![Sample our Social Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110822/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Social-Sciences.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
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.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Dr. Kate Tennis for helpful feedback on an earlier version of this paper as well two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments prior to publication. Thank you also to the faculty and staff at the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies at the American University in Cairo and the Center for Migration Research at Istanbul Bilgi University for hosting me while conducting research in Egypt and Turkey respectively.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. To clarify, because the distinction between refugees and migrants is not always very clear, as is acknowledged by the literature on ‘mixed migration’, (Betts Citation2010; Castles and Van Hear Citation2011), I include both migrants and refugees in my study. Migrant and refugee interviewees include individuals with official refugee designation, asylum-seekers who have requested status and are awaiting an interview, and migrants who have rejected refugee applicants (i.e. ‘closed files’) or who never applied for refugee status but consider themselves unable or unwilling to return to their home country.
2. For more on the concept of de facto integration, see Grabska (Citation2006).
3. It is important to note that in study I focus specifically on one sub-type of non-democratic regimes: semi-authoritarianism.
4. In other words, purposive samples within specific strata. Interviews were conducted using a combination of Arabic, French and English depending on the preferences of the interview subject. For six interviews in Morocco, the assistance of an interpreter was employed.
5. The term deidentified individual will be used when citing those who asked to remain unidentified. Per IRB protocol, this option was given to all elite-level interview subjects and was compulsory for all migrant and refugee interview subjects. IRB approval was obtained for this study on September 12, 2014 (HS# 2014–1407, e-APP# 8295).
6. Specifically, Egypt claimed reservations to Article 12.1, thereby waiving the responsibility of determining the personal status of refugees as well as Articles 20, 23 and 24, which claim that refugees should be afforded equal status to nationals in regards to rationing, public relief and assistance and labor laws/social security, respectively (Zohry and Harrell-Bond 2003).
7. An exception was a rise in the deportation of Eritreans in 2008 (Elite Interviewee AM).
8. Though some migrants arrive as students and are able to find formal work once their academic programs are complete, particularly in Moroccan call centers. Also, certain nationalities are able to search for formal work without first obtaining a residency permit as a result of a convention Morocco holds with Algeria, Tunisia and Senegal. Nationals of these countries do not need to apply for work through the process run by the L'Agence Nationale de Promotion de l'Emploi et des Compétences (ANAPEC), meaning that a company does not have to put out a search to see if any Moroccan is more qualified for a specific position.
9. In English, the Ministry in Charge of Moroccans Living Abroad and Migration Affairs (which will be referred to in this paper as the Ministry of Migration Affairs for purposes of brevity).
10. In total the Moroccan government created six criteria.
11. Technically only refugees emanating from Europe can be given full refugee status in Turkey, as a result of the geographical limitation Turkey holds to the 1951 Refugee Convention. I use the term ‘refugee’ here to connote the status of these individuals under international protection laws.
12. Ultimately refugees fleeing Iraq were housed in camps along the Iraqi/Turkish border until they were returned to the Kurdish autonomous zone (Sassoon Citation2009). In both 1988 and 1991 Turkey was reluctant to accept Kurdish refugees, fearing this could affect Turkey’s demographic balance or incite tensions with Turkey’s Kurdish minority (Sassoon Citation2009; Ogata Citation2005).
13. For an analysis of the ways in which the local government in Istanbul responded to migration during this period, see Biehl (Citation2013).
14. Prior to the outbreak of the Syrian conflict, Syrian nationals were able to enter Turkey without obtaining a visa.
15. IGAM is short for İltica ve Göç Araştırmaları Merkezi, meaning Migration and Asylum Research Center in English.