The Syrian Refugee Crisis and Foreign Policy Decision-Making in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey

Gerasimos Tsourapas

doi:10.1093/jogss/ogz016

Abstract

AbstractHow does forced migration affect the politics of host states and, in particular, how does it impact states’ foreign policy decision-making? The relevant literature on refugee politics has yet to fully explore how forced migration affects host states’ behavior. One possibility is that they will employ their position in order to extract revenue from other state or nonstate actors for maintaining refugee groups within their borders. This article explores the workings of these refugee rentier states, namely states seeking to leverage their position as host states of displaced communities for material gain. It focuses on the Syrian refugee crisis, examining the foreign policy responses of three major host states—Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. While all three engaged in post-2011 refugee rent-seeking behavior, Jordan and Lebanon deployed a back-scratching strategy based on bargains, while Turkey deployed a blackmailing strategy based on threats. Drawing upon primary sources in English and Arabic, the article inductively examines the choice of strategy and argues that it depended on the size of the host state's refugee community and domestic elites’ perception of their geostrategic importance vis-à-vis the target. The article concludes with a discussion of these findings’ significance for understanding the international dimension of the Syrian refugee crisis and argues that they also pave the way for future research on the effects of forced displacement on host states’ political development.

Highlights

How does forced migration affect the politics of host states and, in particular, how does it impact states’ foreign policy decision-making? The relevant literature on refugee politics has yet to fully explore how forced migration affects host states’ behavior
“We can open the doors to Greece and Bulgaria anytime and we can put the refugees on buses,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared to a group of European Union (EU) senior officials in February 2016
I conclude with a note of how additional research may shed light on how forced displacement affects refugee rentier states’ domestic political development, with regard to encouraging opportunities for state corruption, autocracy, and other pathologies associated with rentierism

Summary

Introduction

How does forced migration affect the politics of host states and, in particular, how does it impact states’ foreign policy decision-making? The relevant literature on refugee politics has yet to fully explore how forced migration affects host states’ behavior. This article explores the workings of these refugee rentier states, namely states seeking to leverage their position as host states of displaced communities for material gain It focuses on the Syrian refugee crisis, examining the foreign policy responses of three major host states— Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. Using a three-case-study approach to examine the foreign policy behavior of the main host states of displaced Syrian communities since 2011, my data suggests that a host state’s choice between blackmailing or back-scratching depends on domestic elites’ perception vis-à-vis the target state(s). Drawing on data collected in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, I argue that a strategy of blackmailing is adopted when domestic elites believe that their state is geopolitically important vis-a-vis the target state(s) and they host a significant number of refugees Otherwise, they are more likely to employ a strategy of back-scratching. Research has demonstrated the wide impact of refugees in the diffusion and exacerbation of conflict (Lischer 2015), with Kaldor including displacement as a form of post-1989 “new wars” in the Balkans, sub-Saharan Africa, and elsewhere (Kaldor 2013)

Objectives

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Conclusion