Abstract

This essay argues that host countries have the capacity to affect refugee flows by altering the information available to refugees about their asylum policies, asylum acceptance rates, and relationships with other states, and as such, are far from passive actors. This essay links states’ actions and refugees’ responses to information in destination selection, something that has been largely missing from the literature. The first part of the essay provides necessary evidence that civilians, when faced with the possibility of fleeing, inform themselves about asylum laws and situations in possible host countries. This is important as in the majority of cases refugees decide where to go based on information available to them. The second part illustrates potential changes to countries’ asylum policies and their effects on refugee flow. Countries will update their refugee laws if there is an expectation of a refugee inflow. Restriction of asylum policies decreases refugee flow to a state. Political ideology of a state seems irrelevant in affecting displacement flow, previous acceptance rates and welcoming laws can increase refugee influx. Lastly, rival relationships between countries have a positive effect on acceptance rates and can be used strategically to support insurgency in a neighbouring country, hence prolonging conflict and create more asylum seekers.

How do refugees decide?

The majority of forced migration can be explained by civil war, political regime transformations, dissident conflicts, and genocide.
Asylum seekers will prioritise mitigation of the possible harm to their personal integrity (Davenport et al, 2003). Refugees generally escape danger and often choose neighbouring countries to flee to, whilst their decision is being influenced by better economic opportunities combined with a threat of violence linked to civil conflict. Refugees will avoid destinations that are experiencing civil conflict, genocide, or international wars (Moore, Shellman, 2007).

Push factors lead citizens to invest in learning about the migration environment and potential host countries’ asylum policies. Surveys and experiments with Syrian refugee population find they are knowledgeable about policy; it is shown that a more welcoming policy and environment will attract refugees sooner (Holland, Peters, 2020). Policy changes are accompanied by internet searches showing refugees update their knowledge in this regard. This is important, as the only way for host countries to affect the refugee flow is through policies, but these are only effective if asylum seekers are aware of them (Holland, Peters, 2020). This establishes a mechanism through which refugees inform themselves, and hence helps inform their rationale.

Refugees can access the asylum policy index focusing on de jure legal provisions, which could be argued do not transfer into the actual policy enforcement. However, refugees often hear about asylum regulations from other refugees who are living in the countries they consider fleeing to. It is plausible that they are not very familiar with legal jargon and the asylum-seeking process, hence what they hear about from others is the actual implementation of the laws. Thus, liberal asylum policies are likely to have a positive effect on decisions made in regards to destination selection.

Asylum policy index, access to internet and information online in country of origin and transitional ethnic kin on migration to a specific country can be used as explanatory variables of migration flow. When these variables interact with each other, they bring significant effects on the decision of migration. This means that refugees include information about opportunities available to them dictated by the host country’s law when considering where to flee (Blair et al, 2020). For example, the first refugees from Mozambique’s Civil War in the 1990s fled to neighbouring Malawi, as they possessed information in regards to the destination that they obtained previously due to labour activities and spending time there. After migrating they established information networks with those who remained at home. Given the access and quality of received information about conditions in Malawi, if positive the households chose to follow the first cohort, if comparatively negative to conditions in Mozambique they did not (Koser, 1996).

It is observed that the long-run effect of a change in refugee policies is stronger than the short-run effect on the refugee flow. This illustrates that the countries have capacity to influence the flow of refugees, but only if refugees are aware of changing policies. This requires time for the information to be passed on amongst the networks of asylum seekers (Brekke et al, 2016).

At this juncture, this essay has proven refugees inform themselves about asylum laws, through internet accessed news and through their contacts. They respond to available information and update their destination decisions based on that.

What can host states do to affect refugee flow?

Countries might try to restrict the refugee inflow, as the fear of uncontrolled migration is often combined with claims that refugees seek economic opportunities, which pressures governments to act (Silove, 2000). Asylum policies a state can implement to deter refugees are as follows. First, restrictive policies such as border surveillance, carrier sanctions, and visa policies that attempt to limit access to the border. Second, policies affecting processing asylum applications, which affect the likelihood of asylum being granted. Third, policies restricting movement or welfare benefits, whilst refugees’ applications are being processed. Examples of such include the 47% benefit cut introduced by Denmark in 2015 towards asylum seekers (Hatton, 2020). When these policies are used to predict asylum applications, border control and processing policies yield statistically significant effects in deterring asylum seekers. Welfare policies tend to produce insignificant effects, as these can be viewed by refugees as secondary to securing safety through claiming asylum. The policies that restricted border controls and processing policies introduced from 1997 to 2005 in 19 major countries of destination led to decrees of applications by close to 30 percent (Hatton, 2020). Moreover, findings suggest that tightening of restrictions in one country results in increased flows to neighbouring states. When Denmark and Sweden restricted their asylum policies around the 1990s, the flow increased in Sweden, but decreased in Denmark, due to a far larger increase of Asylum Policy Index for Denmark. This change made neighbouring Sweden seem comparatively more attractive, hence the refugees fled there instead (Brekke et al, 2016).

Asylum regulations vary according to time and location. Developing nations host 86% of the world’s forcibly displaced persons, thus they tend to update their refugee laws more. When looking at de jure migration regulations, states respond with changes in their asylum policies, for example, if there is an intense civil conflict happening in a neighbouring state. A country will respond to the expected refugee flows, rather than changes of laws after the migration flow occurred. (Blair et al, 2020).

Wealthier countries are more likely to restrict their asylum laws, as they want to limit migration that could be triggered by their economic performance (Blair et al, 2020). Given only 9 of the developing countries in Blair’s sample chose to restrict their asylum policies, it is unclear whether economic growth is causal or a mere correlation. However, there is evidence that when two countries share a border, the number of refugees increases as GNP per capita increases in the potential host country (Moore, Shellman, 2007). This phenomenon could be a driving force for restricting asylum policies in developing countries.

The missing link between economic growth and policy restriction can be explained by the necessity of economic means to enforce legislation that is meant to restrict asylum applications. Developing countries often struggle with a lack of resources necessary to ensure tighter border control, especially if we consider very large borders in Africa, or unfriendly geography consisting of mountains, jungles and rivers in Asia and South America. Hence, extra economic resources are necessary before the introduction of restrictive asylum policies. What seems to be the case is that if immigration is a salient issue, then countries will focus on stronger enforcement of the existing policies (Brekke et al, 2016). This in turn will result in refugees receiving information about increased difficulty of crossing the border and can change their destination based on that factor.

It could be argued that more conservative governments create a perception of a more hostile environment for refugees. Despite the majority of refugee flow taking place in the global South, Western European states still experience migration. Evidence suggests that countries with right-wing populist parties attract less asylum seekers, as refugees could be deterred by a hostile political environment. To test for that a proxy of a share of the seats secured by these parties in parliamentary elections is included in analysis (Neumayer, 2004). The problem with this argument arrives from the assumption that a potential asylum seeker is fully aware of the composition of the parliament in a host country. The reality is that a share of right-wing populist parties is likely to have no effect on perceived hostility, which can be observed by a very small statistically significant coefficient of -0.002. An asylum seeker will have a certain perception of a state before deciding to apply for asylum there, but it is unlikely they will closely follow results of the last general election. Moreover, votes for a particular party tend to cluster in areas of a country, which makes it possible for refugees to settle in other regions. Citizens can have a marginal effect on the flow of refugees through its voting decision and states deemed as hostile will attract less refugees. However, when looking at the USA we find that refugees are indifferent about whether a state within the US they choose to relocate to is governed by Democrats or Republicans (Mossaad et al, 2020). This shows that the optics of the ideological leaning of a government do not strongly affect migration flows.

Countries also have the capacity to attract refugees, thus affecting the refugee flow. This has been observed as an increase in acceptance rate of asylum applications in the previous year will bring more asylum seekers. The logic of this is that the perception of whether a state will either be welcoming or hostile to an asylum seeker will affect individual decisions and migration flows as a whole (Neumayer, 2004). For example, when in 2013 Sweden granted all Syrian asylum seekers permanent instead of temporary residence, the number of applications more than doubled (Andersson, Jutvik, 2019). Moreover, the signing of UN non-refoulement treaties results in an increased number of asylum seekers the further the host country is from the country of origin (Moore, Shellman, 2007). This is consistent with the notion of refugees being attracted by liberal asylum
laws and being willing to travel further to access those systems.

Why do countries want to attract asylum seekers?

Interstate rivalry and alliances dictate willingness of states to bear costs of hosting refugees in their territory. There was the wide acceptance of refugees from communist countries during the Cold War in the US and Western European Countries (Moorthy, Brathwaite, 2019). This is dictated by geo-political factors which transfer into perception of refugees as allies who distrust their country. The opportunity of a host state is then to utilise optics associated with hosting asylum seekers and framing it as undermining and harming rival regimes. Data from 1960 to 2006 suggests states accept significantly more refugees from rival countries than from allied or neutral states (Jackson, Atkinson, 2019). As the acceptance rate of refugees from a rival state increases it will likely result in a larger influx of refugees from that state.

This logic can be used as an extension of a country’s foreign policy. When looking at East African refugee crises, whether host countries decide to set up a refugee camp by the border of a state fighting a civil war can be dictated by their relationship with the country of origin. The deciding factor is the attitude of a host country towards the insurgent group. If they prefer them over the current government, they will set up a camp that will provide the insurgency with direct benefits; the camp provides rebels with potential soldiers they can recruit, as well as shelter and food that helps them continue fighting and increases their likelihood of a victory. Civilians are likely to flee their country if experiencing violence regardless of the presence of a camp, hence a neighbouring country is presented with a decision how they want to deal with the inflow of asylum seekers (Camerana, 2019). However, by supporting rebel groups, a host country is likely to extend a conflict, which can create more refugees. This shows how a host country can indirectly increase a refugee flow or decrease it through its way of dealing with asylum seekers on the ground. For example, the relationship between Burundi and Tanzania grew hostile in the 1990s, hence when a civil conflict began in Burundi, Tanzania placed Burundi refugees in densely inhabited camps next to the border. These camps served as means of recruitment and organisation for rebel groups. In the end, Forces for the Defence of Democracy took power in Burundi in the 2000s (Camerana, 2019).

Conclusion

This essay argued that host countries are far from passive actors in the displacement process. It made a link between host countries’ actions and refugees responses to this information. Citizens, when confronted with threat of violence, inform themselves about asylum laws through internet accessed news and their contacts. They respond to available information and update their destination decisions based on that. This information comes from countries updating their asylum policies when they predict a potential inflow of refugees might occur, which if restrictive can redirect migrants into a different direction. Previous acceptance rates of refugees and welcoming asylum laws will attract more refugees. Political leaning of a state is irrelevant, as refugees will prioritise safety, over a potential xenophobia. Lastly, the host countries can affect displacement flow by allocating refugees in camps next to the border of a country fighting a civil war, which can benefit insurgency and prolong conflict, hence generating more refugees.

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