Discrimination and Delegation: Explaining State Responses to Refugees

by Lamis Abdelaaty

Overview

What explains the variety of responses that states adopt toward different refugee groups? Refugees might be granted protection or turned away; they might be permitted to live where they wish and earn an income, pursue education, and access medical treatment; or, they might be confined to a camp and forced to rely on aid while being denied basic services. However, states do not consistently wield their capacity for control, nor do they jealously guard their authority to regulate.

In this book, Lamis Elmy Abdelaaty asks why states sometimes assert their sovereignty vis-à-vis refugee rights and at other times seemingly cede it by delegating refugee oversight to the United Nations. To explain this selective exercise of sovereignty, Abdelaaty develops a two-part theoretical framework in which policymakers in refugee-receiving countries weigh international and domestic concerns. Policymakers in a receiving country might decide to offer protection to refugees from a rival country in order to undermine the sending country's stability, saddle it with reputation costs, and even engage in guerilla-style cross-border attacks. At the domestic level, policymakers consider political competition among ethnic groups—welcoming refugees who are ethnic kin of citizens can satisfy domestic constituencies, expand the base of support for the government, and encourage mobilization along ethnic lines. When these international and domestic incentives conflict, the state shifts responsibility for refugees to the UN, which allows policymakers to placate both refugee-sending countries and domestic constituencies.

Abdelaaty analyzes asylum admissions worldwide, and then examines three case studies in-depth: Egypt (a country that is broadly representative of most refugee recipients), Turkey (an outlier that has limited the geographic application of the Refugee Convention), and Kenya (home to one of the largest refugee populations in the world). Discrimination and Delegation argues that foreign policy and ethnic identity, more so than resources, humanitarianism, or labor skills, shape reactions to refugees.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780197753385
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	08/29/2023
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	9.23(w) x 6.20(h) x 0.59(d)

About the Author

Lamis Elmy Abdelaaty is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, and Senior Research Associate at the Campbell Public Affairs Institute. Her research and teaching deal with the international politics of refugees, and her publications have appeared in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies and Journal of Refugee Studies. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the American Philosophical Society, the Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice, and the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies. Abdelaaty holds a doctoral degree in politics from Princeton University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Chapter One: Selective Sovereignty and the Refugee Regime
Chapter Two: The Role of Foreign Policy and Ethnic Politics
Chapter Three: Cross-national Trends in Refugee Status
Chapter Four: Politics Overtakes Policy in Egypt
Chapter Five: Selective Protection in Turkey
Chapter Six: Refugee Debates in Kenya
Chapter Seven: The Implications of Selective Sovereignty for Refugee Rights
Appendix I: Supplementary Data
Appendix II: Content Analysis Codebook
References

Editorial Reviews

"In this brilliant book, Lamis Abdelaaty effectively combines qualitative and quantitative methods to explain why some states are more generous to refugees than others. The answers she provides — that policymakers will be more open to those fleeing a hostile state and who share the ethnic identity of the policymakers — matter profoundly for both scholarship and practice." — Alexander Betts, Professor of Forced Migration and International Affairs, University of Oxford

"Departing from much of the literature that examines whether countries let refugees in, Abdelaaty usefully reminds the reader that countries are more generous to some refugee groups than others and vary in their willingness to delegate to the UNHCR as well. She argues that both choices are a product of a combination of domestic and international politics. Using a terrific mixed methods design, this book sheds light on the response to refugee emergencies both in the past and today, and will help scholars and policymakers better understand the emergencies of the future." — Margaret E. Peters, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles

"Discrimination and Delegation explores a timely and extremely important topic in international politics: state responses to refugee inflows. Lamis Abdelaaty provides a compelling explanation for why states choose to manage refugee policies themselves versus enable the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to do so, and carefully presents both qualitative and quantitative evidence in support of her theory. Academics studying refugee flows, policy makers, and human rights defenders will find this book to be an illuminating read." — Idean Salehyan, Professor of Political Science, University of North Texas

"In this fascinating book, Lamis Elmy Abdelaaty examines the political determinants of asylum policy. Wielding a variety of data and methods, including cross-national statistics, archival research, and fieldwork in Egypt, Turkey and Kenya, Abdelaaty argues that states balance international and domestic interests in selecting policies of restriction, inclusion, or delegation. Compelling and insightful, the book brings a fresh, multi-level analysis to refugee studies and serves as a model for empirically rigorous, theoretically sophisticated scholarship on human rights." — Scott Straus, Professor of Political Science and International Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison

From the Publisher