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Book SynopsisWhat 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
Trade ReviewIn 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 *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements 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
