ABSTRACT
The success story of the Western Cold War concept of the political refugee is increasingly being revisited by recent scholarship. This chapter joins the debate by addressing changing practices of granting asylum in Austria throughout the Cold War. Differentiation between politically and economically motivated migration constitutes a persistent tension in refugee policies. Despite the Cold War logic, the framing of East Europeans moving westward gradually shifted from refugees to labor migrants. Departing from the country’s popular image as a refugee haven, the chapter explores the impact of détente, changing global migration patterns, recruitment of foreign labor force, and economic crises on the heated debates about asylum at the end of the Cold War which resulted in more restrictive asylum legislation.
