Previously published as a special issue of West European Politics, this edited volume evaluates the extent to which a policy gap between inputs and outcomes exists with regard to immigration control.

Virginie Guiraudon is Marie Curie Chair professor in Social and Political Sciences at the European University institute, Italy, on leave from the National Center for Scientific Research in France where she holds a permanent research position and works on the comparative politics of immigration in European countries and the United States. She has published Les politiques d'immigration en Europe in 2000 and co-edited (with Christian Joppke) Controlling a New Migration World in 2001. Her recent research analyzes EU-level immigration and anti-discrimination policies and the delegation of immigration control to local, private and transnational actors. She is executive board member of the European Union Studies Association. Gallya Lahav, Associate Professor of Political Science at the State University of New York, Stony Brook is a visiting fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advance Studies at the European University Institute. Her research deals with international migration and European integration, within a comparative and IR framework. She is the author of several articles, as well as the book, Immigration and Politics in the New Europe: Reinventing Borders (Cambridge University Press, 2004) and the co-edited Migration Reader (Lynne Reinner, Publishers, 2005). Lahav serves as a consultant to the United Nations Population Division, and is the recipient of a MacArthur Award for her current project on Migration, Security and Civil Liberties, comparing Europe and the US.

Introduction: Closing the Gap between Political Demands and Policy Outcomes, Actors and Venues in Immigration Control Part 1: Formulating Policy 1. National Models, Policy Types and the Politics of Immigration in Liberal Democracies 2. Contentious Politics of Asylum in Britain and Europe: Public Opinion, the Media and Political Mobilization 3. The Extreme-Right and Immigration Policy-Making: Measuring Direct and Indirect Effects Part 2: Implementing Policy 4. Street-Level Democracy? How Immigration Bureaucrats Manage Public Opposition 5. Excluding Illegal Migrants in The Netherlands: Between National Policies and Local Implementation Part 3: International Policy-Making 6. Shifting Up and Out: The Foreign Policy of European Immigration Control 7. The Myth of Free-Riding: Refugee Protection and Implicit Burden-Sharing 8. Shaping International Migration Policy: The Role of Regional Consultative Processes