Liberal democratic states and responsibilities to refugees

In this article I employ the resources of political theory to examine and p rovide an answer to the question of how liberal democracies should respond to the claims of refugees to enter and reside in their territory. I begin b y considering questions of value: I argue that a convincing ethical ideal m ust strive to balance the competing claims of citizens and refugees. Moving to issues of agency, I show that any standard must also accommodate itself to the difficulties of predicting the consequences of entrance, the respon sibilities states currently accept, and the way that politics constrains th e efforts of states to assist refugees. I conclude by proposing the princip le of humanitarianism as a way of reconciling the demands of value with tho se of agency. I argue that adherence to this principle would improve the re fugee policies of liberal democratic states.