UK: What do asylum seekers know about the UK before arrival?Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies32(7): 1209–1225.
18.
HattonTJ (2004) Seeking asylum in Europe: Trends and policies in the OECD. Economic Policy38: 5–62.
19.
HattonTJ (2009) The rise and fall of asylum: What happened and why?The Economic Journal119(535): 183–213.
20.
HavingaTBöckerA (1999) Country of asylum by choice or by chance. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies25(1): 43–61.
21.
HolzerTSchneiderGWidmerT (2000) The impact of legislative deterrence measures on the number of asylum seekers in Switzerland (1986–1995). International Migration Review34(4): 1182–1216.
22.
JessopB (2009) Cultural political economy and critical policy studies. Critical Policy Studies3(3–4): 336–356.
23.
JessopB (2013) Recovered imaginaries, imagined recoveries. In: BrennerM (ed.) Beyond the Global Economic Crisis. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 234–254.
24.
KeoghG (2013) Modelling asylum migration pull-force factors in the EU-15. Economic and Social Review44(3): 371–399.
25.
LilleyP (2005) Too Much of a Good Thing? Towards a Balanced Approach to Immigration. London: Centre for Policy Studies.
26.
MayblinL (2016) Troubling the exclusive privileges of citizenship: Mobile solidarities, asylum seekers, and the right to work. Citizenship Studies20(2): 192–207.
27.
MayblinL (forthcoming) Asylum After Empire: Postcolonial Legacies in the Politics of Asylum Seeking. London: Rowman and Littlefield International.
28.
MiddletonD (2005) Why asylum seekers seek refuge in particular destination countries. Global migration perspectives working paper 34, May. Geneva: GCIM.
29.
NeumayerE (2005) Bogus refugees? The determinants of asylum migration to Western Europe. International Studies Quarterly49(3): 389–409.
30.
RobinsonVSergottJ (2002) Understanding the decision making of asylum seekers. Home Office research study 243, July. London: Home Office.
31.
RoeE (1994) Narrative Policy Analysis: Theory and Practice. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
32.
SalesR (2002) The deserving and the undeserving? Refugees, asylum seekers and welfare in Britain. Critical Social Policy22(3): 456–478.
33.
SitaropoulosN (2000) Modern Greek asylum policy and practice in the context of the relevant European developments. Journal of Refugee Studies13(1): 105–117.
34.
SquireV (2009) The Exclusionary Politics of Asylum. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
35.
SumN-LJessopB (2013) Towards a Cultural Political Economy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
36.
ThielemannER (2003) Does policy matter? On governments attempts to control unwanted migration. IIIS discussion paper 9, November. Dublin: Institute for Internal Integration Studies.
37.
ToshkovD (2014) The dynamic relationship between asylum applications and recognition rates in Europe (1987–2010). European Union Politics15(2): 192–214.
ValentaM (2014) The nexus of asylum seeker migrations and asylum policy: Longitudinal analysis of migration trends in Norway. International Journal on Minority and Group Rights21: 371–394.
40.
ValentaMThorshaugK (2012) Asylum seekers’ perspectives on work and proof of identity: The Norwegian experience. Refugee Survey Quarterly31(2): 76–97.
41.
ValentaMThorshaugK (2013) Restrictions on right to work for asylum seekers: The case of the Scandinavian countries, Great Britain, and the Netherlands. International Journal on Minority and Group Rights20(3): 459–482.
42.
ValentaMZuparic-IljicDVidovicT (2015) The reluctant asylum-seekers: Migrants at the Southeastern frontiers of the European migration system. Refugee Survey Quarterly34(3): 95–113.
43.
Van HulstMYanowD (2016) From policy ‘frames’ to ‘framing’ theorizing a more dynamic, political approach. The American Review of Public Administration46(1): 92–112.
44.
ZetterRGriffithsDFerrettiS. (2003) An assessment of the impact of asylum policies in Europe, 1990–2000. Home Office online report no. 17/03. London: Home Office.
45.
ZO (Somalia) and others: (Respondents) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (2010) UKSC 36.
