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Abstract

This thesis examines how and why different host countries restrict the entry and post-entry rights of refugees differently. Despite burgeoning interests in pertinent topics, existing research has fallen short of a systematic account of the cross-country variation in policy (or policies) regulating a certain set of refugee rights. To enhance the yet limited understanding of related policy dynamics, I build and expand on a theoretical framework aligned with the “number- vs.-rights” trade-off in refugee policymaking. Specifically, I argue that if, as with regular immigration control, a host country perceives that granting certain rights to refugees is costly, it tends to move for tighter restrictions on refugee rights as their number increases. I test this argument using an original cross-national dataset on the de facto entitlement of refugee rights. The obtained large-N evidence supports my argument by documenting an enduring negative relationship between the “number” and post-entry “rights” of refugees. The results are complemented and further enriched through two separate sets of small-N case studies on pertinent policies of three Middle Eastern Arab countries (Jordan, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates). Altogether, through carefully executed empirical analyses, this thesis lays a solid foundation for comparative political studies of developing countries’ policies on refugee rights.

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