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Refugee commodification, or the use of refugee hosting to extract political and economic concessions, has attracted growing scholarly attention in recent years. Yet, studies tend to focus on its international component, neglecting the domestic political space and how these extractions impact domestic political dynamics. To address this gap, we ask: how does refugee commodification influence domestic politics? Our study focuses on the Republican People's Party (CHP) in Turkey, in order to assess the political implications of refugee commodification within domestic politics. Through a mixed qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews with opposition politicians and an analysis of policy documents, we examine the nexus of international and domestic spheres, assessing how political actors beyond the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) engage in, react to, and employ refugee commodification strategies. The findings of this study have implications beyond Turkey, demonstrating the transformative effects of refugee commodification for domestic politics across Global South states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does urban migrant and refugee settlement occur in face of national inaction on immigration policy? This paper focuses on recent migration to Cairo, a Global South megacity that is home to migrants and refugees from across sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. Using in-depth fieldwork, it examines the informal policies that have developed in the absence of national legislation, and explores the impact these have on: (1) the ability for individual migrants and refugees to participate socially, politically and economically; (2) the ability for civil society organizations to organize, provide social services, or engage in activism; (3) occasions when the Egyptian state will forego its hands-off approach in favour of direct intervention. This informs our understanding of the relationship between national policy, informal urban governance, and migrant and refugee settlement in the context of Global South cities, with potential applications to other urban environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union and its member states have invested billions of euros in migration management programs that purport to promote "good migration governance" around the world. But what is the impact of migration management aid on governance outside of the EU? In this article, we theorise the impact of migration management aid on governance in recipient countries by analysing the key policy areas of intervention. To do so, we focus on the effects of the European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa and draw on data collected from policy and government documents, in addition to secondary literature, to understand how migration management aid negatively impacts institutions of governance in recipient countries. While migration management aid may build the capacity of states to monitor borders and prevent irregular migration, we argue that this fails to account for negative externalities including human rights abuses and increased surveillance for migrants and citizens alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarly work on migration to Europe and North America asserts that states adopt liberal migration policies when migrants are able to mobilise and when they are assisted by state and non-state institutions. To what extent does this explanation for mobilisation transfer to the Global South where authoritarian state structures might be in place, thereby constraining certain political behaviours? This paper examines why migrants and refugees have been able to mobilise to a greater extent in Morocco than in Egypt. Drawing primarily on original data from semi-structured interviews, this paper assesses the formal and informal rules that constrain or permit certain political behaviours among non-national populations in each host state. I find that the Moroccan system has been more responsive than the Egyptian state to migrant and refugee mobilisation due primarily to the type of authoritarian governance in place. While both Egypt and Morocco seek to retain control overt opposition, the Moroccan regime since the 1990s has allowed for a degree of openness, permitting visible forms of resistance and ultimately co-opting critics, whereas Egypt – especially since 2013 – has sought to violently eliminate any form of contestation and since 2014 has also sought to limit any associational activities related to human rights promotion. The findings address the question of whether extant explanations for migrant mobilisation and subsequent policy reform travel to the Global South, and also contribute to understandings of whether and how the political mobilisation of migrants and refugees can take place in non-democratic spaces and to what effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last thirty-five years, Western liberal democracies have exerted more control over their borders through an array of innovative migration-control practices. Scholars have taken stock of these efforts and referred to them collectively as "deterrence" measures, ignoring the fact that deterrence is an established concept with a focused definition and meaning. We argue that in the context of migration governance, the concept of deterrence has been stretched beyond meaningful parameters. In order to restore conceptual clarity and develop a more useful framework, we build on the fourth wave of deterrence literature and apply its insights to these new migration-control practices. We construct a theoretically informed typology that differentiates between deterrence and defense policies. Deterrence aims to change the motivations of migrants, whereas defense policies change migrants' capabilities. We also differentiate between the timing and location of the interventions. We elaborate on each category of policy with examples drawn from various geographic regions and propose a framework for expanding this analysis through a systematic exploration of global practices. We conclude with a discussion of the implications stemming from these insights with respect to normative and practical debates in this research area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 2015 refugee "crisis," much has been made of the distinction between the legal category of refugee and migrant. While migration scholars have accounted for the increased blurring of these two categories through explanations of institutional drift and policy layering, we argue that the intentional policies utilized by states and international organizations to minimize legal avenues for refugees to seek protection should also be considered. We identify four practices of policy "conversion" that have also led to the increasingly problematic distinction between migrants and refugees: (1) limiting access to territory through burden-shifting and other practices of extraterritorialization; (2) limiting access to asylum and local integration through procedural and administrative hindrances; (3) the use of group-based criteria as a basis of exclusion; (4) the inclusion of non-Convention criteria within resettlement schemes. Drawing upon a historical institutionalist approach and a wide array of empirical sources—including 3 years of combined primary field research conducted in Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey between 2013 and 2016—we demonstrate that states are actively pursuing a greater degree of control over the selection of refugees, in practice making refugee resettlement closer to another immigration track rather than a unique status that compels state responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What determines policies toward migrants and refugees in the transit-turned-host countries? Compared to the vast literature examining migration to Europe and North America, we know relatively little about why ‘newer’ host states pursue a liberal strategy with access to residency, employment and services on par with citizens, or what drives them to treat migrants and refugees with exclusion. This paper argues that there is a third choice: the idea of indifference-as-policy. Indifference refers to indirect action on the part of the host state, whereby a state defers to international organisations and civil society actors to provide basic services to migrants and refugees. The paper uses data collected over two years in Egypt, Morocco and Turkey to examine how this tripartite understanding of engagement maps onto empirical reality. Drawing on this analysis, the argument in this paper is two-fold. First, indifference is a strategic form of engagement utilised by host states, and that it creates a specific type of environment that allows for the de facto integration of migrants and refugees. Second, even when host states take steps toward a more liberal engagement strategy, examining policy outcomes, rather than outputs, demonstrates that indifference is still the dominant policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In September 2013, the King of Morocco, Mohammed VI, made an announcement that startled the country’s civil society: Morocco would be reforming its national migration policy. Specifically, he called for the drafting of a new comprehensive policy on immigration with the intention of providing a path to regularization for migrants, the majority of whom originate from West African states. Why did the Moroccan government suddenly change its approach to migration, and what consequences has this had for civil society and for migrants and refugees residing in Morocco? While explanations for the migration policy reform tend to focus on the role of the European Union, a secondary explanation is Morocco’s desire to play a leading role in Africa, both economically and geopolitically. Using approximately fifty interviews conducted between January and April 2015 in Rabat, Morocco, this study analyzes the reform process and examines competing explanations, paying particular attention to regional power structures, bilateral relations between Morocco and its West African and European neighbors, and domestic decision-making apparatuses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]