Prying Open Fortress: The Turn to Sectoral Labor Migration is unique in the field of migration studies since it traces the microeconomic motivations of the relevant economic actors who influence labor migration policy. The book updates the study of the political economy of immigration through a focus on the central and pro-active role of employers, exploring how they interact with trade unions and government to reconfigure the labor migration paradigm in Western Europe. By doing so, it is attentive to the logic behind their strategies, being sensitive to macroeconomic changes that produce sectorally variant policy outcomes. Beyond offering a micro-economically informed explanation for immigration policy, the study transcends the field of migration studies by offering insights relevant to larger debates concerning the nature of national varieties of capitalism. Challenging the 'national models' understanding of capitalism through a multi-country, multi-sectoral study of employers' policy preferences, it demonstrates how in the area of labor migration, economic branches evidence different worker flexibility needs that lead to differing policy results within countries yet similar responses in the same industries of different countries.

Though the book's case studies examine policy development and the role of German, British, Austrian, and Dutch employers, the central comparison is that of Germany, with its highly regulated economy, to the more laissez-faire UK. The book analyzes labor migration policy with four concentrations: IT, hospitality, construction and metalwork, the impact of differing worker flexibility requirements upon employer calculations to make findings more obvious.