How does forced migration affect the politics of host states and, in particular, how does it impact states’ foreign policy decision-making? The relevant literature on refugee politics has yet to fully explore how forced migration affects host states’ behavior. One possibility is that they will employ their position in order to extract revenue from other state or nonstate actors for maintaining refugee groups within their borders. This article explores the workings of these refugee rentier states, namely states seeking to leverage their position as host states of displaced communities for material gain. It focuses on the Syrian refugee crisis, examining the foreign policy responses of three major host states—Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. While all three engaged in post-2011 refugee rent-seeking behavior, Jordan and Lebanon deployed a back-scratching strategy based on bargains, while Turkey deployed a blackmailing strategy based on threats. Drawing upon primary sources in English and Arabic, the article inductively examines the choice of strategy and argues that it depended on the size of the host state's refugee community and domestic elites’ perception of their geostrategic importance vis-à-vis the target. The article concludes with a discussion of these findings’ significance for understanding the international dimension of the Syrian refugee crisis and argues that they also pave the way for future research on the effects of forced displacement on host states’ political development.

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Why do states vary their policies towards their citizens abroad, and why are some emigrant groups treated preferentially to others? The literature on the politics of international migration has yet to explore this as a separate field of inquiry, assuming that states adopt a single policy that encourages, sustains or prevents emigration abroad. Yet, in the case of Egypt, the state developed a multi-tiered policy that distinctly favoured specific communities abroad over others. I hypothesise that policy differentiation is based upon the perceived utility of the emigrant group remaining abroad versus the utility of its return. This utility is determined by two factors: the sending state’s domestic political economy priorities and its foreign policy objectives.

How do states in the Global South manage cross-border migration? This article identifies Hollifield’s “migration state” as a useful tool for comparative analysis yet notes that in its current version the concept is limited, given its focus on economic immigration in advanced liberal democracies. We suggest a framework for extending the “migration state” concept by introducing a typology of nationalizing, developmental, and neoliberal migration management regimes. The article explains each type and provides illustrative examples drawn from a range of case studies. To conclude, it discusses the implications of this analysis for comparative migration research, including the additional light it sheds on the migration management policies of states in the Global North.

How, when, and why does a state take repressive action against individuals residing outside its territorial jurisdiction? Beyond state-led domestic forms of control over citizens living within their legal borders, autocracies also seek to target those abroad—from African states’ sponsoring violence against exiled dissidents to Central Asian republics’ extraditions of political émigrés, and from the adoption of spyware software to monitor digital activism across Latin America to enforced disappearances of East Asian expatriates. Despite growing global interconnectedness, the field of international studies currently lacks an adequate comparative framework for analyzing how autocracies adapt to growing cross-border mobility. I argue that the rise of global migration flows has contributed to the emergence of “transnational authoritarianism,” as autocracies aim to both maximize material gains from citizens’ “exit” and minimize political risks by controlling their “voice” abroad. I demonstrate that governments develop strategies of transnational repression, legitimation, and co-optation that transcend state borders, as well as co-operation with a range of non-state actors. Bringing work on the international politics of migration in conversation with the literature on authoritarianism, I provide illustrative examples drawn from a range of transnational authoritarian practices by the fifty countries categorized as “Not Free” by Freedom House in 2019, covering much of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and South America. I sketch an emerging field of international studies research around the novel means that autocracies employ to exercise power over populations abroad, while shedding light on the evolving nature of global authoritarianism.