Abstract
Introduction
States worldwide continue to struggle with the governance of large-scale forced migration movements, with recent examples including Syrian, Rohingya, and Ukrainian displacement. Many countries of the world have not ratified or even signed the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (the so-called Geneva Convention), and do not have a national asylum policy. Nonetheless, many such states have implemented policies governing migration and displacement. Importantly, not having any legislation can also be a deliberate choice — termed by some scholars “policy of no-policy” (Janmyr 2016) or “strategic indifference” (Norman 2020). And even if the Geneva Convention has been ratified and a national asylum policy exists on paper, states can evade the obligations connected to them, for example, by externalizing border control or by conditioning asylum on a person's physical presence on a state's territory. In Europe, this has led to what scholars have termed the European Union's (EU) “international migration relations” (Lavenex 2006; Geddes 2021), meaning the progressing externalization of (forced) migration governance to non-EU countries.
This paper raises the question of who and what drives forced migration governance (FMG) along the displacement continuum, aiming for a more systematic understanding of the actors and drivers shaping policy responses to forced migration. Recent studies have explored how forced migration and its governance affects the politics of host states, particularly their foreign policy decision-making (Tsourapas 2019a). Scholars of International Relations have also analyzed what has become known as the “politics of forced migration” (Castles 2003; Adamson 2006). At the heart of this research field is the inherent tension between states’ normative aspirations to support refugees on their own territory (Betts and Loescher 2011) and contradicting national interests which contribute to the simultaneous lack of suitable mechanisms for the support of forced migrants. This results in protection gaps, contradictory policies, and externalization tendencies.
Research on drivers of migration governance has mostly focused on immigration policies in the resource-rich countries of the so-called “Global North,” with asylum and refugee regimes often being subsumed under immigration policies in the theoretical literature. We know much less about origin, transit, and receiving states in “most of the world” (Chatterjee 2004), where most forced migrants worldwide reside and where, as Chatterjee argues, political modernity is being forged today.
For this paper, we trace FMG along the displacement continuum, meaning inside conflict countries, in neighbouring host and transit states, as well as in host states further away to better understand its actors and drivers. We argue that to build knowledge on what drives FMG, it is crucial to understand who is involved in creating and shaping FMG and how domestic, geopolitical, and international-normative drivers play into each other. We maintain that FMG functions as competing or aligning state-making strategies in origin, transit, and host countries. We understand state-making strategies as attempts to exercise state functions. 1 These include government-like functions such as protection, justice, passing laws, raising taxes, the provision of basic services, and mobility control. In this paper, we focus on FMG, that is, attempts to monopolize the right to control and regulate movement. With this, we follow migration scholars who have long argued that controlling the movement of people across both internal and external borders is crucial for state formation and consolidation (Torpey 2000; Zolberg 2008). Our analysis demonstrates that while FMG is negotiated around humanitarian principles in which international organizations (IOs) and civil society play a crucial role, the international-normative driver remains strongly bound to domestic and geopolitical logics, which can lead to different outcomes, including no-policy.
For our argument, we draw on data from three specific displacement situations: Algeria during its war of independence (1954–1962), and Syria and Libya since the outbreak of the Arab Uprisings and the ensuing civil wars (2011–2020). These three case studies allow us to systematically analyze FMG across time and space: the historical case of Algerian displacement during decolonization at a moment in the mid-twentieth century when the international refugee regime had just emerged, and Syrian and Libyan displacement at the beginning of the twenty-first century, when the international refugee regime had become less Eurocentric, more globalized, but also threatened in its existence. These three situations also cover important variation in terms of space: While all three displacement situations have their origin in conflict settings in the “Global South,” Algerian and Libyan displaced people have mostly remained close to their home country (as typical for most displacement situations around the world). Syrians have mostly fled to other countries in the Middle East, the Gulf region, and North Africa, but also to European countries in larger numbers. We also selected the three cases for their differing governance outcomes, ranging from restrictive-selective (Syrian displacement) to open-supportive (Algerian displacement) and laissez-faire (Libyan displacement).
Methodologically, we draw on qualitative data from fieldwork conducted in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Tunisia, and Libya between 2018 and 2021, during which we interviewed forced migrants and political decision-makers, civil society actors, and academics. This is complemented by a policy analysis, archival research (at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees archive in Geneva), and the study of secondary literature and media sources.
We proceed in four steps: In the first section, we offer a conceptualization of FMG and its drivers based on a review of the relevant scholarly literature. FMG is understood here as practices by state and non-state actors at the local, national, and international level that aim, actively or passively, to control the movement of forced migrants and to regulate their access to rights and resources. In the second part, we discuss the different actors involved in FMG, distinguishing between four types of migration states. In the third section, we discuss our three case studies and identify two possible configurations of domestic, regional-geopolitical, and international-normative drivers: a driver constellation where all dimensions are strong (Syrian and Algerian displacement) and a driver constellation where the first two drivers are strong, but the international-normative dimension is limited, resulting in a laissez-faire approach (Libyan displacement). The cases of Syrian and Algerian displacement show that despite similar driver constellations, the outcome can vary (restrictive-selective vs. supportive-open), depending on whether state-making strategies of actors in origin and host states align or compete. Fourthly and finally, we summarize our findings and provide initial ideas for future research avenues.
Conceptualizing FMG from a (More) Global Perspective
We understand
Building on Zolberg (1978, 243) and Natter (2019, 31), we define
We draw upon work on the EU's approach to migration governance (Lavenex and Uçarer 2004; Geddes 2005; Geddes and Hadj-Abdou 2018; Geddes 2021; Lavenex and Piper 2022) to define the term “driver of migration governance.” We understand the term as refering to the actors and causes shaping migration governance, focussing on the role of organizations because migration governance is necessarily an organizational process (Geddes 2021, 10). We thus understand migration as both a domestic and a foreign policy issue, an approach which blurs the boundaries between these policy fields (Geddes and Hadj-Abdou 2018, 144–145).
We acknowledge that it is not easy to disentangle FMG from other types of migration governance, as migration policies are typically “mixed bags” targeting various migrant groups in different ways (de Haas, Natter and Vezzoli 2015, 4). Nonetheless, forced migrants tend to have a special status within migration governance due to the Geneva Convention's refugee definition being one of the most widely accepted international norms today. While effective instruments for the global governance of (forced) migration are still lacking (the Global Compacts for Migration (2016) and on Refugees (2018) are first steps in this direction), conflict-induced displacement constitutes a partial exception because of the 1951 Convention. Together, the Convention and the UNHCR provide the legal and institutional basis for defining “populations of concern” and the legal category of refugee. In addition to this, most countries in the world distinguish between economic migrants, assumed to be moving voluntarily, and migrants fleeing different hardships involuntarily. Economic migrants lack comparable legal and institutional arrangements (Castles 2004, 876); the same is true for anyone moving involuntarily but outside of the legal category of refugee.
While asylum policies and the external dimension of migration governance have been well researched for the EU, North America, and Australia (e.g., Lavenex 2006; Geddes and Hadj-Abdou 2018; FitzGerald 2019), we know much less about such mechanisms in other world regions — despite an important countertrend in the past two decades (Barichello 2016; Betts, Ali, and Memişoğlu 2021; Jacobsen 1996; Janmyr 2016; Norman 2020). This is partly explained by the fact that concepts and theories of policymaking have emerged in reference to European and North American “liberal democracies.” However, the focus on Europe, North America, and Australia is counter-intuitive, as most of the world's forced migrants stay in the so-called Global South. Here, many countries simultaneously fall into the categories of origin, transit, and receiving states.
Theoretical literature on drivers of FMG is surprisingly limited (with Tsourapas 2019a; Adamson and Tsourapas 2018; Şahin Mencütek 2018; Sadiq and Tsourapas 2021; Abdelaaty 2021 being notable exceptions), as much of migration theory focuses on economic rather than forced migration or subsumes refugee policies under immigration policies (Hollifield 1992; Massey 1999; Joppke and Marzal 2004; Castles 2004; Boswell 2007; Natter 2019). There are few comparative studies on drivers of refugee policies, and many of them focus on industrialized countries in the Global North. Such research then often focuses on policy implementation, such as asylum recognition rates and factors influencing them. Here, scholars have highlighted the importance of domestic conditions in origin and destination countries, the characteristics of a refugee influx, and normative ideas. Neumayer (2005), for example, argues that asylum recognition rates in Western Europe are influenced by levels of political violence in origin countries and unemployment rates in destination countries. Analysing asylum recognition rates among EU and Schengen member states, Avdan (2014) highlights similarly that normative ideas remain resilient and central, even though terrorist violence within origin states has a significant positive impact on asylum recognition rates.
Existing research on drivers of FMG in the Global South, in contrast, highlights the importance of international relations, economic factors, security threats, and the absorption capacity of local host communities. In her study on receiving countries in Africa, Asia, and Central America, Jacobsen (1996) maintains that four broad categories of factors affect asylum policies: first, bureaucratic choices made by the state government and the importance of the broader state context itself, including power struggles between ministries and path dependencies; second, international relations, including the (limited) pressure effect of the international refugee regime, the need for assistance, and political relations with origin countries; third, the absorption capacity of the local host community and the economic capacity of the host country; and fourth, perceptions of national security threats potentially posed by a refugee influx, including the position of refugees in domestic politics (Jacobsen 1996, 660 ff.). This includes electoral concerns like how refugee populations can bolster or weaken an electorate, or changes in public opinion about whether accepting refugees is positive or negative.
Şahin Mencütek (2018, 24) stresses three macro-level drivers of FMG in the Middle East: first, international politics, meaning that host countries may use refugees to destabilize or embarrass another country, for instance by hosting opposition figures or allowing cross-border armed activities; second, securitization, meaning that many state actors perceive incoming refugees as a challenge to state sovereignty, including their involvement in militarized conflicts and societal mobilization; and third, economic development explanations or refugee rentierism
We add to this existing literature a theoretical perspective on FMG informed by an empirical analysis along the displacement continuum which shows how different actors in origin and host countries interlink and interact, and which includes “active” (ranging from open-supportive to restrictive-selective) as well as laissez-faire approaches to FMG. We show in the subsequent analysis that bridging these literatures enables us to identify potential interlinkages between drivers and to understand how drivers function across the displacement continuum. We identify domestic, geopolitical, and international-normative drivers which work in specific constellations and shape variation in FMG, such as open-supportive, restrictive-selective, and laissez-faire responses. We argue that FMG functions as a state-making strategy in a governance space that is characterized by multiple actors on multiple levels. In the following two parts, we show that in origin states, FMG serves as a state-making strategy for state actors and rebels, while in host states, FMG can serve as a strategy to sustain the ruling government but also to (re-)make the state.
State and Non-State Actors in Forced Migration Governance or: Who Drives FMG?
As has been shown above, FMG is commonly, often intrinsically linked to other fields of migration policies. States worldwide are increasingly experimenting with new forms of cooperation to govern mobility on and across local, national, regional, and global scales (Moreno-Lax 2018). These emerging, multi-scalar governance efforts often “incentivise home and transit countries through the leverage of non-migration policies (e.g., trade, education, energy, development) to cooperate on irregular migration, smuggling and trafficking, and return” (Panizzon and van Riemsdijk 2018, 1227; see also Cuttitta 2010; Cassarino 2010). The more this process of linking hitherto unrelated policy dimensions and scales progresses, the more difficult it becomes to distinguish external and internal drivers of mobility control (Niemann and Zaun 2018).
Forced migrants are, thus, often simultaneously governed on and across multiple arenas which are characterized by overlaps and gaps, ad hoc responses, and enormous inconsistency — a pattern termed “implicit forms of governance” (Betts 2014). In the absence of a dedicated national asylum law, forced migrants are often placed under similar legal conditions as labour migrants and can simultaneously be governed by policies relating to emigration, diaspora, immigration, or asylum. As a result, different migration movements become inextricably linked in a global system of mobility control (FitzGerald 2019). It is thus a complex interplay of state and non-state actors in multi-scalar arenas in which FMG is designed and implemented.
In our three case studies, we can distinguish between origin, transit, host, and potential future host states along the displacement continuum which are central actors in FMG. When comparing these four kinds of migration states, we find that they have different and often completely opposite interests which may either converge with or diverge from the idea of giving asylum, protection, and assistance to forced migrants. Also, within states, different actors have diverging interests in shaping FMG: The role of state actors and rebels in origin countries can be to aid the displaced, as this constitutes a key symbolic question of national sovereignty. For the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN), for example, it was paramount to organize and provide relief and assistance to internally and externally displaced Algerians during and after the war of independence (1954–1962), all the while framing Algerian displacement as the result of French oppression. In fact, the FLN competed with France in this role — at least before independence — with France trying to reach out and protect its “French citizens in Algeria” (Rahal and White 2022; Müller-Funk and Natter 2023). However, actors in origin states can also use mobility control as a strategy of state-making by selectively controlling displaced people's exit and return (Fröhlich and Müller-Funk 2023) as well as their political participation abroad (Hirt and Mohammad 2018). In origin countries, internally displaced persons remain at the mercy of domestic jurisdictions and often depend on IOs such as United Nations (UN) agencies and locally operating associations, which must collaborate to a certain degree with the respective ruling regime(s). Actors in origin states display different interests when cooperating with IOs or when it comes to impeding or incentivizing the return of “their” citizens. Some actors in origin states seek international cooperation, including foreign funds, for the repatriation of their nationals (Bariagaber 1999). Ruling regimes in other origin states consider the return of some of their citizens a challenge to their own survival (Fröhlich and Müller-Funk 2023).
Similarly, host and potential future host states’ governments control forced migrants’ entry, their mobility inside the country and their exit through border control regimes, resettlement schemes, readmission agreements, and deportations. They also design and implement policies and practices that manage forced migrants’ access to legal status and work and in some cases act as donors for humanitarian aid. Today, most forced migrants move within conflict countries and to neighbouring states (UNHCR 2022). Host states neighbouring conflict zones are sometimes actively involved in those conflicts, for instance by supporting a faction of the conflicting parties. In the Syrian conflict, Turkey, which hosts the largest number of Syrian refugees today, served as the main staging ground for the Syrian opposition in exile. Since 2015, the Turkish military has been directly involved in Syria with multiple offensives in Northern parts of the country.
We infer that (non-)state actors in neighbouring host countries might be more willing to allow immigration of forced migrants who are considered similar in terms of language, culture, and religion, and/or who are aligned with their political goals. Actors in host states may even facilitate these migrants’ access to certain rights usually reserved for citizens, for instance if providing citizenship to migrants can potentially boost electoral success. As such, a neighbouring country's FMG approach is often simultaneously directed towards its own population, to a wider regional context, and to the international community.
Turkey, for example, does not have a coherent strategy towards refugees; on the contrary, there is a major implementation gap between official national policies and concrete practices on the ground. This is due to complex demographics, deep political polarization, and perceived security threats connected to the issue of (irregular) immigration. In Turkey's legal framework governing forced migration, the degree of protection granted to forced migrants differs based on their nationalities: Turkey limits the scope of the 1951 Refugee Convention geographically, applying it only to refugees from European countries. While Syrians could apply for temporary protection in Turkey since 2014 under the Law on Foreigners and International Protection (LFIP), asylum-seekers from all other countries must seek protection as conditional refugees. In 2018, Turkish authorities transferred refugee status determination from UNHCR to the Presidency of Migration Management and its provincial branches, thereby limiting the involvement of IOs in FMG.
Host and what we call potential future host states, with the latter often located in the industrialized world, must respond simultaneously to different groups within their domestic constituencies which may be advocating for diametrically opposed goals: to curb immigration or to remove obstacles for forced migrants. They are often torn between reacting to populist demands for tighter border control and the will to adhere to international human rights which call for support for forced migrants. Their policies are sometimes also directed towards forced migrants themselves, based on certain premises regarding the latter's mobility and decision-making patterns. Germany, for instance, is both a host state and a potential future host state for current and future displacement situations. The country has governed incoming forced migrants differently, mostly depending on their geographical and cultural proximity, as the current Ukrainian displacement illustrates. The hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing to Germany since the beginning of the Russian invasion are reminiscent of the approximately one million Syrians reaching the country in 2015/16. However, while Syrian refugees had to go through a lengthy process of application for asylum during which most were excluded from the labor market, Germany has decided, together with the EU, to grant blanket temporary protection to people fleeing war in Ukraine, including a residence permit and access to employment and social welfare. Where most Syrian refugees’ movement was criminalized, people with a Ukrainian passport can move freely around the EU. Where Syrians (as well as Black People and People of Color fleeing Ukraine) reported racist practices at the borders, white Ukrainians are considered “real” refugees in German and other European media and political discourses.
Transit states are countries that experience migration to and from their territory, but they are often simultaneously host, transit, and origin states, illustrating the complexity and processual nature of forced migration and its governance. Transit states negotiate between the needs of migrants, non-migrant citizens, and other transit, host, or potential future host states located on the same migration route. Tunisia can serve as an example here: The country has been a prototypical emigration country, with more than one million Tunisians living abroad. However, it has also witnessed substantial growth in immigration — especially from sub-Saharan Africa — and hosts an estimated five hundred thousand Libyan citizens who have fled the conflict in their country (Natter 2022). Yet, Libyans arriving in Tunisia have neither been framed nor recognized as refugees and UNHCR is not systematically registering Libyans or providing them with legal or humanitarian support. Additionally, tens of thousands of Tunisian labour migrants have returned from neighbouring Libya due to the war there. Tunisian migration policies have been shaped by interactions with the European Union and its member states, where most Tunisian migrants live. These have been characterized by a focus on security and operability in dealing with border controls, and on the swift and “cost-effective” removal of undesirable migrants and those denied asylum.
Within states, local political actors are crucial in shaping FMG (Lenner 2020; Betts, Ali and Memişoğlu 2021), with the group of “decision-makers” being far more diverse than commonly assumed. Lenner shows that apart from the more classical state legislators and executives, experts, consultants, and pundits also co-produce governance towards Syrians in Jordan. These actors are part of a pre-established relational web which emerged during the times of Palestinian and Iraqi displacement in the region (Lenner 2020, 277). Similarly, concentrating on mayors in Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon, Betts, Ali and Memişoğlu (2021, 514) conclude that mayors can make a difference to policy outcomes. The respective social capital and leadership of such persons plays a decisive role. This partially explains the discrepancies between national policy frameworks and local practices which have been observed for many years.
Apart from state actors, non-state actors such as advocacy networks and civil society organizations, including initiatives led by forced migrants themselves, are important players in FMG. Research has shown that forced migrants have significant capacities for self-protection and to develop local coping strategies (South and Jolliffe 2015). All these groups invest time and resources to advocate for, develop, adopt, and implement FMG and to provide humanitarian aid to displaced people.
Finally, IOs and INGOs working under the mandate of the international refugee regime have been central to FMG since 1945. While the original objective of the 1951 Geneva Convention and the UNHCR was to find solutions to the displacement situation in Europe in a post-WWII context, they have progressively expanded their scope, even if refugee policies remain strongly racialized and gendered. The past two decades have also witnessed the gradual expansion of the scope of UNHCR's mandate to now include responsibilities for other populations, including those internally displaced by conflict or natural disaster (Loescher, Betts and Milner 2012, 133–45). Apart from UNHCR, the International Organization of Migration (IOM) has progressively become more involved in the management of forced migrants. In fact, UNHCR and IOM cooperate in situations where both organizations might claim to have legitimacy to intervene based on their mandate. Yet, arrangements are often ad hoc, and their respective roles and responsibilities remain unclear. The following sections zoom into the drivers of different governance outcomes in which these multiple actors are involved.
What Drives FMG?
In our case studies (Figure 1), we identify three types of drivers of FMG: domestic, regional-geopolitical, and international-normative drivers (see Table 1). These operate on different scales and involve a diverse set of actors. We demonstrate in the following section that specific constellations of these drivers shape the outcome of FMG in our case studies. In our analysis, we compare different actors within each case as well as FMG across cases.
Forced Migration Governance from a Comparative Perspective.
Domestic, Regional-Geopolitical, and International-Normative Drivers.
The
The
Driver Constellations and Governance Approach.
An Open-Supportive Approach to Algerian Displacement: Strong Domestic, Regional-Geopolitical and International-Normative Drivers
When Tunisia and Morocco gained independence from France in 1956, the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962) was already in full swing, triggering intense and bitter fighting between Algerian independence fighters and the French colonial army as well as large-scale displacement within the country and across international borders, into Tunisia and Morocco. At the end of the war, there were around 2.2 million internally displaced people inside Algeria (Perret and Bugnion 2011, 725), while 155,000 Algerians fled to Tunisia and 120,000 to Morocco until 1960 (UNHCR 1960). Most Algerian refugees returned with Algeria's independence from France in July 1962.
A large range of domestic and international actors were involved in governing Algerian displacement: First and foremost, state and non-state actors in the origin country, for whom dealing with Algerian displacement and providing relief was a strategy to claim hold of “their” citizens: the FLN in Algeria which asserted itself as a state-in-waiting, engaging with UNHCR outside Algeria and coordinating humanitarian actions with the Algerian Red Crescent (Benatia 1997; Rahal and White 2022). For France, which considered Algeria a French territory, it was unthinkable to abandon Algeria when the Algerian's People Party decided to transform the political fight into an armed struggle in 1954 (Perret and Bugnion 2011, 709). The French government was eager to demonstrate commitment to Algerians, whom it continued to consider as French citizens, 2 as well as to one million French settlers. From 1955, the French authorities declared a state of emergency in Algeria and deported suspected FLN sympathizers to internment camps (Perret and Bugnion 2011, 709). France was indeed in a very delicate position when UNHCR and the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) started to provide assistance to displaced Algerians. It avoided any legal characterization of the situation in Algeria and portrayed the war as “internal strife” 3 rather than the result of French oppression. ICRC, for example, had to ensure that its activities would be directed at strictly humanitarian ends and would not result in any publicity (Perret and Bugnion 2011, 713).
Tunisia and Morocco, in contrast, the main host states of displaced Algerians, both pursued an open-door policy towards Algerians followed by repatriation and strongly involved the international community. To assert recently independent Tunisia's sovereignty and redirect international attention — which in 1956 was focused on the refugee dynamics in the context of the Hungarian uprising — to the refugee situation unfolding at the Algerian-Tunisian border, President Bourguiba in his letter of 31 May 1957 called upon UNHCR to intervene. 4 Between February 1959 and July 1962, UNHCR and the League of Red Cross Societies set up and coordinated a large-scale humanitarian relief effort, the so-called joint operation. Support to Algerians in both host states focused on humanitarian aid, such as food, clothes, housing, medicine, and to a lesser degree, education, as well as on the ad-hoc, prima facie recognition of Algerians as refugees by UNHCR. Neither of them, however, triggered any discussions on long-term integration or a stronger legal foundation of asylum law in national legislation: Ultimately, most of the Algerian refugees returned to Algeria upon its independence in 1962 through jointly organized (FLN, Tunisia, UNHCR) return operations, and those who stayed seemed to be of no particular interest to the two host states.
The dynamics surrounding the relief effort were deeply politicized due to domestic, geopolitical, and international reasons: Tunisia and Morocco both clearly positioned themselves against the French colonizer in the Algerian independence war given that independence was a moment of empowerment for the Tunisian and Moroccan people. At the same time, both states were working towards gaining financial independence and redrawing a new social contract, while knowing that without international support, relief would be insufficient and overly costly. 5 In Tunisia, the young state and its leaders were aware of their limited economic capacity and know-how in offering effective protection to Algerians. Yet, both countries’ new political leadership took responsibility for hosting those fleeing from a war of independence that they had luckily avoided, seeing Algerians as “brothers” in a shared fight with a shared cultural, Maghrebi heritage. Narratives of brotherhood and solidarity dominated public discourse, at least initially. 6 The geopolitical dynamics driving the displacement gave rise to optimism as to the future status of Algeria and led to the assumption that most Algerians would return in the wake of independence. Repatriation operations were seen as politically supporting the Algerian independence referendum on 1 July 1962.
For UNHCR, the intervention in Tunisia and Morocco was the first operation outside European territory since its creation and the first after the Hungarian revolution in 1956. While Tunisia and Morocco demanded international solidarity in managing displacement, and IOs were key in providing assistance, this happened under the tight control of the neighbouring host countries: Tunisia clearly decided which foreign NGOs were allowed to operate on its territory and to what extent. Also, while UNHCR was the driving force behind introducing a registration process for Algerian refugees to calculate needs, Tunisian authorities ultimately kept control of its implementation, with IOs remaining dependent on the numbers Tunisia provided (Müller-Funk and Natter 2023).
To what extent and how the Moroccan and Tunisian authorities’ position would have changed in the event of a prolonged war or different outcome (such as the continuation of Algeria under French rule) remains a speculation. It is very likely, however, that the expectation of return made long-term solutions and changing refugee's legal status seem less urgent. It probably also prevented a shift away from solidarity and reception. The fact that Algerian displacement remained mostly within the region also meant that potential host countries further away did not become involved in the mobility control complex governing Algerian displacement, and that Tunisia and Morocco were not framed as potential transit countries in this context. The legal status of Algerians in Europe indeed remained an extremely marginal discussion within the UNHCR relief operation. 7
A Restrictive-Selective Approach to Syrian Displacement: Strong Domestic, Regional-Geopolitical, and International-Normative Drivers
Syria is the world's largest contemporary displacement situation. The Syrian civil war has displaced more than 13 million Syrians within the country and across its borders; this is more than half of the country's pre-war population. Most internationally displaced Syrians reside in neighbouring states (Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, some in Iraq, and Egypt). While there have been some return movements, most displaced Syrians remain in protracted, often multiple, displacement situations.
The Syrian displacement situation emerged out of a very different conflict context than the Algerian one in a colonial setting. In Syria, the authoritarian al-Assad government survived after a democratic uprising but has to share power with a range of different non-state actors. The conflict grew into an internationalized civil war over the years: Russia, Iran, Turkey, Israel, and the United States maintain military forces or regularly operate in Syria, in addition to transnational militia groups such as the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and Hezbollah.
A range of actors has been active in governing Syrian displacement. First of all, on a domestic level, state and state-like actors within Syria have used mobility control, for instance checkpoints and border control, to identify, contain, and expel perceived enemies (Fröhlich and Müller-Funk 2023). On a regional-geopolitical level, all neighbouring host states involved in the regional refugee response require continued international assistance, indicating a strong involvement of international agencies and INGOs right from the start. With the number of Syrians seeking asylum in Europe increasing from 2015 onwards, host and potential future host states in Europe also became key actors of Syrian FMG. Civil society organizations have been key actors in the Middle East and Europe, in particular in Syria's neighbouring countries of Jordan and Lebanon where state capacities were overwhelmed by the size of Syrian displacement.
Domestically, the surviving government of President Bashar al-Assad has been and still is being challenged by different rebel factions and militias, including Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its Salvation Government in the Northwest, the Syrian Democratic Forces, led by the Kurdish People's Defence Units, and the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army, in the Northeast and North, respectively. Especially actors who aspire to “govern like a state,” like the Salvation Government in northwest Idlib, have been involved in local FMG to manifest their power. Because of this ongoing competition between different state and state-like actors, restricting the movement of people and selecting who can return or move away has become a crucial survival mechanism for these actors (Fröhlich and Müller-Funk 2023). This domestic dynamic also influences the potential scope of action for civil society actors and NGOs; for instance, when HTS won the inter-factional war in Northwest Syria in January 2019, it changed the landscape of who had security and administrative control over the area, which in turn defined how much and to what degree such de-facto, state-like authorities altered the space in which civil society and international actors are working (SYREX 2). The ongoing return discussion within Syria and the region is also illustrative of the domestic driver; President Assad's government has been trying, together with Russia, to promote return to Syria in order to manifest its position as the dominant, rightful sovereign of Syria.
Regional-geopolitical dynamics have also been present from the beginning of the Syrian war but have arguably increased over the course of the Syrian displacement situation. Syria and its neighbouring states have aligned their actions and FMG with their perceived respective security needs, foreign policy goals, and economic interests. Jordan was on the brink of economic collapse when the Syrian crisis began, with international funds flowing in support of Syrian forced migrants helping to reverse that trend. When evidence pointed to an increasingly protracted nature of the Syrian displacement situation, the country moved from an understanding of incoming Syrians as “guests” and largely open borders to deterrence and walling-off policies from 2014 onwards, including refoulement and border closings (Fröhlich 2018).
In Lebanon, taking in Syrians interacted with the country's security needs with regard to the large Syrian neighbour and its regional benefactor Iran. The fact that the Iranian-backed Hizbullah was part of the Lebanese government at the time illustrates how FMG can be influenced by regional-geopolitical dynamics. Lebanon's governance approach was characterized by a “policy of no-policy” (Janmyr 2016) in the first years of the war, which can be attributed to the country's institutional fragility, lack of resources, and precarious sectarian balance. Lebanon is also illustrative of the interactions between state capacity and the willingness to allow international actors to step in: At the time of “no-policy,” UNHCR took the lead in the Lebanese refugee response. This changed, however, when domestic-geopolitical drivers evolved: When return as a viable solution to the Syrian displacement situation became less and less likely, the Lebanese government stepped in from 2015 onwards to curb UNHCR's influence, illustrated by the Lebanese government ordering the agency to stop counting incoming Syrians (Fröhlich 2018).
Turkey's approach to Syrian displacement was rather distinct when compared to other host countries in the Middle East, such as Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt. Turkey pursued a strictly centralized and state-controlled open-door policy in the early years with very limited access provided to international actors including the UN agencies. It then experienced negatively converging timelines with an escalation of Turkish-Kurdish hostilities, the Islamic State in Iraq and ash-Sham (ISIS) conducting several attacks on Turkish soil, and President Erdogan's rule being threatened by an internal coup attempt in July 2016. The Turkish example thus shows how domestic and regional-geopolitical dynamics can impact a state's willingness to take in forced migrants and to become an active party to a conflict. Those dynamics resulted in a more restrictive approach towards Syrians manifested in the hundreds of kilometre-long border wall.
Domestic and geopolitical-regional dynamics also came to the fore in host and future potential host states outside of the region from 2015 onwards, when Syrians tried to reach European soil in larger numbers to apply for asylum. European states brokered an agreement with Turkey (2016) to curb further immigration towards Europe in order to appease a growing internal resistance against further immigration as well as EU-internal conflicts between first-response states like Greece and Italy and states further North which by means of the Dublin II Convention were unlikely to receive larger influxes of refugees. At the same time, Turkish authorities have tried to gain control over refugee status determination. They transitioned refugee status determination procedures from UNHCR to national authorities in 2018 and took sole authority over refugee statistics (Şahin Mencütek 2022, 8). Regarding international-normative dynamics, UNHCR, IOM, and other IOs have been heavily involved in the governance of Syrian displacement in the whole region, including within Syria. This has been so since the beginning of the civil war, but to differing extent, as their room for manoeuvre depends on domestic and regional-geopolitical interests. In Turkey, the presence of international actors remained limited from the beginning. Arguably, the international-normative driver was stronger in the beginning of the Syrian displacement situation — at least in most host states — , but gradually weakened, if monetary support for UNHCR and the Syrian refugee response is any indication. In fact, it seems as if strengthening regional-geopolitical and domestic dynamics interacted with a weakening international-normative driver.
What is interesting for the Syrian case, thus, is how the driver constellation as well as its outcome changed over time: In the first years of the conflict, the international-normative driver was strong, and the regional-geopolitical drivers even more so, while the domestic driver was less central. The outcome was a laissez-faire (Lebanon) and open-supportive approach (Jordan and Turkey). From the moment when the domestic driver became stronger, which essentially is the moment when it became clear that return was not a viable option in the mid- or long-term, the outcome of this driver constellation became restrictive-selective.
A Laissez-Faire Approach to Libyan Displacement: A Strong Domestic and Regional-Geopolitical Driver and a Limited International-Normative Driver
Almost simultaneous to the uprising in Syria and shortly after the Tunisian revolution toppled the authoritarian government of President Ben Ali, Libya also experienced a popular mass upheaval against long-time authoritarian leader Qaddafi. Yet, while in Tunisia and other regional capitals the presidential ousters — at least initially — kick-started a political transformation process, a civil war similar to the Syrian one broke out between different political factions in Libya. The intensity of fighting and extent of political instability fluctuated over the years, with particularly heated moments in 2011, 2014, and 2019, and the conflict is still ongoing more than one decade later. According to estimations by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), around 1.4 million Libyans of the pre-war Libyan population of 6.2 million have been internally displaced since 2011 (IDMC 2021). In Tunisia and Egypt, numbers of Libyans are highly disputed, with estimations in Tunisia ranging from 500,000 (Natter 2021) to an exaggerated 1.5 million cited by several officials, and between 163,000 (UNHCR 2011) to one million in Egypt (IOM 2022).
In contrast to the previous two case studies, what is striking about Libyan displacement is the overall laissez-faire approach of the main host states and the non-involvement of international and European actors — in contrast to their heavy involvement in Sub-Saharan migration to Libya. Inside Libya, shifting alliances have battled for control since 2011, creating anarchy and a power vacuum in which local militias have prospered and external actors have supported different sides in the conflict. Following disputed elections in June 2014, UN-brokered talks struggled to resolve the stand-off between the two rival parliaments, the Tripoli-based General National Congress (GNC) and the newly elected House of Representatives (HOR) in Tubruq. After the UN-brokered Libyan Political Agreement in 2015, Western Libya acquired a new government, the Government of National Accord (GNA), which was internationally recognized including by the EU and relying on Tripoli-based militia groups. Civil war broke out again in early 2019, when General Haftar's Libyan National Army launched an armed assault on Tripoli and the GNA. The conflict became entrenched in a stalemate, which was broken in spring 2020 when Turkey increased its military support to the GNA.
Both the GNC and GNA have mostly followed a policy of laissez-faire towards the Libyan displaced population. All interviewed Libyans referred to the absence of a policy and a lack of support from state authorities in Libya's East and West as well as in exile. Displacement and assistance have therefore been mostly community-led and organized within the extended family. Similarly, Tunisia and Egypt have followed a policy of no-policy — a policy of state absence: In Tunisia, Libyans arriving in the country have not been recognized as refugees, neither legally nor in political discourse. Instead, Libyans are cast as “brothers” or “neighbours” whose “de facto protection” is guaranteed because freedom of movement between both countries theoretically exists since a 1973 bilateral agreement. In this vein, the Tunisian state has tolerated and accommodated the presence of Libyans by granting children access to schools, by not enforcing laws related to overstaying and irregular stay and by easing regulations on purchasing property. At the same time, there has been no attempt at registering or legalizing the situation of Libyans through giving them refugee status or issuing stay permits. In terms of involvement by IOs, UNHCR has not focussed in its activities on registering Libyans or providing them with legal or humanitarian support. In parallel, while Tunisian civil society has flourished since 2011 and taken on the plight of refugees and migrants on their agendas, only two of the many NGOs dealing with migrants (Observatoire des medias, Terre d’Asile Tunisie) also include Libyans in their protection and advocacy work. In Egypt, the situation is similar with Libyans facing few restrictions to enter the country, based on the Four Freedoms Agreement signed in the early 1990s. However, Libyans in Egypt are not granted asylum by UNHCR based on a memorandum of understanding with the Egyptian government. As a result of this no-policy, displaced Libyans face more and more protection needs in Tunisia and Egypt that remain unresolved ten years after the civil war started.
There are domestic, geopolitical, and international factors explaining the overall laissez-faire response to large-scale Libyan displacement. Domestically, managing displacement seems to be neither a political nor a financial priority for the Libyan governments, given that most displaced Libyans are not considered as threats to the regime(s) in power. This is related to how the political transformation process played out in the country, with the overthrow of the pre-2011 Gaddafi government and two competing state actors now governing two separate parts of the former Libyan state. IOs operating inside Libya, on the other hand, have been confronted with the general perception that international humanitarian aid in Libya is politically positioned because of the political mission of the UN (EXP6). IOs and INGOs try therefore to engage equally with both governments as separate entities to be perceived as neutral to counteract this perception and prevent further political fragmentation (EXP5, EXP14). In such a highly polarized political context, Libyan displacement has often been presented as the mere result of impoverishment and urban criminality (LIBEX 2).
In the two major host states, Tunisia and Egypt, both, domestic and geopolitical drivers explain their laissez-faire approach. Tunisia and Egypt have been the major origin countries of Arab migrant labour in Libya since the discovery of oil and continue to have large migrant communities inside Libya even after the conflict broke out. Domestically, in Tunisia, for instance, authorities are juggling security and economic challenges in the dynamic, post-revolutionary situation, eager to avoid politicizing the Libyan presence as the latter could further polarize society. In fact, Tunisian authorities do not want to take sides in Libya's civil war and eventually jeopardize its future economic relations with Libya by recognizing Libyans as refugees (TUNEX 28). Tunisian authorities are also weary to formalize the stay of Libyans given the potential long-term legal consequences and responsibilities this might entail, particularly in view of continuously high pressures from the EU to step up migration and refugee reception. Similarly, cross-border mobility at the Libyan-Egyptian border has been driven by Egypt's interest in keeping the borders open to continue allowing Egyptian migrants to enter Libya.
For potential host states in Europe — and donors of IOs — , finally, there has been no perceived threat of Libyans leaving towards Europe (LIBEX 6). The topic of sub-Saharan migration in Libya and efforts to curb their migration towards Europe have overshadowed Libyan displacement in importance, with EU funding focusing on securitizing migration rather than humanitarian aid (LIBEX 5). Migration policymaking has therefore been focused around “the migration crisis in Libya” and not a “Libyan refugee crisis.”
Conclusion
In this paper, we have outlined who and what drives FMG across the displacement continuum. We have shown that FMG functions as a state-making strategy for different actors along the displacement continuum depending on competing and aligning political and economic interests, thereby illustrating that drivers of FMG do not, as the literature suggests, only originate in the industrialized world (Geddes and Hadj-Abdou 2018, 145), but can, in fact, be identified along the full displacement continuum. We have shown that while FMG is negotiated around humanitarian principles in which IOs and civil society play a crucial role, the international-normative driver remains strongly bound to domestic and geopolitical logics. Our analysis includes both “active” (selective-restrictive/open-supportive) and laissez-faire approaches to FMG, closing an important gap in the existing literature on the topic.
Comparing three displacement situations, one historical (Algeria) and two contemporary (Libya and Syria), we have shown how similar driver constellations can lead to different outcomes of FMG. While in Algeria strong domestic, regional-geopolitical, and international-normative drivers resulted in an open-supportive approach to FMG, the same constellation led to a restrictive-selective FMG in Syria today. We argue that this is due to the interests of origin and host states aligning in a different way than in the Algerian case. In contrast, the example of the (non-)governance of Libyan displacement shows that a limited international-normative driver does not automatically translate into a restrictive approach; rather, it is strong domestic and regional-geopolitical dynamics that explain why Libyans have been mostly faced with a policy of no-policy and why IOs have not advocated for a stronger legal recognition for displaced Libyans.
We have also illustrated the importance of temporality: Drivers change over time and so do the related constellations and outcomes. In the Syrian displacement situation, a strengthened domestic driver from 2015 onwards seems to have pushed a previously laissez-faire approach in regional host states towards a more restrictive-selective governance. In the Algerian case, Algerian refugees continued to be welcomed throughout the entire period (1956–1962) in Tunisia and Morocco, followed by repatriation in the context of the Algerian referendum for independence in 1962. We argue that this is due to the strong alignment of domestic and geopolitical drivers in origin and host states. It remains an open question if the approach would have changed if the war in Algeria had ended in a different manner. In the Libyan case, in contrast, domestic and geopolitical drivers levelled each other out. When it became clear that a civil war would break out and that the revolution would not be a fast one, the enthusiasm to host Libyans changed to a laissez-faire approach so as not to intervene in the Libyan political conflict, whereby Libyans were neither the target of politicization and exclusion, nor the beneficiaries of support and integration measures. At the same time, strong domestic economic drivers motivated neighbouring host states to keep their borders open to continue trade and labour relations with Libya.
We hope to have illustrated how different drivers interact with each other in creating different outcomes of FMG, and to have shown that research across time and space can enrich migration theory. Future research should focus on testing the scope conditions of our argument, including across the global South/North divide. A possible comparison could examine FMG along the Ukrainian and Syrian displacement continuum, which could reveal similarities and differences in driver constellations in diverse geographical contexts. Relatedly, future research should also compare cases across time in more depth, looking specifically into the role of path dependencies. This would serve as a basis for a further refinement of our driver constellations and could potentially evolve into a typology of FMG.
Footnotes
Acknowledgment
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
Funding
ORCID iD
