Hamza Orhan
Syrian Refugee Crisis and Foreign Policy decision-making in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkiye
Foreign Policy Analysis
“We can open the doors to Greece and Bulgaria anytime and we can put the refugees on
buses,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared to a group of European Union (EU)
senior officials in February 2016. Three case studies that will allow for further theory
development via covariation and within-case analysis. Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan are
selected for they constitute the largest host states of displaced Syrians in the post-2011
Middle East. Lebanon and
Jordan adopted a strategy of back-scratching in their foreign policy because, even though
they believed they hosted large communities of Syrian refugees, they did not consider
themselves geopolitically important vis-à-vis the European Union (EU). Turkey adopted a
blackmailing strategy that can be explained by state elites’ perception of Turkey’s
geopolitical importance and the large size of Syrian refugees residing within its borders.
Jordan case
A number of security reasons have been identified for these border closures that highlight
the potential risks for sociopolitical unrest that a large influx of Palestinian-Syrians into the
country might entail. A state security rationale does not, however, adequately account for
the fact that Jordanian border officers prompted Syrians to enter the country via informal
crossings, instead; at numerous times in the first three years of the Syrian conflict, the
country’s formal borders were closed to Syrian passport holders, who were encouraged to
use informal border crossings along the eastern border, instead. Whereas, in November
2012, Za’atari hosted some forty-five thousand Syrians, by February 2013 it was home to
more than seventy-six thousand Syrians, a number that reached 156,000 refugees by March
11, 2013.
Lebanon case
Yet, Lebanon adopted a refugee-rentierstate mentality that bears similarities to Jordan. In
matters of enumeration, the two countries share the pattern of statistical inaccuracy in
reporting Syrian refugee stocks estimates: UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees) reported 1,001,051 registered Syrian refugees, but the organization was ordered
to suspend registrations as of May 2015. Much like Jordan, Lebanon employed a
backscratching strategy in negotiating the 2016 compact agreement. This relied, as with
Jordan, on appeals to multilateralism and cooperation on an international level, rather than
threats.
Türkiye case
Turkey hosts the largest number of Syrian refugees, with more than 3,591,714 registered as of November
2018, and exemplifies refugee rent-seeking behavior. Joint Action Plan and a €3 billion package that was
negotiated with the EU in November 2015. This evolved into the March 2016 Statement, which added
another €3 billion in aid, if Turkey agreed to a readmission of Syrians arriving in Greece and tighter
border controls—a system resting on the basis that Turkey constitutes a safe third country, which does
not allow asylum-seekers in Turkey to move on to another state. Turkey’s blackmailing strategy
continued following the signing of the 2016 deal. One day after the European Parliament called for a
pause in the country’s EU accession talks over the Turkish government’s repressive response to a July
2016 coup attempt, Erdogan declared that “we are the ones who feed 3–3.5 million refugees in this
country... You have betrayed your promises.
...If you go any further those border gates will be opened”. The European Parliament’s
decisions are not binding for individual member states; however, observers were keen to
note that Erdogan’s warnings had come a few days in advance of the second round of the
Austrian 2016 presidential elections. Brussels’ response was rather lackluster: “rhetorical
threats are absolutely unhelpful and should not be the standard tone between partners,” one
senior EU official noted on the record. “This will not help Turkey’s credibility in the eyes of
European citizens. Europe will not be blackmailed”.
The outhor thinks that, to what extent do the strategies of back-scratching and
blackmailing apply beyond the three cases outlined here? The article findings appear to
apply to both current and historical cases. One could argue that states that find themselves
in a geo-strategically-important position and face an influx of refugee populations are
historically prone to strategies of blackmailing.
In my opinion, refugee crisis did not happened in a certain time. The effects of crisis have
been continued years after years. So, i think that the budget allocated is more than
necessary. There should have been a change in crisis management such as economically and
sociologically.
