The Political Economy of Forced Displacement: Local, National, and International Responses

Abstract

Refugee "crises,” or the sudden, transnational flight of thousands or even millions of individuals, have driven a dramatic increase in displacement in the past decade. Rather than simply crises, however, refugee presences can pose both challenges as well as opportunities for host communities and challenge existing political, social, and economic dynamics. In this dissertation, I utilize a variety of methodological approaches to examine the political economy of international humanitarian responses and test the effects of these new responsibilities and resources on local governance, public service provision, and center-state relations.

I present three papers based on research on refugee presences in both Jordan and the United States. In the first article, I focus on international actors` coordination behavior in humanitarian responses. I argue that in situations of low monitoring by governments and donors and high material risks of effective coordination to aid actors (such as loss of employment or funding), international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) and international organizations (IOs) will coordinate in performance rather than coordinate in practice. In my second article, I conduct a subnational mixed methods analysis of the effect of the Syrian refugee presence on municipalities in Jordan using an original quantitative dataset covering 2010-2019 and extensive qualitative research. I demonstrate how refugee-related aid programs can create opportunities for local elected officials to improve community service provision and build political capital. In a final article coauthored with Mitchell Kilborn and Olivia Woldemikael, I turn my focus to examining the fiscal effects of refugee presences in the United States, a context with little to no international involvement. Taken together, these articles contribute to the scholarly literature on the effects of refugee presences and international aid with distinct policy implications. They demonstrate how humanitarian responses can create rent-seeking opportunities for both international and domestic actors, and offers lessons by which to inform coordination reform. Finally, they show that the presence of refugees, international aid, and central state support under different conditions can either improve communities’ access to services or simply provide another resource for corruption.